Jon Whiteley: Barbecue Sauce

Jon Whiteley is a Manchester-based comedian who runs the terminally unpopular Jokewood Comedy and co-runs new act night Quip.

This is the picture Jon sent me. I'm not one to question these things.

I can't cook. I've never been able to cook. I haven't the patience to rigidly follow a recipe – nor the flair to go off-script and fashion my own dishes freeform like a culinary Miles Davis (that's the name of a jazz musician, right? Did he improvise much? I can't be arsed opening Wikipedia – just substitute that for John Coltrane if you don't think the simile works).

Education couldn't save me. I was terrible at Home Economics: One time, I made a batch of cheese scones in class that were, on the face of it, fairly successful. The only problem was... I drooled in the scone mix. It wasn't deliberate – I don't usually have this problem. I certainly wasn't sexually aroused by the scone mix. All I know is that I was stirring the mix and a large gob of spit slid from between my lips, plopping gently into the middle of the bowl.

What do you do in that situation? I was too embarrassed to say anything, so I did what any good coward would: I stirred it in to the mix, baked the scones and brought them home to my family, who devoured them gladly.

I can't cook. I'm bad at cooking. I feel it's best to get this out of the way early on.

The recipe I've chosen is one for BBQ sauce, and it's a recipe I've pilfered off my dad. My dad also can't cook. As a younger man, he used to keep MSG in a salt cellar and put it on every meal – you can't buy it from the supermarket any more because loads of people died from abusing it in this way.

I like it because it's flexible. It goes well with any meat and most vegetables, and it's incredibly sweet. And I like sweet things. I'm a pudding man. Fuck savoury.

The Ingredients:

• 1 Carton Tomato Passata (your favourite brand)

• Red Wine (your favourite brand)
• Vinegar

• ½ Beef stock cube
• 2 Tbsp. Black Treacle/Fuck Load of Brown Sugar

• Salt (pinch)
• Pepper (punch)
• Paprika (first of the month)

1. Heat up the Passata in a pan and then put everything else in when it's hot.
2. I used to use black treacle for this, but you can't get it for love nor money round here (and I've tried both). Brown sugar is an adequate substitute – although it doesn't have quite the same nostalgic flavour and you have to stir it in loads, which is boooooooorring. How much sugar should you use? Enough to even out the red wine and the vinegar (you put too much in, sorry).
3. Drink the rest of the wine, it's your favourite brand.

There you go – BBQ sauce. Now you've got something to drown your dish of choice in (perhaps another dish from this very blog). Alternatively, why not flop some raw meat about in it – 'marinating' – before cooking and eating it.

Better still, why not go and find another recipe for BBQ sauce. Because like I said at the start – I can't cook.

@whiteleyjon

@jokewoodcomedy

@QuippoFuel