The Stout Pork Loin was my first usage of this spicy sauce and I really liked it. The portions may be slightly adjusted if you want to make it a little hotter, but here is the barbecue sauce recipe that I used as a mop for pork loin.
This sauce is meant to be both sweet and spicy. This makes it a great to accentuate the natural flavor of pork, but if you make a lot you should try it on pulled pork, moinks, hot wings and as a dipping sauce too!
Directions:
Just dissolve the sugar in water and bring to a boil. Reduce to low heat and add all the ingredients: ginger, plums, five spice, lemon juice, hoisin sauce, preserves, barbecue sauce and some habanero hot sauce. If you’d like you could probably use 2 fresh, seeded habaneros.
Simmer the sauce for about 10 minutes to allow the flavors to blend. Use warm. If using as a mop you'll want it a little thin. For a dipping sauce it should be cooked a little longer to thicken.
About the sweet ingredients:
The sweet ingredients are the plums and apricot preserves. These can be substituted with fresh fruit if in season, but you may need to add some more sugar for the preserves or even some corn syrup.
About the hoisin sauce:
hoisin is commonly a condiment or sauce with pork in Chinese dishes. The flavor is sweet, salty and spicy. This isn’t an item that can be easily substituted, so if you don’t have any I would try making some instead. Here is a recipe from CDKitchen.
About the Chinese five spice or Chinese cinnamon:
this is an intense mixture of five spices frequently used in restaurant cooking. The mixture usually contains star anise, cloves, cinnamon, Sichuan pepper and ground fennel. Another variant, which I prefer, is sometimes called “Chinese cinnamon” – it uses anise seed and ginger root in place of the Sichuan pepper and fennel.
About the Habaneros:
This is where most of the heat comes from in this sauce. You can use fresh habaneros if you stem and seed them. I would puree them in your barbecue sauce and add a little honey. You can use a little more or less if you'd like to adjust the "heat" of the sauce.