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Guava Barbeque Sauce

"One of the best slathers for ribs and ham. Its exotic fruitiness goes well with chicken, turkey, duck and even game. Guava paste is much beloved by Cuban Americans, Puerto Ricans, and South Americans too!"

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Guava and rum share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 11 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl pentanoate, which smells yeast, fruit. The science ↓

The recipe

3 cups
Prep20 min
Cook15 min

Ingredients

Contains: soy, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Combine the cold water and guava paste in a saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring until the guava paste fully dissolves, about 5 minutes.

  2. Stir in the apple cider vinegar, dark rum, tomato paste, lemon juice, minced onion, minced ginger, soy sauce, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, minced garlic, and minced scotch bonnet pepper.

  3. Bring the mixture to a gentle simmer over medium heat, then reduce the heat to low and cook uncovered for about 10 minutes, stirring often, until thickened and glossy.

  4. Season with kosher salt and pepper to taste.

  5. Remove from the heat and let cool for a few minutes. Taste and adjust the scotch bonnet, salt, or pepper before using.

  6. Optional: blend the sauce until smooth for a finer texture, then store it in a covered container in the refrigerator.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Guava + rumtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together11 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).

  2. Lemon + gingertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Tomato + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together20,622 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Tomato + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,895 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together7,597 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (guava, apple cider vinegar, rum, tomato, lemon, ginger, sauce):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  3. Broccolibetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against guava, apple cider vinegar, rum, tomato, lemon, ginger, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).