What time should I arrive, joe?
1 tin good quality plum or chopped tomatoes. If plum, mudge them about a bit before starting.
small onion
bayleaf
Muscovado sugar
Soy sauce
White wine, cider or sherry vinegar
Chipotle paste, or yer actual
Ground cumin
sunflower or similar oil
Finely chop the onion, season with salt, and cook v gently in some oil until transparent. Turn up the heat and mix in a good teaspoon powdered cumin and about the same of your vinegar of choice. Stir like mad,chuck in a bayleaf and the whole dried chilli if using, then add the tomatoes, and bring to the boil. Turn it right down and put a lid on the pan and simmer v gently for 15 minutes. Season with chilli paste (unless you did the dried one). soy, muscovado sugar, salt, pepper, and (cautiously) vinegar and continue to simmer gently until thick. You can blitz it for smooth & gloopy or just fish the bayleaf and chilli out. It should be brownish, not bright red, when done. Is nice.
Not that you won’t have your own recipe or that this is particularly groundbreaking. Done without the early simmering, though, and with a bit more cumin and a spot of ground coriander too, this makes a good second-cooking sauce for ribs done in an oven. Not suited to barbecue because it falls off.