Building the Coffee Barbecue Sauce

1. Add freshly brewed espresso or strong black coffee and tomatoes to a heavy-bottomed stainless-steel saucepan to taste. Use whatever brew you want, just add it fresh and hot. Use any form of tomatoes you like; chopped, pureed or crushed all work. The coffee and tomatoes are the primary flavoring ingredients for the sauce, so balance the combination to your tastes. Eight combined tablespoons of tomatoes and coffee make up 8 parts of the barbecue sauce, and is enough base for 1 whole chicken.

2. Add 1 part food acid to the base. One part equals 1 tablespoon if you started with 8 tablespoons of base. Cider vinegar is the most common food acid used in barbecue sauce, but you can use any flavored vinegar you like.

3. Add 2 parts unrefined sugar to the base. You can use packed brown sugar, molasses, honey or a raw sugar like demerara or turbinado. Use a combination of sugar flavors, such as half molasses and half brown sugar or half honey and half raw sugar to add complexity to the taste.

4. Add 1 part prepared mustard or mustard powder to the base. Mustard balances the sweetness of the sauce with tanginess. You can use any mustard you like.

5. Add 1 part secondary flavoring ingredient to the barbecue sauce. In barbecue sauces, secondary flavoring ingredients give you the first hints of barbecue, and typically comprise Worcestershire sauce, steak sauce, meat drippings, rendered bacon fat or liquid smoke, or a combination of all three. You can also use soy sauce, teriyaki or anything that suits your taste.

6. Add aromatic ingredients to the barbecue sauce. Aromatics comprise ingredients that add background flavors to sauces and marinades, such as mirepoix, or diced carrots, onions and celery, bay leaf, black peppercorns and parsley stems.

7. Add pungent ingredients to the barbecue sauce. Pungent ingredients give barbecue sauce its kick. Garlic, chili peppers, cayenne pepper sauce, chili sauce, red pepper flakes -- basically anything strong or spicy -- goes in the sauce at this point.

8. Add herbs and spices to taste. Herbs and spices are your call. Some barbecue sauces use premixed spice rubs -- the same kind you use for meat -- whereas others create a special blend; you can do either one.

9. Stir the sauce and bring it to a simmer. Simmer the sauce for about 10 minutes then let it cool to room temperature. Remove the bay leaf if you used one.

10. Puree the sauce until smooth if desired. You'll get a more even coating on the chicken if you homogenize the sauce, but you can leave it chunky without worries.

11. Taste the sauce a final time and adjust the seasonings as needed. Keep the marinade in a container in the refrigerator if you're not marinating the chicken right away.

Marinating the Chicken

1. Place the chicken in a food-storage bag or a stainless-steel, plastic or glass mixing bowl. Pour the marinade over the chicken.

2. Toss the chicken or rub the barbecue sauce in by hand. Seal the bag or wrap the bowl with plastic wrap.

3. Marinate the chicken at room temperature for 15 minutes if you only want a suspicion of coffee-and-barbecue flavor. Marinate the chicken in the refrigerator up to 4 hours for a strong coffee-and-barbecue flavor. Don't marinate the chicken longer than 4 hours, though, or the chicken will turn mushy and grey.

4. Take the chicken out of the refrigerator about 30 minutes before you want to cook it and wipe the marinade from it with a paper towel. The strong flavors in coffee-and-barbecue marinade intensify when heated, and easily over power the chicken if left on during cooking.