Odds and sods
All the good stuff that makes the other stuff brilliant
This is mostly sauces and dips. There’s nothing wrong with buying mint sauce but try salsa verde and you probably won’t buy it again, same with tapenade – it’s fine when you buy it but make it and it’s a different thing. There are some basic things you need to master. A roux is just equal amounts (by weight) of butter and flour and can then be made into a béchamel (with milk) or a velouté (with stock). So again, this gives recipes as examples, but you can add what you want to make it fit your recipe, your menu or just what you personally like.
Tomato Sauce Featured
This is probably the most important thing you need to know how to cook
There are ways of doing it; fresh tomatoes, passata, tinned tomatoes, in my view it doesn’t really matter but let’s face it, most British tomatoes don’t really taste of much; they’re not like the ones you eat on Holiday where the sun shines more predictably so I think it’s always better to use tinned tomatoes or passata.
This is what cheap olives are for
There's no real recipe for this in terms of proportions, make it how you like and adjust as you go
Tomayto-Tomarto
I’ve written about Sofrito before, but I didn’t realise that both the Italians and Spanish use the same word. Well, actually I did know that, but didn’t realise it was for slightly different things.
Clown divorce: custardy battle
There are 2 versions of this, I wanted to make it thicker for a trifle so reduced the milk to 350ml and took an egg out but left the same amount of everything else
Not a gravy but not as pretentious as it sounds
So everything is a jus now but there are 2 important distinctions between jus and gravy. Gravy is pretty much a velouté which really means it’s thickened with flour and/or dairy of some sort. And gravy can have lumps of onion or whatever in it. Jus should be clear of any lumps.
I said a hip-hop, the hippie, the hippie to the hip, hip-hop…
Ok, that’s enough of that!
Easy-peasy Lemon (or orange or lime or whatever you want or vinegar for that matter) squeezy!
Ahh, it trips off the tongue but you'll never eat mint sauce out of a jar again! So is it just a posh version of mint sauce? Not really. It has basil and parsley as well as mint and can be eaten with anything: try it with fish, it is fabulous.
It's lots of butter and is the basis of any Cheese Sauce, Parsely Sauce, or . . . you get the idea
It's simple but you can cock it up if you try to rush it. But then it only takes a couple of minutes anyway so why mess around? this makes about half a pint but you just increase each of the ingredients in this proportion. the important bit s that you have equal amounts (weight) of butter and flour
Bechemal for grown-ups. You don’t always want milk in your dinner unless you’re 1yrs old.
Velouté is based on a roux in the same way as Bechemal but you add stock, wine or something else instead of milk. The classic velouté is a “white stock”; not beef or lamb, so think fish, chicken or veg. The absolute classic is veal stock.