Saucy Sauces

As saucy as these long tail macaques.

When I first got hold of Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking", I was really intrigued by her section on sauces. But having owned this book for nearly a year now, I must admit that the only time I've had to delve into that section in her book was when my hubby desires to barbecue the meat Australian style - that is, not marinated. Having said that, her white sauces go very well with grilled seafood, and her brown sauces work wonders with red meat.

But the main reason why I've found little opportunity to delve more frequently into her section on sauces is because the new generation of cook book authors include their versions along with cooking tips for the meat. So I have a wonderful Australian recipe on halibut in a white wine sauce, which basically uses white wine to de-glaze the fish's juices from the frying pan. As does an amazing Greek take on a side of beef: a full bodied shiraz is used to soak up all the red meat's juices, after you've cooked it with peppery peppercorns, aromatic crushed garlic and zesty horseradish.

These two recipes result in sauces that look traditionally like sauces - they've a thick rich but smooth consistency. However, the new generation of sauces can drastically but marvelously differ. For one, a salsa can become the sauce; as does a pureed cooked peas, shallots and chicken stock blend that's liberally splashed over salmon fillets that's been pan fried to perfection. For another, some sauces aren't even pureed after they've been cooked. Take the cherry tomatoes and fresh basil sauce for a sensitively sauteed steak: they are basically tossed whole into the meat's drippings with a little sugar and cooked until they're just slightly wilted and then liberally dressed over the rested rib-eyes.

Such sauces don't require reducing any more. And the same can be said to the marmalade that's added into the piping hot juices of the pan seared pork bellies. All that's required is for the heat to do its magic in melting the jam, so that it can superbly blend with the fatty juices from the nicely done white meat.

And not all sauces require any cooking over the stove any more, even when you're roasting your racks of lamb. In deed, an awesome sauce to go with this roast is a thorough stirring together of equal parts golden syrupy honey and beautifully sunny yellow dijon mustard at room temperature. Or you can transform a refreshing yoghurty raita into a dipping sauce for that same roast of lamb racks, still prettily pink when cleaved and served.

Indeed, cook book authors have all gone really saucy with their sauces. And that means, where saucy concoctions are concerned, we have already crossed national boundaries. In fact, the sky's now really the ultimate limit.

A Lasagna to Die For

Even this little critter wants to check out my lasagna.

In "Nigella Express", Nigella Lawson shares a nifty cooking tip in getting large potatoes baked thoroughly more quickly: she skewers each potato before chucking these root vegetables, skewers and all, into the oven. Then as the skewers heat up, the heart of each potato draws this heat from her metal rods. Thus their hearts get cooked at the same time as the potatoes' surface.

Just like her tip of micro-waving the cooking chocolate to melt it super quick, her tip with the skewers offers a cooking tip. Well, I have a great tip to offer too (I hope) and it's a tip that will turn you off from ever ordering lasagna when ever you choose to dine out as I have yet to come across a restaurant that offers a tastier serve in comparison to the one I personally whip up in my own kitchen.

You see the secret to my success doesn't lie in relying solely on an abundance of good quality tomato passata or paste. Oh no, as neither will do more than render the lasagna with added tomato flavour. You see, my secret ingredient is in upending a bottle of Ragu's mushroom enhanced tomato-based pasta sauce. The more the merrier.

Then you can do away with adding chicken liver as contrast to the mince beef. The mushroomy pasta sauce will do that instead. And does it so well that you needn't throw out the bechamel sauce once a film forms over this rapidly cooling milk-based gravy. The full bodied taste of Ragu's sauce successfully transforms that imperfection into a harmonious perfection with all the ingredients that goes into making the lasagna enter into a league of its own.

And the inclusion of this little secret ingredient can be replicated when you whip up a vegetarian lasagna or a lamb moussaka. Then you've under your belt more than just a beef lasagna to die for.

Thin is In

Pastry shells as thin as butterfly wings.

They say that a great cup of Illy coffee is always served with a biscuit on the side. At Laurent Bernard Cafe and Chocolate Bar, the biscuit comes bite size - which is just the right size to aromatize and enhance the flavour of its freshly brewed cappuccinos.

And the same paradigm can be applied to making the pastry shell of a rich tomato and anchovy quiche. You want the shell to do its job of keeping the pie's shaped without dominating the rich flavours coming through it's savoury fruit and fish filling. The same applies to making a cheesy tattie pie.

But to get the pastry shell that papery thin, you'll have to discard the traditional way the dough is made to fill the pie tray. Rolling it flat out and then draping the flattened dough always make the crust thicker than it should be. You see, if the dough gets flattened too thinly, it will tear as you roll it out over and into the baking tin.

To get that pastry shell super thin, I use a pinch, press and mosaic technique. I pinch off small balls of dough and use my thumb to flatten the ball onto the base of the baking tin. I station the balls at distances from each other in a pattern that allows the edges of their flattened forms to link up and merge into one continuous mosaic. And I do the same to the sides of the pie tin.

This technique takes a lot longer in getting the whole inner surface of the pie tin covered with waffle thin dough. But the effort is definitely worth the inconvenience as the freshly baked pastry shell holds the shape of the filling nicely. And when the nicely baked dish is served, the tomatoes and anchovies stay the lunch time stars; just as you would want the parmesan and potato slices to shine in the tattie pie.

So as far as pastry shells are the concern of this everyday "chef", thin is definitely in.

Spuds are It

A wonderful day in New South Wales for piping hot chips.

I always say that I can tell how skillful a chef is by the way he prepares his duck. And the duck confit at Culina's bears testimony to my belief. This confit is crisp to perfection and yet its morsels of flesh are as tender as a duckling's. Then little wonder that my hubby swears that this restaurant-cum-deli makes the best steaks in town, and I'm really stuck into the bowl of potato wedges that comes with his steak, generously dipping them into tomato sauce made Culina style.

Coming into a close second are the French fries Novus cafe dishes up for its fish and chips. They are fried to pale yellow perfection. And it serves these up with such a generous amount of yummy creamy tartar sauce that there's loads to spare for dipping the chips in.

Now before you decide that I'm probably a grease junkie (which I probably am to a certain extent), I steer clear of deep frying my potatoes at home. Rather, I'd serve them up in just three ways: roast them, bake them or mash them.

I love putting this starchy vegetable into the oven to cook as I'm freed to get on with preparing the second dish. So I'll quarter medium sized potatoes, drizzle them in extra virgin olive oil and generously sprinkle truffle salt with chopped fresh from the garden rosemary. But it'll be whole lot larger spuds if I choose to bake them and when they are done, they are served piping hot with in a thick mixture of yogurt and blue cheese.

But the most tasty way to serve potatoes is to mash them. And first boiling them peeled frees you too to get ready the milk, butter and finely grated parmesan cheese to thoroughly stir into the mash. So getting them ready for the plate takes a little longer... but the end result is definitely worth all the labour - a labour of love, that is.

La Dolce Vita

Balsamic as ageless as the setting sun.

Some years ago I followed my hubby on his business trip to Pordenone in Italy. While meetings filled up his days, I could wander through its town centre at leisure. The women were friendly and the men were generous with their "complimenti". And so it wasn't any surprise that when hubby found me sipping surprisingly great tea in a local cafe at the end of his work day, I had a glow on my face that spoke volumes - I'd discovered the secret of Italy: la dolce vita!

The same can be said of the pizzas La Villa here serves. Its funghi spread sang like choir boys from St Petersburg for the restaurant was as generous with its mozzarella and mushrooms as it does with its divine truffle paste: you can taste that secret ingredient in every bite. And I would confidently say that that's the best pizza I've ever had in Singapore.

So you might then say that I'm nick picking when I express my disappointment with not the bread it serves, but with the balsamic vinegar it offers as a dipping sauce with its olive oil. But I don't think I'm being severe on that establishment here: when balsamic becomes the dominant seasoning for a dish, even one as simple as being a dip for the bread, aged balsamic vinegar should be the only choice. And that's because the thicker sauce has taken 10 to 15 years to lovingly mature beyond being predominantly acidic. With the patience of time, it has mellowed into a subtle well balanced bland of rich sweetish sourness.

And I uphold this belief when I toss a rocket salad with fresh crunchy peckham pears and generous doublets of King Island blue cheese: I use only extra virgin olive oil and aged balsamic from Antica Acetaia Cavedoni. And it has to be this Italian vinegar as dressing for a light dessert fresh strawberries happily smouldered with icing sugar.  

Then and only then will I be transported back to that time in Pordenone. And I hope my dinner guests will get a small glimpse of attaining the Italian nirvana - la dolce vita.

Butter Up

Climb the heights of cooking with butter.

In the movie "Julie and Julia", Julie Powell says that there can never be too much butter in cooking recipes from American chef, Julia Child. And when she goes to the gallery on Child's achievements in the culinary circle, she leaves a huge slab of butter behind as a tribute to Child's finesse as a master of French cuisine made easy to follow by American women.

Now I agree with Powell's observation in her kitchen. You see, butter makes a great base to saute fresh green asparagus with a liberal sprinkling of orange juice; as it is to stir fry spinach in a generous doublet of extremely heavy cream. And when it's mixed with chicken stock, the pea, koo chye and shallot salsa is transformed into an absolutely mouth-watering saucy sauce to dress some Norwegian salmon, quickly panned seared in lots and lots of creamy butter.

Now the last proves a second point about cooking with butter: the pan frying has to be done rapidly. Just a minute to saute the freshly chopped garlic and fiery red chilli, before you add in the ocean-fresh prawns to cook in another two to three minutes. Then the melted butter works its magic in seasoning the dish.

However, if you have to cook the chicken for about twenty minutes in butter, you run the risk of burning the oily golden yellow liquid if you keep the pan seated on high heat. And you know that that has happened because the yellow turns a murky brown, with a bitter after taste.

But there is an Italian recipe that does call for cooking prettily pink chicken breast in melted butter for twenty minutes. Then the only way to divert the butter from heading for a burn is to drastically lower the enthusiasm of the flames the moment all that diary product has just melted. And the chicken breast has to be quartered so that the heat from the stove can sear its insides more rapidly.

If that proves difficult to muster, then the trick is to mix the melted butter with extra virgin olive oil. This oil and butter mixture can then withstand high heat from a larger flame, even when a longer cooking time is called for.

So once you have mastered the way the flames interact with melted butter for a recipe that needs a longer cooking time, then by all means use as much of this luscious ingredient as you like. For truly, you can never use enough butter.

Freeze!

No, the raspberry cake goes only into the fridge.

In "Jamie's 30-Minute Meals", celebrity chef Jamie Oliver shares that he buys his fresh kaffir lime leaves once a year, freezing the bulk and thawing just what he needs to complete his twist on a Thai green curry. This to me validates my closely-knitted culinary relationship with my freezer in more ways than one.

You see, I love Da Paolo's olive ciabattas and Carrefour's baguettes. But neither establishment is walking distance from my place. So when I chance in going to Great World City or Plaza Singapura, I help myself to as many loaves as I can carry home on my own. Now, let me correct your assumption that I feed a family of eight. Oh no, there's just hubby and me. So we can't even get through a whole loaf in one sitting. That means dividing each loaf into thirds and securely Glad wrapping each third before all thirds go into the freezer.

Also, a good rib-eye going on specials gets me rushing to buy great cuts by the kilos. Back in the kitchen, these get sub-divided into Ziplock bags, two serving sizes a bag. This way, I can literary jam tons into the ice box.

Then there are recipes that are just impossible to cook only for two; like a yummy pumpkin and green pea frittata or a genuine beef and Burgundy pie. I make these in my 27-inch pie tin and when these freshly baked lunch time treats cool down, I'll chuck them straight into the freezer and leave them there until the blowing north wind has the whole pastry dish gets truly frozen over. That's when they get taken out again, emptied from their baking tin, and immediately cleaved into ten serving sizes. These are then individually well wrapped in aluminium foil and placed into Tupperware that's put back into the freezer.

I Tupperware my sauces in the same way too. Again, only a miser will succeed in making just enough sauce for two. So I make a huge batch of peppercorn sauce, use what I need to fancily dress my oven-grilled T-bone steaks, and put the rest in the freezer for another rainy day. You'll be surprised but mind you the sauce gets richer in full-bodied flavour with the freezing: leaving it in the chamber of ice actually gets the fullness of the peppercorn infusing throughout the sauce.

So yes, I always manage to fill the freezer in my side-by-size fridge. But it makes economic sense and adds culinary finesse. So much so that right now, we're contemplating the option of acquiring a stand alone freezer as well. And if we do, that'll go into hubby's shed.

Move Over, Parsley

Lets not make dining at the resort the automatic choice.

What's the automatic response to feeding a sick child?: in the west, it'll be chicken soup; while it's porridge in the far east. Such an automatic response has grown within my very being an aversion to porridge of all sorts, however tasty it might be, when I'm fit and healthy.

Such an unthinking culinary response may be said to a choice of garnish: it'll be fresh sprigs of flat leaf parsley in the west or middle east, and slivers of sprite green spring onions over steamed fish, whole or fillet, in the far east. And that makes me think that the choice of colour dominates this auto-response as very frankly speaking, parsley doesn't enhance the flavour of a tomato-based pasta sauce much. And the spring onions are always pushed aside so that diners can get to the hearty chunks of fish beneath.  

And though we feast first with our eyes, letting colour dominate our choice of garnish short changes our diners' culinary experience, as the parsley and spring onions add little to the flavour of the dish. So what would influence our choice of garnish if we think of taste and colour?

Well, I'll sprinkle fresh thyme or tarragon leaves over the pasta sauce, offering an enhanced contrast to the tomato-flavours of the gravy. And I'll generously add depth and potency to ocean fresh mussels steamed in a tomato passata by stirring in heaps of coriander leaves picked the very last minute from my garden. And also  serve this tasty oriental herb up with chunks of steamed fish fillet onto my guests' dinner plate.

And the choice of substitutes are as endless as there are a choice of garden-green herbs. The trick is to remember to balance the dominate taste of your mains with the herb you add. The taste of the herb must enhance rather than distract. Then your choice complexes the flavours of your dish.