Tomato and Basil Sauce

Tomato and basil sauce for pasta is about as far as you can get from ground breaking but my aim is to build up a comprehensive collection of recipes on my blog which are accessible, rather than a Blumenthal-esque towers-of-soup-recipe blog. I sometimes find myself trying a bit too hard to innovate,. and it's times like these I need something classic to remind myself that simple does not have to mean boring.

A decent tomato sauce is not at all difficult, and very useful. You can use it as the base for other dishes- pizza sauce, the lubrication for meatballs and pasta. It's cheap to make and is pretty non-threatening to children who are fussy eaters (though the basil might be a bit too green).

Ingredients
1 tbsp olive oil

1 medium onion, peeled and chopped
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely chopped
800g tinned tomatoes
Good lump of unsalted butter
pinch sugar (if needed)
Basil leaves, a good handful.

Method
In a heavy bottomed saucepan, fry the onion until softened in the olive oil. Add the garlic and cook for about 1 minute. Once the garlic has release its scent, add the tin of tomatoes. Turn up the heat to medium high, and let it bubble away until thick and pulpy.Stir from time to time, otherwise the bottom will burn. Season with salt and pepper, and some sugar if you think it needs it (I often do). You can add the pepper before this stage, but not the sugar or salt- after reducing it down the flavour will taste too concentrated, so wait until you reach the consistency you like. Stir in a big lump of butter, letting it melt in the residual heat. Just before serving, stir in the basil leaves, torn up roughly with your hands.

Mead and Butterscotch Sauce

I haven't seen mead used much in cooking, but if it ever becomes a fashionable ingredient, remember you saw it here first.
This is definitely a sauce for the sweet toothed. So far I have had it with vanilla ice cream, but I want to use it to sauce some poached pears, which I think would taste wonderful.

Ingredients
60g unsalted butter
100g light soft brown sugar
120ml double cream
pinch salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
A good slug of mead (non-spiced variety)


Method
Melt the butter in a small saucepan, and then stir in the rest of the ingredients except for the vanilla essence. Whisk to help dissolve the sugar and break up any lumps.Let it all simmer for about 5 minutes, then take off the heat. Stir in the essence and the mead, tasting to see if you want more vanilla, salt or mead.

Guacamole

I'm not mad about avocado, but I do like guacamole, especially if it is well salted with lots of lime juice and tomato-free. Of course, there are plenty of recipes for it online, but here is my contribution. Try to get the ripest avocados you can, it'll not only taste better, but you'll be making life easier for yourself when it comes to mashing them.

Ingredients
2 ripe avocados
4 spring onions, finely chopped
1 green chilli, deseeded and chopped
juice of one lime
1 clove finely chopped garlic
handful chopped coriander leaves
pinch ground cumin
salt and pepper

Peel and mash the avocados to a consistency you like- I like mine with chunks in,  not baby-food smooth. Fold in the rest of the ingredients, bearing in mind to adjust the flavourings, especially the lime and chilli, to your taste.

Roast Tomato Salsa

This as a salsa you can make during winter when tomatoes are available, but are pointless eating raw. Roasting the tomatoes brings out the flavour they would otherwise lack. The result is more like a jarred salsa, i.e. more liquid and sauce-like rather than a chopped relish, although is certainly tastes homemade. I made this specifically for nachos, but obviously you can use it for other purposes.

Ingredients
8-10 medium tomatoes
2 red chillies
Olive oil
1/2-1 clove garlic, finely chopped
handful chopped coriander leaves
pinch ground cumin
red wine vinegar
pinch sugar (optional)

Method
Turn the oven onto 180 degrees. Cut a cross into the tomatoes almost all the way, as if you were quartering them, but keeping them together at the bottom. Half the chillies lengthways and deseed, removing the stalk. Put the tomatoes and chillies in a roasting tin or on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast for 15-20 minutes- they should look cooked but not be blackened, so keep an eye on them while they cook.
When they are cool enough to handle, pull the skins of the tomatoes and chop roughly, reserving the oily juices from the pan. Chop the chilli finely, and mix together in a bowl. Mix in the garlic, cumin and coriander. Add the pan juices if you want a looser consistency. To give it a bit of a twang, add a few drops of red wine vinegar, according to your taste, and if you thing it needs it, a bit a bit of sugar too.

Wonderful Onion Gravy: A Guide

I struggle to write up the recipe for anything I've cooked, it feels overly prescriptive when I have made the dish to suit my tastes entirely. As I feel this is a recipe that you can play around with, and be fairly liberal with the quantities, I'm ditching the standard recipe format for something altogether more relaxed.

Peel and finely slice some onions- four will do for about 5 people. In a heavy bottomed saucepan, melt a generous amount of unsalted butter over a low heat. Add the onions and cook very slowly until golden and  collapsing. Turn the heat up, and stir in a tablespoon of plain flour. Let the onions caramelise, stirring all the time so they do not not burn. Now add about 750 ml stock- light chicken or vegetable are good, but if you can get hold of some porcini mushroom stockcubes from an Italian deli or elsewhere, use these. They add a lovely depth to the gravy Bring to a simmer and add some Marsala or Madeira wine, about 125ml. Cook until the harsh alcohol smell evaporates, and season with some Worcestershire Sauce, and a touch of Tabasco if you like a little heat. Let it simmer until you get a consistency you like, and add salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

Roast Garlic and Cumin Mayonnaise

Classic mayonnaise made smoky with the addition of roast garlic and cumin. I like it as a dip for potato wedges, sweet or normal variety. It would be excellent to go with leftover roast chicken or lamb too. Two days ago, we cooked sweet potato wedges, coated in oil and smoked paprika. I added some cherry tomatoes and merguez sausages to the pan 20 minutes before the potatoes were ready, and had the mayo on the side.

To make the mayonnaise, sit two bulbs of garlic on their own square of foil. Drizzle with olive oil, and close the bulbs in the foil by crimping the edges together- the packages should be tightly sealed but loose around the heads of garlic themselves. Roast for about 25 minutes at 200 degrees until they are very soft. Allow to cool. Toast and grind about 1 tsp of cumin seeds. Make up the classic mayonnaise recipe, using lemon juice in place of the vinegar. Stir in the cumin and some lemon zest, then squeeze the garlic out of their skins into the mayo. I added a touch of dried chilli too, as I wanted a little heat.

Mayonnaise

I like making mayonnaise, there is something incredibly satisfying about turning two egg yolks, seasoning and oil into an unctuous, wobbly bowl of deliciousness. People might try to scare you out of making it- not only can it curdle, but it has raw egg yolks in it. Ignore any naysayers, and make something that's worth dipping your frites into.

This is a classic recipe, no innovation or twists on my part. I wouldn't dream of it.


Ingredients
Approximately 250ml groundnut oil
2 eggs yolks only
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 heaped tsp mustard powder
1 level tsp fine salt
freshly ground pepper- white if you want to avoid black specks
1 tsp white wine vinegar

Method
Combine the egg yolks, garlic, salt and pepper in a small mixing bowl. Give them a whisk to combine them. Drop by drop, add the oil, whisking as you go. Go cautiously at first, make sure each addition of oil has been combined into the egg mixture before the next. Soon your mixture will stiffen, so add the vinegar. Now you can relax slightly, and pour the oil in a thin stream into the eggs with one hand, whisking with the other. When all the oil is added (more or less, depending on how you like it), taste, and adjust the seasoning according to your taste.

25/7/11-Chestnut Fudge Sauce

Perhaps a recipe that didn't turn out the way you intend is not the most promising for a first blog post. I originally intended to make chestnut fudge, but a lack of sugar thermometer, and the virtue of patience meant I the result was still unset even after 24 hours in the fridge. A first-time success of making clotted cream fudge at the weekend had also slightly gone to my head, so foolish pride was also partly to blame. But no matter. Heated and poured over vanilla ice-cream, it's a dream.

Clotted cream is maybe gilding the lily for a sauce that is pretty damn rich anyway, maybe save the calories (ha!) and just go for double. I was lucky enough to get the clotted cream and chestnut purée cheaply, so this wasn't as much of an expensive mistake as it might seem at first glance.

Really, this is just the recipe for clotted cream fudge from The Great British Menu website, with the addition of half a tin of unsweetened chestnut purée. The fudge in its unadulterated form is wonderful.

Ingredients

275 grams Caster sugar 

100 grams golden syrup 

225 grams clotted cream
1/2 tin unsweetened chestnut purée

Method
Place all the ingredients in a large saucepan and heat gently, stirring until sugar dissolves. Bring to the boil, cover and boil for 3 minutes. Uncover and continue to boil for 1 minute.

Remove from the heat and beat until the mixture becomes thick. Allow to cool slightly before serving over ice  cream.