Tag: sauce

Hollandaise sauce recipe

It’s breakfast time!

Perfect with eggs or great on fish, hollandaise sauce sounds like it should be complicated but it’s really not.

This simple sauce has 4 ingredients that are easy to obtain and it’s a lot cheaper than buying it pre made.

Here’s 2 easy ways to make it, let’s get to it!

Ingredients: serves 2

  • 2 egg yolks
  • 50-100g butter
  • 1 tsp white wine vinegar
  • Salt
  • (Optional) lemon juice

Equipment

  • Saucepan, 2 depending which method you use
  • Metal or glass bowl big enough to sit on top of saucepan
  • Whisk
  • Knife

Prep and cooking: 5-10 minutes

  1. Put a small amount of water in the saucepan (about 1/5 full) and heat it up until steaming then turn the heat down low.
  2. Separate the egg yolks by cracking the egg in your hand over a bowl (clean hands!) and let the white run through the gaps in your fingers. Put the yolk(s) in the bowl with the white wine vinegar, salt and about 10ml of water and whisk well for a minute or two.
  3. Put the bowl on top of the saucepan and keep whisking until the yolks start to go pale.
  4. Cut the butter into cubes and add 1 at a time, whisk until its fully incorporated before adding any more butter. Keep adding butter until you have the desired consistency, it will thicken as you add and whisk butter in.
  5. Drink. I mean eat.

Method 2

  1. Follow steps 1-3 above.
  2. Melt the butter in a separate pan. Skim the foam off the top as it heats up and let the milk solids separate to the bottom (white bits). Decant into a jug leaving the mills solids in the pan.
  3. While the butter is still hot pour it into the eggs a little at a time whisking well before adding more until the desired consistency is met.

If the sauce becomes too thick just add a little cold water and whisk in.

I would say the second method makes the sauce noticeably nicer, but not so much that there’s anything wrong with the first method which is slightly quicker.

Costing

Looking on tesco.com a 150g pack of hollandaise costs £1.20.

The above best recipe makes about 136g if you use 100g of butter (egg yolks weigh about 18g) and costs around 87p, a saving of about 30%.

As you can see the butter is where most of the expense comes in, and you can’t cut out too much as the sauce is pretty much just butter and eggs.

Nutrition

Sorry! But it’s not looking good here 😂 that’s what you get for eating butter and egg yolks (!)

More recipes soon!

Romesco sauce recipe

This is one of many Spanish recipes I picked up whilst working with a top bloke in a makeshift tapas restaurant for about 3 months, he was my head chef and he’d come to England from Barcelona for work.

Romesco sauce is more of a cold dip, but it goes great with most meat especially steak.

It’s nice and easy to make so let’s get to the recipe!

Ingredients (makes about 400g)

  • 200-250g red peppers, roasted. You can roast your own or use ones in a jar from the shop.
  • 100-150g blanched almonds
  • 2-4 plum tomatoes
  • 1-3 tbsp garlic paste, more garlic will give it more heat I usually chuck quite a lot in
  • Either sherry, cider, white/red wine vinegar or lemon juice (1 or 2 tbsp)
  • 1 tbsp smoked paprika
  • 70-100ml olive oil
  • Handful of fresh basil

Equipment

  • Frying pan
  • Food processor or immersion blender and measuring jug (food processor works best)

Prep and cooking (5-10 minutes)

  1. First you want to lightly toast the almonds so heat the frying pan to a medium-highish heat.
  2. When it’s nice and hot add the almonds and stir/toss them constantly for a few minutes until there’s nicely browned parts on the almonds, remove onto a plate and put to one side.
  3. Drain the red peppers so there’s not too much oil on them and put them in the food processor with the almonds, tomatoes (cut into quarters), garlic, paprika, vinegar and basil. (Everything except the oil).
  4. Blitz until you have a lumpy paste looking concoction.
  5. Leave the food processor running and pour in about 1tbsp of olive oil. After 5-10 seconds (or until the oil is fully mixed in) do this again until you have the consistency you want (the oil will emulsify the whole thing binding it into a sauce/dip)
  6. Add salt and pepper if you think it needs it.
  7. Dip! Or drink?

¿Cuál es la fruta que más se ríe?

La naranja, ja, ja, ja, ja…

Bad jokes aside, romesco is a delicious and easy sauce that can be whipped up in about 5 minutes.

It’s great on a buffet as a dip or you can use it to marinate meat.

Goes well with a bbq 🔥

Chip shop curry sauce recipe


Perfect with some nice chunky chips.

For me this is another big comfort food!

Love it or hate it, it’s a staple when it comes to fish and chips, or more importantly chips.

This recipe is somewhat similar to Chinese curry sauce, but with a slight variation on flavour and a few raisins thrown in.

Ingredients (makes enough for about 6 people)

  • 60g butter for cooking
  • 1 large onion or 2 medium
  • Garlic paste (about 1tbsp)
  • Ginger paste (about 1 tbsp)
  • 3-4 tbsp mild curry powder
  • 1-2 tsp ground turmeric
  • About 50g of raisins
  • 1 star anise
  • 1-2 tbsp of malt/white wine vinegar
  • 500ml chicken or vegetable stock
  • Salt and pepper

Equipment

  • Saucepan
  • Knife
  • Chopping board
  • Wooden spoon
  • Measuring jug

Prep and cooking (60-90 minutes)

  1. Heat the butter in a pan, dice the onion and cook for about 5 minutes on a medium heat.
  2. Add the garlic and ginger paste and cook for another 5 minutes. You want to get the mixture nice and soft, but not too much colour developing.
  3. Mix the curry powder and turmeric together with a little bit of water and add to the pan with the star anise, raisins and vinegar. Cook for another 1-2 minutes, be sure to keep stirring so nothing burns to the bottom of the pan.
  4. Add the stock and turn the heat up full to bring to the boil.
  5. When it starts boiling turn the heat down low and simmer for about half an hour, again be sure to stir occasionally to ensure nothing sticks to the bottom of the pan and burns.
  6. Take out the star anise and mix 3-5 tbsp of cornflour with some water to make a slurry, add it bit by bit to the sauce, cook for a minute or so before adding any more until you reach the desired thickness.
  7. I like to serve the sauce how it is, but if you want it smoother just put it in a food processor or blend it with an immersion blender.

Costing

Looking at price, I was in the chip shop a couple of days ago and got some curry sauce, it came in the usual polystyrene cup which is guess is about 100ml and it set me back £1.40

The above recipe will cost about £1.80-£2, Working out around 30p a serving!

So quite a saving, but it was a long day, we were all tired, and that’s kind of the point of paying someone else to make food for you(!)

The most expensive components here are the curry powder, butter and stock cubes (for chicken stock, unless you have fresh) do you can cut the cost further by replacing butter with oil, using a bit less curry powder and use 1 less stock cube (I usually use 2-3 for 500ml).

Just remember this will compromise in flavour a slightly on texture, but it can cut the cost to about 20p a serving.

Enjoy!

More recipes soon.