Home made sauce megathread

Name Changed

As I can't find a similar thread, I decided the start a new one.

Can people post any good homemade sauce recipes they have and we can try and keep them all in the one thread?

I hate buying sauces such as Uncle Bens, etc, and much prefer to try and make my own. Sometimes I waste a lot of food & money though trying different combinations or quantities so I thought it would be handy if some posters put up their own recipes.

Name Changed

This is one I make in work and everyone seems to like it. I don't know what type of curry it is, I just made it up one day with whatever spices I had in the press. Anyway...

This should be enough for two:

Ingredients:
4 chicken fillets, diced into bite sized chunks
Red onion (1)
White onion (1)
Garlic cloves (2 or 3, depending on your taste)
Mixed bell peppers, usually red, green & yellow, ⅓ of each
Can of plain tomatoes
1 tablespoon of curry powder (I have Schwarz)
1 teaspoon garam masala
2 cardamon pods
1 teaspoon cumin
½ teaspoon smoked paprika
cup of boiled water
Oil

Method:

(1) Heat a bit of oil in a pan
(2) Fry the cardamon pods for about a minute & take them out of the pan
(3) Dice up the two onions and fry them on a medium heat for 5 minutes
(4) Dice up the 2-3 garlic cloves and fry for another minute
(5) Throw in the Bell peppers (diced) and cook for another minute or two
(6) Mix up the spices, ie curry powder, garam masala, cumin & smoked paprika
(7) Throw the spices in the pan & make sure they cook for about 15 seconds
(8) Mix the spices around with the veg
(9) Throw in the chicken and mix it around with the spices
(10) Cook for about 5 minutes turning a few times
(11) Throw in the tomatoes, let them boil, and then cook for about 30 minutes on a low-medium heat
(12) Put in boiled water if it needs to be watered down


That's my basic curry that I make. As you can see, I don't use salt as I try to keep that to a minimum. You could sprinkle some on the onions at the start if preferred.

I don't use a paste either for this one, but sometimes I use Pataks Balti paste which is really nice. If I use that, I cut down on the amount of spices I use, not that I am using much anyway.

I like it anyway!

homemadecider

Mushroom sauce for steaks

This is a sauce we would often make when we have good fillet steak. Much much healthier than cream-based steak sauces but tastes very rich and delicious.

After your steaks come out of the pan and are resting, add a little oil (if needed) to the pan and lob in a load of thinly sliced mushrooms. Cook for 2 mins, stirring regularly. Add in some good beef stock (we use Knorr stock pots) and a splash of red wine. Keep heat up full whack and reduce the sauce until it thickens slightly. Season to taste and serve over your steak. You can basically add as much or as little stock as you want depending on how much gravy you want. I think we usually only add 200ml or 300ml for 2 people as we don't want the plate swimming in the stuff; however we would make much more if serving for guests as some people really love to cover their plate in gravy! This is a very easy recipe to alter to your tastes. Just reduce a little longer if adding extra stock.

Takes about 5 - 7 mins to make; perfect timing as your steaks will now be well rested and ready to eat!

thegreatiam

easy hollandaise.

Pretty simple sauce that would scare a lot of people. but its basically butter and egg yolk.

No it aint restaurant quality, but the technique was taught to me by an award winning chef.

crack 2 fresh eggs and separate the yolks. add in pepper and mustard. squeeze in around a T-spoon of lemon juice. ( i also add Tabasco here)

meanwhile take about 50g of butter and melt in the microwave. just for a few seconds until it just turns liquid.

with a hand blender (or whisk if you are poor) whiz the egg yolks and slowly pour in the butter.
pour over your boiled eggs on toast/asparagus etc.
(add spring onions and tarragon to make it a Bearnaise sauce)

Optional: this is a raw(ish) egg recipe, so if you are hale and hearty crack on, however if you are feeding old, pregnant, young or otherwise substandard individuals then you can warm up the yolk a little for them.

to do this: pour into a glass or metal bowl over the pan your eggs are poaching in. stir a few times until the sauce is warm (aim for 60degsC)
I usually cook it with grilled asparagus so i just pour it into the pan while the asparagus cools, just make sue the pan isn't too hot or you'll scramble the egg yolks.

usually if you are serving it immediate over hot food (steak, eggs, etc) then you dont need to worry about cooking it.

bluecherry74

Spicy Red Pesto Sauce

This is from one of Gino D'Acampo's books. It's really easy and goes with lots of things.

200g tin of chopped tomatoes
1 clove garlic
about 1/2 jar sun dried tomatoes
1/2 red chilli or a pinch of dried chilli flakes

Put it all in a food processor/blender and blitz til it's smooth. You can eat it hot or cold. Great over fish or chicken and can also be used as a pizza sauce or a dip. In the original recipe you pour it over white fish and bake in the oven.

El_Dangeroso

Simple Italian tomato sauce:

2 cups passata
1tsp oregano
1tsp dried basil
2 cloves garlic (more if you love garlic)
1tsp onion salt
1 large onion

Fry chopped onion until soft, add garlic and saute for one minute.

Add passata and herbs and simmer for 10 minutes.

El_Dangeroso

Mushroom marsala sauce

150g Forristiere mushrooms (available in tesco)
2 cloves garlic
2/3 cup marsala wine
1 cup beef stock
salt and pepper to taste

Fry mushrooms in 2 tbsp butter for a good 10 mins until all the water is gone.

Add the garlic and saute for a further minute.

Remove mixture from pan and put to one side.

Add marsala to pan and reduce by half. Add beefstock and heat through.

Add mushrooms back to pan and serve.

This sauce tastes like something from a high-end restaurant and is well worth investing in a bottle of marsala for!

You can sub in the mushrooms for any strong tasting mushrooms, button just don't give that much flavour to the sauce.

swansea

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

Simple Italian tomato sauce:

2 cups passata
1tsp oregano
1tsp dried basil
2 cloves garlic (more if you love garlic)
1tsp onion salt
1 large onion

Fry chopped onion until soft, add garlic and saute for one minute.

Add passata and herbs and simmer for 10 minutes.

If cooking with mince would you just do as above and throw it in with the onion and garlic at the beginning?

I am pie

swansea wrote: »

If cooking with mince would you just do as above and throw it in with the onion and garlic at the beginning?

Cook the mince til it browns first, you don't need to cook it all the way through. Get your sauce on in another pan, once the mince is a bit brown chuck it into the sauce a cook on for as long as you can wait. If you can hang on for an hour + even better.

When you are throwing the mince in don't toss it from one pan to the other, you would want to be getting rid of some of the water, juice and fat that comes out of the mince, but not all. I would spoon it up out of the pan you are cooking it into the sauce.

El_Dangeroso

swansea wrote: »

If cooking with mince would you just do as above and throw it in with the onion and garlic at the beginning?

Throw in the onion at the beginning, but leave the garlic until the mince is cooked. Red wine reduced to 1/4 what it was before adding the passata works really well too.

thegreatiam

hestons cheese sauce, slightly cheaper version.

Hestons original recipe calls for around 1/2 a bottle of good wine, but that is comical for a cheese sauce.
However, you can achieve the same effect for your mac and cheese by omiting it:

reduce 3 tbsp of white wine vinegar until it is 1 tbsp in a hot pan, then reduce 500 ml of chicken or veg stock til its around 300 ml.

turn the heat down and simmer.

Meanwhile grate 2 types of cheese 1 hard, such as paramsian/gran pecarino. one medium such as cheddar (but any flavour works and different types give different taste, experiment with your favoriites)

evenly coat the hard cheese in a spoonfull of corn flour and add to the stock, stir gently until the cheese melts,

now coat the medium cheese the same and add to the pan, stir and take off the heat. (no need for constant agitation as it will split the cheese)

as the sauce cools add some soft cheese (cream cheese is best, blue cheese also works) and let it melt into the warm sauce.

it's ready to serve now as a beverage with some tasty meat snacks.

Or you can add pasta to it for 'mac and cheese' or use it as a dip/topping for nachos.

*disclaimer:probably not wise to drink cheese sauce as a beverage.


edit: OBV this is loaded with cheese, so if youre dieting take that into account. But this recipe is slightly healthier than the regular cheese sauce made with a flour base. and the flavour is much stronger because there is no flour to mask the cheese flavour so you may find you need less than you think. especially if you use strong cheese.

aaabbbb

Anyone know any recipes for a sweet and sour sauce thats still healthy ?

Countdown1982

This Sweet and Sour Chicken Recipe by the Hairy Bikers (Dieters) is really really nice, low in calories and simple to cook.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/sweet_and_sour_chicken_52908


Enjoy

Name Changed

Countdown1982 wrote: »

This Sweet and Sour Chicken Recipe by the Hairy Bikers (Dieters) is really really nice, low in calories and simple to cook.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/sweet_and_sour_chicken_52908


Enjoy

That looks excellent. I'm not even a sweet and sour fan but I will try that.

Name Changed

It says to use a can of waterchestnuts? I have never seen these for sale in Ireland?

Stench Blossoms

Name Changed wrote: »

It says to use a can of waterchestnuts? I have never seen these for sale in Ireland?

Lidl and Aldi sell them the odd time but you'd get them in any Asian supermarket.

Mellor

They are in tescos and probably most supermarkets, might need to look near the asian stuff