From the Spice and Silk Road to the Art of Flavour Post

It is difficult not to underestimate the importance of sauces in our home cooking.

We could look at the magic of the great French Chef Escoffier and frighten ourselves out of the kitchen but for the main part, the sauces that give us the wonderful flavour and indeed excitement for a special lunch or evening meal are straightforward.

Sauces give us two things. The first is they are simply an enjoyable thing for the home cook to bring to life in the kitchen.

The second is sauces will transform a dish, even the most basic of dishes, so both the cook and the family or guests are rewarded.

Consider the wonderful French Steak with Persillade Sauce. Nothing could be simpler; Steak and Parsley together with Garlic and you will have a sauce for a triumph of flavour excitement. See Recipe.

Or, thinking of fish or chicken, the easy, velvety, Velouté sauce will give the dish the same transformation and elevate the cook to hero status. You will find the recipe later in this issue.

Many sauces are not always stand alone and arrive as part of the actual recipe One Pan Chicken with Fresh Ginger, Turmeric, Cinnamon and Coconut Cream Sauce delivers an unforgettable sauce as part of the recipe. See Recipe

Predictably the French are our friends with all of this. Classic Sauces abound for the home cook. French Soubise Sauce is an onion and cream sauce, amazingly versatile and wonderful with pork chops, lamb, roast chicken and sublime with roasted vegetables.

And being a bit more Chefy but still very workable in the kitchen, the French Gastrique Sauce based on caramelised soft fresh fruit, vinegar (the vinegar type critical) sugar, butter and allspice is from flavour heaven, the arrow aimed at roast pork or chicken. You should try this - it's seriously good !

We will be bringing you the recipes for all of these sauces in the coming weeks and as always, we will publish Readers comments and suggestions as we go along.

This story was published in the Sunday Art of Flavour

Stay well everyone Arthur Huxley www.spiceroadspices.com.au