Category: Sauces and Salsas

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Sauces and Salsas The Book

182. Georgian Salsa p.896


The recipe

I know next to nothing about the republic of Georgia, but this salsa has me pricing out flights. This salsa, and the stew I added it to are probably the most memorable things I’ve eaten this year. None of the ingredients used in the dish are particularly exotic, but the flavour is unlike anything I’ve had before. It’s a salsa of coriander seed, fenugreek, cilantro, basil, garlic, red bell pepper, jalapeño, red wine vinegar, and salt. The spices are ground in a mortar and pestle, and then everything goes for a spin in the food processor. I haven’t used fenugreek much in my cooking, although it’s not hard to find, its unfamiliar flavour probably has a lot to do with what appeals to me so much about this sauce.

The word salsa is misleading in this recipe, there’s nothing Latin about it, it’s closer to Indian than anything else. The basil, cilantro, and red pepper make this a very fresh tasting salsa, but it’s power comes from the wallop of garlic and jalapeño. The sweetness of the coriander seeds is so unlike the cilantro leaves it’s hard to think of them coming from the same plant. I’m utterly unable to describe the way fenugreek tastes, or what it adds to this dish. I just went into the kitchen and chewed on a few seeds to try to transmogrify flavour into words, but no luck. Fenugreek makes this taste good, and that’s the best I’m going to come up with. Maybe that’s enough. This salsa takes 10 minutes to make, try it and you’ll see what my incoherence is all about.

I have no idea if this flavour combination has staying power for me, or it’s a passing fad, but for right now this salsa is excitingly different.

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Sauces and Salsas The Book

140. Tapenade p.890


No recipe is online for this one.

I’m never sure what to do with tapenade. I like it, but it’s far too salty to eat all on its own. I’ve used it as an accompaniment to grilled meats and fish, served it with cheese, spread it on sandwiches, or used it as an accent to hummus, but I’m never quite satisfied. It’s been OK the couple of times dishes have called for it, but it’s rarely something I would seek out. That’s kind of odd because I love olives and eat them often. Most of the time, I’d rather just eat an olive than spread tapenade on something. Way back in the beginning of the project I wrote about the Olive and Eggplant Spread, which is like a tapenade, but cut with roasted eggplant. That was thoroughly enjoyable, and mild enough to eat without any accompaniment.

Although I’m not sure what to use it for, this tapenade was pretty good. The recipe is short and sweet, blend Kalamata olives, garlic, and capers, then add olive oil in a slow stream ’till it’s smooth. The recipe calls for pitted olives, but I’m biased against them. Maybe it’s just me being superstitious, but I feel like pitted olives are often of lower quality than the whole ones. Whether or not there’s any basis to that, but I almost always buy whole olives and pit them myself.

This tapenade was all about bold flavours working together. The olives, garlic, and capers have very strong and distinctive flavours, but they’re tied together by the fruity floral undertones they share. If any one of those flavours had been missing the dish would have fallen apart. Unfortunately this tapenade was insanely salty, all tapenades are salty, but this went further. It could have been my olives, but more than likely it was the capers. I really enjoyed the extra flavour the capers brought to the tapenade, but it would have been nice if they’d come without the salt. It’s one of the things that bothers me about tapenade in general. The things is tastes best with, often tend to be salty themselves, and that can push the salt quotient past pleasure into revulsion.

On the day I made this I served it with hummus, cheese, and a few other dips. It was fine, and people ate a fair amount of it, but it wasn’t the star of the show by any means. I used a bit of the leftovers with some grilled chicken, but left most of it on my plate. The rest mouldered in the fridge ’till we had to throw it out. Other than the salt there was absolutely nothing wrong with this tapenade, and a lot of things right about it. But, it just didn’t appeal to me all that much.

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Sauces and Salsas The Book

135. Green Mayonnaise p.887


The recipe

This mayo is meant to accompany the Poached Salmon in Aspic. I wasn’t quite sure why an aspic covered fish, served with aspic on the side, needed a mayonnaise as well. My guests didn’t eat much of this mayo with the salmon, possibly because I didn’t make it obvious enough that they were meant to be served together, but I suspect it was because no one really felt it was lacking in mayo. If it had just been a poached salmon, a nice sauce would be appreciated, but it seemed out of place with the aspic.

The recipe is dead simple. I started with a cup of yesterday’s recipe for plain mayonnaise. I ran parsley, chives, tarragon, and dill through the food processor with lemon juice and half the mayo. I omitted the optional chervil. Once it was smooth, I added the rest of the mayo, and stuck it in the fridge to come together for a couple of hours.

It tasted very much like mayonnaise with a bunch of herbs puréed into it. Fresh herbs are almost always nice, and they added all sorts of flavour to the mayo. Tarragon and dill aren’t subtle, so it was fairly bold. The additional lemon juice and water from the herbs thinned it out a lot, so it was more of a drizzling than a spreading mayo. As I said, it didn’t do much for the salmon, so I was left with a lot of this. I couldn’t really think of many other uses though. I tried sandwiches, I tried serving it with grilled chicken, and I put some on asparagus. In all cases it was just fine, but I would have preferred plain old mayo, or perhaps an aïoli. Simply grilled or poached fish would be a natural use for this, which I wouldn’t mind trying it at some point, and if it were thicker it could be quite interesting with French fries.

I’m sure there’s a dish out there just begging for a drizzle of green mayonnaise, but I haven’t found it yet.

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Sauces and Salsas The Book

134. Mayonnaise p.886


Surprisingly there’s no recipe on Epicurious for plain old mayonnaise.

This is The Book’s basic mayonnaise recipe, there are 7 other dressed up mayonnaises which use this recipe as a starting point, so I’ll be making it a bunch of times. As with most of the basic recipes in the book, it’s solid, but not exciting. However, that’s not a bad thing. I made the mayo recipe from the ’76 edition of The Joy of Cooking, and it was a disaster. Joy is often considered the home cook’s go to source for no-fail basic recipes, and you’d think they’d have a rock solid mayo method, but no. Mayonnaise is made by whisking an egg yolk with oil a drop at a time to get an emulsion started, then pouring in a staggering amount of oil in a slow stream while whisking madly. Once the mayo is thickened and the emulsion is no longer at risk of breaking, you can add extra flavourings. The crazy Joy method would have you add mustard, salt, cayenne, lemon juice, and confectioners sugar before you start the emulsion at all. The mustard is a common addition because it helps the emulsion form, but adding the lemon juice is just stupidity. The acid fights the emulsion you’re working so hard to build, why would you put it in there? I whisked for about 20 minutes before I could get a thin soupy consistency. It was an OK salad dressing, but a horrific mayo. The Book’s method is much more logical, and worked very well.

In this recipe an egg yolk is whisked together with Dijon and salt, then 3/4 of a cup of oil are added first by drops then in a slow stream. Once the mixture starts to thicken to the point that it’s getting difficult to whisk, and the emulsion is solid, you add a bit of white wine vinegar, and lemon juice. Then the remainder of the oil is added in a stream, and salt and white pepper are stirred in.

The mayo wasn’t quite as thick as I would have liked. You’d be better applying this with a spoon than a knife. But, it was silky smooth, and nicely glossy. I might have cut 1/2 a teaspoon of liquid somewhere to keep the mayo thicker. The flavour was pretty good, it had the eggy richness I look for in a mayonnaise, with a little bite from the vinegar and lemon juice, and a background body from the mustard. It was very nice spread on a sandwich, and quite a bit better than the the stuff that comes from a jar.

My only real complaint was the instruction to use either olive oil or vegetable oil in the recipe without further specification. Depending on your olive oil it can have a very pronounced taste, which is great for some applications, but it can make for a very weirdly flavoured mayonnaise. I made mayo at my brother’s place a few weeks back, and the only oil he had was olive, that mayo was edible, but none of us liked it much. It lacked the  mellow feeling I’m looking for in mayo, all of those grassy spicy flavours I enjoy in good olive oil where just unpleasant and distracting when they were so amplified. If you’re going to use all olive oil, I’d recommend using very mildly flavoured oil, preferably not extra virgin. I think the best tactic is to use a small amount of good olive oil for flavour, and then use a flavourless oil for the rest of it (canola, or grapeseed would be my first choices, using about 1 part olive oil to 3 parts other oil).

Mayonnaise is quite easy to make, and homemade has a definite edge over the store bought kind. I’ve always been disturbed by the fact that Hellman’s is made with real eggs, but keeps for months. Without all of the shelf-stable preservatives this mayo will only keep for two days. Since it’s really not much trouble to make, and it tastes better than the miracles of food science on the grocery shelf, I’ve been getting into the habit of making my own. This recipe uses a solid method, and it’s a jumping off point for a lot of interesting variations. It won’t blow your mind, and I’ve had better homemade mayo, but it’s worth trying at least once.

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Sauces and Salsas The Book

131. Pesto p.889


The recipe

I’m so happy I made this pesto. I went up to the market, and paid a nice lady twelve dollars for an enormous bucket full of perfectly fresh and amazingly fragrant basil. I got my bounty home and I was ready to go into industrial pesto production mode. Unfortunately I’d forgotten that a bushel of basil was going to require a lot more pine nuts than I had on hand to turn into pesto. My neighborhood isn’t lacking for bulk food stores, but it would seem everyone else had the same weekend project as I did. There wasn’t a pine nut to be had, except at the mysteriously overpriced store-of-last-resort. My precious basil was wilting on the counter at home, so I sucked it up and paid saffron prices for my pine nuts.

I got home, and I was finally ready to start. But I discovered that my beloved food processor had died on me. I use an inherited Robot Coupe processor, that has to be at least 25 years old. It’s a little the worse for wear, but it’s always worked perfectly. I love its simplicity, only one blade, and a switch, controlling pulse and stay on modes, that’s it. It has a very solid motor, a decent sized bowl, and no superfluous gimmicks. I wasn’t ready to give up on my workhorse of a processor just yet, so I did a little jury rigging. After disabling the safety feature that prevents the blade from spinning without the top on with the eraser off the back of a pencil I was good to go. I’m convinced that I’ll lose a finger to the machine, and I’m mildly terrified of it, but I’m keeping it for now.

Thankfully I was able to get to the recipe without any further setbacks. The pesto is very straightforward, and much like every other food processor pesto recipe in the world. You add garlic to the running processor, then add pine nuts, Parmigiano-Reggiano, salt, pepper, and basil leaves, then chop it up and add olive oil in a slow stream with the motor running ’till it’s nearly smooth.

I planned on freezing most of my pesto so I omitted the cheese (as per the recipes recommendation), and froze the pesto in ice cube trays. I now have two big Ziplock bags full of pesto in the freezer. I’ve been making giant batches of pesto for the last few years and I absolutely love having it on hand. It’s an integral ingredient in my pizza sauces, and I think of it as a security blanket for uninspired nights when I need to cook quickly. I just toss pasta with a cube of pesto, and a bit of pasta water, top with grated Parmigiano-Reggiano and black pepper and I’m eating within 20 minutes.

If you’re planning on making pesto ice cubes I’d recommend going to to dollar store and getting a separate set of ice cube trays for the purpose. I used our everyday trays, and despite a thorough wash is hot soapy water I could swear my G&T tasted of basil.

This is a very standard, solid pesto recipe, it goes a little heavy on the oil, but is otherwise great. It’s actually a bit hard to know if I followed the recipe properly. It calls for 3 cups of loosely packed fresh basil leaves, but what exactly does that mean? I know we North Americans like our recipes in cups and spoonfuls, but in this case a weight measurement for a dry ingredient wouldn’t kill them. I’ll happily convert ounces to decent metric units, but please give me a halfway precise estimate of how much basil this recipe calls for.

I’m very happy with the way this pesto turned out, it freezes wonderfully, and I’ve been enjoying it a little at a time. Right now it’s just a nice treat, but by mid-February having summer-fresh pesto on hand is going to be a critical weapon in the fight against the bleak winter dreariness. I’d highly recommend that everyone devote one day in late summer to making a giant batch of pesto, and enjoying the fruits of your labour all winter long.

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Sauces and Salsas The Book

106. Whipped Horseradish Cream p.893

Unfortunately there’s no recipe online for this one.

Beef and horseradish is one of those great combinations, the fiery sinus clearing slap-in-the-face of horseradish works really well with the succulent richness of beef. It’s not much good with other meats, but beef and horseradish is a love story for the ages. In this preparation horseradish is mixed with cider vinegar, honey, salt and pepper, and then folded into stiffly beaten cream.

The recipe calls for 3-4 tablespoons of horseradish, to one cup of cream, then suggests that you taste and adjust at the end. It calls for grating your own root if you can find one, or gives the jarred stuff and an acceptable alternative. I had a jar in the fridge so I went with it. I had just enough left for the recipe, and didn’t think to pick up a new jar. I didn’t account for the fact that horseradish loses its pungency quickly once it’s been opened, so mine was a little anemic. I could have used twice as much of my post-haircut-Samson horseradish and not risked burning anyone’s nose. Everything else in the recipe is there to mellow the horseradish out, so this ended up tasting much too smooth and creamy. My dining companioned compared it to horseradish scented air.

I like my horseradish hot, so even if I’ve got the freshest most powerful root on the block, I’d rather not have it tamed too much. I don’t think the honey was really necessary, it doesn’t really add to the horseradish experience, and it risks taking the whipped cream over into dessert territory. Similarly the whipped cream served to add volume, and dilute the horseradish, I’d frankly prefer grated horseradish with a little cream to make it saucy, and a boost of salt and pepper. The whipped cream made it a delicate airy foam, which just doesn’t seem like the right texture for horseradish. I’d rather treat it more like hot sauce, or wasabi, pungently lurking in the corner of my plate, waiting for each bite to be dipped with excited trepidation, and punishing those brave or foolhardy souls who overdo it. Admittedly this version is a bit safer to serve to your grandmother, but the risk of horseradish is half the fun.

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Sauces and Salsas The Book

105. Stilton Sauce p.884


No recipe this time

A blue cheese sauce is a classic pairing for a roast tenderloin. This was my favorite of the three sauces I served on this particular evening, but I had trouble remembering anything about it. I incorrectly identified it as a béarnaise sauce in yesterday’s post. I think that says a lot about the sauce.

The recipe calls for Stilton or Roquefort, I prefer Roquefort’s more mellowed character so I went with it. The cheese is softened and mixed with an ungodly amount of butter, and then stirred into a reduced mixture of white wine and heavy cream. Once it’s melted some flat leaf parsley is stirred in, and it’s drizzled over beef or vegetables.

It’s a foregone conclusion that a sauce made of Roquefort, butter, wine, and cream is going to be insanely delicious, and this was. This classic sauce has been replicated so many times in so many ways that it’s lost all novelty though. The only real difference between the blue cheese sauce at a mega chain steakhouse, and a fine dining version is the quality of the cheese going in. But with all the butter and cream the individuality of the cheese is obscured. I don’t find much variation in the world of blue cheese sauces, they’re rich, and delightfully stinky, but they never blow me away. This was no exception, it tasted very good, but there’s nothing to really latch on to about it.

Categories
Sauces and Salsas The Book

89. Fresh Tomato Salsa p.896


The recipe

I’m pleased to inaugurate the Sauces and Salsas section of The Book with this recipe. This tomato salsa is about as minimalist as salsa can be. It focuses on clean flavours, but left me wishing for a bit more complexity. It’s comprised of diced plum tomatoes, white onion, serrano chiles, cilantro, salt, and water. It’s perhaps more notable for what it lacks. No garlic, no oil, and no lime juice. The garlic is entirely optional, it’s only a standard salsa ingredient for me because I have an unhealthy infatuation with the stinking rose. In fact I didn’t particularly miss it here, and leaving it out does make the dish taste lighter and cleaner.

The lime juice is a crime against humanity though. I suppose the thinking is that tomatoes are fairly acidic, and can stand up on their own without a hit of citrus. I agree that white vinegar would have been out of place, but lime juice adds a mild acidity and a linchpin of flavour. I imagine cilantro, chiles, and lime juice as a perfectly balanced triangle. They’re the mirepoix of Latin cuisine. I hate celery, but if you leave it out of the mirepoix I’m going to notice, and resent you for it.

The salsa felt like exactly the sum of it’s parts, without melding into a comprehensive dish. I usually add lime juice and a bit of olive oil, i.e. a very simple vinaigrette, which I find ties the salsa together, and provides a medium for the flavours to mingle in.

The instructions for this recipe read

Finely chop tomatoes.

Transfer to a bowl, along with any juices.

Stir in remaining ingredients.

It’s got a haiku like simplicity, but the ingredient list doesn’t have the balance those poems strive for. There’s nothing really wrong with this recipe, but a few little additions would make it much more appealing.