A wonderful chef I know served time across some Parisian hotplates night and day,seven days a week,for two-and-a-half years as saucier. Safe to say he knows sauce and evidently the key to a good one is simple:time. With a few hours of simmering the simplest of ingredients can create the most glorious flavour. This'time'concentrates and rounds out flavours,it thickens gloriously as it reduces,and it allows the ingredients to become intimate bedfellows.
So if we are all in lockdown mode,or preparing for it,perhaps we can embrace the small luxuries,the benefit and luxury of time.Time pottering about the kitchen giving something on the stove the odd stir.
This is my quarantine sauce. It is dead simple and useful for any number of dinners,some of which I have suggested below. This mother recipe makes about 4 cups,after it has reduced,but quantity will vary depending on how long you leave it on the stove.
Pasta with quarantine sauce,tuna,olives and chill
Add 1 tin tuna and ½ cup quarantine sauce per serve to a saucepan and place over low heat. Let it warm through before adding a handful of olives. Give it another stir and let it simmer,while you cook some pasta according to packet instructions. Serve pasta topped with sauce. Sprinkle over fresh chilli or chilli flakes,to taste. Season with parmesan,salt and pepper and sprinkle over a bit of flat-leaf parsley,if you have it on hand.
Chicken pepperoni and quarantine sauce
Add some chicken thighs (about two per serve) to a frypan,with about 100 grams of sliced pepperoni and fry until lightly browned. Pour over enough quarantine sauce to cover. Simmer for 15 minutes or so until chicken is cooked through. Season generously with salt and pepper. Throw a few basil leaves at it if you have them,and serve.
Quarantine sauce chilli
Brown off 500 grams of beef mince with 1 chopped red onion. Add a can of rinsed black beans. Pour over enough quarantine sauce to cover and simmer for 20 minutes or so. Serve in tacos,make enchiladas,or top with corn chips,chopped avo,shredded cheese and chopped tomato for one big free-form bowl of taco.
Quarantine beans
Add 2 cans of white beans,2 cups quarantine sauce and 1 teaspoon of chilli flakes to a frypan. Place over low heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Throw some mozzarella at it. Throw some basil leaves and salt and pepper at it after that. Warm a bit of flatbread for scooping. Dinner done.
A few other options for quarantine sauce
- Use it as sauce forpizza.
- Use it to simmer a few pieces ofbarramundi with any fresh herbs or curry leaves that might be lurking in the back of your freezer. Serve over rice.
- Roast some chunks ofeggplant in olive oil and dried oregano in the oven. Plop in a pan with quarantine sauce. Add chilli and cook for 15 minutes or until the eggplant is soft and breaking down. Plate. Tear over some mozzarella or feta,if you have it on hand.
- Roll some mince (any will work) intomeatballs with dried herbs from your cupboard. Brown in a large frypan. Pour over quarantine sauce and simmer.
- Use as the base forbaked eggs.
- Thin it out with some extra stock to turn into asoup. Serve with a cheese toastie.
- Make my sausage,kale and tortellini pasta bake