Take Five: five-ingredient quick and easy sauces

Sometimes you’re in a hurry, or just very hungry. You don’t want to plough through a long recipe or even dig out lots of ingredients. You just want something quick and easy, but tasty, and no ready-meals or salt- and additive-laden fast food. The easiest solution is to chop up a few fresh vegetables from the fridge – onion, courgette, pepper, mushrooms – or grab a bag of frozen ready-prepared mix from the freezer. Put a pan of rice on to boil, or even quicker some Chinese noodles, stir-fry or oven roast the vegetables, and serve with a tasty sauce.

To be prepared for culinary emergencies such as this, I decided to draw up a cheat sheet of three quick and easy sauces; five ingredients maximum. No need to leaf through the recipe books. My first success was Quick Satay Sauce. Now, normally when I make satay I prepare it in a small saucepan, first frying the garlic, onion and chilli, then caramelising some brown sugar, before adding the remaining ingredients until the right consistency is achieved. For a quick sauce I decided to use my campervan method – no pre-cooking or even pre-mixing of the sauce, just whack it all in the wok. Simply stir-fry the vegetables, then just before serving, scrape the veg to the sides to create a little empty circle in the middle of the pan, add a tiny drop of oil, heat and add the sugar. Stir it around a bit, there’ll be some veggie particles that will help to caramelise it nicely. Then, just add the remaining ingredients and mix well. I even chuck the cooked noodles into the pan at the same time, so they are coated with the sauce.

Quick Satay Sauce

             2 tbsp brown sugar
             2 tbsp soy sauce
             2–3 tbsp peanut butter
             1 tsp sambal or hot chilli sauce
             Up to 200 ml (small box) soya cream or coconut milk
 

For an alternative, less creamy sauce which is also great for stir-fries I used the sauce for Singapore Noodles as an inspiration. Adding the garam masala give a slightly curry flavour. This sauce works equally well for stir-fried vegetables served with rice or noodles. Follow the same procedure outlined above, then when the oil in the centre of the wok is hot, first, add the garlic and let this cook for a minute or two, then add the garam masala and the sugar, allow to caramelise a little and then add the liquid ingredients.

Quick & Fresh Stir-fry Sauce

2 cloves of garlic, minced

             2 tbsp soy sauce
             2 tbsp brown sugar
             3 tbsp lime juice
             2 tsp garam masala
 

Finally, a sauce for pouring over oven roast vegetables. This is great way of using all those remnants lurking at the bottom of the fridge at the end of the week. Haul them all out, even the rubbery carrots and the stray radishes, how did they get in there? Anything goes: peppers, courgettes, aubergines, mushrooms, radishes, tomatoes, carrots, potatoes. Peel them, clean them up a bit and chop into small equally sized cubes. Arrange on a baking tray, sprinkle with a little salt and perhaps a teaspoon of herbe de Provence, then drizzle with oil. Bake at about 170c until they’re all soft and shiny. Serve on a bed of quick-cook couscous, some quinoa, or bulgur; pasta works well too, and also rice. I often made Mediterranean Roast Vegetables and Couscous, topped with green pesto and a sprinkling of toasted pine nuts. That’s a possibility, but for an even quicker sauce I take a couple of tablespoons of our lunchtime Homemade Hummus, thin it out with a little water, or soya cream if there’s an open box in the fridge, then add a sprinkle of cumin, a squirt of (bottled) lemon juice and adjust the seasoning to suit.

Roast Vegetable Topping Sauce

2–3 tbsp homemade hummus

             2–3 tbsp water or soya cream (add more or less to achieve required consistency)
             1 tbsp lemon juice (optional)
             Generous pinch of ground cumin
              Salt and pepper, to suit