A Brighton Boy Blogs

One of the classic sauces, Bechamel is useful for a wide range of dishes. Try using it as a pasta sauce, or with eggs, fish or fowl.

The Recipe

You can make this into a classic cheese sauce merely by stirring the cheese of your choice into it until it is all melted. As a white sauce, try it as part of a  Lasagne.

Ingredients

50g butter

2 heaped tbsp plain white flour

3/4 pint milk

1 tsp Dijon mustard

Salt

Black pepper, freshly ground

1 tsp grated nutmeg

Dash of white wine

Method

Melt the butter in a non-stick saucepan (it helps a lot).

Add the flour, and stir vigorously over a medium heat until well combined. You should now have a ball of dough – this is a rue. Now add a third of the milk, and stir continuously; at first, the rue will just float around in the milk, but as the milk heats it will combine with the rue until the whole mixture thickens and goes smooth. Eventually, it will once again form a lump of dough.

Now add the second third of the milk, and repeat the previous stage. Finally, add the rest of the milk and once again stir until smooth. You should now have a smooth, creamy sauce. Add the rest of the ingredients, and season with salt and pepper to taste.

This is one of my oldest formalised recipes – it’s surprisingly good, and even people who don’t like spinach, mushrooms, courgettes or butter beans seem to love it. Strange but true…

The Recipe

This recipe would be good with all manner of vegetables; the ones I originally chose were what we had lying around in the fridge! Try varying the amount of garlic – we actually started out with 5 cloves, and it was wonderful, but old age has moderated my tastes. Leave the cheese out, and it’s vegan.

Ingredients

1 onion or 7 shallots, chopped

8 mushrooms, sliced

250g fresh leaf spinach

2 courgettes, sliced

1 can butter beans

1 tbsp olive oil

1 stock cube

A good splash of soy sauce

A small splash of passata

Black pepper, freshly ground

3 cloves garlic, sliced

1 slice bread, crumbed

300g mozzarella cheese, grated

Method

Fry all ingredients in sequence, except the cheese and breadcrumbs. Aim for a very dry mixture. Place in an oven-proof dish in alternate layers with the mozzarella. Cover the top layer of cheese with breadcrumbs, cover the dish, and bake at gas mark 4 for 30-35 minutes. Finally, uncover and bake again for ten more minutes to crisp the topping.

Serves 2-4.

If you serve this up at a dinner party, it’ll be the first to go. Make sure it’s a course by itself, served only with some  fried rice or chow mein (fried soft noodles), because everything else will be ignored.

Ingredients

8 oz quorn chunks/pork or chicken chunks

4 oz bamboo shoots

1 green pepper

2 spring onions

1 tsp salt

2 tblsps brandy

1 egg

1 tblsp cornflour

Oil for deep frying

3 tblsps plain flour

Sauce

3 tblsps vinegar

3 tblsps sugar

½ tsp salt

1 tblsp tomato puree

1 tblsp soy sauce

1 tblsp cornflour

1 tsp sesame seed oil

Method

Mix the quorn/pork with the salt and brandy, and marinade for 30 mins. Add a beaten egg & the cornflour and stir well. Blend together the sauce ingredients.

Heat the oil in a wok. Coat each piece of quorn with flour & deep-fry for 3 minutes, then remove the quorn from the oil with a perforated spoon. Heat the oil again. Refry the quorn with the bamboo shoots for 2 minutes or until golden, then remove it and drain off the excess oil.

Leave 1 tblsp oil in the wok for stir-frying. Add the sliced spring onion and green pepper and stir-fry for two minutes. Remove from the heat and add the sauce. Stir until it thickens slightly, then add the quorn, replace on the heat and stir fry for a further minute or until the sauce has completely thickened, and each piece of quorn is covered. Serve hot with  egg-fried rice.

Serves 4 as a main course.

Egg-fried rice is a brilliantly simple accompaniment to all kinds of Chinese dishes. The secret of all good home-cooked Chinese food is a well-seasoned, extremely hot wok. The rice won’t stick at all if you get this right. You’ll know you’ve got it hot enough because all the hairs on your hands will be incinerated. Leave the egg out for a vegan version.

Ingredients

250g rice

3 beaten eggs

6 spring onions (scallions)

1 tbsp ground nut oil

1 tsp sesame oil

Salt & pepper

Method

Boil or steam the rice until edible but still firm, drain very well, and cool rapidly – it’s important that the rice is cold when it enters the smoking hot pan.

Heat a little oil in a wok and fry the eggs to make an omelette. Chop the omelette up into small pieces. Slice the spring onions.

Heat the ground nut oil in a wok until smoking. Add the rice, egg and sesame oil. Stir fry for one minute over as high a heat as you can manage. Add the onion and stir fry for a further minute. Season to taste. Optionally, add some light soy sauce.

Serves 2-4.