Friday, August 24, 2018

Red tomato sauce for lasagna

                                               🍅 Red tomato sauce for Lasagna 🍅


Fresh tomatoes, onion, few garlics, combination of sugar and salt & a few more simple ingredients and that’s it. Very delicious and made with the goodness of fresh ingredients & seasonings. You can keep this tomato sauce in the fridge for one week. Nothing can beat this homemade fresh tomato sauce. It’s the base for many delicious and wonderful dishes. If you want to turn this sauce into meat sauce, simply add chicken or meat into this.

I use tomato sauce in many of my recipes. In India, its common to use red sauce in many dishes. Feel free to use your choice of spices & dry herbs. It’s a super quick recipe, easy to make, and you will be happy with the results☺️☺️ Either you can make a chunky tomato sauce or the smooth one. Optional herbs, chili flakes or seasonings can be added to make in your own way. 

 Ingredients & quantity to make this sauce 


5-6 Large tomatoes 
3-4 tbsp tomato puree
1 Large onion
5-6 Garlic
2 Bay leaves
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp Italian seasoning
1 tbsp black pepper &
2-3 tbsp olive oil

Instructions to make this sauce






saute until translucent


add garlic

1. Chop the tomatoes, onions and garlic. In a heavy sauce pan add 2-3 tablespoon of olive oil.  Add chopped onions.
2. Sauté until translucent or soft in texture. Add chopped garlics. Again, sauté until fragrant. Be careful here, we don’t want to burn garlic.





3. Add tomato puree and chopped tomatoes. You can also use canned chopped tomatoes.
Tomato puree
Chopped tomatoes








4. Combine everything well, cover the sauce pan with lid and cook until soft and juicy.
5. Add dry seasonings along with pepper, salt and sugar. You can add chili flakes too for more spice.
Dry add-ons

6. Add bay leaf too, for more flavor. If sauce gets thick, add little water. Simmer about 5-10 minutes or until all the flavors come together.
7. Remove the bay leaf, once the sauce is done.
Homemade red sauce
NOTES

Customize this sauce according to your taste and liking.
If you like smoother sauce, then just puree it in a blender.
You can also use canned tomatoes if you are in a hurry.
You can make in a large quantity and store it in a fridge for later use.
This delicious sauce goes perfect with pastas, lasagna, spaghetti etc.
Use herbs and spices according to your taste.
It’s always better to use fresh ingredients for more taste and flavor.

Thursday, August 2, 2018

                                   How to make Béchamel Sauce






A rich white sauce made with milk infused with herbs and other flavorings, is called Béchamel sauce. This French sauce is made from simple and common ingredients like butter, milk, flour, salt & few spices & that’s it.  Such a basic recipe for, that you can use for variety of different dishes. An easy recipe with fresh & tasty ingredients, which doesn’t take too much time.  The sauce goes perfectly well with pastas, macaroni and grilled vegetables.

There are few rules to keep in mind to make perfect sauce. Rule number 1 to avoid mishaps in the kitchen is use equal parts of butter and flour to make the Roux. The second rule is that the roux needs to be cooked for a few minutes, otherwise the sauce will give the uncooked flavor. As you all know ‘slow and steady wins the race’, exactly this is the third & most important rule. Keep the heat low and slowly make the sauce. The fourth rule of Béchamel is constant stirring. The more you stir, more you get the fine & smooth sauce. And you are ready to go!!!

So here is my way of making, One of the versatile and essential Sause “Béchamel sauce”. I just love ❤️ the word: bay/shah/mehl.




Ingredients

60 gms butter
60 gms flour
600 ml hot milk
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon grinded black or white pepper
1 bay leaf
pinch of nutmeg










Divine Béchamel sauce


Preparation

Melt the butter in a heavy bottomed sauce pan, add flour. 

Constantly stir the butter & flour mixture, but don’t let it brown. 

Whisk until smooth, then slightly pour milk little by little. Do not add all the milk in one go as it may become lumpy. 

Continue to stir as the sauce get thicken. 


Add pepper, salt, pinch of nutmeg and bay leaf. Bring it to a boil. 

Remove from the heat. Also, remove the bay leaf after the flavors have infused.

 Cool this sauce for later use.


What is roux?

Roux

 A hot mixture of equal amount of butter & flour is roux. Roux is  made by melting butter & flour, cook together in to a smooth paste without any lumps. It is used as a thickening agent in the formation of sauces and soups. 


How to use Béchamel sauce?

This sauce is a mother Sause for many creamy recipes. Well goes with lasagna, baked vegetables, pastas and macaroni. 


Recipe notes

Keep the flame low from starting to the end.

You can turn this white sauce recipe into a pasta or cheese sauce by adding cheese.

You can add an onion studded with cloves to this sauce along with other spice while boiling. Remove the bay leaf and onion studded cloves from the sauce once is done.

Milk should be enough warm before adding it to the hot roux. Warm milk helps to prevent lumps from forming. 


Hope you will try this recipe😊😊