Make Your Own FavorFlavs

For years, we’ve all been obsessed with DIY. Fermenting, preserving, smoking, brewing and distilling – we do it all ourselves in the attic or shed. But why, then, do we still buy that bottle of ketchup, that jar of mustard, or that tin of hoisin sauce?

And why do we haul back hyper-spicy chili sauces and spice blends from abroad? Time to start making all of those ourselves, too. You don’t need an attic or shed. Just a small piece of countertop. Plus a supply of thoroughly cleaned jars and bottles.

One-trick pony

Cookbooks are becoming increasingly specialised. From a general book with starters, main courses, desserts and side dishes from a particular cuisine, the New Cookbook has evolved into a one-trick pony, specialising in one specific ingredient (potato, see the new cookbook Power to the Pieper). Or one eating occasion (breakfast). Or a cooking method (BBQ). And from now on: sauces and flavourings – coincidentally the title of Caroline Dafgård Widnersson’s book.

Why do we still buy a bottle of ketchup when we can make that tomato sauce ourselves?

Widnersson’s cookbook starts with everyday sauces such as ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise, then, after a story about the vinegar mother, moves on to pickles and ends with herb and spice blends such as garlic powder, mushroom powder, leek ash and ash salt.

Simple

In between, Sauces and Flavourings offers recipes in which all those DIY sauces and blends are indispensable. Stir-fried blue crab with sambal badjak, for example. And grilled mackerel with pickled green tomatoes.

And what do you know? Making sauces yourself is a lot simpler than brewing beer or distilling gin. So what’s stopping us?

Well? What’s stopping you? Here are two recipes to get you started: sambal oelek and curry.

Sauces and Flavourings
Caroline Dafgård Widnersson
publisher Good Cook
€ 17,50

Text: Marjan Ippel
Image from: Sauzen en smaakmakers.