May the sauce be with you
Cooking sauces have been heralded as a godsend for those who want to turn out fast, inexpensive meals to large numbers while maintaining consistency.
Yet many chefs cringe at the thought of using them in professional kitchens and blame them in part for the demise in kitchen skills.
It is undeniable that some kitchens simply do not have the time or the resources to make sauces from scratch, and ready-made versions are gaining an increasingly important place in the kitchens of pubs, clubs and contract caterers.
According to market research organisation Mintel, wet sauces still dominate the retail market. The most popular are Italian, although the Indian tikka masala, korma and rogan josh sauces come a close second.
In the catering industry, wet sauces are gaining ground while dry sauces are in steady decline. And although cooking sauces may be big in the retail market, accounting for £327m at recommended retail selling prices, in the catering sector sales are a fraction of this - just £25m at wholesale selling prices.
However, advancing food technology means that the standard of cooking sauces being produced is improving, and more chefs are now prepared to use them, albeit as a base for their own creations. Chef invited a panel of tasters drawn from a cross-section of the industry to the Chequers pub in Walton-on-the-Hill, Surrey.
All the sauces were tasted blind with plain grilled chicken, and detailed questionnaires were completed as each dish was sampled.
Tasters were asked what they required from a sauce as well as their own personal taste, and they were reminded that the products were to be assessed on an individual, rather than a comparative, basis.
What makes the ideal cooking sauce?
Each sauce was assessed as follows:
Visual impression: what do you like/dislike about its appearance? Is it appetising? Would it be visually appealing to customers?
Aroma: does it have an appealing aroma?
Texture: how do you rate the texture of the cooking sauce? What do you like/dislike about it? Having considered the texture, do you believe the product would have a reasonable shelf life?
Flavour: does the sauce taste natural/artificial? Is it bland or does it have plenty of flavour? Does it taste salty, sweet, peppery, spicy or fruity?
Overall rating: bearing in mind the cost and quality, the tasters were asked if they would serve this product.
Special sauces
Tilda's Easy Cook Tikka Masala Sauce (Medium) was easily the most popular, with one taster repeatedly describing it as "outstanding". Others said it had an authentic tikka masala style and all the flavours could be distinguished.
Meal Makers' Mesquite Barbecue Sauce was highly rated by all the panellists, who thought it had enormous potential, perhaps as a basting product rather than a pour-over sauce. One of the tasters said he wouldn't hesitate to use it for an outside function, such as a barbecue.
In appearance, the difference between the Tilda sauce and the others was considerable. Some were judged as too thick and "showing no signs of movement".
The tasters thought that sauces for the catering trade, while improving all the time, didn't quite match up to those for the retail trade. Some panellists thought that catering manufacturers expected chefs to manipulate the sauces and so they were merely providing a base.
Most agreed that sauces work well for the cost sector where chefs are looking for consistency.
The Tasters
Simon Doff is a catering supplier and a consultant to a sauce manufacturer. He has a background in sourcing and buying provisions for restaurants and shops.
Doff is looking for sauces that taste home-made as he believes the whole point of using cooking sauces is to give the impression that the chef has made them himself. "Chefs don't want to use something they believe would be below their own standards," he says.
Colin Rushmore is general manager of the 26-bedroom Golden Lion Hotel in Hunstanton, Norfolk, which has a 50-seat fine-dining restaurant and 90-seat bar/snack area.
Rushmore says the only cooking sauce the chef uses is a barbecue product in the snack bar, although they do use ready-made stocks for some soups and sauces. He expects cooking sauces to look and taste home-made. They should also look appealing.
Stephen Brough is manager of the Youngs-owned Chequers pub, our host for the taste test. It has an extensive bar menu catering for up to 70 people at each service. Chequers also offers an à la carte menu in a separate 68-seat restaurant.
No cooking sauces are used for the bar or the à la carte, but Brough believes that the priority should be flavour, appearance and value for money.
Kevin Byrne is skills co-ordinator with the Army School of Catering based in Aldershot, Hampshire. The school is the training centre for all Army chefs and caterers.
As well as being in charge of the Army's international award-winning chefs competition team, Byrne also assesses the quality of the food produced by the chefs undergoing technical training.
Prepared sauces are being introduced at the school. "Out on the ground there is an ever-increasing use of convenience foods," he says.
Byrne's most important criterion for cooking sauces is that they are clearly recognisable, in flavour and colour, as the sauce the manufacturer claims them to be. He is also looking for sauces that can be adapted and modified to suit chefs' needs.
Michael Coaker is executive chef of London's May Fair Inter-Continental hotel. He is in charge of three restaurants: the recently refurbished Opus 70, an 82-seat restaurant that specialises in international cuisine; the May Fair Café, a brasserie-style outlet that serves breakfast and lunch; and the May Fair Bar, which provides traditional bar food. In all, the hotel has a total of 238 seats.
Although Coaker doesn't use cooking sauces in any of the hotel's restaurants or cafés, he doesbuy them for the staff restaurant, which serves500 meals a day.
Coaker always likes to use products that are fresh, flavoursome and not too obviously artificial.
Additional research by Katherine Ibberson.
Kevin Byrne (top) and Michael Coaker (above) get down to business
