The appeal lies in its elegant balance of textures and flavors, from creamy avocado to crispy bacon, tangy blue cheese, and tender chicken. Plus, it’s endlessly versatile, making it a go-to option…

One thing I have become accustomed to is taking one idea or concept within the kitchen and then expanding on it. The use of a single recipe to make multiple dishes is a skill every home cook needs to have within their arsenal, considering how much we revolve around the same staples year-round in this part of the world. You can only have boiled plain white rice so many times in your life before you get to a time where even eating it plain becomes rather mundane. Boiled rice and chicken, boiled rice and stew, boiled rice and fish, boiled rice and … well, you get the picture. Substitute the rice for pap and the story remains the same. Enter the stir fry, rice porridge, Jamaican rice, coconut rice and curried rice. All these are elevations of basic boiled rice. Let’s just say the rice found its way to private school. It’s about exploring and expanding one’s knowledge. Bravery in the kitchen is needed, as it opens up a door to endless flavour possibilities. “Fortune f(l)avours the bold” is a statement that has brought me both joy and disaster in the kitchen. But then again, how do you learn without a mistake or two? Bicarbonate of soda instead of baking powder in a butter cake does not really taste the same – in fact, it’s inedible. Lesson learnt. As a home cook, there should be foundational recipes that you possess that can give birth to other things. For example when it comes to sauces, the foundational béchamel, velouté and tomato sauces for me are three of the five mother sauces in cooking that I then experiment with and expand from. They are easy to prepare and a blank page of endless possibilities; knowing these three recipes has elevated dishes for me to restaurant level and beyond. Béchamel Sauce This sauce, which some call a white sauce, is my usual go-to when preparing pasta. It’s made from three simple ingredients: a roux (or paste of flour and butter cooked together) with added milk or cream. It is magical, creamy and hearty, perfect for any form of comfort food. Add some grated cheddar and gouda, you have a cheese sauce. Add cooked sautéed mushrooms and chopped garlic and you have a garlic and mushroom sauce. Minus the garlic and add black pepper, you have a mushroom sauce. Just crack black pepper into it, boom, a pepper sauce. You get the gist. Velouté Sauce The velouté is what I pull out when I want to pretend to be fancy. As above, you begin with a roux and instead of adding milk or cream, add chicken or vegetable stock. Depending on how your stock is seasoned, you can have fun with it and add all sorts of aromatics or seasonings to match whatever you are cooking. Mixed herbs, thyme, coriander and black pepper are familiar favourites bound to give you a banging sauce. Pour or drizzle it over grilled chicken or fish, and you’re pulling restaurant moves right in your kitchen. Tomato Sauce The foundation for what we all call gravy! The tomato sauce is such a prominent feature in African cooking, you’re bound to find it in any home at least four or five times a week. The western version is a tad different, but most people who have stood in front of a stove know the onion, tomatoes, stock cube, soup packet combo that has graced our stews and soups over the years. The adventurous will add green peppers, garlic, celery and carrots. Add this to your beef in a pot and let it sit for an hour, there comes that stew. This is how I began, at only nine years old – this is how I got my start in the kitchen. Be it a simple bread recipe you use for rolls, buns or bagels, or a sauce you change up with different ingredients, your imagination holds your potential to take recipes and ingredients the extra mile. My suggestion: get in the kitchen and give it a try. The post Sauce Your Way to Extraordinary Dishes appeared first on The Namibian.

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