I find making sauces for my vegetarian diet quite challenging. Any advice about how to moisten my meals?
Eric, Melbourne, Australia
There are so many directions in which you could happily go, tomato sauce being possibly the most obvious. I batch-cook all my tomato sauces – whether it’s infused with a dried chilli (which is great on butter beans), or just a basil sprig (again, for butter beans, or to stir through pasta); it’s also lovely spooned over cubed tofu or for braising eggs shakshuka-style.
Then there’s perhaps my favourite vegan ingredient, tahini, not least because it’s so rich and “creamy” and substantial. Thinned down with a little lemon juice and water, plus crushed garlic and salt to taste, it’s glorious drizzled over all sorts of roast vegetables, salad leaves, grains and so on – the possibilities are almost endless; if you like, blitz with fresh parsley or coriander (that’s wonderful on chickpeas or a whole roast cauliflower, by the way). I also love to mix tahini with soy sauce and maybe a touch of honey – the combination is a dream with steamed aubergine or even just plain rice.
Staying on the herb theme, blitz them with olive oil and garlic – add green chilli, if you like, or ripe avocado – and open up a whole world of green goddess or fridge-raid sauces, to go with roast aubergine, legumes or a boiled egg sandwich or salad. And if you pound the herbs, rather than blitz them, you’ll have any number of pestos to play with, which are another moistening, flavour-bomb solution.
Yoghurt, too, is your friend, as are labneh, ricotta, mascarpone and cream cheese, for that matter. Use just as it is, or thin it with lemon juice, and mix in garlic, chopped preserved lemon or a squeeze of chilli sauce; a few roughly crushed toasted cumin seeds also make a great addition, as do fresh herbs. Depending on their consistency, use dairy sauces as the base for a dish (spread it out on a platter and pile your veg or pulses on top) or drizzle over at the end.
Finally, there’s my everyday quick fix: good olive oil and a squeeze of lemon always guarantees no more dryness.
