Extend the menu by adding your own twist to premade soups, sauces and gravies

The wide range of competitively priced readymade gravies, soups, sauces and condiments available today makes them a cost-effective alternative to preparing from scratch. More and more often, chefs are using these as bases and adding their own spices, herbs, seasonings and stocks to set their dishes apart from the competition while saving on time and labour costs. Foodservice Rep spoke to our consultant chefs on how to get the best out of readymade products while still delivering dishes that your customers can’t get anywhere else.

“I call this kind of cooking modern scratch,” says Gary Johnson, who as National Executive Chef for ALH Group oversees 1100 chefs in more than 340 hotels. “You already have the base and you simply add to it.”

As an example Gary suggests starting with a readymade tomato soup and adding a melange of chopped Heirloom tomatoes, grilled zucchini and eggplant, then garnishing with chives and a drizzle of cream across the top. “That makes for a wonderful combo and a great contrast of textures and flavours. Why would you limit yourself to reconstituting a premade soup when it’s so easy to make it your own? You could take a pea soup and add some whole snowpeas or other beans, a bit of German sausage – in other words, flavours which will work with those dishes.

“Or take a basic pumpkin soup, then sweat off a little onion, add some vegies and curry paste and voila, you have a curried pumpkin soup. You might add some yoghurt in the middle and throw some shallots, torn coriander and crunched up pappadums over the top and the dish has taken on a whole new identity – it’s not the soup that came in the packet, because you’ve enhanced it with your own signature.

“In other words, the base is simply there to help you along the way, given that labour and time and especially technical ability is sometimes at a premium in kitchens today, so under the current circumstances we might need a little help to speed things up.

“There are some fantastic products out there now to assist with this. You need to look at it from a professional perspective – you might have had five chefs in the kitchen, but now you’ve only got three and unless you want to work them 12 hours a day, you have to find ways to speed things up. At the same time you don’t want to have to compromise on quality.

“This way you can stay ahead of the game and still fulfil the expectations of your customers who are looking for a sophisticated meal at a value-driven price.

“With so many people going out to the local pub or café at least once or twice a week, the food has to be consistently good and at the same time it has to be affordable, and this is a great way to achieve that.”

Gary also cites powdered gravies as a time-saving ingredient which make a useful base. “Once again you need to know how to use them. You might make a red wine reduction that goes into your base gravy for a roast or a steak dish, or add a splash of Worcestershire sauce or Balsamic vinegar which is one of my favourite ingredients. This brings out the umami flavour – you’ve got the saltiness of the gravy, then you’re adding that sweet-sour Balsamic. You might only need to add a teaspoon per litre – that’s plenty – and then a sprig of garlic or some rosemary or thyme.

“That’s where as chefs we can strive to still offer something unique and be proud of the fact that we can serve something we’re able to call our own.”

Putting your unique spin on a product

“You don’t want to use the stock standard product as it comes in the pack, because that’s somewhat bland and potentially boring,” is how chef Adam Moore explains it.

“Whether it’s a pumpkin soup, a chocolate mousse, a sauce or a gravy, you always want to put your own unique spin on it – you don’t want customers to think you’ve bought it in and aren’t doing anything to it. So buy the Hollandaise sauce but use it as a base, add mustard or kimchi or soy sauce. These base products tend to be highly consistent and reliable, which makes it easy to add your own spin.”

Adam uses the example of adding sweet chilli, sour cream, roasted walnuts and pesto to a pumpkin soup base – “immediately it’s gone from consistent and reliable to elegant and with its own distinct flavour. The same is true with a dessert mousse or panna cotta mix – you can use that as a base, chop in some Toblerone, fold in an espresso shot and you’ve got a coffee mousse or a mocha dessert.

“Just try to customise each product as you go along – that shows your creativity, in that you’re not just buying stock product and using it as per the instructions.”

“For example you can create a whole range of sauces using your hollandaise base, so customers can choose their own flavour pathway.”

This also serves to extend the application of the base product on the menu: “You should be be looking for products that can be used in a multiplicity of ways. For example you can create a whole range of sauces using your hollandaise base, so customers can choose their own flavour pathway. Soups can become a base for risottos.

“Used this way, you’re driving the base product further and taking your menu to the next level. Whether it’s because of skills shortages in the kitchen or just because it’s a cost-effective way to get something exciting on the menu, a lot of chefs today are taking this approach.”

Adam also recommends digging around for other complementary ingredients that are readily available in your pantry. “This is the time where you can really start to play. For example spices are a terrific addition to a soup base. You probably wouldn’t use spices in a sauce base, you’d go with wet ingredients to assist with mouthfeel. But ingredients like cinnamon in a chocolate mousse will enrich the flavour profile.”

So how do you identify which are the best base products to use? Adam recommends doing some old-fashioned benchmarking. “There’s plenty of readymade gravies, sauces, soups and stocks on the market, so shop around, grab a few and do some side by side comparisons. As a base you want something that’s not overly flavoured, that has natural notes, and will work well with your other ingredients. You can take a beef gravy and add mushrooms and Worcestershire sauce and turn it into a Diane sauce. Get your team involved and then make sure your supplier has it in range, and if not ask why.

“So look at your ingredients and see where they’ll fit with your readymade base products – you might have truffles in season and ask, how can you extend those across the menu? Well, you could make a truffle hollandaise, you could do a pumpkin soup with truffle and goat’s cheese, a truffle mushroom  jus and for dessert a beetroot chocolate mousse with shaved truffle on top. In other words you’re suddenly using the one ingredient across four areas and with consistent, stable base products which you can rely upon. So using these base products really can heighten an ingredient’s versatility.”

Versatility is the key

Chef Peter Wright echoes Adam’s words. “One of my mantras is, if you’re buying something in you’ve got to be able to use it in more than one item on the menu. This way the menu planning becomes more of a creative aspect than the cooking itself – how can you stretch each ingredient further, how can you take existing meals and then repurpose them?

 “At the moment there are some terrific Indian flavoured pastes on the market – rogan josh, madras curry, butter chicken – and they come in 1 kilo pouches. So you take a kilo pouch of paste and add a kilo of chicken, and you’ve got 3 kilos of a meal. But how do you make it your own? You could sweeten it with mango, throw in some chopped fresh coriander, dress it with a herb yoghurt – that’s the creativity of each chef shining through in how the meal is finished.

“Most kitchens today are under financial pressure – the cost of running any foodservice business is high and the margins are so small that we have to be proactive about our use of ingredients.

Meeting quality & dietary expectations

At the Ary Toukley on the NSW Central Coast, Operations Manager Alex Patterson and his team use the one readymade Knorr gluten free gravy as a base for their full meat sauce range. “It’s a high quality product in itself and with the demand for gluten free, it’s just what we need,” Alex explains.

While the Ary’s chefs tend to make most of their soups from scratch, Alex says he’s been looking at readymade vegan soups as well as vegan dressings such as mayonnaise and aioli. “Again it’s a question of a product designed to meet customer dietary preferences,” he points out. “Birch & Waite make a terrific vegan aioli which we’ve used with tempura vegetables and the quality is terrific. They also have a Green Goddess herb dressing which is pretty sensational in a green salad.

“I’ve also had some samples of the recent Maggi products and they’re excellent – the quality is really strong for all these which makes them a great choice when you’re short on labour or prep time.”