How to pick the right sauce for your roast dinner

However succulent your centrepiece, what will make each mouthful absolutely worthwhile is the sauce with which you serve it. Each cut of meat has its steadfast sidekick – mint sauce with lamb, apple sauce with pork, horseradish with beef, cranberry with turkey and gravy with, well, anything – but things need not be set in stone. The whole point of a condiment is to enhance the flavour and texture of the main event, and there are so many ways of doing that: it’s possibly where the culinary endeavour is at its most creative. Here are a few subsitutes for those trad, shop-bought jars ...

With pork, you want sweetness combined with something tart to cut through the richness of the meat. Fruit ketchups have, since medieval times, been used to this end, and rhubarb is a particularly inspired choice, bringing a pop of pink to your plate. Richard Turner in his book Hog (Mitchell Beazley) has an excellent recipe for a rhubarb ketchup that combines the pink stems of forced rhubarb with cider vinegar, sugar, fresh ginger, cloves, cinnamon, orange juice and seasoning (see picture, far left).

Much like pork, turkey flesh also sits comfortably with a fruity sharpness. Why not switch your all-American cranberry sauce for a freshly foraged hedgerow jelly? Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall makes his with blackberries, rosehips, haws, sloes, elderberries or rowan berries and an equal measure of crab or cooking apples, to ensure a good set.

If it’s beef you’re having, you’ll want nose-tingling piquancy. Try switching your trad horseradish for wasabi mayonnaise. Darina Allen adds a flourish of parsley as well, for extra freshness.

While most often used as a dip for crudités or a toast topping, a tub of anchoïade will serve a roast handsomely. Turner, in Hog, pairs it with slow-roast pork, but it would do your roast lamb just as proud – lamb and anchovy are, after all, an enduring combo. Follow Clotilde Dusoulier’s simple recipe for this Provençale paste, which combines the anchovies with garlic, red wine vinegar and olive oil.

And lastly, in place of (or, frankly, as well as) the onion gravy – without which most roasts would quite simply be lost – keep your vegetarian tablemates happy with a boat of beurre blanc. This French butter sauce can be a little tricky to make, but Jamie Oliver gives an easy method using a shallot, some dry white wine and white wine vinegar, and a whole lot of butter.

The intriguing bowlful: Cauliflower and yoghurt soup with sunflower seeds, dill and brown butter

Serves 4
80g butter
1 small onion, finely diced
1 whole cauliflower
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp each of freshly toasted, ground cumin and coriander seeds
1 level tbsp cornflour
2 egg yolks
500ml plain whole yoghurt
450ml of the boiling water used to blanch the cauliflower
Juice from ½ lemon
1 small bunch of dill, chopped
50g sunflower seeds, toasted in a dry pan
Chilli flakes, to taste
Salt and black pepper

1 Put 30g butter into a moderately hot pan and heat until it foams. Add the onion, season with a little salt and cook over a moderate heat until soft and sweet – about 10 minutes.

2 Break or cut the cauliflower into small florets and blanch in plenty of boiling water for 3-5 minutes until tender.

3 Add the garlic, spices and blanched cauliflower to the fried onion and continue to cook until soft and nearly all broken down – about 15–20 minutes.

4 Meanwhile, in a bowl, beat the cornflour into the egg yolks, followed by the yoghurt. Set the mixture aside.

5 Turn down the heat under the pan to low and pour in the yoghurt mix, stirring well. You do not want the soup mixture to boil or the yoghurt will curdle.

6 Warm the soup gently for 2–3 minutes. Add some still-hot cauliflower water to thin the soup if necessary. I like to serve this soup fairly thick, almost porridge-like in consistency. Check the seasoning and adjust if necessary.

7 To make the brown butter, melt the remaining 50g butter in a frying pan. Continue to cook the butter until brown sediments begin to form on the bottom of the pan. Scrape at these with a metal spoon and continue until the sediments (curds) are nut brown and the butter is bubbling. Squeeze half a lemon into the hot butter.

8 To serve, pour the soup into bowls and top with the chopped dill, sunflower seeds, chilli flakes to taste and a spoonful of brown butter per bowlful.

Turkish flatbread-style pizza recipes

Serves 2-4 (makes 2)
For the base
160g self-raising flour
150g Greek yoghurt
¼ tsp salt
≈ tsp ground cumin (optional)

For the topping
Red pesto or tomato paste, to spread
Jarred or tinned olives, artichokes, roasted red peppers (or anything else in a jar or tin that takes your fancy)
Chargrilled slices of aubergine, creme fraiche, sour cream, crumbled feta or mozzarella, salami or other cured meat, toasted pine nuts, chopped parsley and basil

1 In a bowl, mix together self-raising flour, yoghurt, cumin and salt. Knead in the bowl until it forms a dough (it should be firm enough to hold together). Split in two equal-sized portions, then roll each out into a thin (but not wafer-thin) disc large enough to fit in your nonstick frying pan.

2 Heat the pan on a medium-high heat then add the rolled out dough. Cook for around 5 minutes on each side, making sure it doesn’t burn (turn down, if necessary). You can add a tiny splash of oil, if needed.

3 Remove from the heat, and place on a large baking tray before adding your toppings of choice.

4 Bake for 5-10 minutes at 200C/400F/gas mark 6 until done.