Here at BrandAlley HQ, conversation regularly revolves around food. With his application to ‘Come Dine with Me’ almost complete, we turned to Marketing Martin to find out his favourite super-speedy-supper suggestion. Over to you, Martin…

This white sauce recipe is a simple and tasty addition to your culinary repertoire. Once you have the basic technique mastered, you can adapt it for practically any occasion – and it refrigerates quite nicely for a day or two, so you can prepare it in advance if you’re expecting company. I’ve never tried freezing it as it doesn’t last long enough to try in our house!

A lot of the recipes you will read for this can sound daunting, as they talk about constant stirring, and a lot of attention to detail. It’s nowhere near as involved as they make it sound. The basic ingredients are a ratio of 50-50-500.

50g plain flour

50g butter

500ml milk

What type of milk you use isn’t as important as you’d think, but I find using real butter yields better results.

Get a medium sized non-stick saucepan and pop the butter and flour in over a medium heat. It’s normally at this time you’re told to stir vigorously. The reason why you’re told to do this is to ensure that the flour is cooked, and nothing burns. As long as you control the temperature, and give it a quick stir to make sure the now-melted butter and flour are thoroughly mixed, you’re on track. Leave that for about five minutes, and give it a stir every now and then if you’re a fidget. Now you can add your milk, as fast or as slowly as you like, stirring as you go until it’s a smooth consistency. Then let the heat work its magic. Every minute or so, give it another gentle stir. You want it to get hot and thicken, but not boil. Depending on your cooker this can take anything up to 10 minutes. The first couple of times you make it, you’ll want to check it – just dip a clean spoon into the sauce. If it coats the back of the spoon – you’ve made it!

 

That’s the basics – now you can take it and make it your own. Try infusing the milk with an onion and some bay leaves for a lovely savoury sauce? Or maybe replacing some of the milk with single cream for an extra-luxurious twist.

My favourite way to have this is creamy mushroom pasta sauce. I use infused milk, and a decent grating of my favourite cheese, before adding it to lightly sautéed mushrooms & garlic and cooked pasta. It tastes a lot better than any dish that takes 20 minutes to prepare should!

I’ve always believed that to get the very best, you need to use the very best. Meyer & Prestige offer milkpans that are ideal for this recipe. There’s up to 55% off today so a really savvy buy if you plan to entertain soon.