About

I'm only a moderately passable cook. However, I can dish up a different meal each night, and although I prefer the kitchen be handled by someone else, I've never been known to refuse my own cooking.

Given the sheer number of friends and acquaintances who can't boil water, however, and consequently waste away expensively on microwaveble meals, instant noodles, burger-chain rubbish and take-outs, I consider this blog sterling social service. Ergo:

Sauce, the Food Blog

Protecting Finances and Stomach Linings Globally since 2009.

So, What Beast IS This?
#1
Although the URL says "food blog", this is really a recipe blog. I post as I cook, and I cook 'em as I find 'em. The only things in my grocery basket are cheap, fresh, unprocessed local ingredients, which change as I travel (but always include more vegetables than meat, and always a bit of fish and fruits). I don't hold with special diet and 'health' food, preferring instead to feed my body things it actually knows how to process.

#2
Since I estimate on instinct, I cannot provide the exact amount of oil, water, flour, butter and so on. Please use your own judgement and keep your own tastes in mind. You might even want to substitute some of my basic ingredients with fancier ones or elaborate the process a bit more--after all, not everyone lives on straitened means.

#3
Finally, I write for my friends in India and abroad, so the language might be a bit shaken and stirred. If you don't understand a particular word, it doesn't matter--there's a translation in the recipe somewhere. Go with the flow, and everything will fall into its own delicious place. Eventually.

And What is it Not?

Having established that this blog has a misleading title, is cheap, revels in its own inaccuracy and has dastardly plans of making people eat vegetables, we come upon the inevitable: what is this blog, in the general scheme of food blogs, not?

This blog is not fancy. It is not sexy. The knowledge of this blog will not enhance your strike rate with desirable people. The author of this blog does not understand calorie-counting. This blog, being a non-entity written by a non-entity, will never make buckets -- or even teaspoons -- of money from advertisements. Consequently, this blog is unlikely to receive chain-store sponsorship-cuddles, preventing it from giving away dressy, expensive kitcheware on first Sundays of all months beginning with the letter Q.

The Power Factor: 

Also, Sauce! believes in an energy- and fashion-efficient kitchen, simply because aforementioned author is not used to anything else. Not for us the gloriously decorated, gadget-rich, state-of-the-art, expert-installed kitchens. Here, all behind-the-scenes washing-up is done by hand, using minimum water and soap. Unless I'm baking desserts or savoury pies, I tend to use the gas stoves for grilling and broiling. The difference in power consumption is astonishing, and it's a pity it isn't advertised more. Well, good reasons for that, I suppose.

Utensils:

All utensils are made of unpretty but dead practical steel or cast-iron, with the occasional inexpensive earthenware for baking or microwaving. The list of kitchen requisites are comfortably covered by: wok, skillet, saucepan, metal strainer, pressure cooker, mortar-and-pestle or a basic mixie, good sharp knife, wooden spatula, perforated metal spatula (a speciality of cultures that deep-fry often and don't use kitchen towels to soak excess oil. I have recently been told it's called a 'slotted spoon'), and a cutting board+potato peeler.

Now that you know our darkest secrets, go along and have a scrumptious time... and watch out for green chilies.