Get Saucy: The Art Of Sauce Making

Summary

Podcast Summary: All Of It (WNYC)

Episode: Get Saucy: The Art Of Sauce Making

Date: March 7, 2024
Host: Kusha Navadar, in for Alison Stewart
Guest: Ashley Boyd, author of "Saucy: 50 Recipes for Drizzly, Dunkable, Go-To Sauces to Elevate Everyday Meals"

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Overview

This episode of "All Of It" dives into the world of sauce-making with author and food blogger Ashley Boyd. Centered around her new cookbook, "Saucy," the discussion reveals the transformative power of sauces in everyday cooking, from elevating simple dishes to providing endless culinary creativity. The episode is interactive, featuring listener calls and tips, and balances practical advice with cultural and personal reflections on food.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Why a Sauce-Focused Cookbook?

• Host Kusha Navadar introduces Ashley Boyd and frames the conversation as part of the show's "Food for Thought" series, which aims to inspire meal prep ideas for home cooks.
• Ashley Boyd explains her motivation:

  "You don't see... an entire book, like, with sauces, like, and that's it. So I thought that the idea of a cookbook full of sauces to kind of have is like a... kitchen toolbox... It's a way to elevate everyday meals... for home cooks, for busy moms, for regular folks, you know, who may have limited kitchen skills."
  (03:38)

The First Sauce: Comeback Sauce

• Ashley shares that the first sauce she learned was "comeback sauce," a staple in her native Jackson, Mississippi.

  "If Remoulade sauce, Thousand Island, ranch dressing, and barbecue sauce all had a baby, it would be comeback sauce." (04:45)

• She highlights its versatility:

  "It's a creamy sauce you can use on literally anything... my family's top request." (05:12)

Listener Q&A: Allium-Free Sauce Alternatives

• Lou from Rockland calls in, seeking onion and garlic substitutes due to allergies.
• Ashley suggests adding acidity (lemon juice), fresh herbs, and citrus zest:

  "There's not really... that onion flavor from anything else... Let's throw in some fresh herbs, some citrus juice... to balance the flavors of the sauce..." (06:19)

• Host summarizes:

  "So moving away from the onions and shallots and leaning into the citrus flavor profile." (07:14)

Comeback Sauce Recipe Details

• Ashley details her version's ingredients:
  • Mayonnaise, ketchup, sriracha (instead of chili sauce), Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, whole grain or Creole mustard, fresh parsley, minced garlic, smoked paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, black pepper.

  "You mix that together... That's all you do. Nothing fancy." (08:45)

• On Creole mustard:

  "It's like whole grain mustard, but... there's more spice... a stronger flavor." (09:06) "If you can find Zatarans Creole mustard, give it a try." (09:25)

Tips for Saucy Presentation

• Photo Styling & Home Plating:

  "You know, just pouring it, like a little drizzle on top of your dish makes it look beautiful... Or serve it in a ramekin on the side... There's no right or wrong answer." (10:16)

Highlight Recipe: Apricot Miso Glaze

• Ashley describes the recipe's profile:

  "It gives you that salty... fermented flavor from the miso paste... you combine those together with a little bit of vinegar... orange zest... and soy sauce. So you've got like the umami flavor, the sweet, the salty, the little bit of spice. Like, those flavors do a dance... It's so delicious on pork, chicken, anything." (11:15 - 12:24)

Rediscovering Ingredients: Miso

• Ashley shares that working on the book solidified her appreciation for miso:

  "It's a simple but... complex flavor that can elevate... many different dishes. So I really have been leaning into the miso now since this book." (12:33)

Community Tip: Asafoetida (Hing)

• Anju Lee from Queens calls in to suggest using hing (asafoetida) instead of garlic or onion:

  "A tiny pinch of it will give a pop of a garlic kind of taste, but... in Ayurvedic cooking, it's considered safer than onions and garlic for the health." (13:33 - 14:14)

On the Broader Meaning of "Saucy"

• The word "saucy" is discussed beyond food:

  "Saucy can mean so many different things... you can get saucy with food, and you can get saucy with your personality. It's kind of, like, spicy, you know... So it's a plethora of applications." (14:42)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Kitchen Utility:

  "It's a way to elevate those dishes. So I just thought that it was a really cool concept." – Ashley Boyd (04:12)

• On Versatility of Sauces:

  "With different sauces at your disposal, the same grilled chicken or veggies can become vastly different meals." – Kusha Navadar (01:42)

• On Presentation:

  "Not only does [sauce] add a flavor element, it can take a dish from... basic to beautiful... a simple drizzle... makes it look beautiful." – Ashley Boyd (10:16)

• On Miso's Power:

  "It's a game changer." – Kusha Navadar (13:07)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Introduction & cookbook concept – 01:42–04:38
• First sauce & comeback sauce explained – 04:41–05:44
• Onion/garlic-free sauce substitutions – 05:52–07:18
• Comeback sauce recipe breakdown – 07:24–09:06
• Presentation & plating tips – 10:16–11:06
• Apricot miso glaze discussion – 11:06–12:24
• Rediscovering miso – 12:24–13:07
• Community tip: hing/asafoetida – 13:33–14:19
• Conversation on the word "saucy" – 14:42–15:24

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Episode Takeaways

• Sauces are a simple way to transform meals without professional skills.
• Flexibility and creativity are encouraged—there's no "wrong" way to drizzle, dunk, or plate.
• Ingredients like miso, sriracha, and Creole mustard are affordable "game changers" for flavor.
• Cookbook "Saucy" focuses on accessibility for home cooks.
• Listener engagement brings new ideas, like using hing as a garlic/onion substitute.
• Saucy, whether in the kitchen or personality, means bold, creative, and a little bit fun.

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Ashley Boyd’s "Saucy" provides both technical know-how and playful creativity, inviting cooks of every level to experiment and enjoy the limitless world of sauces.

Transcript

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[Kusha Navadar]

This is all of it. I'm Kusha Navadar, in for Alison Stewart. Today and every Thursday, we're bringing you a culinary conversation to help you look ahead to your meal prep for the weekend. We call it Food for Thought. And today we're talking sauce. There's a new cookbook called Saucy 50 Recipes for Drizzly, Dunkable. Go to Sauces to Elevate Everyday Meals. Love that title. It shows you recipes for sweet and savory sauces, smooth glazes, and chunky salsas raw from the blender or simmered into flavorful unity on the stovetop. Cook and author Ashley Boyd, who's also founder of the food blog Pink Owl Kitchen. She makes the case that keeping sauces at the center of your kitchen can streamline your cooking. The idea is that with different sauces at your disposal, the same grilled chicken or veggies can become vastly different meals. So, listeners, let's get saucy. Ashley Boyd joins me now to talk about her new cookbook. Hey, Ashley.

[Anju Lee]

Hi.

[Ashley Boyd]

How are you today?

[Kusha Navadar]

Good. Thanks for joining us. And listeners, we want you to join us, too. Give us a call with your sauce making stories, your tips or questions for Ashley. Here's the number. You can call 21 to 433-9692, or you can text us at the same number. 212-433-WNYC. Or if you've stumbled on any creative or unusual ways to use sauces in your cooking, we're here for it. Or maybe you've had trouble with consistency or flavor in your past sauce attempts. We'll see if Ashley can help you out. It's 212-433-9692. Or, as always, you can hit us up on social. Our handle is llofitnyc. So Ashley lot books include sauces. Right? Why did you want to put sauces at the center of your cookbook?

[Ashley Boyd]

So this concept, I looked at it, I thought it was just, like, kind of out of the box. You know, you don't see a. Like you said an entire book, like, with sauces, like, and that's it. So I thought that the idea of a cookbook full of sauces to kind of have is like a, you know, keep it in your little kitchen toolbox in your back pocket to pull out when you can't think of another way to serve grilled chicken or, like, a sheet pan or roasted potatoes. You know what, Mom? Not again. You know, not again, Mom. It's just. It's a way to elevate everyday meals. And this is not for, you know, professional cooks, is for. For home cooks, for busy moms, for regular folks, you know, who may have limited kitchen skills. It's a way to elevate those dishes. So I just thought that it was a really cool concept. You know, I hadn't seen anything like it. I. It needs to be out there, you know, I. That's what I thought.

[Kusha Navadar]

What's the first sauce that you learned how to make?

[Ashley Boyd]

So comeback sauce.

[Kusha Navadar]

Oh, wow. I haven't. No.

[Ashley Boyd]

All right, so comeback sauce. This is how I like to describe it to people. Okay. You know what remulat sauce is Thousand Island. Think of Remy Lot sauce, Thousand island ranch dressing, and barbecue sauce all had a baby, it would be comeback sauce. This originated in my hometown of Jackson, Mississippi. It's a creamy sauce. It's got, like, some spicy notes, savory notes. It's a creamy sauce you can use on literally anything. And it's one of the first sauces I remember having. It's at every restaurant, like, in the south, just about. Like, if you order a side of French fries, I'll say, hey, you want some Comeback sauce with that. So I was like, this sauce is delicious. I want to make it. And I kind of just used like, you know, what I thought the sauce was made with and I created my own little version at home. And then I continued to make it and came, you know, it developed into the recipe I use today, which is like my family's top request. Whenever I make anything, it's come back soft.

[Kusha Navadar]

So we've got a caller who's ready to ask you a question. Ashley, we've got Lou in Rockland. Lou, hi, welcome to the show.

[Lou]

Good afternoon. Thank you for the show. I will be contributing today. Question. I need a substitute for onion or garlic in any and all sauces. I'm highly allergic to garlic and onion. Tremendous pain because of the sulfurs or whatever they are in there. Doctor said it's just normal for me. And can you help me?

[Kusha Navadar]

Lou, thank you so much for that call. Ashley, what do you think?

[Ashley Boyd]

Okay, so substitute for onion and garlic if you're highly allergic. We can't do shallots. We can't do anything like that. Just add, let's add some more acidity by adding some squeeze, extra squeeze of fresh lemon juice or something like that. Because we can't do any of like the onion powders or anything. Let's add more. Let's see here. I would say definitely some more citrus. Let's substitute some more citrus juice, citrus zest, some fresh herbs. There's not really, you're not going to get that, that onion flavor from anything else. So yeah, let's, let's throw in some fresh herbs, some citrus juice that'll give you that acidity that you're looking for and it'll balance the flavors of the sauce without you having to deal with any of the consequences of your allergies.

[Kusha Navadar]

So moving away from the onions and shallots and leaning into the citrus flavor profile.

[Ashley Boyd]

Yeah, yeah, for sure. It'll change the flavor a little bit. Sure. But it'll still give you that, that zing that you're looking for.

[Kusha Navadar]

Nice. Yeah, it's creative. I like it. And Lou, thank you again for calling. I hope that that was helpful. I want to actually if we could circ back to comeback sauce because I'm still super engaged on this. Are you willing to share the ingredients to come back sauce?

[Ashley Boyd]

Oh, for sure. Let's do it. Okay, so it's a mayonnaise based sauce. It starts with some mayonnaise and what some of the ingredients, I'm about to say, some Mississippians would say no, that's, that doesn't go and come back sauce. But, hey, this is my recipe. So mayonnaise, I use mayonnaise, ketchup. Basically all comeback sauces start with that. Then I do something a little different. Most comeback sauces, they use chili sauce. I use sriracha. It just, to me, I just like. I like the extra little kick from the sriracha Worcestershire sauce, which adds, like, a delicious umami flavor that, like, you know, anchovy kind of fermented flavor. It's delicious. You've got some fresh lemon, lemon juice, whole grain mustard. If you have access to Creole mustard, I highly suggest trying that. It's something you find commonly in the South. I'm not so sure about in the New York area. But whole grain mustard, some fresh chopped parsley. We've got fresh minced garlic, and then some seasonings. I use smoked paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, and a little bit of salt. And freshly cracked black pepper.

[Kusha Navadar]

Oh, wow.

[Ashley Boyd]

And you mix that together. Nothing. You just mix it together. That's all you do. Nothing fancy.

[Kusha Navadar]

And we'll try to put a list of those ingredients, if it's okay with you, Ashley, on our social, in case folks have missed it out. Is that all right?

[Ashley Boyd]

Absolutely.

[Kusha Navadar]

Wonderful. Yeah. And, you know, question that I had about that. You mentioned Creole mustard, right. What's the difference between Creole mustard and other kinds of mustard?

[Ashley Boyd]

So Creole mustard, it's like whole grain mustard, but it's got. It's got more like. I don't even know what the word is. Twang, maybe. I know that there's more spice. It's like there's some added spice in there, maybe from some cayenne pepper, and it's just got. It's a stronger flavor.

[Kusha Navadar]

Wonderful.

[Ashley Boyd]

It's made by Zatarans. I was trying to think of the brand. Zatarans makes it. Yeah. So if you can find Zatarans Creole mustard, give it a try. You're gonna be hooked. You probably can order it on Amazon. If you can't find it at a grocery store locally, try Amazon.

[Kusha Navadar]

Well, you know, if there is any city in the world where you can find a lot of stuff, it might be New York City.

[Ashley Boyd]

It's New York.

[Kusha Navadar]

It's New York. Yeah.

[Ashley Boyd]

Right. So I'm sure you can find it somewhere.

[Kusha Navadar]

If anyone knows, listening right now, where you can find Creole mustard, please text us. Call in. We would love to know so that we can try some of this comeback sauce. I want to move, if it's okay, into the book itself, specifically the photos. And there's a Question here. For advice that I would love. I love the photos in the book. Sauce gets a close up photo of the way it's drizzled and spread in a fancy way, like what you might see on, on a cooking show. Can you give us any presentation tips for plating these sauces so they taste good and they look good?

[Ashley Boyd]

Okay, so that's the thing about like a sauce, right? Not only does it add a flavor element, it can take a dish from like, you know, basic to, to beautiful to pretty. So a simple, like now these, this is not like a super, like, culinary, like, correct book. You know, it's, it's, it's for home cooks, like I mentioned. So a simple drizzle of a sauce on top of, you know, your grilled salmon, or smear it, you can put it on a spoon and smear it on the plate so that when you take a bite with your fork, you can kind of like, you know, go across the sauce with it or dip it into the sauce. Yeah. Serve it on the side. Put a little ramekin of it on the side, you know, so you can dip it. I mean, there's, there's no right or wrong answer here. You know, literally like just pouring it, like a little drizzle on top of your dish makes it look beautiful.

[Kusha Navadar]

So, yeah, speaking of some of those dishes, there's also an apricot miso glaze recipe that you have on there. Can you walk us through that one? Because that one stuck out to me.

[Ashley Boyd]

So that's, that's another one of my favorites. I probably can say that about every recipe in the book. That's one of my favorites. That's one of my favorites. But the apricot, yes, the apricot miso glaze, it's, it gives you that like, salty kind of the fermented flavor from the miso paste, which is just a fermented soybean paste. Right. And then you mix it with the, the apricot glaze, which is sweet. You know, it's a, it's a sweet fruit. And so you combine those together with a little bit of vinegar. There's rice vinegar in the sauce. There's a, a little more, there's sriracha in that sauce as well. I love sriracha. If you'll see. I, I, I include it in several of the sauces. And then you've got orange zest. So like brighten the sauce up so you've got the citrus zest. And then there is soy sauce. So you've got like the umami flavor, the sweet, the salty, the little bit of spice. Like, those flavors do a dance that is, like, unlike anything else. And it's so delicious on pork. Like pork chops, pork tenderloin, chicken, anything. Like, I made a wrap the other day and put some on there. It's just. It's good on everything.

[Kusha Navadar]

While you were writing this book, was there a ingredient that you discovered or maybe rediscovered that you thought, wow, that's adding a lot?

[Ashley Boyd]

I won't say discovered, but probably. And we happen to be on this recipe, probably the miso. I mean, I had it before. You know, I've used it before. But incorporating it, like, into this sauce and just realizing that there are, like, so many ways to use it and that it's, like, such a. It's a simple but, like, complex flavor that can elevate, like, you know, so many different dishes. So I really have been leaning into the miso now since this book.

[Kusha Navadar]

One of our producers just said that miso has been revolutionary for them as well, which I just want to point out.

[Ashley Boyd]

You know, it's a game changer.

[Kusha Navadar]

It's a game changer. Much like sriracha or Creole mustard. Like, there's some. Okay, yeah, yeah. Okay. And I point out for listeners, we have that miso apricot glaze recipe on our website as well, so you can check that out if you'd like.

[Ashley Boyd]

Awesome.

[Kusha Navadar]

Before we are, you know, wrapping up here, one question that I had, or. Actually, we've got a caller on line three that I'd love to squeeze in real quick. Anju Lee from Queens. Hi.

[Anju Lee]

Hi. Yes, I just wanted to offer something for the caller who is allergic to onions and garlic. One other option besides a very excellent idea that your guest gave was king, which is also called asafoetida, and it's used a lot in Indian cooking. And a tiny. And you can get it in Indian stores or online. And a tiny pinch of it will give a pop of a garlic kind of taste, but it doesn't. In Ayurvedic cooking, it's considered safer than onions and garlic for the health.

[Kusha Navadar]

Could you repeat that one more time for us? Because that sounds great. What is the ingredient?

[Anju Lee]

Yeah, okay. It's called. The common name is Hing H, like Harry. I n g, like George.

[Kusha Navadar]

Got it.

[Anju Lee]

And you can get it at any Indian grocery store.

[Kusha Navadar]

Wonderful. Anjuli. Thank you so much. And Lou from Rockland, I hope that you heard that. Wonderful. Thanks so much, Ashley. You know, we've got about a minute left. I'm just wondering before we run out of time, Saucy has expanded beyond its culinary roots as a word, when you're not talking about food, what do you mean when you call something saucy? And why do you think saucy has come to mean what it does?

[Ashley Boyd]

So that's funny that you say that, because when I got approached, you know, about this book idea, and I was told the concept accept and. And, you know, I was like, you know, I'm a little saucy myself, so I feel like this is a perfect fit. You know, saucy can mean so many different things. You'll hear, like, a young kid say, hey, you're dripping sauce. You know, it's like. It just means, like, you know, cool, like, kind of, like swagger, you know, that type of thing. So you can get saucy with food, and you can get saucy with your personality. It's kind of, like, spicy, you know. Oh, that's a little spicy. Like, you know, that's a spicy conversation. That's a saucy conversation. Yeah. So it's a plethora of applications.

[Kusha Navadar]

Absolutely. Ashley Boyd is cook and creator of the blog Pink Owl Kitchen, and she just wrote saucy 50 recipes for drizzly, Dunkable Go to Sauces to Elevate Everyday Meals. Ashley, thanks so much.

[Ashley Boyd]

Thank you for having me.

[McDonald's Promoter]

I'mma put you on, nephew.

[Kusha Navadar]

All right.

[Ashley Boyd]

Welcome to McDonald's. Can I take your order, miss?

[McDonald's Promoter]

I've been hitting up McDonald's for years. Now it's back. We need snack wraps. What's a snack wrap? It's the return of something great. Snack wrap is back.

[State Farm Business Announcer]

If your small business has a problem, you could say, just my luck. But you should say, like a good.

[State Farm Announcer]

Neighbor, State Farm is there, and we'll.

[State Farm Business Announcer]

Help get you back in business. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.