Foodie files

TV chef James Martin shares his culinary secrets with Weekend

CARVE IT UP

Portioning a roast chicken is a good skill to have. A medium-sized chicken serves four, with one piece of dark meat and one of white each. Remove each leg where the thigh is attached then cut through that joint. Remove the breasts and cut in half. It looks impressive but it’s simple, and so much better than hacking the hell out of it.

TOP SAUCE

To make a hollandaise sauce for fish or steak, put a chopped shallot and a few peppercorns with a glug of vinegar and/or white wine in a pan and reduce to a small amount of intense liquid. Melt 125g (4½oz) butter then cool slightly. Whisk 2 egg yolks and gradually add the butter, stirring, then the liquid from earlier, to taste.

BASE NOTES

Hollandaise is a base, or mother, sauce. Add tarragon to make béarnaise. Add mint instead and you have paloise, which is amazing with lamb. Or add blood orange juice and it’s a maltaise, great with fish, salads and roast veg. The cook book Le Répertoire De La Cuisine, first published in 1914, is like a dictionary of sauces and is well worth a read.

BEST DRESSED

My go-to accompaniment with salads is always a classic French dressing. To make this you need to whisk up about 3tbsp ordinary vegetable oil (not olive oil), with 1tbsp white wine vinegar, a little water, 1tsp mustard and an egg yolk, adjusting the amounts to taste. If you’d like to use olive oil as a dressing, accompany it with a decent balsamic vinegar, or try sherry vinegar, which is great because it has quite a mild taste.