product focus
sauces & ingredients
Kitchen kickstarters
From East African and Peruvian sauces to veal stock and restaurant-quality jus,
there are plenty of interesting new launches for home cooks, not to mention
plenty of European and Asian flavours. LYNDA SEARBY reports.
Organico has acted on an ex-Harvey Nichols
buyer’s comments about there being a shortage of
good ambient pestos, and launched a vegan pesto
(RRP £2.95). After much investigation, the London
distributor found a Genoese producer of raw pesto
using fresh organic ingredients. Substituting tofu
for cheese made it into a vegan pesto.
www.organicorealfoods.com
Essence of Morocco is
targeting the gifting market with
its new Moroccan Gourmet Spice
Set (RRP £22.85), which contains
six spice mixes for authentic
Moroccan cooking, including
ras el hanout, hot harissa, lamb
tagine and chermoula fish &
seafood.
Long the preserve of the
professional kitchen, veal stock
looks set to become a familiar
ingredient in home kitchens too,
following the launch of a 400g retail
pouch (RRP £2.50) from Potts.
The Newbury-based producer
says the stock, a key ingredient in
French recipes, elevates the flavours
of other ingredients rather than
dominating them.
www.esofmo.com
www.pottspartnership.co.uk
Portuguese dried seasonings
specialist Cantinho das
Aromáticas has created four
blends for boosting home cooking.
The blends for poultry, meat, fish
and salads are not yet on sale in the
UK. RRP €3.50 for 20g.
www.cantinhodasaromaticas.pt
Welsh restaurant-cum-producer
The Coconut Kitchen has
launched its own brand of
coconut milk (RRP £1.99 for
400ml) and two new curry
pastes. The Thai yellow curry and
Thai red curry pastes both have
an RRP of £3.99 for a 125g glass
jar.
www.thecoconutkitchen.co.uk
Putting a Scottish twist on an Italian
classic, Trotter’s has created
a rocket & pumpkin seed pesto
that is nut-free and vegetarian.
Rocket replaces basil, pumpkin
seeds replace pine nuts, Perthshiregrown rapeseed oil replaces olive
oil and – instead of Parmesan – the
condiment company has used
crowdie made by the Connage
Highland Dairy. It comes in 280g jars
with an RRP of £4.50.
www.trottersindependent.co.uk
Following her collaboration
with chef Jacob Kennedy on
The Geometry of Pasta
cookbook, designer Caz
Hildebrand has launched a pasta
and sauce brand that is all about
matching the pasta shape to the
right sauce. Made in Tuscany, the
slow-dried, bronze-drawn pasta
comes in two ranges – white
label for everyday and black
label for special occasions – and
is available to the trade via
Etruscany.
www.etruscany.co.uk
A new start-up claims to be the first producer to
offer a “restaurant worthy” jus to home cooks,
saving them the effort of “meticulous and precision
simmering and reduction”. Made from British beef
bones, Just Jus’ MooJus (RRP £3.90) is described
as “thick and glossy with a lighter rounded flavour”.
So far, it is only on sale in farm shops in Surrey and
Hampshire, but founders Joseph and Kay Docherty
have plans to extend their retail customer base.
www.twitter.com/thejusco
The Good Salt Company has
three new salts that it says can lift
the flavours of cooking without any
chopping, crushing or de-seeding.
The garlic salt, chilli salt and four
peppercorn salt are based on
Himalayan crystal salt and have an
RRP of £3.85 (80/85g).
www.goodsaltcompany.com
Kwan’s Kitchen has drawn
on its experience in the Chinese
restaurant trade to create a range
of Chinese stir fry meal kits. The
four kits – sweet chilli, blackbean
& garlic, spicy szechuan and
aromatic curry – all have an
RRP of £2.75 and contain three
components: seasoning blend,
stir fry paste and chilli oil.
www.kwanskitchen.co.uk
The four founders of Swaadish
brand have used the cooking
skills learned from their mothers,
grandmothers and extended family
from the Gujarat region of India to
develop a six-strong range of sauces.
The line-up consists of fenugreek &
pomegranate, ginger curry, Kalonji,
Kashmiri chilli & mustard, mint curry
and coconut curry. All have an RRP
of £3.95.
www.swaadish.com
Vol.16 Issue 9 · October 2015
31