Instead of plain, broiled salmon, turn out this Salmon in Scandinavian Dill Sauce in 10 minutes or less.
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KAREN HOCHMAN is Editorial Director of THE NIBBLE.
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April 2008
Updated May 2008 |
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Good Clean Food Simmer Sauces
Fancy Meals In A Minute—Almost
CAPSULE REPORT: Cook fast, cook good, with Good Clean Food simmer sauces. Just pour the contents into a frying pan, add fish, shrimp, chicken breasts or pork, and simmer for 10 minutes. Take a bite: You’ve got truly delicious and complex-flavored food. The all-natural product line is made from top ingredients, and truly tastes like “good, clean food.” The cider comes from an orchard in western Maine, the state where Good Clean Foods is produced. The chicken bones that make the stock come from Bell & Evans chickens. The mustard in the Tarragon Simmer Sauce is made at Raye’s Mustard Mill, North America’s last remaining traditional, stone-ground mustard mill founded in 1889. The Kalamata olives are from Divina, one of our favorite importers of quality Greek foods. There are currently six sauces: three for chicken or pork (Cacciatore, French Tarragon, Maine Cider) and three for fish or seafood (Creole, Mediterranean, Scandinavian Dill). Most flavors are gluten free.
Good Clean Food wants to make your life easier. Take a jar of their simmer sauce, add your own protein (chicken, fish, shrimp, pork) and in as little as 7 minutes, voilà: a delicious dish is ready. One might think you’d been cooking for hours.
Simmer sauces are the newest category of sauces to appear on the scene. They began to proliferate in the American market several years ago, to make the preparation of Indian dishes easy. Instead of dealing with a multitude of ingredients and taking hours to blend them into a sauce, one needed just open the jar and simmer chicken or vegetables in the ingredients. In 2005, Vino de Milo was a pioneer in the launch of three tomato-based simmer sauces, Bombay Cabernet, North African Pinot Noir and North African Pinot Noir—Spicy. They were a NIBBLE Top Pick Of The Week, but were too cutting edge for the market.
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Add sauce, add protein and simmer for 15 minutes or less. It’s that easy. |
Since then, the demand has grown even greater for prepared meals and component solutions for busy people (or those who don’t like to cook) to make complex-flavored dishes effortlessly. Simmer sauces meet the latter need, and also provide the satisfaction of cooking, filling the kitchen with “home-cooking” aromas. As more families seek solutions for quality, easy-to-prepare meals, the category should become a hot one.
Good Clean Food simmer sauces are certainly heating things up. Convenience and flavor are qualities that are sought universally, but these days, label-readers also want the best ingredients. Recipes need to be well crafted; the flavor should come from quality vegetables and herbs, not sugar and fat. Good Clean Food, as its name suggests, makes all-natural, unprocessed, nutritious simmer sauces, hand-crafted with the goal of offering “quality in a jar.”
Simmer Sauces Overview
 As everyone who cooks knows, it takes time to make a good sauce. It can take up to 14 hours of shopping, chopping and stock-making to produce the slow-cooked stocks that are the base of Good Clean Foods simmer sauces. But then, in just 7 to 10 minutes for seafood, and 15 to 20 minutes for chicken (bone-in takes longer), you’ve simmered your way to a lovely supper.
The fresh-made products, which need to be refrigerated, are currently available in six crowd-pleasing flavors. The ingredients are stellar, with every ingredient selected to add flavor: sea salt instead of regular table salt, chicken stocks made from not just any chicken bones, but from Bell & Evans chickens, red or white wine and so forth. We love the label design: A plump chicken or fish tells you what the sauce pairs with (see the photo at right).
Chicken Simmer Sauces
Ordinary chicken emerges from the pan enrobed in layers of flavor from Good Clean Food simmer sauces.
- Cacciatore Simmer Sauce. Sweet tomatoes, red onions, carrots, cellery, yellow bell peppers and mushrooms are accented with garlic, marjoram and red wine in this Italian classic. Get out the pasta, make some garlic bread or large croutons (thin slices of baguette toasted with garlic butter) and have an Italian-theme dinner. “Cacciatore” is the Italian word for hunter, and this dish is a “hunter’s stew.” So feel free to move beyond chicken to rabbit, boar or whatever you’ve tracked down. Gluten free. Suggested sides: linguine or fettuccine, steamed zucchini. Optional garnish: fresh marjoram, thyme or rosemary sprig.
- French Tarragon Simmer Sauce (photo at right). Redolent of fresh tarragon and Dijon mustard, this velvety sauce looks creamy, but there’s no cream—just chicken stock enriched with carrots, onions and celery. Contains wheat. Suggested sides: long grain and wild rice, and green beans or sliced, steamed carrots (toss with butter and a dash of nutmeg). Optional garnishes: fresh tarragon, lemon peel.
- Maine Cider Simmer Sauce. This lively sweet-and-sour sauce adds the flavor of apple cider to chicken or pork, layering tangy flavors with red and golden raisins, parsley, sage. The company tasted 12 ciders, made with McIntosh apples from orchards in western Maine, before picking the one that was best for the recipe. Gluten free. Suggested sides: baked sweet potatoes, Brussels sprouts. Optional garnishes: fresh sage, apple slices.
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Chicken in French Tarragon Simmer Sauce. Everything you see can be ready in 15 minutes. |
Seafood Simmer Sauces
The company suggests fish such as halibut, monkfish, salmon, swordfish and tuna with these sauces. However, the simmer sauces are so flavorful that we personally find it better to use more value-oriented fish such as skate and tilapia, which are half the price. (By the same token, a great piece of halibut, monkfish, swordfish or tuna has such rich flavors, we’d personally use a simpler seasoning—but they certainly can be cooked with these sauces.) Cooked in a Good Clean Food simmer sauce, any fish emerges moist and tender, and melts in your mouth.
- Creole Simmer Sauce. In a combination of fish and chicken stocks, tomatoes are slow-stewed with poblano chiles, garlic, celery, onions and scallions and finished with a dash of Tabasco. Yet the sauce isn’t hot or spicy, just flavorful with a slight peppery accent. Use it with your favorite fish, or with shrimp. Gluten free. (Photo at right.) Suggested sides: rice with lemon, butter and thyme; sautéed fresh greens (broccoli rabe, kale, spinach). Optional garnishes: fresh parsley, trimmed whole scallion.
- Mediterranean Simmer Sauce. Garlic, onions, lemon, Maine clam broth and white wine unite with tomatoes, Kalamata olives, Italian capers and herbs for a tangy Greek flavor. Gluten free. A great sauce for any white fish (try the skate or tilapia). Suggested sides: Couscous, steamed spinach (sprinkle with crumbled feta). Optional garnishes: fresh parsley, Kalamata olives, lemon slices or wedges.
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Shrimp cooked in Creole Simmer Sauce is special enough for company—and since it takes just seven minutes to prepare, you have plenty of time to spend with your guests. |
- Scandinavian Dill Simmer Sauce. This sauce provides a nice accent to salmon, although any white fish would benefit equally. The velvety sauce is a blend of shiitake mushrooms, leeks and shallots, accented with dill, lemon and Chablis. Suggested sides: boiled new potatoes with parsley, fresh green beans with butter and lemon. Optional garnishes: fresh dill sprig, lemon slices.
Try Good Clean Food and see how easy it is to put good, fresh-tasting food on your table.
GOOD CLEAN FOOD SIMMER SAUCES
CHICKEN SIMMER SAUCES: Cacciatore, French Tarragon, Maine Cider
SEAFOOD SIMMER SAUCES: Creole, Mediterranean, Scandinavian Dill
- 12.5-Ounce Jars
Individual Flavors Or
Samplers |
3 Jars
$21.00
6 Jars
$42.00
While $7.00 may seem pricey for a jar that cooks a pound of chicken or seafood, the contents are top-quality, healthy ingredients that would cost as much if you made them from scratch—but so much more convenient!
Purchase online* at GoodCleanFood.com.
There is a store locator on the website. |
Some of the Good Clean Food simmer sauces.
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*Prices and product availability are verified at publication but are subject to change. Shipping is additional. These items are offered by a third party and THE NIBBLE has no relationship with them. This link to purchase is provided as a reader convenience.
Lifestyle Direct, Inc. All rights reserved. Images are the copyright of their individual owners.
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