The way to a man's heart is through his stomach. if you want to please your man, then stock up on the richt ingredients and half your job is done

Do you squirm when your friend equates basil with tulsi leaves or someone tries to pass off garden ginger as galingale? A few years ago you would fill your suitcases with dips, sauces and dressings while on a trip abroad. But now it's all easily available at the hypermarkets and supermarkets in town.

The key to making a good Italian meal starts right from the grocery store. Walk into Spar, Namdharis or Maison Des Gourmets and you can get your hands on cooking sauces such as teriyaki, sweet and sour, barbecue sauce, sesame soy dressing and a wide variety of gourmet and ready-to-eat sauces and dips. Try the homemade Italian pasta sauces made from authentic southern Italian recipes with garden grown vegetables, herbs and seasonings, besides a large selection of hot, spicy, cajun, creole, and ethnic gourmet sauces. Use on sandwiches, as an appetizer, a salad dressing, or marinade in cooking and grilling. MDG stocks neat racks of mustard sauces like the fig mustard sauce, and other exotic flavours like pear, clementine, apricot, cherry and white melon mostarda.

No longer will earnest chefs, amateur or professional, have to scuttle around looking for undesirable substitutes for handmade pasta, truffled extra virgin olive oil, aromatized vinegars, basil mustard and dips.

Easy Life brand of dips (all for Rs 75 for 425 gm bottle) stocks Mexican salsa, green chilli garlic, pasta and pizza sauces, tartare sauce, jalapeno sauce, English mustard, but what we liked was the ginger-garlic sauce. Fun Food brand sells cheese and chilli dip, garlic dip and mayo dip (Rs 72 for 300 gm bottle), Sacla Italia brand has rocket pesto dip, olive and tomato dip, coriander pesto and sun-dried tomatoes, in the range of Rs 280 and 450.
u00a0


Some of the exotic ones are from Epicure-Cranberry sauce Rs 225 for 205 gms, which goes well with chicken and pork. Barilla has tomato sauces with olives, zucchini and aubergine sauces (Rs 235 for 400 gms). Also pick up roasted capsicum pesto, semi-dried tomato, pesto, green and black olive pesto, basil pesto from the Bamboleo brand (Rs 295 for 190 gms bottles). Most of the stores in stock Tify's chunky salsa red and white sauces (Rs 90 for 350 gms), Ragu sauces (Rs 215 for 450 gms) and Prego (roasted garlic parmesan (Rs 210 for 737 gms bottle).

Tips: Serve the dips with tortilla chips or regular potato chips. Use salsa on enchiladas, tacos and burritos. Garnish with a fresh sprig of cilantro and a dollop of sour cream. Mix any pesto (basil/cilantro/mint/parsley) be it store bought or homemade with mayo or thick yogurt for a quick sandwich/wrap spread.

Play with the ingredients, kick it up with a notch for a spicy sauce or play safe for the kiddos by reducing the spicy ingredients.

Happy cooking!

At: Maison Des Gourmets, 67/8, 4th Cross, Subbaraj Road (Lavelle Road). Spar hypermarkets at Oasis mall and Bannerghatta Road and all Namdhari outlets.