By CHARLES FERRUZZA
Two years ago, Mark and Mary Mollentine stopped serving dinners at their Shawnee restaurant, Governor's Meeting House, to focus on afternoon tea -- who knew there was such a need for this uniquely British tradition in the Kansas suburbs?
The extra time off enabled chef Mark Mollentine to take a second job (he's the executive corporate chef at Lenexa-based Gear for Sports ) and to follow up on another of his dreams, to produce a line of sauces bearing his name.
Now he's done it, although Mollentine turned out to be too long to fit on the original label. Customers picking up a bottle of Roasted Red Pepper Aioli or Santa Fe Steak Sauce at their local Hen House stores (and selected Price Chopper supermarkets) will find them under the moniker Chef Mark Allen. That's Mollentine's middle name and, damn it, it's good enough.
Last July, Mollentine began delivering 10.5-ounce plastic bottles of his first four finishing sauces to the local grocery stores that agreed to carry the Roasted Red Pepper Aioli, Citrus Sesame Soy Sauce, Tomatilla and Roasted Garlic Sauce and Santa Fe Steak Sauce; the fifth in the line, which is still in the "research process" is a Cherry Cinnamon Sage Sauce.
A finishing sauce, Mollentine says, is used to flavor meat and poultry at the end of the cooking process. It can be brushed on grilled steaks or fish, splashed on barbecued chicken or ribs, and used as a basting sauce for roasting pork loin or ham. There are no artificial colors or flavors in Mollentine's sauces -- no preservatives either, which gives them a shorter shelf life than the mass-produced variety. After opening a bottle, the sauce must be refrigerated -- after that, Mollentine says, "it's good for about two or three weeks."
The sauces retail for about $5. Mollentine hopes to have the Cherry Cinnamon Sage sauce in the stores by Thanksgiving, for the ham-loving crowd.
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