New Year, new techniques

Perfect pastry

Knowing how to handle pastry and the science behind its success is a fantastic starting point for experimenting with new dishes. Watch professional pastry perfecter Lesley Waters demonstrate how to line a flan ring. She shares tips of the trade and explains how pastry has a lot in common with its chef: it has to rest after being worked and needs the right equipment.

Crisp buttery pastry cases, once mastered, can be used as a base for countless filling combinations, both savoury and sweet. Tarts and flans are credit crunch friendly, especially when filled with whatever leftovers you happen to have at hand. Alternatively, if you're short of inspiration for fillings, keep it simple and let the pastry do the talking by adding grated lemon or orange zest or cocoa powder to the pastry mixture for sweet tarts, or by mixing grated parmesan into savoury flans. Use these recipes as a portal to wherever your imagination takes you.

Watch Lesley Waters make homemade pastry using the quantities in her recipe for Citrus tart with rich shortcrust pastry and bake the prepared tart case blind.

• Citrus tart with rich shortcrust pastry (video recipe) by Lesley Waters from Get Cooking
• Leek and smoked salmon tart with salad by James Martin from Saturday Kitchen
• Crab, saffron and leek quiche by Rick Stein from Taste of the Sea
• Light as a feather chocolate tart by Tony Tobin from Saturday Kitchen

Experiment with spices

Spice rubs take seconds to prepare and give both the cook and the pestle and mortar a good workout. They can add fire and succulence to subtler flavoured meats such as chicken or they can beef up bolder cuts such as ribs. Calorie-free and invigorating, they'll breathe life into your New Year diet and your recipe repertoire without breaking the bank. When you decide on your favourite spice mixes, they can be made in bulk and kept in airtight jars for weeks.

In this video masterclass on making spice rubs, Paul Merrett knocks up a tantalising blend of garlic salt, saffron, smoked paprika and black pepper that will give Mediterranean overtones to the meat it's used with. Paul describes the importance of the origin and freshness of the spices and explains why meat rubbed in spices retains its moisture when cooked. Root around in your cupboards and come up with your own varieties of dry rubs: it doesn't have to be 'authentic' or expensive, so long as it satisfies your tastebuds.

• 'Roasted' cod with Mediterranean spice rub (video recipe) by Paul Merrett
• Slow-roast lamb with chickpea mash by Nigel Slater from The Kitchen Diaries
• Swahili chicken and papaya salad by Mike Robinson from Saturday Kitchen
• Smoked rib of Highland beef by Nick Nairn from Great British Menu

Master sauces

A basic white sauce is one of those cookery staples that's satisfyingly versatile (it's used as a base for a variety of sauces, such as cheese sauce). Although it's simple to make when you know how, one wrong turn can result in a lumpy grey liquid that refuses to thicken and drives competent cooks to resort to the misery and shame of the sieve.

It needn't come to that. Start with Lesley Waters' guide to making a basic white sauce. In this quick version, she shows how to make a roux (butter and flour cooked together, which acts as a thickener) then demonstrates how a dash of cream and a hint of flavouring can transform lasagnes, moussakas and macaroni cheese from so-so to sublime. A good white sauce can even liven up the boiled vegetables of a Sunday roast.

Once you're au fait with making a roux, use your newly acquired skill to your advantage. A thicker version of a roux sauce is the starting point for savoury soufflés, which still impress guests at dinner. Many sauces used to fill creamy pies work on the same principle as the roux. There's nothing stopping you from making this the year of the roux.

• Bechamel sauce by Delia Smith from Delia Smith
• Chicken and leek pie (video recipe) by Lesley Waters from Get Cooking
• Lasagne by Katie and Giancarlo Caldesi from Return to Tuscany
• Moussaka by Rick Stein from Food Heroes
• Macaroni cheese with bacon by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall from The River Cottage Family Cookbook
• Smoked haddock soufflé by Michel Roux from Saturday Kitchen