ShawneeDispatch.com

Photo by Kevin Anderson

Mark Mollentine says the Roasted Red Pepper Aioli can go on just about anything.

Diners in the Kansas City metropolitan area soon may have a Shawnee flair on their dinner tables.

Last week, Hen House grocery stores in the metro began carrying Chef Mark Alan sauces, a creation of Mark Mollentine, owner of the Governor's Meeting House, 10910 W. 60th St. The store chain's special, locally-grown program is making the longtime favorites of the restaurant's diners available to everyone.

The first of Mollentine's finishing sauces to hit the stores are Roasted Red Pepper Aioli, Sante Fe Steak Sauce, Tomatillo & Roasted Garlic and Citrus Sesame Soy, with more to come. If customers can't always remember some of these longer names, each of the sauces is numbered, which Mollentine said he decided to do "just to give it some distinction, to make it look different from anything else out there."

In addition to the numbered series, there will be seasonal sauces, like a sauce specifically for ham in the fall and one best suited for lamb in the spring.

The Roasted Red Pepper Aioli (No. 1) is made with roasted red peppers, onions, a touch of garlic and a hint of cayenne pepper, and it is best for beef, pork chops or grilled sausages.

The Santa Fe Steak Sauce (No. 2) includes two high-quality, all-natural beef bases, New Mexico chili and Guajillo chili, roasted garlic and cumin. It is best on grilled meats, bison or roasted chicken.

The Tomatillo & Roasted Garlic (No. 3) is made with green tomatillos, onion, fresh basil and cilantro, roasted garlic, honey and just a small amount of jalapeno pepper. It is recommended for grilled chicken, seared scallops, roasted pork or fish tacos.

Citrus Sesame Soy (No. 4) contains coriander, garlic, toasted sesame, orange and soy sauce. Its citrus and spice combination is a complement for pork, chicken, fish, shrimp and scallops.

Mollentine hasn't always planned to get into the sauce business.

"It's been a long journey actually," Mollentine said. "I always wanted to do something like this, but I didn't know exactly what it was going to be."

For the past three years, he has been working with Hen House grocery stores' Buy Fresh, Buy Local program, which is a sort of local farmer's alliance with a warehouse distribution for farmers. Part of the program is the Community Supported Agriculture service, in which 1,400 customers have signed up to get $25 bags full of local produce.

This year, they asked Mollentine if he wanted to be the first Kansas City "Local Artisan" in the program to create a line making further use of local products, and to have his line be included in the Community Supported Agriculture customer's bags.

"I always wanted to do something with local products; I always wanted to do stuff with local people," Mollentine said.

So he met with program organizers to determine what he could do. At his in-store demos, people always found the sauces he serves at the Governor's Meeting House popular.

"For five years, we've had these sauces that people just loved at the restaurants, and I was demonstrating them for three years at the stores," he said. "It just seemed like a natural fit to use them as my springboard."

He also saw a need for the sauces with his experience in grocery stores.

"Doing demos, I watched people walking up to the meat counter and saying 'What am I going to have for dinner; I want something different,'" Mollentine said. "In the demos, people would try the sauces and say 'This is great. Where do you get it?'"

The process of going from a freshly-made sauce to one that could be bottled was a long one, taking about six months from concept to store shelf. Much of the time was taken just to find the right bottles. Then, it was getting the recipe just right.

"Literally, I made 20 different batches, 20 different varieties of them," Mollentine said. "A little more sweet, a little more vinegar, et cetera."

With friends and other taste-testers, Mollentine and his wife, Mary, pared 20 down to two or three, and took those to the bottlers. They then determined which sauces were appropriate for bottling.

Mollentine made up to about 120 gallons of the sauces and had the Kansas State University food science division test the sauces for federal requirements before they were put on the shelf.

Instead of using his last name, Mollentine said he decided to use his middle name when giving the sauces their moniker, largely because it was easier to fit on the bottle label. But there also could be a sort of connotation to Mollentine - people might think of a more Italian line of food - so he decided Mark Alan was more ambiguous for his wide variety of sauces. Also important was keeping the bottles at a price that was affordable.

Deciding when to use the sauces shouldn't be difficult, since each sauce has a recommended use for certain meats or seafood. But Mollentine said because some people might not understand what a "finishing sauce" is, he had a simple explanation: The sauces can transform the ordinary entree into a gourmet meal.

"Just cook your chicken and warm some sauce up in the microwave," he said. "When you finish cooking, put it on there. If you can fry or grill something, you can put this on."

For more information about Chef Mark Alan sauces, visit chefmarkskitchen.com.