Not sure how alternative or austere this really is, but Lidl have frozen goose breast in stock, enough meat to feed four, and so rich that it really does fill you up. You'll not have much meat left over afterwards as it isn't a huge slab - is that a plus or a minus? I bought one for about £8, which is a fraction of what a turkey crown sets you back (am sure of that as I just bought a free-range one of those too from M&S as it was the best I have seen). Will cook both on the day, and with a bit of careful timing have the goose fat in which to make crispy roast spuds (saving £2.40 or so for a jar of that marvellous stuff). The goose breast must be lifted above the dish in which it roasts, to let the fat drip off and keep the meat out of it, otherwise you end up eating something like meaty lard (mmmmm, meaty lard - Homer).
Lidl is excellent for continental stuff like this - their chorizo is really good, and cheaper than other supermarkets, parmesan is actually the best packet version I've found and is cheap too, and they sometimes have pheasant at bargain prices. Pheasant always stewed or braised btw, I am yet to eat a roast pheasant that was worth the effort. I'm happy to shop in slightly less cheerful surroundings for such savings, though they could do with improving their veg, not often tempting enough.
As regards pheasant, I have childhood memories of my father occasionally being given a brace which he would hang in the garage. Once he went further than was sensible, the result (or one mouthful) being perhaps the vilest thing I ever ran to the toilet to spit out.
Sunday 18 December 2011
Tuesday 13 December 2011
Big Ham for Little Money
Christmas can be a time for foodie bargains. On Saturday I was feeding eight, and as it was a rare family get-together I wanted to do something better than sarnies for lunch. Our local supermarket Booth's had some 3kg hams for £12.99, so figuring we would have plenty and then some for weekday breakfast I bought one. Cooking time was 2 hours 45 minutes, firstly simmered gently in water (starting the watch when the water reached simmering point) with stock veg and other flavourings like bay and pepper, then for the last 45 minutes with skin off, fat scored into diamonds and glazed with a simple Golden Syrup, mustard and Worcestershire sauce mix in an oven at 200C. Served after the important rest for 20 minutes (meat and cook) in thick slices with onion sauce, glazed carrots and potato and parsnip mash it was a hit. So much so that we had just two half slices left afterwards.
The onion sauce is made with finely chopped onions sweated for 30 minutes, after which plain flour is stirred in and stock from the ham added until it feels right. Cook gently for at least 20 minutes so no floury flavour remains. I sometimes whizz it with the hand-blender, but at we had mash it wanted some texture, so didn't zap it this time. A filling family feast for about £2 per head. Not my primary consideration for once, but compare that with buying in the much advertised at this time of year 'party food' - £3 for a few nibbly bits, £5 for some tarty dessert.
The onion sauce is made with finely chopped onions sweated for 30 minutes, after which plain flour is stirred in and stock from the ham added until it feels right. Cook gently for at least 20 minutes so no floury flavour remains. I sometimes whizz it with the hand-blender, but at we had mash it wanted some texture, so didn't zap it this time. A filling family feast for about £2 per head. Not my primary consideration for once, but compare that with buying in the much advertised at this time of year 'party food' - £3 for a few nibbly bits, £5 for some tarty dessert.
Monday 5 December 2011
Upside to Austerity
In the 1970s Christmas kids' television was special not for the content, but the mere fact that for once we had daytime viewing. Terrible Randolph Scott westerns enjoyed because they were there. Maybe it will be the same with food during this period of austerity. If awareness of value reduces food wastage all the better.
Christmas for too many of us had over the last 20 or 30 years become a time of gross over-indulgence. Familiarity breeding contempt and all that, we valued the surfeit - big turkey or goose, huge ham, tins of chocolates and biscuits, massive Stiltons - less than one imagines a wartime cook valued a pound of sausages.
I have only had one brief flirtation with poverty I'm happy to say, a year as a grantless post-graduate student when I counted every previously earned penny, and parental subs, to get me through the course. That was when my lifelong love began for bacon offcuts and their endless possibilties, when potatoes were the core of many meals, and barely a crust was thrown away. What I learned then is still part of my culinary psyche.
It may be that with changes in global economic balance Britain and Europe never return to the carefree prosperity of the 90s. In which case perhaps we will learn to enjoy what we have all the more, sententious though it is to say so. I'm sure my parents enjoyed the fleeting pleasure of their seasonal indulgences - a bottle of sherry in the house and wine with Christmas dinner - far more than someone shifting more than that every day for a week or so of festivities. Is it too much to hope that governments learn to cope in similar fashion? That wastage on unfeasibly complex IT projects that inevitably fail will end? That they won't order aircraftless aircraft carriers? If they can learn - a huge if - we won't all be as badly off as we had feared.
Christmas for too many of us had over the last 20 or 30 years become a time of gross over-indulgence. Familiarity breeding contempt and all that, we valued the surfeit - big turkey or goose, huge ham, tins of chocolates and biscuits, massive Stiltons - less than one imagines a wartime cook valued a pound of sausages.
I have only had one brief flirtation with poverty I'm happy to say, a year as a grantless post-graduate student when I counted every previously earned penny, and parental subs, to get me through the course. That was when my lifelong love began for bacon offcuts and their endless possibilties, when potatoes were the core of many meals, and barely a crust was thrown away. What I learned then is still part of my culinary psyche.
It may be that with changes in global economic balance Britain and Europe never return to the carefree prosperity of the 90s. In which case perhaps we will learn to enjoy what we have all the more, sententious though it is to say so. I'm sure my parents enjoyed the fleeting pleasure of their seasonal indulgences - a bottle of sherry in the house and wine with Christmas dinner - far more than someone shifting more than that every day for a week or so of festivities. Is it too much to hope that governments learn to cope in similar fashion? That wastage on unfeasibly complex IT projects that inevitably fail will end? That they won't order aircraftless aircraft carriers? If they can learn - a huge if - we won't all be as badly off as we had feared.
Friday 2 December 2011
Love, Money and the Packed Lunch
Several years ago Alvin Hall on one of his life-and-money-coaching programmes highlighted the cost of lunches at work. I used to spend £3 or more a day on a sandwich and other bits (ok, a pie) from a shop near my office, and my wife did likewise, though her choice was more salady. Work that out over the year and we were spending about £1.5k annually on not great quality food - lovely though S+K pies are, I guess most use mechanically recovered meat - not pleasant; and shop salads tend to focus on the bulk of boring iceberg lettuce.
Since I changed career and don't have to rush off at 7:15 every day I have made a point of preparing a salad for my wife's lunch. It's a gesture of love as well as economy. Like too many women she is convinced she needs to lose just another pound, just another, while loving good food.
It really is economic. Today she will be tucking into what was facetiously - it is December - dubbed a sunshine salad. Costs are a rough guestimate, but won't be far out - I really don't spend all day weighing produce and calculating costs to the nearest tenth of a penny. Matchsticks of carrot (5p), ginger (2p), half a yellow basic-range pepper (13p), plus the skinned segments of two satsumas (25p - extravagant fool that I am), dressed with the squeezed juice from the satsuma remains, a dash of olive oil (wonderful stuff from Aranda, only used for dressings), a sprinkle of salt (it is a salad), a few cumin seeds for interest, and a dusting of cinnamon. Say 50p for the whole thing. Her university canteen would charge £2.30, M&S probably £3 or more for the same thing if they had anything like that. With a banana and a yogurt it is near as makes no odds £1 for her lunch. Economy needn't be unhealthy or life-sappingly boring.
With my eco-hat on the salad is carried in a click-sealed container washed and re-used, rather than several layers of disposable plastic packaging, another reason of course for it being cheaper. and this salad could even make us money if it wins the lovethegarden.com Christmas Carrot recipe comp!
Since I changed career and don't have to rush off at 7:15 every day I have made a point of preparing a salad for my wife's lunch. It's a gesture of love as well as economy. Like too many women she is convinced she needs to lose just another pound, just another, while loving good food.
It really is economic. Today she will be tucking into what was facetiously - it is December - dubbed a sunshine salad. Costs are a rough guestimate, but won't be far out - I really don't spend all day weighing produce and calculating costs to the nearest tenth of a penny. Matchsticks of carrot (5p), ginger (2p), half a yellow basic-range pepper (13p), plus the skinned segments of two satsumas (25p - extravagant fool that I am), dressed with the squeezed juice from the satsuma remains, a dash of olive oil (wonderful stuff from Aranda, only used for dressings), a sprinkle of salt (it is a salad), a few cumin seeds for interest, and a dusting of cinnamon. Say 50p for the whole thing. Her university canteen would charge £2.30, M&S probably £3 or more for the same thing if they had anything like that. With a banana and a yogurt it is near as makes no odds £1 for her lunch. Economy needn't be unhealthy or life-sappingly boring.
With my eco-hat on the salad is carried in a click-sealed container washed and re-used, rather than several layers of disposable plastic packaging, another reason of course for it being cheaper. and this salad could even make us money if it wins the lovethegarden.com Christmas Carrot recipe comp!
Thursday 1 December 2011
Risotto for Pennies
Risotto in some form features on the menus of many high-end restaurants, with a twist or two to make it different. The basic dish, however, is good old-fashioned peasant cooking. Which means it can also be cheap (another thing that appeals to restaurateurs but that's another area altogether). Last night I fed the three of us for I'd reckon under £2, though how you cost the leftover chicken from the weekend roast is tricky.
In the morning I made the stock from the chicken carcase, stripped of flesh, very necessary to decent risotto and it's sensible to squeeze the most in money and flavour terms from your bird. An onion (5p), bayleaf from the garden, and two Sainsbury's basic carrots (a knobbly carrot is a carrot is a carrot), (10p) simmered very gently for an hour to make wonderful liquor and to fill the whole house with its scent.
The evening meal was done in 25 minutes. Another onion (5p) chopped fine and fried in oil, with a similarly treated red pepper (again knobbly basic, 25p), then a third of a pack (say 45p) of basic cooking bacon (top bargain, you tend to get big thick slices that make chunky dice as used here), half a pack of risotto rice (so less than 50p) fried until coated, then usual risotto method - add hot stock until it is soaked in, cook at medium heat giving a stir every now and then, more stock, until the rice has only the memory of chalkiness at its heart. Add diced leftover chicken to just warm through (cook it too long and it goes stringy and unpleasant), a knob of butter to melt and give it a lovely unctuous texture, season and serve. As we are not on our uppers I went wild and grated some parmesan, probably adding another 70p to the overall reckoning, though even then discounting the chicken it comes to well under £2. A veggie version using mushrooms in place of the meats (and mushroom stock) - Sainsbury's today selling a (special offer) carton of brown mushrooms for 50p - is equally good.
The world, by the way, is becoming full of special offers as we become more discriminating (meaner) about our food purchases. Local fresh foods particularly so.
In the morning I made the stock from the chicken carcase, stripped of flesh, very necessary to decent risotto and it's sensible to squeeze the most in money and flavour terms from your bird. An onion (5p), bayleaf from the garden, and two Sainsbury's basic carrots (a knobbly carrot is a carrot is a carrot), (10p) simmered very gently for an hour to make wonderful liquor and to fill the whole house with its scent.
The evening meal was done in 25 minutes. Another onion (5p) chopped fine and fried in oil, with a similarly treated red pepper (again knobbly basic, 25p), then a third of a pack (say 45p) of basic cooking bacon (top bargain, you tend to get big thick slices that make chunky dice as used here), half a pack of risotto rice (so less than 50p) fried until coated, then usual risotto method - add hot stock until it is soaked in, cook at medium heat giving a stir every now and then, more stock, until the rice has only the memory of chalkiness at its heart. Add diced leftover chicken to just warm through (cook it too long and it goes stringy and unpleasant), a knob of butter to melt and give it a lovely unctuous texture, season and serve. As we are not on our uppers I went wild and grated some parmesan, probably adding another 70p to the overall reckoning, though even then discounting the chicken it comes to well under £2. A veggie version using mushrooms in place of the meats (and mushroom stock) - Sainsbury's today selling a (special offer) carton of brown mushrooms for 50p - is equally good.
The world, by the way, is becoming full of special offers as we become more discriminating (meaner) about our food purchases. Local fresh foods particularly so.
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