One Flame Student Survival - Curry for Pennies

The one flame idea partly comes out of my experience living in France for a year as an assistant, when I had a single Calor Gas burner on which to cook, and partly from the fact that the less washing up there is the more likely people are to make their own food, which means eating better than you would from the chippie, and brings a social aspect with it. So how about this for a student meal for three, a common number in shared houses?

Fish curry in 30 minutes, with the cost well below £1.50 each again. This hits the protein spot too, not easy for budget meals. It's not authentic, but it is tasty.

Use a large and deep frying pan, heated quite high. In a couple of spoonfuls of vegetable oil fry three sliced onions until they start to brown a little - don't turn your back - then add a red chilli cut fine (stand clear, it's pepper spray time), and an inch or so of root ginger cut into teenie strips, and turn the heat down to medium. After a minute for these to cook through add two cloves of garlic chopped fine, then pour in a tin of chopped tomatoes and a tsp of sugar, plus a tin of coconut milk. When this is bubbling gently add a pack of frozen whitefish fillets (cheapo and they're good, it's pollock - no honestly). Cook till they are beyond defrosted and into cooked, and gently break them up. At the end season with salt, pepper, and spices - buy a plastic packet of garam masala - nicer than 'curry powder' and it costs less - from the ethnic shelves for about 60p and it will last all year, this only needs a tsp. When it is all cooked through serve with basics pitta bread in place of far more expensive naan.

The economics: (all Sainsbury's unless stated, so Morrison's would generally be cheaper still) 520g frozen whitefish fillets £1.75; tinned toms (Lidl) 31p; coconut milk on offer now 50p; 3 onions 15p; garlic 8p; chilli 15p; ginger about 10p; 6-pack of Basics pittas 22p. Spices 3p. The lot for £3.29 give or take a few pence. And the fish alone gives you about three quarters of your protein GDA. A veggie version of this can be made easily and more cheaply still, substituting two 69p tins of chick peas for the fish (so for three that's less than £1 each).

Mean beast that I am I buy Lidl chopped toms in bulk - they won an Observer taste test a while back (or one of the other Sundays) and at 31p each are maybe 40 per cent cheaper than own brand elsewhere, and 1/3 the price of advertised stuff - and I dare you to find a difference in quality.

I Love it When a Plan Comes Together

Faced with a block of tofu rapidly approaching its sell-by-date (it had seemed like a good healthy idea in the shop), some chicken leftovers from a roast at the weekend also in need of quick use, and the liquid and veg remains of a very unsuccessful stew, I incorporated them all in a curry.

The stew remains (which as stews do proved tastier after a day or so in the fridge than they were when first cooked) were put through a sieve to get the juices, the chicken cut into small chunks, and the tofu simply sliced into bits the size of a big Lego brick. A chopped onion and a few pieces of red pepper were fried, then some slices of fresh ginger added (another fridge bottom find, so calling it fresh is stretching things). Juice poured in and thickened with cornflour, flavoured with soy sauce, curry powder and lots of cayenne, followed after a minute or two of simmering by the tofu and chicken, and the lot left to bubble quietly while rice was cooked.

The fridge curry can be a horror, a reminder of student days, but this one was really good, the cayenne giving it a back-of-the-throat kick, the tofu and chicken contrasting textures, and the sauce thick and satisfying. I do love it when a plan comes together, though I would have been happier had my son not insisted on calling the dish a soup.