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.
Showing posts with label ethnic shelves. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ethnic shelves. Show all posts
Thursday, 4 July 2013
Wednesday, 26 June 2013
Rick Stein
Most TV chefs, even the blessed Delia, I find hard to watch. I want to move Nigel Slater's fringe out of the way and tell him to get a bloody move on; cannot stomach the egos of Gordon Ramsay and Nigel Rhodes (have yet to hear a good word said about the latter by anyone who has met him either); Jamie Oliver has too many annoying mannerisms to list, plus I learned how to fry stuff ages ago anyway; and the popularity of the Two Fat Bikers and the surviving Hairy Lady defies my comprehension.
And finally the 'but'. I find HFW very watchable, and likewise Rick Stein. Maybe it's a cultural thing, they are both well educated for a start (but then so is Nigella Lawson, and I can't stand her cream and cleavage frenzies). Or the fact that green issues are at the forefront of their thinking. Anyway, I watched Rick Stein's programme on Mumbai this week and was inspired to cook a curry. Now the house has an all-pervading smell of curry spices (especially fenugreek).
Unsurprisingly given that it is the food of more than a billion people, most very poor, the curry is a great weapon in the austerity cook's armoury. Last night's was actually a prawn curry, so £2.50 for the king prawns, but the plentiful rice was for pennies, I bought the tin of coconut milk for 50p from the exotic shelves at Sainsbury's, added a basics red pepper and a couple of chopped onions, so pennies there too, made quickfire dal with a 79p tin of lentils and some garlicky spiced butter, and we had our fill for not very much. The spices again came from the 'ethnic' shelves, good-sized bags a fraction of the price of pretty Schwarz bottles, and JS naan breads at 80p were about half the price of Sharwood's.
The inspiring thing about Mr Stein's curry was that it was made quickly without in any way being thrown together. I didn't follow his recipe, though I did take his tip of frying my spices more than I would normally have done, with some liquid to hand to prevent burning. No complaints, and next to nothing left, so I think it was a success. When we are in Cornwall this summer if I bump into him in Padstow - we will definitely eat at one of his places - I will shake him by the hand.
A note of praise for Sainsbury's: a week ago I tried to make dal from yellow split peas. Soaked for 32 not 24 hours, they were boiled for the requisite 10 minutes, then simmered for 30 more; then another 30; then another 20, by which time we had waited for the rest of the meal long enough. The peas were bullets, utterly useless. I took the pack and some evidence next day as I was so annoyed, and they gave me my money back and a £5 voucher for the inconvenience.
And finally the 'but'. I find HFW very watchable, and likewise Rick Stein. Maybe it's a cultural thing, they are both well educated for a start (but then so is Nigella Lawson, and I can't stand her cream and cleavage frenzies). Or the fact that green issues are at the forefront of their thinking. Anyway, I watched Rick Stein's programme on Mumbai this week and was inspired to cook a curry. Now the house has an all-pervading smell of curry spices (especially fenugreek).
Unsurprisingly given that it is the food of more than a billion people, most very poor, the curry is a great weapon in the austerity cook's armoury. Last night's was actually a prawn curry, so £2.50 for the king prawns, but the plentiful rice was for pennies, I bought the tin of coconut milk for 50p from the exotic shelves at Sainsbury's, added a basics red pepper and a couple of chopped onions, so pennies there too, made quickfire dal with a 79p tin of lentils and some garlicky spiced butter, and we had our fill for not very much. The spices again came from the 'ethnic' shelves, good-sized bags a fraction of the price of pretty Schwarz bottles, and JS naan breads at 80p were about half the price of Sharwood's.
The inspiring thing about Mr Stein's curry was that it was made quickly without in any way being thrown together. I didn't follow his recipe, though I did take his tip of frying my spices more than I would normally have done, with some liquid to hand to prevent burning. No complaints, and next to nothing left, so I think it was a success. When we are in Cornwall this summer if I bump into him in Padstow - we will definitely eat at one of his places - I will shake him by the hand.
A note of praise for Sainsbury's: a week ago I tried to make dal from yellow split peas. Soaked for 32 not 24 hours, they were boiled for the requisite 10 minutes, then simmered for 30 more; then another 30; then another 20, by which time we had waited for the rest of the meal long enough. The peas were bullets, utterly useless. I took the pack and some evidence next day as I was so annoyed, and they gave me my money back and a £5 voucher for the inconvenience.
Tuesday, 25 September 2012
Shopping Diversity
I have written previously about the money to be saved buying stuff from the 'ethnic' aisles in supermarkets, one example of where this makes sense being coconut milk, about half the price of the posher tin elsewhere. I have started looking at the similar freezer section, and found a couple of bargains there.
The first is frozen okra, cut into short pieces, the bag I think 99p containing enough for three meals' worth (I'd guess 500g). We had some in last night's curry, still tasty, easily prepared (stewed in a homemade, tomato-rich sauce), and a bit of a change. That curry btw was served with rice from a mega bag also in the Asian shelves, better quality than the 'normal' white rice we had previously and pound-for-pound much cheaper.
The other is much dearer, but on the bang-for-your-buck scale is still value for money - large freshwater prawns, raw, prepared with heads off and the body split beneath so they open out nicely in cooking, and are easy to peel. There is no comparison in terms of flavour with the very disappointing Taste the Difference king prawns 3m along the freezer, the freshwater ones reminding me of superb meals in Indonesia and the Philippines. A large bag is more than £6, but there's lots of meat (more than in the BOGOF bags that would cost £5) and tons of taste. Defrosted slowly then simply fried with salt and garlic they need nothing else to make a finger-licking starter - an occasional treat but a genuine one, and genuinely big.
The first is frozen okra, cut into short pieces, the bag I think 99p containing enough for three meals' worth (I'd guess 500g). We had some in last night's curry, still tasty, easily prepared (stewed in a homemade, tomato-rich sauce), and a bit of a change. That curry btw was served with rice from a mega bag also in the Asian shelves, better quality than the 'normal' white rice we had previously and pound-for-pound much cheaper.
The other is much dearer, but on the bang-for-your-buck scale is still value for money - large freshwater prawns, raw, prepared with heads off and the body split beneath so they open out nicely in cooking, and are easy to peel. There is no comparison in terms of flavour with the very disappointing Taste the Difference king prawns 3m along the freezer, the freshwater ones reminding me of superb meals in Indonesia and the Philippines. A large bag is more than £6, but there's lots of meat (more than in the BOGOF bags that would cost £5) and tons of taste. Defrosted slowly then simply fried with salt and garlic they need nothing else to make a finger-licking starter - an occasional treat but a genuine one, and genuinely big.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)