There is no reason why austerity cooking shouldn't get a little luxurious lift every now and then, especially if it doesn't cost much. Last night we used as prime ingredients two vegetables from our allotment, the ever dependable kale and a whole bunch of small leeks - planted a bit late to make big fatties, but they haven't suffered and we still have loads to pick.
Luxurious kale? By adapting a Sara Raven (and I think HFW) idea I cooked a rather delicious even if I say so myself first course: thick slice of toasted bread loaded with a mix of steamed kale, garlic, a tin of anchovies, boiled egg, and grated cheese, all chopped up together with a bit more cheese on top. Very robust flavours, and a feeling of virtue from that iron-rich greenery.
The main was leek and potato soup, with an onion, carrot, two big spuds and about 20 small leeks, sweated in a slick of butter then simmered with the water from cooking the kale, a small carton of double cream added at the end just to warm through before everything was zapped with the hand blender. More bread to dip and the meal was both enjoyable and filling. You don't need a protein-fest every day, though with the egg, anchovies and cheese (and grain in the bread) it wasn't without either.
Tuesday, 28 February 2012
Monday, 20 February 2012
Still Picking
Maybe we have learned. It's mid-February and yesterday's main meal included four of our own veg - massive parsnips made into mash with bought spuds; a load of leeks steamed and then whizzed with butter to make a puree; red and green sprouts; and the first PSB of the season. If growing your own is part of the austerity thing - and it should be if you have any land, an allotment, or even a window box - it is also a wonderful way to get really fresh stuff into the kitchen. Top of the head guess for the cost of those veg if purchased from the supermarket, say about £7. The seeds (discounted for allotment association) must have cost about £4 in total, but those veg picked on Saturday were a tiny tiny fraction of what the packets have yielded and continue to yield.
Not sure if it's dig for victory, but maybe for survival.
Not sure if it's dig for victory, but maybe for survival.
Thursday, 2 February 2012
Bang for Your Buck
A recent piece for Lovefood.com http://www.lovefood.com/journal/opinions/14049/family-mains-course-meals-for-under-3 had me considering the question of maximising flavour for minimal outlay. In that piece I suggested fresh ginger as one of the best ingredients in that light. Garlic is another winner of course. Wild garlic in season, not too far off now, is even better, given if you can find a source where you are allowed, you can pick it for nothing: we are lucky, at the bottom of our garden it grows in wild profusion.
I was pushed to think about this topic again by seeing an advert by the fancy herb and spice bottle people Schwartz. A recipe card series where each includes various herbs etc to make the particular dish is being advertised. Sainsbury's have a rosemary roasted chicken and potatoes one on sale for 99p, down from £1.99, which hopefully means they are failing to take off. In price/weight terms I still think the reduced one will be horrifically expensive for what you get.
If you can't cook, buy a good cookbook - Delia, David, Grigson or pretty much anyone where words are more significant than pictures - and invest in a few packets of herbs and spices - there is no difference I dare say between own-brand dried rosemary and branded - and learn to cook properly. It is one of life's pleasures, not a chore. Learn the techniques so you don't end up a slave to producers, those recipe cards a reminder of what you'll end up paying for supposed convenience.
I was pushed to think about this topic again by seeing an advert by the fancy herb and spice bottle people Schwartz. A recipe card series where each includes various herbs etc to make the particular dish is being advertised. Sainsbury's have a rosemary roasted chicken and potatoes one on sale for 99p, down from £1.99, which hopefully means they are failing to take off. In price/weight terms I still think the reduced one will be horrifically expensive for what you get.
If you can't cook, buy a good cookbook - Delia, David, Grigson or pretty much anyone where words are more significant than pictures - and invest in a few packets of herbs and spices - there is no difference I dare say between own-brand dried rosemary and branded - and learn to cook properly. It is one of life's pleasures, not a chore. Learn the techniques so you don't end up a slave to producers, those recipe cards a reminder of what you'll end up paying for supposed convenience.
Thursday, 5 January 2012
The Wonderful Onion
Because it is a relatively easy crop to grow and keeps very well on the shop shelf, the humble onion is still cheap and cheerful, a bringer of austerity joy along with peeling tears. No home should be without a bag of onions to form the basis of cheap homemade soups, add vegetable bulk to stews, and provide a bit of zing to salads. As with so many other veg, go for the big bags of undersized ones when you see them in the shops, same flavour but cheaper.
The onion can take centre stage as well as filling supporting roles. A simple and delicious dish my mother cooked in the Sixties and Seventies, probably made when funds were not abundant, was cheese and onions. Slice a load of onions thinly, put in a saucepan, cover with milk and a bit extra, ideally using full-cream but semi-skimmed is fine, not that nasty grey skimmed stuff though. Heat it to a bubbling simmer and cook until the onions are super-soft. It's milk, so you don't want to have the heat too high and risk it boiling over. Season to taste - for me it needs quite a bit of salt - turn the heat right down, or put a heat diffuser under the pan, then add plenty of grated cheddar or anything else you have to hand that melts well. If you have too high a heat the cheese turns to rubber, so don't rush it.
Serve in bowls with lots of white bread generously buttered to dip in the juices (with which the butter inevitably melds). This is not a dish that you can play tunes with. Don't add anything, it's perfect in itself. And white bread is the best here, cheapo sliced is fine but a cottage loaf would add a touch of class if you want. Cheap, filling, tasty, most kids love it, great for autumn or winter suppers. Drink a glass of wine as you eat and call the experience Pennine Fondue or the Lancashire Fondue.
The onion can take centre stage as well as filling supporting roles. A simple and delicious dish my mother cooked in the Sixties and Seventies, probably made when funds were not abundant, was cheese and onions. Slice a load of onions thinly, put in a saucepan, cover with milk and a bit extra, ideally using full-cream but semi-skimmed is fine, not that nasty grey skimmed stuff though. Heat it to a bubbling simmer and cook until the onions are super-soft. It's milk, so you don't want to have the heat too high and risk it boiling over. Season to taste - for me it needs quite a bit of salt - turn the heat right down, or put a heat diffuser under the pan, then add plenty of grated cheddar or anything else you have to hand that melts well. If you have too high a heat the cheese turns to rubber, so don't rush it.
Serve in bowls with lots of white bread generously buttered to dip in the juices (with which the butter inevitably melds). This is not a dish that you can play tunes with. Don't add anything, it's perfect in itself. And white bread is the best here, cheapo sliced is fine but a cottage loaf would add a touch of class if you want. Cheap, filling, tasty, most kids love it, great for autumn or winter suppers. Drink a glass of wine as you eat and call the experience Pennine Fondue or the Lancashire Fondue.
Sunday, 18 December 2011
Alternative Austerity Christmas
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.
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)