Austerity and Healthy Food

Over recent years one of the regular excuses voiced about poor eating habits is that healthy food costs more than unhealthy. Since we decided on our alternative eating programme [yes there is a deliberate hint of silliness in the name] I have made one major discovery in that regard: by spreading butter thinly, and almost banning it from cooking, one uses less and thus spends less. Who knew?

Same applies to oils and dressings. I think a general rule can be discerned here: if you use thus buy less of something, it is cheaper than buying and using lots.

As we are eating less meat and more veg, the sums are in our economic favour there too.

Last night's meal was pork tenderloin marinated in ginger, cumin, pepper and cassia bark all ground up, the six little slices (£3.15 for the piece) popped in a sealable bag with that mix and some scrunched up bay leaves and lime leaves from our own trees, then left in the fridge for about seven hours before being beaten with a mallet and griddled. Result: loads of flavour to make up for the relatively small amount. It was as the divine HFW says 'meat as spice.'

What was more important to the meal was the brown rice (I used to hate it, but this stuff is almost perfumed - and I swear it used to be browner, but then Wagon Wheels used to be bigger, and all this used to be fields too) served mixed in with a pile of lightly steamed veg - carrot, mange tout, frozen broccoli, ditto peas, ditto okra, doused in soy sauce and pepped up with five-spice. Say 35p for the rice, £1.65 for the veg and soy, so the meal for three of us £5.15. Not cheap, not dear.

I'll do the same thing without the meat next time, but adding a few mushrooms and more veg - a pepper, and definitely garlic. The substitutions would bring the cost down to about £3. Which to fill three stomachs healthily (three people rather than one ruminant - or do they have four?) seems like a bargain.

One Flame Cooking Fish Soup

Fish soup, or fish stew? The terminology is not really important, though the different words trigger different responses and attitudes. So if served as a starter or accompaniment to an oriental meal say soup, if it is supper or lunch on its own go with stew.

An acknowledgement here to Nick Fisher (now there's a name that helped determine a career) whose River Cottage handbook on fishing inspired a change to a recent version of my own one-pot oriental fish soupy-stew, namely the addition of miso paste, which worked beautifully to give a bit of depth to the broth.

In a medium/large saucepan fry a chopped onion and a carrot cut into small dice, plus a chili in the thinnest possible rings - a minute or so is enough to give them a bit of a start on cooking and a touch of the caramelised surface that adds flavour. Add about a litre of light chicken stock. I am not a huge fan of fish stock, hitting the golden moment between insipid and gluey is not easy. If I want some fishy depth I'd add a tin of anchovies to the onion and carrot at frying stage. Or you can use boiling water and a cube if that's what you have to hand, but then a tsp of miso paste is extremely useful to make the stock more interesting.

Simmer for a couple of minutes only, then lob in noodles that can cook this way - one purchase made during my recent expedition to the local Chinese supermarket - Preston has a big Chinese student population - was a big packet of flat wheat noodles for £2.25, a steal compared to Sainsbury's. How many noodles depends on your needs and space in the pot. Use your imagination.

When the noodles are just about cooked add your fish - I used tilapia but pollock would be fine too, or any other good firm white fish that is from a sustainable source - in large chucks, you want it to hold together and be recognizable.

Season with soy sauce, pepper, and a dash of sesame oil if you have some. Five spice powder helps too. Taste to see if it is interesting enough, and if not add more of those enhancers, and maybe a touch more miso if you feel it is needed. But be quick, the fish should be just done, not overdone - once it is nicely opaque you are there, but taste a bit to be sure.

This is more method than recipe. There are innumerable tunes to be played on it - the most recent version had at the noodle stage half a tin of matchstick thin bamboo shoots added and the whites of six very thin leeks cut into thin rings, and with the onion-carrot-chili mix I added an inch of ginger cut into thin slivers.

I made this as one of three dishes for our evening meal, but had we not just had brunch that day it would have done on its own.

Noodles btw are a wonderfully social ingredient to a dinner: you cannot eat them stuffily. Slurping is the order of the day; spillage and shirt-stains are unavoidable. I would not like to know someone who could eat them and remain entirely dignified.

Winging It

There is no reason why an austerity cook should not find great ways to tickle the taste buds - survival is not enough. That is one of the gripes I always have with healthy eating gurus, who forget that a nutritious diet of brown rice and cabbage water (or whatever the current fad may be) is bloody miserable - the soul and spirit need nourishment too.

A regular treat for us is chicken wings done with various different sauces or marinades. Here btw is another point on which I agree with Nigel Slater, the wing for me is the best bit of the chicken. I ask for them rather than breast when we eat a roasted bird.

Last night's version was a £2.85 cartonful from Sainbury's cooked in a roasting pan that can go on the hob. I fried them in minimal oil, as the pan is non-stick and the chicken skin gives out plenty of fat. Once they had started browning I poured in a glug or two of soy sauce and a good shake of 5-spice powder, tossed the chicken in this and then put them in the oven (already had other stuff in it) at 180C for 30 minutes. They came out sticky, fragrant and sweet, the best finger-food there is, part of the treat being that we ate them in front of the TV instead of at the table.

A farm shop butcher I use sometimes, a bit out of the way so not as often as I'd like, gave me a whole bag of wings one time, must have been 30 in there, as they couldn't sell them (and I was buying a shipping load of other meats). Free is good. Another even more distant shop (was on my route home when I used to work in industry) threw in free ox kidney and liver, pig's trotters (wonderful things), and fat for use in making pate. Not something that many supermarkets will do.