New Wok

New Wok!

Today I got a new wok! I believe woks are the all-rounder of the pan world. You can fry foods as well as make sauces or even soups. They are ideal for curries or casseroles, especially if you can put them in the oven too.

If you don't already have a wok grab one now! I would recommend TK Maxx or similar because they have top quality equipment (Crueset and the likes) for a fraction of their regular price!

Here is a little recipe for something very quick and easy designed in woks for woks (perfect for woks!).  

(Beware some ingredients aren't everyday things so check the list before you go shopping next time!)

Pad Thai Gai

You will need: Oil for the pan, 4 cloves of garlic, an egg, 2 tablespoons of fish sauce (get from an oriental supermarket or similar) alternatively use soy sauce, 1 teaspoon of sugar, 1 cup of water,any amount of chicken between 50g-150g (cut into bite size pieces, preferably thing so they cook quickly), 150g of rice noodle (if bought dried then soak for 2 minutes before) again this can be bought from an oriental supermarket or similar, 1/2 cup of bean sprouts, 1 spring onion, lime and chopped peanuts for taste (not necessary).

Traditionally the Thai people put cubes of tofu in so if you are feeling particularly inclined to be traditional or perhaps are looking to impress a Thai person then pick up a pack of tofu in any supermarket.

Method

 Ok start off by putting some oil in the pan (about 2 tablespoons) and let it heat up for about 20 seconds. Throw in the chopped garlic (oh, you need to chop the garlic) ok so chop the garlic (after peeling it) ok so peel and chop the garlic and throw it in. By this time hopefully you haven't set fire to the oil and remembered to turn it down while chopping the garlic. Fry it until it's fragrant.

Now it's time to throw in the chicken (do the throwing carefully to avoid losing any or receiving burning hot oil splashes to the face). Give it a stir and some seasoning (this means pepper, sugar and a pinch of salt). Keep pushing it around (bully that chicken!) until it's cooked through and then crack the egg into the pan. Add the fish sauce and a bit more sugar and mix the egg until its scrambled and push it up onto the side of the wok nearest to the handle.

Now this is the tricky bit, you need to hold the wok so it's base it not on the heat but the side furthest from the handle is directly above the heat instead. Hold the handle up and away from the heat and this should be correct. The idea is to keep the ingredients you have cooked already separate from the noodles while they cook.

Put the cup of water into wok, making sure to keep the egg and chicken away from it. Put the noodles in immediately and stir them until they are soft, should be about 30 seconds.
If you find this too tricky either keep practising so you can eventually impress your friends and be a winner! Or use a separate pan and cry yourself to sleep at night.

Either way mix everything left together and fry for about 20 seconds. (You needed to chop the spring onion too by the way, doesn't look quite right just sitting on top of the noodles?)

Once the noodles are almost dry serve with a bit of lime squeezed over the them... or not?

 So there is a 5 minute meal which is one of my favourites! And it shows how versatile a wok is in just one recipe! If you need any help or tips with this recipe leave a comment or contact the facebook page!

 

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Making A Meal Out Of It

Making A Meal Out Of It

 Hello Readers! Apologies for no post yesterday I just couldn't seem to get round to it!

Today I have composed a list of what some or most people will think are trivial things that everyone surely knows, however it has been brought to my attention that not everyone knows these things! Never fear food fools for Student Cookery will right these travesties of nature!

Here's the first draft of the list, feel free to leave a comment suggesting others. These should all take less than 5 minutes really so if you do suggest something bear this is mind.

1. How to chop an onion (without crying)
2. How to boil an egg (hard and runny)
3. How to peel an apple
4. How to make a garlic and herb butter
5. Garlic Oil and Chilli Oil

So there's the first 5 things that come to my mind. If you can think of anymore please leave a comment!

 

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Seb's Speghetti Bolognese - Part II

Part II - The Ingredients Analysis

So I said yesterday I would go through each ingredient and show how little everything costs.

I keep my word.

So I will go through each individual ingredient, get the package price, get the ingredient price (if they aren't the same) and finally total them to get an average price per serving.

Here's the list in case you have forgotten:

Ingredients:

400g of Beef Mince

White onion – chopped

2 Tbsp. Tomato Puree

400g Chopped Tomatoes

1 Apricot (Or 3 dried apricots) chopped

3 Cloves of Garlic (Or 1 Tbsp. of “Seb’s Garlic Paste”)

For Seasoning:

Salt, pepper, sugar, fresh basil, sage, oregano

So first up is the mince and meat is generally going to be the most expensive ingredient in any meal unless you have something really extravagant to go with it. A 900g pack from Aldi (which is much better than Sainsbury's for quality!) is a mere £2.49 (£1.11 for 400g). You can get a 500g pack for £1.99 as well (£1.60 for 400g). This is compared to Sainsbury's mince packs of 500g cost between £3.60 and £4.00.

Next up is the onion. 9p per 100g at ASDA and a measured average of 140g-150g for a medium onion makes it about 14p for an onion. 

If you buy in bulk from ASDA you can get 2kg of onions for as little as £1.17 making each onion 8.8p!

 The third ingredient is the tomato puree. Be aware that if you are using "Seb's Tomato Sauce" then you won't use this and you can go by how much of the sauce you use and how much per 100g it costs. (Recipe coming soon!) 

You can buy tomato puree from almost any supermarket, usually in a tube or jar. At ASDA one 200g tube is 48p. 2 Tbsp. is around 30g so this equals 7.2p of tomato puree. 

You can store tomato puree for long while in the fridge as long as you screw the cap back on the tube so this is a good thing to have around!

The next ingredient is the tin of chopped tomatoes. As long as you don't cut yourself opening the tin and incur massive medical costs these are very cheap.

Pick a 4 pack up by Napolina for £2.44 (61p a can) at ASDA or Tesco or get 1 can for just 31p at ASDA.

Fresh or dried apricots are next up, these are totally optional but I think it adds an exciting twist on an old classic, but of course if you don't like them, leave it out.

Get a box of 6 fresh apricots for £1.00 at ASDA, although you're only using one in the recipe, possibly less. So get this if you REALLY like apricots!

You can also get a bag of dried apricot (ASDA) for just 32p for 40g (plenty for the recipe). Or even a tin of apricots in syrup, again from ASDA for 68p. You wouldn't use the whole can so lets say 34p (half) worth of this can in the recipe.

 The last ingredient is the garlic. This should be an ingredient that is always stocked. I always get a few cloves when I do my weekly shop, just because it can go in anything. A lot of people think 

"Eugh all your food will just taste of garlic!"

Well they're wrong. Garlic is very similar to onion, it is used to draw flavours out of the other ingredients. A clove or two in an entire dish, you wouldn't really taste the distinctive garlic taste, however it makes a hell of a difference to the flavours you would be able to taste.

Take a curry for instance, do you taste that distinctive garlic taste in a tikka masala or a korma? No but i promise you there will be garlic in every curry you have had from a restaurant.

Now in an Italian dish like spaghetti bolognese, you would use maybe 2, 3 or even 4 cloves and get a good hint of garlic.

A garlic clove weighs on average about 5g. Also each garlic bulb hold between 6 and 14 cloves. You can get a bulb for between 23p and 47p (the 47p bulb has bigger cloves) or you can get a string of garlic (500g) for £3.00. All these prices are from ASDA.

So on average I have calculated it to be between 3p and 6p per clove. This does depend on size and remember the larger the clove the easier it will be to peel and chop so if you are a beginner cook, use the large ones!

Ok so that's a total of maximum 30p for garlic. Let's total up all the main ingredients, I'll come to the herbs later

Mince	£1.11 - £1.60
Onion	£0.08 - £0.14
Tomato Puree	£0.08
Tin of chopped Tomatoes	£0.31 - £0.61
Apricot	£0.17 - £0.34
Garlic	£0.30
Total	£2.05 - £3.24
Spaghetti	£0.21 - £0.39

 I added a portion of spaghetti for one in the bottom row. This is based on buying either the 1kg pack (£1.34) or the 500g pack by Napolina (£1.28) from ASDA.

The recipe should serve at least 4 people so dividing the total by 4 you get the price per head of this recipe. £0.52 - £0.81. Plus the spaghetti:

£0.73 - £1.20

Now this is a meal that can be cooked in under 15 minutes with a bit of practice so compare it to a packet meal that is not only significantly worse for you in terms of your health (and ego) but also more expensive!

My recipe even pips Tesco to the post on cheapest. 

(And let's take a guess at which will taste nicer?)

Picture courtesy of shitefood.co.uk

74p!

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Seb's Spaghetti Bolognese

Seb’s Spaghetti Bolognese

This recipe is one of my own conjurations from having a life-long addiction to spag-bog. It's just so quick and easy and cheap! I'm going to do a second blog entry to go with this one tomorrow with a run down of the costs of each ingredient and hence an average price per meal. Hopefully this will carry on throughout all my recipes and videos. There will definitely be a video of this recipe (possibly the first of all) so watch this space!

This classic Italian pasta dish is one of my all-time favourites and it’s just so easy there is no excuse for not being able to make this. One of the great things about spaghetti Bolognese is how versatile it is. You can add or take away loads of ingredients to cater for particular tastes. My special variation is the addition of chopped apricot. It has a subtle sweetness that really goes well with the other flavours. (Although you might not think so before you’ve tried it!)

Ingredients: (Serves 4) 400g of Beef Mince White onion – chopped 2 Tbsp. Tomato Puree 400g Chopped Tomatoes 1 Apricot (Or 3 dried apricots) chopped 3 Cloves of Garlic (Or 1 Tbsp. of “Seb’s Garlic Paste”) For Seasoning: Salt, pepper, sugar, fresh basil, sage, oregano Variations: If you feel like adding a little something extra why not try adding one or two of these suggestions.

 Method:

Ok to start off get a couple of glugs of any oil (I use olive) into a fairly large frying pan. Once it’s heated up a bit throw the chopped onion in. The idea of the oil is to spread the heat of the pan over the surface of the food. So you need enough to make all the onion wet. You don’t want to see any black bits on the corners of the chopped onion either, just sizzling quietly until they start to go see-through and a darker colour. Then it’s time for the crushed or chopped garlic. This should fry until it’s fragrant.

Once you can smell it, put in the mince and remember to salt all sides of your lump of meat well otherwise it will taste very bland. Put some pepper and sugar in at this point too.

If you wanted to add some diced or chopped carrot or other vegetable then now is the time.

Alternatively, you can cook the vegetable as normal (for example boil the chopped carrot) and add it nearer to the end.

Keep shaking the pan around and stirring it until all the mince has browned. Now put your tomato puree and your chopped tomatoes (or Seb’s Tomato Sauce) into the pan and bring it to the boil. While your waiting throw some herbs and a pinch of salt in.

This is the point you would put some quite finely chopped chili pepper in if you wanted. Remember that the seeds of the chili are what give it the spice so depending on how spicy you want it, take seeds out accordingly.

Once it has boiled, turn down the heat and let it simmer for about 15 minutes or longer if you have the time. (Use this time to boil the spaghetti!). Keep tasting it as you go along and add salt, pepper and sugar if you feel it needs it. If you fancy the sauce thicker or creamier add some double cream while it simmers and stir it in. Then serve with Parmesan or grated cheddar, on al dente spaghetti once the sauce has reached the desired consistency.

Top tip: If you’re short on time start by getting your water boiling for the pasta and put it in as soon as it has boiled. Then cook the sauce and by the time it’s cooked your pasta should be too! This meal can be cooked in less than 15 minutes. 

Why not try "Seb's Tomato Sauce" instead of the tinned chopped tomatoes and the tomato puree? Recipe on it's way!