Festive Intermission

Festive Intermission - baked ham

I keep promising to post that dopiaza I made and I will, it's just that I've had to work up until yesterday.  Sometimes these spur of the moment posts are better and allow me to tell a story quickly... So in the spirit of the season...

Midwinter in coastal Belfast.  Cold but happy times...

On the poor farms of Britain and Ireland there wasn't a lot of land available to the peasants.  So the most useful and economical animal to raise and eventually eat was a pig.  A baked ham was something special to have, at special events.

Fast forward many years.  My grandfather's baked ham at Christmas became something for our family, friends and neighbours to enjoy for days, it being the size of a Lancashire prop-forward's thigh.  His custom treatment in mustard and cloves gave it a great bite and taste but kept it very juicy.

Fast forward another 20 years.  CB* reveals her family secret - marinade the ham in Cola first.  Bless you always Papa, but I think CB* is on to something...

So, using some cut price ingredients, I have made enough ham for 4 using only a small joint (£3) that will do several stragglers for leftovers, blending two different family recipes.

Ingredients

1 ham - whatever size you like.  I used a small one.  About 1lb.

2 litres Cola - the SuperMarketValueFood® cheap type ;-)
Spices: (per lb.)
 - half a nutmeg, 1tsp of powder or grated is better.  
 - enough cloves to make the ham look like it's wearing studded leather armour, so say 20 for a small joint.
 - 2 tsp cinnamon

Now then...

Enough mustard powder or regular English mustard to coat that ham all over.  Say half a jar of wet prepared mustard or 4 tablespoons of dry.  

Method

Add about half of the quantity of spices into the cola and marinade the ham in as much of it as it takes to cover it in your largest oven dish / container.  Refrigerate overnight.

Take the ham, drain it, and rub it with the rest of the spices, poking the cloves as far in as you can get them.  Now add your mustard all over.  This is messy if you use pre-prepared mustard, easier and better if you use dry.   

Marinade your ham in cheap cola first.., 

Then give it a good old rub with lots of mustard, spices and cloves shoved in there...

I've 1-UP's the tradition and wrapped it in foil, but you can use a casserole dish or whatever.  Now bake for several hours at about 160 - 180 degrees C.  

I also experimented with putting the marinade cola in an oven dish under the meat, to get a bit of steam and moisture going.  This may not make for a good crust but I'm hoping it will keep the ham fairly tender.   

I shall tell you how it tastes when it's ready.  It's already looking and smelling pretty rocking after 2 hours, so it'll be very nice come dinner time.  

Merry festive season all. SupermarketValueFoodBlog® out.  

EDIT / UPDATE:  My good grief that ham was tasty.  A little salty, but the cloves and seasoning gave it little flavour pops in every bite, and I think the steam method worked well to keep it from drying out.  The cola worked its magic and made it sweet.  If anything, I didn't add enough mustard to keep it traditional enough (!)  Next time I might try a treacle / mustard glaze and finish it under the grill after baking.  But yes.  Happy New Year!  

Spicy Oriental-style veggie stir-fry

Oriental Vegetable stir-fry

I've been super-busy with the run up to the end of the year, so here's an old post I had in the bank from last year, for just such an occasion.  Curry post will follow.  Two in fact...

 Having a fridge clear out recently , I spied a reduced pack of steamable broccoli and cauliflower  It turned out I already had some broccoli spears and cauli cous-cous in the fridge and so...

Starting to think about adding Thai, pepper and soy flavours...

You've seen these mild peppers before.  This is where they were first tried out.  Some char-siu pork on the side...

Remembering I had most of the two ingredients I was about to buy, I went for some small red and yellow peppers instead.  I had some other veg to use up, plus I got a portion of five-spice pork (which you can of course omit)
This is a remarkably simple and fast recipe, but we're going to try making our own Chinese sauce to go with it.

Here's our ingredients for today:

90% reduction for some great onion.

Today's new ingredient - cauliflower "cous-cous", above some tender stem broccoli that have seen better days, but won't be wasted.

 

 Ingredients (per person)

1 handful cauliflower cous-cous, or 1/3 a cauliflower head, de-stalked
1-2 handfuls of tender-stem broccoli with the stalks chopped off
1 bag of stir-fry mix.  Typically this contains:
 - Cabbage (or Chinese leaf if you have it, or kale, or whatever...) , shredded.
 - Beansprouts.
 - Carrots, finely shredded.
 - Red onion.  Red onion is one of the few foods that disagrees with me so I usually add...

One large white onion, finely chopped, as well / instead, to my stir fries.

1 red pepper, or 2 or 3 mild sweet peppers.
1/3* chili pepper (note the original recipe called for 1/2 but I decided this was a liiitle too spicy...)
2 tbsps. oil.  This may seem like a lot but you can drain it off.  Just keep your pan / wok hot.
1 clove chopped garlic

For the sauce 

1 large tbsp hoi sin sauce
1 tsp thai green chilli paste
2 tbsp light soy
2 tbsp dark soy
1/2 tsp chinese 5-spice powder 
1 tsp (approx) grated ginger

Method

Heat the oil as hot as your smoke alarms will allow.  Add the onions, chili and all vegetables first, except the cauliflower (on the first run it burnt a little easily)  Stir fry for 3 minutes, add the garlic and cauliflower, and fry for another 3 minutes, stirring continuously. 

Cauli, broccoli, sweet peppers, stir-fry mix

 Finally add the sauce and let it coat the veg.  Allow to cool and serve.


*munch*

Perhaps not the prettiest or best stir fry ever, but one great way to use up some cauliflower and broccoli.

Yes!  As I said, maybe half a chili AND a tsp of green Thai curry paste was maybe a bit much for this dish (don't worry, I'm doing a curry with Trinidadian scorpion chilies in it soon) but the crunchy veg and thick tasty sauce made this a fast, healthy, cheap supper, full of flavour.  The cauliflower couscous has made me love that so misaligned vegetable again.  Also, some Chinese shiaxing wine, or sherry, would cut through the sauce a little, had I had anything like that.  But hey.  The Chinese five spice pork was added as an afterthought, and was very nice, but to be honest, this dish didn't need it.  You could use mushrooms and they would work as well , or better, for a full veggie option.  

Another winner dinner, cooked in 10 minutes from prep to plate, for under a quid. 

Value meal rescue mission 1 - Chicken Jalfrezi++ / Proper Curry prep / Face The Pain

 Value Jalfreizi /

Chicken 3 ways 3.5/3 - Dopiaza Preparation &

Insane Chilli tasting

Back in the cheap food game, folks...

I had promised to do a chicken dopiaza back last year  So now's the time to prepare, thanks to a lot of hints and ideas I've adapted from this incredible recipe from the Loving Bangladesh Kitchen blog, which you will have adapted for you in the next post.  Meanwhile, today it's preparation and adaptation of a frozen jalfreizi. 

Jalfrezi vs Dopiaza

A  jalfrezi and a dopiaza, are very different, but they both use cardamon, ginger, garlic, onion, tomato, bay leaf, cumin, and whatever other spices you have to hand.  Although as we'll see, a jalfreizi should be a dry curry too...  But this one was reduced from the T.

Behold, supermarket spicy foodgoodness.

The unboxed Tesco Chicken Jalfreizi, about to be heated.

I think this cost 80p.  The sticker wore off in the freezer, but it's around £2 - £2.50 normally.  You get some basmati rice with it and ... well, we'll see how it tastes on its own first.

While the oven is on (saving electricity and heat) I am also going to finish my onions and spice mix for the dopiaza, so all I need to do is add my chicken, any sides ( gobi aloo or spicy rice and ratia spring to mind) then heat, and add the sauce   

As well as the scary part.  Let's talk chilli tasting.


I am a chillihead for sure, but I have limits.  I once went to a chilli festival.  On sale was this Dorset Naga sauce.  It clocks in at about 1 to 2 million times hotter than a bell pepper (rated 1 on the Scoville scale) and still about 10,000 times hotter than the rocket chilli.  So, pretty much intense pain in fruit form.


I don't really remember what happened for about 30 seconds in between sampling a small drop, saying "Wow!  You can really taste the pineapple!...aaaaAAAAGH"  and then finding myself in my seat , tears streaming down my flaming face, begging, "Yoghurt!  Yoghurt!!  Aagh!  Can I borrow a fiver for that Naga sauce?  It's like CS gas, but ...aaagh...with fruity...aaagh...pineapple!"


So caution is the watchword but this is preparation.  You can't cook good value food if you don't know how to improve it.  And to improve it we must experiment to see what works.  Which means tasting.



Below you'll see a sweet pepper, which I used in the chackchouka I made, next to a regular chilli I picked up a bag for for about 30p, which was pretty fiery.  

Common or garden supermarket small bell pepper

Next, I found a massive bag of "rocket chillis" from Gambia, which are less than a penny a gram, and shall be pickeled.  Finally...

The rocket finger chillis on the left are hot.  The Trinidad Scorpions on the right are just evil...

... the last time I was in Dublin, I bought some Trinidadian Scorpion chillis, which, frankly, I am scared of.  But at €1 for around 25-30 of the things, it was only stupid to try and eat them all at once, just not to sample them before ruining a perfectly good dopiaza first! 

Tonight I'll be tasting a ready meal, plus 4 kinds of chilli, to see what will give my dopiaza the right level of heat.  

Method

Chillis
 - I added a little oil to the bottom of a casserole dish to bake and intensify the flavours.

I just looked up the Scoville rating for the scorpion chilli and it rates between 800,000 and 2 million.  Whuh-oh. 

Jalfreizi ready meal

"Remove cardboard sleeve.  Punch holes in film.  Add to a preheated oven" 

I cooked it from frozen for about 45 minutes at 150° instead of the recommended instructions - I think this has given the rice time to reheat properly rather than burn or dry out, but the sauce may have suffered the freezing process...  

Four Chilis in order of heat, small bell pepper, regular, green finger chili and scorpion chili...

First impressions of the jalfreizi au naturel, plus chillis #1 and #3:

*munch*
Yep, the sauce is wet; not very thick, but the rice has come out well.  One of the hazards with trying to cook two different ingredients the same way where they could be better prepapred separaertly, as well as freezing certain types of food. 

But tastewise...

Yum!  Quite fragrant, not overly spicy (yet...)  - the chicken is breast meat and comes in quite large chunks, which makes up for it being pretty poor quality chicken.  Despite the sauce being too runny and too based on tomatoes, there's a nice after kick to this, plus some layering of spices (I swear I could taste the bay leaf and cardamon).  I quite recommend this if you like hot but not insane ready Indian meals.  On its own this is a fine supper for 80p.

Now for chilli number 1 - sweet pepper, baked in a little oil.

As expected, it's almost sugary, and has zero heat.  A nice addition to any meal - would barbeque well, oven roast well, or ... go with anything really. Pickled with salt?  A bit of fish and sea veg?  Roasted peppers - lovely.


Now for the Gambian rocket chilli, also baked in some oil.

Ha-HA!  This hits like a drunk baritone opera singer at a karaoke night.  Not much front of mouth, all chest and back of the throat, loud, and lingers too long!  BUT... I think this chilli is the perfect accompaniment for a *really* hot jalfreizi, if you like your gums to water for a few minutes afterwards.  One of these would *really* fire up that ready meal.  I'm going to call perfect ingredient for jazzing up your supermarket Indian.   

 I *did* make the error of leaving the seeds and pith in, which, if you want control over heat (or not) you should carefully remove with a knife and use hand protection.  But after a slug of cream to let the dairy fat absord the capsaicin, I was fine.

I shall try chillis #2 (the normal T red chilli) and #4 (the "sorry boss, need to go home sick, can't see the computer screen for tears, also best no-one touches me." Trinidad Scorpion tomorrow for lunch with the remaining jalfreizi as leftovers.

Yum yum - not a bad and spicy improvement to a 60p frozen curry

 So far the dopiaza is going to have half a Ghanaian rocket and half a regular T chilli, in addition to the spice blend I prepared and baked with the sauce earlier, but more details follow next time.

Update

I ate the red T-chilli for breakfast (not as hot as I remember but still a good kick) and then...

For lunch I polished off the rest of the jalfreizi, plus... the scorpion chilli.

The first half was lovely, so much so I ate the second half too.  After about twenty seconds I got a nice fruity tang and then... well... it was a good job I remembered to bring yoghurt and cream with me.  Any oil will help absorb capsaicin.  Not the hottest I've ever eaten and to be honest, not a lot of flavour but oh the burn after about 30 seconds...

Thank-you cream, thank-you yoghurt, thank-you Pepto-Bismol® Phew!

I think these bad gals and guys are going to be preserved and turned into a fruity insanity sauce with pineapple and herbs.  Not for the dopiaza.

So there you are - 
1.  Can recommend the T's Hot Jalfreizi if reduced, and especially if you want to kick it up, with a halft of Ghanaian rocket chilli (finger chilli also would work)  Of course pickles, naan, extra sauce can all be added to strecth this.
2.  I'll be sticking mainly to the recipe I linked to in the opening paragraph next week, but using a regular and rocket chilli for heat.
3.  The scorpion chillis deserve their own post and Health and Safety regulation.  I'll deal with them at a later date.      

[Temporary Technical Setback]

Well, it seems that Google Drive and Blogger (owned by Google!) have different ideas what it means about photo sharing so I apologise for my last post not having any pictures of last week's lunch I made in the office in about five minutes.  

Also I've noticed a lot of my old pictures have been removed.  I think I need to read the manual on Google Drive again, as I was getting tired of uploading pictures to Drive and having to download them again in order to post them.

Nevertheless, I'll have a post featuring an insane amount of hot chillis and chicken dopiaza up today, tomorrow at latest.  Once I've finished uploading all my old pictures again.  Gah...

Here are some nice (mainly non-food related) pictures from my own archives of happier times,in the meantime, to keep myself sane and happy while I sort this mess out.  Thanks for your patience.

EDIT:  I've managed to find the pictures of my improvised working lunch, see my previous post for pictures!  Still working on finding the rest of them...

The old garden

Ah yes, happier times making that chicken chachocka

There's video footage on my YouTube channel of the opening and tasting of this on our visit to the GBBF 2016

Just a few of the plants at my dad's house.  Many good meals consumed there

Bit jealous of Dad manging to grow a chilli...

...and lettuce

Happy camping at Ballycastle
.  Not pictured was the budget burger supper I cooked up on a stove

The original budget beer festival I had when I was broke and couldn't make it to London.  I don't miss the cider, but |I miss that blanket...

That'll be me in silhouette then. 

Now THAT was a good Thai coconut, chilli and coriander soup/stew...Yum

It might not be budget, but the winter brings belfast's continental market, where I'll score a few goodies and enjoy the ambience with friends.

Good old soda bread.  Difficult to get right, but when I made this a few years back, it was cheap AND satisfying.

My experience at a Colombian restaurant in '13. those were some good empanadas...  

Fiscally responsible business lunch

Fiscally responsible business lunch – Caprese salad with a twist

I’ve made salads before on this blog, but today you may notice a difference in the surroundings they were prepared in...

I prefer to focus on the hills and forests, not on the cars or my job at lunchtime.  And no, I did *not* go dumpster diving either!

Correct – this is obviously not the SupermarketValueFood® kitchen, this is the view from the canteen in my office.  A challenge to make anything from scratch, other than in a microwave.  Normally it’s heated up soup, or pay for sandwiches like everyone else for lunch for the staff. But not for me today.

Today’s budget ingredient (in addition to some of the iceberg lettuce and salad tomatoes I picked up from the Co for 59p each a few weeks back) is this ball of Basic Mozzarella for 50p.

50p for a large fist shape of cheese?  Let's give it a shot...

*munch* - It’s not so much of a cheese as a sphere of edible consistency.  I can see it being an addition to something, just not an ingredient on its own.  If you had enough toppings it would go well on a budget pizza.  I *do* like the texture though – pleasantly stringy and chewy.

Classic Caprese salad is simply tomatoes, basil and buffalo mozzarella seasoned with olive oil and salt.  But I need to bulk this up if I’m going to last the day at the desk.

Ingredients - for one as a light lunch or two as an antipasto

-          Half a ball of mozzarella, peeled; torn off, not sliced.

-          2 or 3 salad tomatoes, sliced.

-          1 bunch of basil, torn

-          Olive oil

-          Salt and pepper

Here I deviate from tradition, add extra edibles, and also experiment…

-          4-5 leaves of iceberg lettuce, cut or torn into fork sized chunks.

-          1 small handful of chard, or any other salad leaves you have to hand.

-          1 small bunch worth of mixed chopped herbs – I got the chard, plus a bunch each of coriander, parsley, and the basil, from St. George’s Market for a quid, and there’ll still be plenty left after this…  So coriander and parsley it is.

-          2 or 3 tsp soy sauce.  Yes, soy sauce. 

-          Dried herbs – oregano and basil today, for garnish.

Method

Put a layer of iceberg lettuce and some of the herbs on the bottom of a plate.

Top with a layer of tomatoes.  Add some salt to them.  Now put a chunk of the mozzarella and a bit of basil on top of each slice.  Dress with a little olive oil.

Layer more of the chard/ iceberg lettuce, salad leaves and chopped herbs, and repeat the process with the remaining tomatoes, mozzarella and basil.  Dust with the dried herbs and finish with a little more oil.

Now drip the soy sauce down to the bottom of the plate in four corners and add a small amount on top over the oil.  Serve.

Healthy, fast, tasty, cheap, what more do you want to keep you going through another 5 hours of work?

*munch*

I’ll be honest, the parsley is maybe a bit too bitter for this recipe and I’m not getting much from the dried herbs (although they do look aesthetically pleasing).   I also should have taken the tomatoes out of the fridge sooner (it’s way colder than mine at home and they were almost frozen – they should really be left in the sun to ripen and go juicy…)

That aside - each forkful of tomato, mozzarella, basil and oil, is delicious.  This recipe is a classic for a reason, and the extra salad veg layered in makes this feel more like a lunch than a starter.  The real surprise is how well the soy sauce and oil, and the fresh coriander keeps things interesting.

That’ll keep me going through the 3 o’clock meeting, and all at a fraction of the cost of what you’d pay for in a restaurant (on expenses)

There were some jealous looks in the office when I knocked this together

PS:

The next day I was able to make a “Superfood “salad, containing chard, rocket, kale and beetroot (priced at …) with the rest of the iceberg lettuce plus a few grated radishes, a pack of which cost 9p, the remaining herbs (minus the parsley) with Supermarket chicken peri-peri (priced at £1.35 down from £2.99) I added a home-made mustard and olive oil dressing (1 heaped tsp Dijon mustard to 1/3 cup oil, whisked thoroughly.