Versatile Sauces; more Monster Sandwiches

Bonus post – Versatile Sauces; Monster Sandwiches

 

So as I eat a lot of sandwiches and snack foods, as they tend to be the things that are usually reduced, we need something to go with them.  We'll come back to this behemoth above at the end of the article, but first, let's discuss sauces I've made. 

Teriyaki-style dipping sauce

I made this to go with 3 spring rolls I picked up for €0.60

• 2 tbsp dark soy
• 2 tbsp light soy
• Garlic, crushed with salt
• Ginger, sliced and crushed.  I used my good old budget pestle and mortar that I got from the charity shop, but the back of a knife or a heavy implement and a chopping board work as well. 
• Brown Sugar – about one small coffee-shop style packet will do.

Mix the whole lot together and leave for a few hours for the flavours to mingle.  If you have anything like flour or cornflour to thicken the sauce with, this works as well.

Multi-purpose Salad Dressing

Any oil and acidic ingredient will make a fantastic salad dressing, but did you know you can also add it to stale bread to make toasty croutons, or dip a basic supermarket sandwich into it?

So, ideally you want to get the nicest oil and vinegar you can, but even basic oil and a lemon will work.

The ratio is key.  

4 measures of oil to one of lemon is my preference.  
But always - taste and adjust!

Basic cheat’s barbeque sauce. 

I’m now going to reveal the secret of quick barbeque sauce.  I will probably never get service in the less discerning restaurants and cafes in Northern Ireland again, by revealing this...

Here it is:

 - Mix equal parts of ketchup and HP (brown) sauce.

  
That’s it.

 You could add chilli powder or more vinegar if you want, but really, this is the easiest thing you can do to make a burger taste a bit better, on the cheap. 

It works surprisingly well as a marinade, if not better than as a "BBQ" sauce. 

Alfredo sauce

Another sauce I like to throw over my dinner is a cheese sauce, sometimes called alfredo in the US, so let’s go through what you need to do for this.  It’s commonly used for pasta but I’ve found it works well on other dishes like chicken, fish or even on a ham toastie.  Or for nachos.  Cheese sauces are simple, but can catch you out if improperly prepared.  So let’s do it right.  

 - So grate up a couple of fistfuls of whatever cheese you have to hand, but I recommend cheddar or red Leicester (it’s usually quite cheap here)  Don’t use mozzarella for this one, it may be the cheapest cheese you see in the supermarket, but a cheese sauce needs a strong flavour.  

 -  Add a good dust of Parmesan as well.  Proper Alfredo sauce uses about a small tub of grated Parmesan, but for economic reasons, we use what we have. 

- Melt the grated cheese *slowly* in some milk in a saucepan.  Add some cream, and continue to stir.  

This is the tough part.   

Making a roux is a simple thing which can go badly very quickly.  It’s why trainee chefs have to practice this constantly. 

All we are doing is cooking some flour in butter, but it can go lumpy, or burn, in a second.  So pay attention!, watch the consistency by continually stirring it, and the instant it starts to go golden, remove from the heat.  

Whisk the roux into the melted cheese sauce, vigorously.  No lumps, please.  

 There you go.  Taste the sauce, add more cheese if necessary, and when thick, take off the heat.  Note that what you’re putting your cheese sauce on will affect how much roux you want to use to thicken the sauce.  For spuds or nachos, I like a thick sauce.  For pasta, a slightly thinner one.   

But don’t stint on the cheese.

Sandwich time

Now do you remember this sandwich?  It was composed (almost) entirely of leftovers at Christmas last year.  It contains:

On the top layer -

Sausage meat

Mozarella

Sage and onion stuffing

Gravy, just a little to get some moistness in there – leftover food can go dry!

On the bottom layer:

Turkey

Crispy Bacon, which was used to wrap the turkey to keep it moist as it cooked

Avocado – not leftover but works well with the turkey and bacon

Cranberry sauce

Scotch bonnet chilli sauce.

Method
 - Toast the 3 slices bread for a minute, then put the mozzarella cheese on the top slice, and start to melt it in a low oven.  My dad has an Aga at his place but I’d say about 150° in a conventional oven.    I then sliced up everything else, assembled it to my liking, and put the top slice with the melted cheese on the top of the sandwich, and back into the oven, for a few more minutes until things were looking heated and melted.  Easy.

*munch*

It goes without saying that this was one of the best sandwiches I’ve ever made for myself.  The key to leftovers, is changing the taste up.  Sauces will feature in future posts, but for now, this filler was all killer.

Fruity lamb, chickpea and aubergine curry

A fruity lamb and chick pea curry

The chick peas and veg, frying up

I love a good curry, and I love lamb.

  It wasn’t my favourite meat when I was growing up, but I’ve come to really enjoy it.  Chops, cutlets, real kebabs (note to self, must do a recipe for koftas next time I see some cheap minced lamb...)  My curry tastes have also changed over the years - from the mild, soupy comforts of chicken tikka masala, I now prefer something a little more authentic, and hot.

So today we’ll use this half price pack of €3 lamb chunks, and see what we have in the fridge.

Cheap lamb.  Note - does not contain any farmers

 

Ingredients

• Our budget lamb chunks.  These will need some long slow cooking.
•  Onions.  Always good in curries. 
•  Garlic.  
• A chilli.  What, did you expect me not to put some heat in?  Plus the fruitiness of a chilli *does* make a difference to the overall flavour. 
• Today’s larder star – a tin of chick peas.  Another Indian recipe I’m fond of that’s cheap and tasty is dhal, which uses lentils.  But we’ll go with chick peas today.
• Aubergine.  Just happened to have one in the fridge, and they take very well to slow cooking as they do to frying. 
• 1 mandarin orange.  I was almost going to go for a Moroccan tagine today, but I thought I'd cross over and add the fruit to the curry anyway.
• Natural yoghurt.  Normally a lot of curries are tomato based, or very dry.  I’ve found yoghurt, if cooked right, is easily as tasty, and there are quite a few recipes for yoghurt chicken online as well.
• Spice mix: 
• Curry Powder. 
• Ideally we want a little cumin and some garam masala, but this budget pack of curry powder will suffice.  It’s a little salty mind, so go easy on the NaCl this time.  You should always season your food, but always taste budget ingredients and foods first, as they are already quite salty.  
• White pepper.  I heard a radio documentary about white pepper many years ago, explaining that it was this ingredient, prized in Indian cuisine, where the heat and kick in traditional South Asian food comes from.  Remarkably cheap as well, but beware, it’s like black pepper, but turned up to 11... 
• Let's add some black pepper too, just for contrast.  Ground fairly coarsely.
• Cinnamon.  I happened to have a stick in the cupboard and thought "If we're using oranges and almost making a tagine, may as well add this Moroccan staple"

Method

• First of all, let’s dry fry our spice mix in a hot pan for a minute – that’s two heaped tbsp curry powder, one tsp each of white and black pepper ,and our cinnamon stick.  Once fragrant, but not burnt...
•  Add a tablespoon of oil, and add our meat, chopped onions, chopped and de-seeded chilli, and garlic, and cook until the meat is browned, and the onions are starting to caramelise.  Say 5-10 minutes.
• Now transfer the meat, onions, chilli, garlic, cinnamon stick, and aubergine, to a slow cooker, or another pan if you have one, and add some of the mandarin orange segments, along with a little of the zest as well.
• Time to make the chick pea curry sauce - Add them to the pan, along with a little of the liquid from the tin.  Stir and taste, you may want a little more curry powder. 
• Add the yoghurt and cover your pan.  Let the chick pea curry sauce and the lamb and veg do their thing for a few hours on a low heat.
  
• Finally when ready to serve, add 1 more tablespoon of natural yoghurt to the pan to thicken the sauce, take a serving of the chick pea curry sauce, and a serving of the slow-cooked lamb and veg, and add a bit of coriander to finish.  

 
 

*munch*

The beginnings of our slow cooked lamb curry

Wow!  Long slow cooking has brought the best out of the budget lamb, and the punch of the white pepper and chilli gives this a real kick.  The aubergine has become soft and melty, but the chick peas retain a bit of texture.  The lamb is super fall-apart tender, and the fruit has turned into a nice tangy mush.  The cinnamon comes through too.   

 One thing I would change is maybe blending or mashing the tinned chick peas a little, to make the sauce thicker.

If I had added pineapple and used lentils instead of chick peas, this would have been a very acceptable pathia. 

Delicious, if I do say so myself.

Dublin Bay Prawn Festival - fried hake & greens; seafood chowder

Dublin Bay Prawn Festival @ Howth

The last couple of months, I've been on a seafood binge.  You'd be amazed at some of the bargains you can get at the budget supermarket section, if you're willing to go pescetarian.  And I pretty much have during the last two months.  It beats red meat and junk food.

At the end of April I went up to the northernmost point of Dublin Bay to Howth, and their annual Prawn Festival.  This was definitely not a budget trip, but it was delicious, and it *did* still give me some cheap ingredients, and ideas.

Oysters, langoustines (Dublin Bay prawns), and a host of great entertainment in a wonderful little town. Couple of non budget foodie pictures first...

Howth's finest rock oysters served with red wine vinegar and shallots, tabasco, and lemon & black pepper.

Moules mariniere.  A.k.a. Mussels in cream sauce

Langoustine po' boy

This fella was NOT on today's menu, but he did look cool.

 So after my day out, I got a budget haul of fish from the supermarket the next day.  First, about a kilo of hake for €2. If you're not familiar with hake, it's not as sweet as cod, but has a similar texture.  "The chicken of the sea" the fishmonger told me...

Fried fish, soft steamed egg and greens.

The hake first of all, did me a very simple fried fish supper consisting of:

• The fish itself, dredged in flour and seasoning.  Fry that.   
• Now put a saucepan of water on to boil, and get a metal colander or steamer for...
•  Steamed veg - 1 bunch of asparagus for €0.80 and some sprouting broccoli for about €0.75.  Using a steamer if you have one, or just boiled in water if not.  
• Cut the stems off the Cook those for about 10-15 minutes until tender. 
•  A couple of soft boiled eggs, added to the steaming water pan 3-4 minutes before the veg is cooked.  
•  Good pinch of salt but lots of pepper on there, a few herbs from the garden, a little butter, and this is done. 

I expect you could make a nice dressing for this and make it even better.  (Mental note, plan budget sauces post...)

Fried Hake, sizzling up until just opaque.

Steamed veg and soft-boiled egg.  The egg's burst a bit there, I should have turned the heat down(!)

Fried hake, boiled egg, served with sprouting broccoli and asparagus

So today's main recipe is something very special:

At Howth, for a small donation to the RLNI, a cause very close to my heart since my first job was writing software for them, folks at the festival could watch a fish filleting demonstration, and take home the leftovers.  Lots of nice , almost free, fish fillets were produced.

My interest was in something a little more obscure...


Langoustine shells

Trust me, these are going to taste amazing, given the right treatment!

  I took home 3 big bags of shells in order to make myself some fish stock for a bisque and for a seafood chowder, which is today's recipe.

Chowder Ingredients

• Fish (obviously) - So I had my hake, but I also got:
• smoked cod, 1 nice fillet reduced €1.20
• two big haddock for about €1.90 
• 4 Potatoes. - Chop into quarters and boil.  Once cooked and drained, I like to leave two of them in small chunks, and puree the rest with a little milk, using the good ol' SupermarketValue hand blender I showed you a few weeks ago.  That gets you a nice creamy texture base to work with.  
• Mirepoix - the holy trinity, well, quaternary today, of veg: 
• The white of a leek 
•  1 carrot
•  the top half of a stick of celery
•  half an onion.  
• Half a tin of sweetcorn.  Can't have a chowder without sweetcorn. 
• Parsley and cream to finish but before that....

  Fish stock:

Fish stock ingredients

• 1 big bag of prawn heads, crab shells, oyster shells, leftover fish, etc.  Make sure it's fresh of course, you don't want to break out in hives or have to go to casualty... 
• Any leftover fish scraps you have (I used the leftover hake and haddock skin) 
• 1 vegetable stock cube.  
• Mirepoix veg:
• 1 carrot
• the top (green) half of the leek
• Te bottom half of a stick of celery minus the root, chop that off 
• 1 good big splash of brandy  (don't worry, it's worth it...) 
• Herbs.  Usually I'm using about 3 tbsp of dried herbs but if you have fresh; dill, parsely, and (a little) oregano go well with fish.
• Half a pan of water plus a good slug of cider or wine.  Today I used cider.

Fish stock method 

• Add about a tablespoon of oil to a frying pan until it's screaming hot.  Start to fry the seafood shells.  This will give it a really intense flavour.   
• Now, *carefully* add the brandy to the fried prawn shells.  It will sizzle like crazy and, if you're lucky enough to have a gas stove, you could flambee the brandy off ... just ... be aware you may start a fire!  
• Meanwhile get the vegetable side of things going by throwing in the chopped carrot, celery and leek in with some oil to soften
• Now add your water/liquour and the stock cube
•   You want it to reduce down to a very intense looking and tasting, and smelling, liquid.  

Also, open the windows.  Did I mention that you should do that before you start, unless you want to make your home smell like a cannery...

I like to give the shells a bit of a bash with a blunt instrument while this is all boiling down.  You'll notice in the picture, the Dublin Bay prawn has those long thin claws and while they are not worth the effort to pick the meat out of, they are nothing but pure flavour if you smash them up. When cool, filter through a colander and muslin if you have it, into a sterile Kilner jar. 
 

The finished prawn / fish stock

Not as clear as I'd like.  You can avoid cloudiness by reducing the cooking time so the bones don't start to cook, but I didn't really mind too much to be frank. If you let it settle it'll look a lot better, and you can just carefully spoon off what you need, or filter it if you don't want the sediment.

Now to the main dish... 

Chowder Method 

• Soften the chopped carrot, leek and celery in a tablespoon of oil in a hot pan.   
• Take the veg stock, and add a few tablespoons of fish stock to it. 
• Taste the results - very important!  The fish stock and the stock cube will make this dish quite salty, but the potatoes we're about to add will draw the salt out, so you shouldn't really need any extra.  However, taste and taste again.  
• Add a little black pepper.  And/or chilli powder or hot sauce.  You should have gathered by now I like my spicy food... 
• Add the boiled potatoes, pureed potatoes, the chopped veg, and the sweetcorn to the stock. You now have a vegetable and potato chowder with some really nifty fish taste to it. 

Now it's time to add the hake, smoked cod, and haddock.

Chopped fairly chunky, this will now be ready in about 10 - 20 minutes, depending on chunk size.

Fish doesn't take well to overcooking so please keep your eye on it and don't take my timing as foolproof.  When it just turns opaque in the centre of a chunk, it's ready to serve.  Remove from heat.

• Now it's time to let it cool for a few minutes...
• ...and add the cream and the parsley garnish.  We add the cream at the end so it doesn't split.

*munch*
Oh my word... if this isn't one of the best things I've made to date...  Silky, filling, sweet - and the home made fish stock just gives it the edge it needs.  Definitely worth the effort pulverising and boiling up all those prawns.  Cruise liner dining, on a Holyhead ferry budget.

Bonus Post: On bread, sandwiches, wraps and pittas

Bread & Sandwiches - the ultimate budget food

This was my Christmas leftover sandwich.  Sadly I don't get to eat that well all the time...

The thing with budget value shopping, is that a lot of times, you get a lot of similar produce.  By that I mean, sandwich fillings.

But, the haul I scored in February, made me very glad to eat everything that could be put between two slices of bread.  You'll see below.


Bread and its cousins, the pitta, the wrap, the flatbread, are eaten all over the world in all their forms - they're cheap, portable, and the perfect carrier for tasty fillings.

In Ireland, the most common reduced items for sambos that I've seen during my exploits in the Clearance section are: 
 -  "luncheon" meat, ham, turkey, chicken
 - Salad  - it makes a great partner to meat, or even on its own with toast.  Given a little mayo or your own homemade sauces, it's worth a try between two slices of bread.
 - Coleslaw always works well as a second filling, I've seen many a pack for a mere €0.50.  I've even eaten it on its own on toast.
 - Cheese  - Sometimes there's a wedge or two if you're lucky.  Usually it's Edam or Leerdammer, but occasionally I've seen some nice Cashel Blue.
  
In the non-reduced sections, there's the supermarket value sandwich "pastes" I used to love as a kid, but, really, if I was to recommend eating that, I'd say, make a cup of Bovril and put it on toast.  Those weird spreads do NOT make a good sandwich.  Snack, yes, sandwich, no.


So, as John Montagu may have said "Shut up, give me something satisfying between two bits of bread, and let me get back to my card game!"

Delicious home baked ham for 39% of original cost.  That was tasty...

This was some dang fine ham at around a quarter of the normal cost as well.

Ham, cheese and mustard pitta

Pittas are potentially my second favourite thing to fill up with taste.  Mine were a little stale, so...
 
 - Dunk the stale pitta in water briefly
 - Bake or grill it until it's nice and toasty / steamy
 - Split and fill with ham, cheese and mustard
 - Stick in back under the grill / oven, until the cheese is melted.  

I also like to add a little salad and tomatoes, maybe a bit of mayonnaise, or of course, anything else you like.  Leftover curry goes well in a pitta too. 

  Reuben

A Reuben sandwich is Pastrami or corned beef, sauerkraut, Thousand Island dressing and cheese.  It's a staple of New York deli culture and ever since I've seen it on TV, I've wanted one.  

I nearly wanted to make a Vine video featuring "The Ecstacy of Gold" by Ennio Morricone when I found this motherlode!

€11.10 worth of spicy beef for €3.33? How much is that?

Seriously, that much?!  Good job I love pastrami!

  For mine I used this slightly dry but absolutely tasty chunk of pastrami, red cabbage & my home made pickles, and a bit of Leerdammer cheese ( €1.50 for 6 slices)

For the dressing 
 Mustard (1 tsp), mayo(2 tbsp) and ketchup(2.5 tbsp) make a nice cheat's Thousand Island dressing.  

Sloppy Joes

 A great way to use up leftover bolognese or chilli, is the Sloppy Joe.  A certain English chef who lives in North London and who likes toast, introduced me to this in his book "Real Fast Food" , which is one of the best cook books full stop if you want cheap, quick, and delicious food from scratch.

So...
  - Chop and fry a bell pepper in a little oil.
 -  Once it looks soft, add a mushroom or two to the pan.
 - Now add your leftover chilli / pasta sauce / mince beef mix, and heat through
 - Add 2 tablespoons of ketchup
 - Add one of English mustard, two if using Dijon or American
 - A little chilli or paprika.  Or hot sauce.  However hot you like your food...
 - A bit more tomato puree if you have it will keep the thickness at the right level.  
 - Worcestershire sauce.  Mandatory.

Once it's heated through and has a consistency that looks like it could *almost* spill out of the side of a wrap, baguette, or two bits of pan loaf, it's ready.  Ladle a big spoon into your bread of choice, spill, enjoy.

Leftover burritos

 And you know leftover chilli works well in a burrito too?  No?  Boil a bit of rice, put your leftover chilli in there, season with more sauce and chilli, maybe a bit of that cheese and salad, and prove me wrong!

Leftover bread

We've all had to throw out stale or mouldy bread.  I hate doing it.  Budget bread has a habit of going off more rapidly than full price or locally bought loaves, so I tend to only buy what I need, or what I know I can use quickly.  I normally just buy myself a few rolls for my local baker, and if I do buy a supermarket value budget loaf, it's sandwiches for lunch every day, before it goes off.

That said, stale bread can be dried, shredded up and kept to use as breadcrumbs for burgers, stews, soups, stuffing, or as a topping for Macaroni and cheese maybe?  Or chipped into croutons for things like French Onion soup, or the Caesar Salad I made in this post .  Damp and moisture is the enemy of fresh bread, so make sure you have a paper bag and a space in your freezer.

 Now what to wash it all down with?  Oh wait... a 12 pack of diet soft drinks for €2.34!

Aw yeah.  Let's get another picture of that massive slab of pastrami...

Somewhere in the background, Also Sprach Zarathustra was playing.  On a budget trumpet.

Getting the bread nice and toasty with the super pan my brother bought me.

Can't describe how tasty this was, using mere HTML.