Ginger Glazed Sticky Spare Ribs… wow!

Wow. Just wow.

This recipe was always one of my favourites as a child, but when I realised it was this cheap and easy to do, I feel like I’ve discovered Heaven. Or Narnia.

It’s one of those meals where you’re proud to come away with sticky sauce all over your face- and therefore one that the kids will LOVE!

The recipe originally came from Far Eastern Cookery by Madhur Jaffrey, who got it from Andy’s Kitchen Restaurant in Causeway Bay. I, in turn, give it to you, with one or two tweaks! The meal works out at about £1 a person, or a little over, once you have done some veg.

Pork ribs are very cheap, and can be picked up from your local butcher, or also from Morrisons, who seem to have them most days! This pack will feed two easily, and as you can see is only 1.67!

First, cut your ribs away from one another by pushing a knife between the bones. You could ask your butcher to do this for you, but it isn’t hard to do!

Place them in a saucepan with:

• Equal parts soy sauce and sugar (10 desert spoons is about right for 4 people) The sugar can be partly replaced with honey if you prefer.

• 2 one-inch pieces of ginger (lightly crushed, so the juice escapes)

• A litre of water

Then cover, bring to the boil, reduce and simmer hard for 45 minutes to an hour, stirring occasionally.

Remove the lid and cook for a further 30minutes or until the sauce has reduced to a sticky glaze. This happens quickly towards the end so keep an eye on it and stir it to make sure the glaze sticks to all the ribs!

Serve with sweet potato chips or plain boiled new potatoes crushed into the sauce, and lots and lots of kitchen roll to wipe the mucky hands and faces!

Pig Cheeks in Cider Sauce

If totally-made-up-heaven is your kinda meal,  read on!

This recipe is one I’ve been working on for a little while, and although it’s not quite perfected, I couldn’t wait to share it with you all!

Ingredients:

1-2 pig cheeks per person (~50p each from Morrisons)
1 large onion (pennies!)
1 medium-large carrot per person (pennies!)
1 can of cider (2.29 for 4 from Aldi)
Mushrooms
Bacon- sliced (optional)
Herbs- Bay leaf, ‘mixed herbs’ (thyme, rosemary), sage.

1. Cover the cheeks in cider, add herbs and seasoning, and slow cook for 4 hours on high, or 8 hours on low. If you aren’t using a slow cooker, go straight to step 3a.

2. Fry the onions, and place in the bottom of a casserole. Sprinkle the carrots over, then place pork cheeks on top. Pour cider over.

3a. If you haven’t slow-cooked the pork already, cook now for 2-3 hours in a 120C oven before carrying on to the next step.

3b. If you’ve slow cooked the pork, de-stem the mushrooms and add them, gills up, to float on the cider sauce. Cook for 30-40mins at 180C, without the lid on. You want the mushrooms to go wrinkly and the cider to reduce, if possible.

4. Serve straight from the casserole with chunky homemade bread, mashed potato, or a baked potato!

Give it a go- it’s frugal!

Sunday Roast- Making that Pork Crackle!

Welcome to the Sunday Roast Specials!

This week’s post will focus on the difficult skill of making pork crackling!

“Crackling is every child’s favourite and I vividly remember being very small and asking mum what was for roast each week… no matter what the reply I’d ask ‘Does that have crackling?’

Now I’m a little older and I know the difference between pork and chicken, but making the crackling crackle can still sometimes be a challenge!”

Pork crackling needs two things to work- heat, and dryness. Everything set out below is to work towards these two things!

• Wash the surface of the skin to remove any gunk or juice it has been sitting in in the packet.
  The science: Water evaporates much easier than ‘gunk’, leaving a cleaner surface. This will allow the skin to dry properly, which makes it easier to score, easier to dry, and more susceptible to heat.
• Score the skin. If already scored, check for any gaps then move on to the next step. Scores can be parallel (~2 cm apart) or crosshatched (~4cm along each side of the square). The narrower the scoring, the easier the heat can get right into the fat to make it crackle.
  The science: The scoring allows the water out of each section in the ‘salting’ round, and also allows the heat to get in during each heating round.
• Pour boiling water over the skin slowly but steadily. A whole kettle should take at least 30 seconds to pour. Aim it at a section, and watch the skin tighten and the scores open out. Then move to the next section. Repeat until all the skin has been covered.
  The science: This gives the skin its first heating. Multiple heating-cooling cycles force the skin and fat cells to burst and therefore cause the skin to take on the ‘crackled’ appearance.
• Allow the pork skin to steam dry, then rub salt all over, and especially into the scores. Leave for a couple of minutes, and look at the skin surface. It will be covered in water again! Dry off with kitchen towel, and wait a little longer, then repeat the drying. You need to do this 4-5 times (or as many as you like!), and may need to add more salt as you go.
  The science: The salt raises the water potential of the outer surface of the skin, and so draws water out of the fat cells exposed by the scoring, drying them out! (It also makes it taste reeeally good!)
• Put into a preheated oven at 210 degrees centigrade. The fan should be off, if this is an option, and the pork placed at the top. Check after 10 minutes- you may need to move the pork down a little if it is looking a bit like it will burn.
  The science: The hard-hitting heat of a preheated oven at this sort of temperature is more than those little cells can bear! They ‘crackle’ as they burst, a little like popcorn!
• After about 20minutes, your crackling should be done. Turn the oven temperature down to your normal cooking temperature, or allow the pork to sit under the roast potatoes at a cooler oven temperature.

So there we go, a foolproof guide to delicious crackling! I’d love to hear your comments on the crackling, so please post below.

Next week: Ways With Vegetables!

Sunday Roast- Make Less Feed More

Welcome to the Sunday Roast Specials…

Up this week- how to make a little meat go a long way without people feeling cheated!

“As the queen of keeping it cheap, making less feed more is one of my most important skills. Here are some of the cheats I use on my Sunday Roast to keep it frugal!”

• Buy more unusual cuts, such as belly of pork or lamb breast (you can see recipes here!).
• Generally speaking, chicken and pork are cheaper than beef or lamb, so try to stick to these.
• Shop around- Aldi does  1kg no-bone pork shoulder joints for as little as £3.49!
• Bulk it out using cheap potatoes. As a rule I use one small potato each if I’m doing other root veg, but do two, or three…. so people won’t notice they aren’t getting as much meat or a variety of veg! You could even make two potato dishes (mash and roast, for instance) to disguise the fact you’re filling people on potatoes!
• Onions are also cheap- add them to your veg roasting dish for the last hour to bulk it out further!
• Carrots are cheap too- instead of roasting them, try making them as a separate side dish! The extra dishes on the table and piles on the plate draw attention away from how little there is in each pile!
• Pick what’s in season. Leeks are in season now, and are cheap, and brussels are coming to the end of their season. Savoy cabbage is cheap this time of year and can be blanched then fried with a little bacon for a yummy side dish that even fussy kids will eat!
• Adding stuffing made from a stuffing mix is another way to ensure people are full up without feeling left out! It’s cheap too!
• Don’t buy gravy, make it from the juices that leave the meat during cooking, and save yourself a fortune! (It tastes better too!)
• Don’t forget to use the leftovers! A leftover chicken carcass can be used for my chicken soup and leftover roast chicken can be made into a pie. Leftover pork is brilliant in sandwiches with sauce, and old roast potatoes can be made into potato cakes for tomorrow!

Go on, make that roast go further! And if you have any more suggestions, please comment! I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Next Week: Foolproof Crackling!

Slow Braised Pig Cheeks

Braised pig cheeks… a.k.a the first slow-cooker experiment!

Long time no write! I hear you shout.

Well, I’ve been busy with my slow cooker! I reply.

Anyway, here’s the first recipe I tried, modelled on one by Nigel Slater (barely), although with a lot less wine involved (expensive!!) and using a slow cooker instead (awesome) and with some marinading, but without all the celery (although you can add this if you wish). So… not actually really based on one by Nigel Slater at all!

Slow Braised Pig Cheek Stew

– Pig cheeks (1-2 each, available from Morrisons or ask your local butcher)
– Carrots
– Onions
– Garlic
– Red wine (any leftovers or as much as you can afford)
– Stock (pig or vegetable, preferably)
– Flour
– Mixed Herbs

1. Marinade the cheeks in garlic and red wine overnight.

2. Roll the cheeks in seasoned flour, then brown in a drop of oil.

3. Use some of the wine from the marinade to deglaze the pan, then pour the whole lot into a slow cooker with the onions, along with enough stock to make up the mixture (cover the cheeks and make up to around 1L). Don’t add the carrots now, because it turns out that if you do this everything just tastes like pork soup and they’ll be totally overcooked and lose all their colour anyway!

4. Cook for 3-4 hours on high, or 7-8 hours on low. Alternatively put it in a casserole in a low oven for 2-3 hours, covered, and skip to step 6.

5. When you return home from work, your house will smell amazing. Transfer the whole lot to a casserole dish and place in the oven, along with chopped carrots and anything else you want to add.

6. Cook for another hour or so, uncovered, to allow the sauce to reduce a little. If necessary, place on stove top and cook on high to reduce further, and thicken with cornflour.

7. Serve with mash, noodles tossed in creme fraiche, or dumplings. or baked potato. Or crusty bread…. or anything else you fancy!

Congratulations, a truly wonderful and very very frugal dish, with minimal effort!

FRUGALICIOUS!!!

Liver with bacony-mushroomy sauce and sauteed potatoes- scrumptious!

On accidently ordering too much liver from Tesco, I had to find new ways to cook it! This is a delicious liver recipe that is now one of my favourite meals- cheap or otherwise! It costs less than 70p per portion and it’s just YUMPITY! I did mine with spinach but there’s no need- I just felt the need for some green!

You Will Need:

• Liver- I use pig’s liver, about £0.50 from Tesco, but lambs or even calves will do! You’ll need it thinly sliced (Tesco packs already come like this) and then cut into similar size pieces
• Potatoes- a couple each, cut into1/2 inch cubes
• Plain flour
• Mixed herbs/paprika/dried mustard (you can choose depending what flavour you want)
• Bacon, mushrooms, onion, creme fraiche and wine, if you want the sauce
  Alternatively:
• Creme fraiche/cream and elderberries

What to do:

1. Boil the potatoes until soft all the way through (~10mins). Drain.
2. Meanwhile, fry the bacon, onions and mushrooms.
3. Fry the potatoes in oil until golden brown on each side (~20mins). If this is completed a bit early, remove from pan, toss in salt, and put on a low heat in the oven to keep warm.
4. Pour the creme fraiche and wine into the bacon pan and stir, then allow to simmer.
5. Mix the flour and herbs/spice with a little salt and pepper on a plate. Heat oil in a clean pan to a high heat. Take a slice of liver and coat it in the flour, then put it straight into the oil (if it sits for too long on the side it usually needs re-flouring). This bit requires some haste because you only want to fry the liver for a minute or so on each side, so you need to get all the slices into the pan as quickly as possible!
6. Put the sauteed potatoes onto a plate, put the liver on top, and put the sauce over the top. Delicious! The potatoes soak up the sauce and it’s all just lovely!