Wings For The Win

Southern Fried Chicken is a bit of a hot food item in Melbourne right now and we pay through the teeth for it. Chicken is cheap and fried chicken is a pretty simple thing to make that will please most people.

I'm a budget conscious shopping person, we all know that by now. And I live in an inner-city suburb, so ingredients are cheap and readily available. Especially if you are ready to dig. I have found some incredible places in Melbourne for super-bargains that have saved me in the days before pay day when I have had $9 in the bank to get me through. Whatever your reason for being poor, NO JUDGEMENT, there are ways to make the smallest amount of cash go a long way. There is a butcher (YES, A BUTCHER, not a shitty supermarket meat dept) near me that regularly sells chicken wings for $2 kg. You get about 8 or 9 large wings for that much, which is a lot. You should probably only eat about 3 or 4 of these in one sitting and if you have a family (2-3 kids), 2kg is probably enough. Couple that with fresh veg and maybe some rice and you have a great dinner for fuck-all money. At home, I knew I had flour (either way its 79c) and various herbs and stuff, so I didn't need much more than the wings.

In the US they eat fried chicken with what they call "biscuits", which are pretty similar to savoury scones. They go well together with the chicken and the gravy they serve with it. HEALTH. So, knowing I had the ingredients, I decided to make parsley scones. The biscuit is, after all, a filler. Scones are easy and your nana will have a good recipe, so I wont bother explaining it here (Unless you want me to? Leave a comment). Maybe try something like spring onion and cheese savoury scones? I also had all the required ingredients for the coating I wanted for the chook.

TRY THIS for a cheap awesome dinner.
2kg chicken wings
8 garlic cloves, crushed (or cheat and get the minced garlic for $4)
1 tbs oil (olive/vegetable/NOT engine)
(put the garlic and oil in the bag with the wings, mix it up thoroughly, leave while you prep the herb coating)

*Herb Coating*
1/2 cup of flour
2 chicken stock cubes, crushed
whatever herbs you have in the cupboard
   eg a shake of whatever shit your housemates have handy and wont miss. (I used a few shakes of vegeta, cajun seasoning, paprika, salt, oregano and dried thyme)
2 eggs, whisked in a bowl (although you may need another one or two, see how you go)

Mix all the stock cubes, herbs, spices and flour together thoroughly in a wide bowl. When it looks less like flour than before, its ready.

Heat up enough vegetable oil in a saucepan to cover a chicken wing (3cm depth). Make sure the oil is VERY FUCKING HOT. Now place a few chicken wings into the flour mix, pressing the mixture onto the skin so it stays there. Now coat the chicken in egg, then put it back in the flour mix and really press the mix onto the wing firmly.

Shake off the excess flour mix and place the chicken wings into the oil and they should bubble away nicely. As the coating turns golden brown, turn the wing over to ensure all of the chicken gets cooked (3-4 mins altogether).

Then remove from the oil, drain on absorbent paper and put into the oven to keep warm while you cook the rest of the wings. Its a bit of a process but well worth it considering you will cook all this for about $8 and its enough to feed 6 people really well. If its just for one or two, half the quantity of chook.

When you have cooked all the wings, prep some chicken gravy, warm up and butter the scones and smash it all down your face hole with extreme glee.

TIP! Don't overcrowd the oil or the wings wont cook properly.Only cook two or three at once (depending on the size of your saucepan)
ALSO, if you cant get wings or you prefer drumsticks or another larger cut, you will need to cook the chook for slightly longer.

Sweet Ass Slow Cooked Meaty Stuff

Americans. It's either super-fast, like a shitty burger from a drive-thru (or a gun that can rip out 1200 rounds per second) or it's super-slow, like the intelligence of whoever runs the NRA (or delicious meats of the slow-cooked variety). And when it comes to guns and meat, they seem to love both with a zeal that would suggest they could do a Gun buy-back scheme if they offered slow-cooked BBQ ribs or perhaps pulled pork. IDEAS, they're free.

The other week I was in Coles Broadmeadows (Broady) and I saw one of those boxed dinner sets in the meat dept that includes almost a Kilogram of pork shoulder and a sachet of spiced BBQ sauce on special ($9 down from $12) as it had an expiry date of the next day (who would have guessed that in Broady, which is heavily populated by Muslims, pork wouldn't be a big seller?). So I rolled the dice and bought it, cooked it as suggested on the box and five hours later had one of the most delicious things I have ever cooked. Praise Allah. It was tender, it was moist, it was sweet and bbqy and there was too much of it. ALL GOOD THINGS. The next day I made a pizza with the leftover meat HOLY PORK BALLS it was brilliant.

Pulled Pork. CHORTLE.
But seriously, when I finally go on a murderous rampage,
I want this as my last meal before I am put to death

So since then, I have been buying a variety of different meats and trying a few different things. Unfortunately, I forgot that I also write a food blog, so I haven't been documenting any of this. What an total fucking IDIOT.

THEN, the other night when I was stumbling around Safeway Brunswick with $12 left in my bank account looking for the cheapest things ever when I noticed a cheap little semi-offcut product called "Lamb Ribs". They were also on sale, down from $2.07 to $1.89. I grabbed two packs of these and also a bottle of this fantastic stuff called "BBQ Rib Sauce" by Three Threes (also on sale at $1.84). I repeated the recipe with the lamb and cooked them for 3 hours this time (they were a lot smaller than the pork shoulder and with the bones in, cooked quicker), turning them twice at regular intervals and re-saucing. UH-MAZING. The bones literally fell clean out of the meat. Massively recommend.

Three Threes brand did not pay me to promote their product, but they can if they want. I'll accept more of their awesome sauce. btw, this is the only context I will accept the term "awesome sauce" without going into a murderous rampage.

THEN I found some very cheap Pork Ribs ($5.63) and repeated the process as I think I am addicted to meaty, BBQy, heroiny awesomness. Check this shit out. So easy.

Do this.
Pre-heat your oven to just 150C.
Put your chosen meat on a tray.
Spread your chosen sauce all over it, but dont use all the sauce as you will need some for re-saucing as it cooks.
Chuck it in the oven.
Go watch one of those movies on your hard-drive that you've been meaning to get around to, (I recommend Cowboys & Aliens), make sweet sweet love to your life-partner, wash the sheets and voila its time to turn the meat over and re-sauce (that's what she said).
With some of the Chosen Meats, cooking time will vary because of the thickness of it, the bones in it, the quality of your oven and other contributing factors, so keep an eye on it as it may cook quicker than it takes to make sweet sweet love to your chosen life-partner, especially if you're into that tantric lovin'. I'm not, I tend to be a 6-7 minute kind of guy but that's not important right now, so forget I said anything about it. Certainly don't go telling all your buddies about it at the urinal or wherever men tell each other stuff. Please, it would ruin my otherwise impeccable sexual reputation. Oh, wait, actually, I don't care if you tell dudes. Just keep it a secret from the ladies.

Here is another pic of the ribs, after I cut them up. HOLY FUCK THEY WERE SO GREAT, I don't even mind that this picture ruins the formatting. THAT SHOULD GIVE YOU AN IDEA OF HOW GREAT

Recipes on the back of packets #1

Next time you go to the supermarket to do a bit of shopping, have a look at the back of every packet you are buying. A lot of ingredients packets have recipes on them. Does anybody use these recipes? Are the recipes actually any good? I have a bit of a theory that they probably aren't very good at all. So I'm going to test a few as I come across them to see if they're any good.

#1. Choc Chip Cookies from the back of the Nestle Choc Bits Packet.
225g butter, softened
1/2 cup of castor sugar
1/4 cup Sweetened Condensed Milk (I used the Nestle 99% Fat-Free version)
2 cups Plain Flour
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup Choc Bits (I used Milk but Dark would be great)

Pre-heat the oven to 190C.
Cream the butter and sugar together, then beat in the sweetened condensed milk. Cream until the mixture is light and fluffy. (Use your Mixmaster)
Sift the flour and baking powder together and then add to the mixture, beating it together slowly. Add the choc chips (and extras if you are adding any)
The mixture will come together like a soft, buttery pastry with choc chips in it. Because that's what it is.
Roll the mixture into balls about the size of a ping-pong ball and place them on a baking tray lined with baking paper or tin-foil. Flatten them a little. Leave space between each cookie as they will flatten out.

The recipe says to bake them for 15 minutes in 190C. I found this to be too long for too high. I cooked them  at 150C and set the timer for 15 mins but I kept a close eye on them. When the bases were brown, I took them out of the oven. (My oven is slightly dodgy)

RESULT: Very good! But I would recommend trying some variations in this recipe as the choc chips alone aren't that exciting. I added mini-marshmallows but some salty caramel or fudge would be great too. These cookies are as good as or better than those ones from Subway.

There is also something odd about the choc-chips. On the front of the packet there is a "benefit" that claims that the choc chips hold their shape when baked. Does that seem odd to you? I'm pretty sure I would prefer chocolate that melts when it's baked.

TIP! Salted caramel is and will always be awesome. If you don't like it, feel free to not tell me about it.

NOTE! None of the companies mentioned in this recipe have paid me, asked me to mention them or try this.

Bloody Manly egg and bacon pie

I don't know why, but somewhere along the timeline of stupid man-stuff, "quiche" got a bad name. But the joke is that if you call it "Egg & Bacon Pie" it makes it ok. Maybe it's that the word "quiche" sounds a little poncy? Maybe some dumb-arse was emasculated by the fact that he couldn't spell it? Whatever the deal is, I'm over it. It's stupid and we've moved on since the 70's, so catch the fuck up.

I love quiche. Its EASY. Its about the easiest thing you can make, give or take a cheese toastie. And I will get to cheese toasties eventually too, as I have some brilliant variations that would hair on an alopecia sufferer's chest, which is something that science should look into.

Quiche is a brilliant way to use left-over stuff in your food storage areas. You can go with tradition if you want and just make it egg and bacon and cheese. Or you can use up the rest of the good stuff you don't want to waste and make it a "gourmet" mess, which can hardly ever go wrong, sort of.

Any recipe book worth a pinch of salt will have a basic quiche recipe in it which is basically a blank recipe that you can feel free to add your leftovers to. So here is a very, very basic quiche "blank" to start with and then you can go to town with whatever muck in your fridge is a couple of days past its use-by.

Blank Quiche
4 Eggs
1 cup of milk (warmed)
Pepper
Enough pastry to cover the base of a quiche dish (frozen shortcrust is awesome, puff will work too)
Grated cheese

Whisk the eggs in a bowl with the milk and two or three grinds of pepper.

Line a fairly shallow dish with the pastry.

Now find some stuff to ensure your quiche is more than just cooked egg pie. For mine, I pan-fried some small cubes of pumpkin, then I did the same with some onion and bacon. Chuck it on top of the pastry in the dish and spread it about evenly. I added some spring onions at this point and then I poured the egg mix evenly over the lot. Then I quartered up some cherry tomatoes and spread them over the top. Then spread
some grated cheese over the top and chuck it into a preheated oven at 200C for about 15 minutes.

Remember that a quiche is basically open to putting whatever you want in it. It's receptive, so try a bunch of stuff. Mushroom is good. Roast chicken wins. Bacon rocks. Sweetcorn is awesome. Capsicum, yes. Potato, probably not. A cheeseburger, don't.

TIP: Spring onion makes any quiche more awesome, especially if you use a lot of cheese and don't have much else.

Baked Sweet Potatoes.

Winter. As a season, I like it. And as a season, it presents opportunities. Such as Sweet Potatoes being in season. Sweet potatoes, as the name suggests, are sweet. And although the name also suggests they are potatoes they are actually a very distant cousin to the Potato. In some ways they're BETTER. Maybe they're not as versatile over-all but they do have some different properties that make them more attractive for using in old ways.
My favourite of these old ways is as a Baked Potato. Baked potatoes are a winter favourite comfort food that are cheap and easy and a total crowd pleaser. Normal Baked Potatoes rely on the toppings you throw on them but Sweet Potatoes have a flavour of their own and have an awesome caramelisation quality if you cook them well enough (almost burn/burn, whatever).
So, baked potatoes. Bay Po's. BPs. Beeps. Everyone likes something different on theirs and I'm the same. But when I make BPs, what it usually means is - I have potatoes and a bunch of stuff in the fridge that needs to be used.

Whatever's left over in the fridge + pantry basics = Good Tucker

The prep is important here - chuck the oven on first to get it ready. The potatoes will take about an hour to cook if you only use the oven but they're worth waiting for. You can cheat and pre-cook them for a couple of minutes in the microwave if you want, it'll save you half an hour. The important thing with any baked potato is the outer crust - you cant cheat this bit, it just wont work any other way than oven-baking.
With normal potatoes, I just wash them, stick a fork in them a few times and put them in the oven. But with Sweet Potatoes, I prefer to peel them because sometimes the skin is hit & miss and blemishes can be bigger than they seem. No-one likes to eat a blemish. Also remember that because of their shape (longer and thinner than potatoes) and a slightly different texture, they will cook more quickly.

Method - Put it in the oven til you reckon its ready.

While its cooking, get your toppings ready. You can put almost anything on a baked potato and not go too far wrong. I'm not suggesting caviar or otter snot or anything too El Bulli, but regulation fridge and pantry stuff is spot on. My personal choices usually include sliced bacon, grated cheese, corn, coleslaw, cubed beetroot, warmed baked beans and one or two other bits as appropriate.

One of my favourite super-easy baked potato varieties is just the potato and one of those tins of Tuna with Sweetcorn & Mayonnaise ("I Love Coles" brand tuna is only 90c right now BARGAIN). Any of the flavoured tuna varieties would probably go alright, just melt some cheese on top and its awesome.

The BPs are a meal on their own, but they go really well as a side.
Particularly to a scotch fillet (Pork!)

I almost always include a bit of butter or garlic butter as a foundation. When the potatoes are ready, cut them open and mash the potato a little bit with a fork. Then put the butter on the potato and it will melt in brilliantly.Then chuck whatever else you have prepared on top, grab a fork and smash it down your face.

Enjoy!

"Country Style" Pea & Ham Soup

If tinned soup has taught me anything, its that country people are too lazy to chop vegetables into small pieces. I'm OK with lazy (aka energy efficient) and chunky is good when it comes to soup. In Winter there is nothing better than coming in from the cold to the smell of a soup that has been simmering away for hours. And even better is polishing off a big bowl of steaming, chunky, hearty soup with some fresh bread and butter. My particular favourite is Pea & Ham.

Right now supermarkets are all over the hearty winter ingredients and they are cheaper than chips, which are unusually expensive given they're made of fucking potatoes and that one packet of chips contains roughly one potato which would otherwise cost you fuck-all and a pinch of chicken salt worth 2c. This soup really only has two main ingredients - a bag of Split peas will cost you $1 and Smoked Ham Hock. You can use bacon bones instead and they're about the same price per kg but they don't yield nearly as much meat, so stick with the hock. You only really need one big hock. I bought one medium sized hock for $4.38.

The split peas will have a recipe for Pea & Ham Soup on the back of the packet because Pea & Ham soup is the only recipe in the world with split peas in it except for plain Split Pea soup which even vegetarians and doomed pigs think is boring. The good news is that the packet recipe is fine. But it's better with a few amendments.

Just Three Ingredients! If you want.

For the simplest version, you can literally just use the peas, the hock and about 8 cups of water. But it can be made even more awesome with some simple extras thrown in. Instead of just water, I also like to use a little bit of stock - it adds depth. It also adds "sounding wanky" if you mention it out loud or on a blog. I also put in salt, pepper and a bay leaf. Easy. If you have a family and want to extend it or sneak some vegies into your kids, add a chopped onion and two diced carrots.

Chop It Up. Here's a photograph I prepared earlier.

Some people, including the back of the pea packet (wait, that's not people) will tell you to pre-cook the peas but this soup is best slow-simmered over a few hours so there is no way they wont be cooked anyway, so skip it. Chuck all the ingredients into a big pot over high heat on the stove until it boils. Then turn the heat down and simmer it.

It will look like a pot full of uncooked ingredients. Do not eat it yet.

Show me simmering, baby!

Simmer it for a few hours. You'll need to stir it occasionally, but just to make sure that nothing is sticking to the bottom of the pot. It will slowly but surely thicken and the meat will come away from the bone.

When the skin has come away from the meat you can take it out and give it to your dog, who will love you forever.

Some recipes say to take the meat out and cut it into cubes, put the stick blender in and give it a whiz or some will say to run the soup through a sieve or but I don't bother with any of it. If it has been cooked for long enough, the peas will have broken down and the meat will have fallen clean off the bones. It's extra work that you can just skip if you have time to leave it simmering away for longer. You will occasionally get small bits of bone in the soup but if that really bothers you, maybe you should just take a long hard look at your life. How do you think the pig feels? Toughen up.

A couple of hours later, when the soup looks like swamp filth, take out the bones and the bay leaves - it's  ready. It will be thick, it will be meaty and it will be awesome.

Put the win in Winter.

Hint! This soup gets thicker the longer you cook it. If it gets too sludgy, just add water to bring it back to a consistency you prefer. It also congeals when you put it in the fridge. The best thing to do is just to add a little water before you reheat it and it will come up a treat.

And was it cheap? My oath! The split peas were $1, the hock was $4.38, one onion was about 20c and two carrots at about 20c each means that my outlay was about $6. The rest of the ingredients came from the pantry (bay leaves, stock, S&P). This should feed a family of five well. Thrift!!

COMING UP - When life gives you lemons, make lemon curd. And then have it on pancakes.