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.

Lamb Stew with Parsley Dumplings

I'm unemployed at the moment and I don't have much cash. So when I go to the supermarket, I only have a general plan. I tend to look for the things that are on special or that are close to their use-by dates so that they are a little cheaper. I can freeze them when I get home if I need to.
Which is what I did yesterday. I was at Woolworth's and I saw a cut of meat called "Lamb Offcuts". They were really cheap - one packet was 96 cents, another $1.45 and the most expensive one $1.95. I picked them up and knew I would make a Lamb Stew straight away. I grabbed some other basics - potatoes, carrots and took off home to bust out the Slow-Cooker.

As a general rule, I'm not a fan of food gadgets like rice cookers or popcorn machines.We've got by without them til now, haven't we? But I do have a slow cooker and I'm not averse to using it.
I wanted a big, hearty lamb stew with melt in the mouth lamb and a rich sauce. And here's how I got it.

I started by browning the lamb in a frypan. It just gives it a good colour and gets some of the fat off. Then I cut any excess fat away and put the lamb in the slow cooker . Cooking it with the bones in gives it an even heartier flavour.I added two potatoes and a carrot that I had cut into chunks as well as a tin of chopped tomatoes (I'm an advocate of fresh, but right now the tomatoes are looking a bit off and they're expensive AND I had this in the cupboard). I covered it with passata (about half a jar)and threw in some dried herbs like Rosemary and "Mixed Herbs". Then I added a teaspoon of minced garlic and a cup of chicken stock and gave it a bit of a mix around in the pot. You can muck around a little bit here with different root vegetables, herbs, that kind of thing, depending on your personal tastes. Salt and Pepper are vital though, so make sure you throw in a bit of both.


Lid on, I put it on High for about an hour. Then I gave it a stir and switched it to Low and left it overnight. When I got up this morning, it looked like this

It was pretty much ready to eat - the lamb was falling apart and the sauce was delicious and rich. But there was still something I wanted to add. I plucked out the bones and left it on Low.

I love the traditional foods that I grew up with, so I added Parsley Dumplings to the mix. This is the simplest way to make your food reach a little further - especially if you have a family. Dumplings cost next to nothing and are made with stuff you should already have in the cupboard - Milk, Butter, SR Flour, an egg and salt. And parsley, of course. I have a parsley plant in the backyard so I used that but you can use dried if that's what you have. This is my mum's recipe.

Parsley Dumplings
120grams Self Raising Flour
25 grams Butter
1 egg
125mls milk (Soy milk works just as well)
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 Tbs chopped parsley

How To
Sift the flour and salt into a bowl.
Rub in the butter using your finger tips (HINT - If the butter is cold, melt it over a low heat first, it will rub in in no time.)
In a small bowl, beat the egg into the milk and then add the parsley.
Pour the egg milk mixture into the flour and mix (I use a long-pronged fork) into a smooth batter.
Scoop it spoonfuls of the batter and place on top of the stew. Start in the centre and drop around it. It will look like this.

Put the slow-cooker back on High, put the lid back on and give it about half an hour and the Dumplings will be ready to serve with the stew.

Bam! 

This meal (although it took time) took very little effort at all and it is magnificent. Its hearty, its rich, it is perfect on a cold winters night and the family will love it!
It was cheap too - looking at the receipt, I can tell you that I spent $1.45 on carrots (and I only used one, so lets say 20c), $2.30 on four potatoes (I used two, so $1.15) and because I used offcuts, the meat was $4 all up. Everything else was in the pantry and I would bet your place is much the same. This would easily feed a family of 5 and the total outlay of $5.35 makes this a thrifty one! As a bloke living alone, I will be eating this for the next three days.
The ingredients for the dumplings would hardly make a dint in the stocks either, but lets guess that it was about $3 worth of ingredients. Cheap!

I hope you enjoy the recipes, let me know how you go!

COMING UP - More Cheap, Hearty Winter Fare with Pea & Ham Soup