The world famous avocado dip... goes well with anything Mexican and with quite a few things which aren't...
It's ridiculously easy to make so no need to buy that jar of ready-made that's been tempting you in the supermarket.
Cost: 3.50 zl per jar
You'll need:
- a ripe avocado
- the juice of 1/2 lemon
- a small clove of garlic finely minced
- salt and pepper to taste
Some people add tomato. You don't need it. I like to keep the flavours pure and focus on the interplay of avocado with the pungent garlic offset by the sharpness of the lemon juice. A touch of seasoning and you're there!
So let's make it!
1. Make sure your avocado is ripe. Prod it and it should "give" a little. If it doesn't "give", it isn't ripe. An avocado will ripen up at home if you leave it at room temperature for a few days.
2. Cut around the middle and remove the stone. Scoop out the flesh.
3. Mash up the avocado and mix everything else in.
4. Ready!
Costing:
- avocado: 3 zl
- the rest: 0.50 zl
Total: 3.50 zl
Basically, what you're looking at here is a Mexican-style chicken mix wrapped in a tortilla. And why not?
I love fajitas because you can add all sorts of goodies to the wrap like guacamole (recipe coming up!), salsa (not the dance! the chunky salad-sauce!), plus anything else you like such as lettuce, refried beans, cream, hot sauce... Whatever you like!
How many wraps?: 4
Per wrap: 5 zl (1 quid)
You'll need:
- 2 chicken breasts (around 500g)
- 4 tortilla wraps
- the juice of 1/2 lemon
- 1 tsp paprika
- 1/4 tsp chilli powder (optional)
- 1/2 tsp cumin powder
- 1/2 tsp dried oregano
- 1 clove of garlic roughly chopped
- salt and pepper to taste
- some guacamole
- a little cream
- a little carrot
- 1/2 red onion
- 1/3 red bell pepper
- 1/2 skinned tomato
- 1 finely chopped green chilli
- lettuce (optional)
Let's get started!
1. Get the ingredients for the chicken marinade ready and mix up in a bowl. We'll need lemon juice, salt, paprika or chilli powder, cumin and oregano.
2. Cut the chicken into strips. Marinade for a few hours of overnight.
3. Let's get the salsa ready. Grate a little carrot. Finely chop the red onion and green chilli.
4. Add some finely chopped red pepper and skinned tomato. Season with a little salt, black pepper, lemon juice and a dash of olive oil. Mix well.
5. Olive oil in a pan. Garlic in. Cook for around 30 seconds
6. Chicken in. Medium-high heat. Give it around 5 minutes until you've cooked the pink out.
7. While the chicken is on, get the wraps in the oven at around 60 degrees. When the chicken is done. Get one wrap out. Spread with guacamole.
8. Add a little chicken
9. A little salsa
10. A little cream...
11. Fold up from the bottom.
12. Fold in from the sides
13. Eat
Costing:
- chicken: 9 zl
- Tortilla wraps: 4.80 zl
- Guacamole: 3.50 zl
- Salsa: 2 zl
- the rest: 0.70 zl
Total: 20 zl
Number of wraps: 4
Per wrap: 5zl
That's pasta twists with a tuna, olive and tomato sauce, mate. Served with a little finely grated parmesan. Magic!
I sneaked a dried red chilli into this recipe, perhaps lending it a slightly Southern - maybe Calabrian - Italian feel. This is optional. However, you'll thank me for this later as you enjoy the very subtle background heat which complements the overall dish.
I'm using olives with the stone in - there's so much more flavour that way!
Serves: 4
Cost per person: 4.50 zl (90 UK pence)
You'll need:
- 1 tin of tomato whizzed or a carton of passata
- 1 tin of tuna flakes in brine (drain and squeeze the excess liquid out)
- 100g of black olives WITH THE STONE INSIDE
- 1 juicy clove of garlic finely sliced or coarsely chopped
- a handful of basil leaves roughly chopped
- one dried red chilli
- olive oil
- salt and pepper
- fusilli (cooked al dente) to serve
- a little grated parmesan
I'm hungry! Let's get going!
1. Prep the garlic and basil
2. Olive oil in the pan. Heat on - medium. Garlic and dried chilli in.
3. Olives in straightaway. 30 seconds or until the garlic starts to slightly brown.
4. Tomato in with basil
5. Season with salt and pepper and cook for around 10 minutes on a low heat.
6. Add the tuna and cook for another 2 minutes
7. Serve over fusilli and garnish with a little grated parmesan.
Buon appetito!
What did this cost?
- Tuna: 6 zl
- Tomatoes: 2 zl
- Olives: 5 zl
- Pasta: 3 zl
- the rest: 2 zl
Total: 18 zl
Serves: 4
Per person: 4.50 zl
No, silly! Not the Brazilian dance! Sambhar is a lentil based cooking style from the South of India, particularly Tamil Nadu.
It's vegan and cheap as chips so let's get cracking right away!
It's the kind of thing you wouldn't just have on its own but rather accompanied by, for example, some vadai (Indian falafels) or other vegetarian dishes. This time I'm pairing the sambhar with the beetroot vadai of the previous posting, served with rice.
There are some odd ingredients in this.
Toor dal - it's the kind of lentil they use for sambhars. However, if you can't get it you could substitute for red lentils (masoor dal).
Urad dal - again, a kind of lentil that's used almost like a spice. Asian shops in the UK or speciality shops in Poland such as Kuchnia Ĺwiata will sell this.
Cost of this meal per person: 2.68 zl (51 UK pence, 0.62 Euro, 87 Yen)
Cost of the sambhar itself: 1.25 zl per person (24 UK pence, 0.30 Euro, 42 Yen)
Ingredients:
- 1 tsp urad dal
- 1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds
- 1 tsp mustard seeds
- 2 dried red chillies
- 1/8 tsp asaphoetida
- 1-2 tomatoes (peeled and really finely chopped)
- 2 onions finely chopped
- 1 bell pepper cut into 1 cm cubes
- 1 tsp tamarind paste dissolved in warm water
- 2 tsp sambhar powder
- 1/2 cup of toor dal soaked for 2 hours then boiled for 1 hour-ish
- salt to taste
- veg oil to cook in
On with the show!
1. Soak the toor dal for 2 hours then boil for 1 hour
2. In the meantime, prep the tomatoes, onions, pepper, tamarind etc.
3. Get the whole spices ready for tempering.
4. Heat up some oil in a pan. When it's hot, add the mustard seeds. Once they start to crackle, add the other tempering ingredients shown above (urad dal, asapheotida, fenugreek seeds, dried red chillies) and fry for 30 seconds.
5. Add the onion and a little salt. Cook down for around 15 minutes until starting to go golden.
6. Add the sambhar powder.
7. Tomatoes in and cover. Cook down for around 5 minutes until the tomatoes are soft and mushy.
8. The toor dal should be ready now. It looks like this (yeah, I know it doesn't look mega appetising, but ...)
9. Mix this toor dal into the sambhar.
10. Tamarind in
11. Peppers in
12. Simmer for a further 5 minutes. Don't overcook the peppers - you want them to retain a nice crunch. You're ready to serve!
Enjoy!
Cost breakdown:
- tomatoes: 4 zl
- bell pepper: 2.50 zl
- toor dal: 0.50 zl
- the rest: 0.50 zl
Total: 7.50 zl
Serves: 6
Per person: 1.25 zl
The sample meal above would cost:
- sambhar: 1.25 zl
- 3 vadai: 0.75 zl
- rice: 0.60
Total for the meal per person: 2.60 zl
Dig deeper and you'll find that cuisines other than Middle Eastern have their own falafel-style dishes, prepared and cooked in a similar way.
What they have in common: a soaked pulse ground up coarsely, some flavourings and then deep-fried.
They're relatively quick and easy to make, with a few caveats. First and foremost, NEVER EVER EVER EVER cook the pulse first. Soaking is enough. If you cook then deep-fry, the falafels/ vadai/ whatever will fall apart and you'll end up with a kind of oily sludgy mess at the bottom of the pan. Soooooooo it's not possible to use, for example, canned chick peas because they've been cooked already before canning. Buy dry, then soak.
Beetroot isn't a vegetable you'd readily associate with India, yet it does feature - particularly in South Indian cooking. This dish is from Tamil Nadu and goes well with rice and a sambhar (maybe I'll post that one up next).
Cost per vadai: 0.25 zl (5 UK pence, 6 Euro cents, 8 US cents)
You'll need:
- a cup of channa dal (soaked for 5-6 hours)
- 1 dried red chilli
- 1/2 tsp fennel seeds
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- 1/2 beetroot (grated)
- 1 onion finely chopped
- 1 green chilli finely chopped
- 1 inch ginger minced
- 1 tsp coriander powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
Let's rock and roll!
1. Prep the channa dal, red chilli, fennel seeds and cumin seeds.
2. Grind the chilli, cumin and fennel seeds in a coffee grinder and empty into a bowl.
3. Grind up the channa dal in batches and add to the bowl.
4. Prep the other ingredients.
5. Mix everything together in the bowl.
6. Heat up some oil for deep-frying. You want a nice medium heat so cook the vadai through leaving a crispy outside without burning. Add the vadai into the oil and fry for around 3-4 minutes.
7. Drain on some kitchen paper.
8. Enjoy on their own as a snack or as part of a meal - the choice is yours!
Costing:
- channa dal: 1 zl
- veg: 1 zl
- oil: 0.50 zl (1/2 bottle assuming you'll use it around 5 times before discarding)
- the rest: 0.50 zl
Total: 3 zl
Makes: 12 vadai
Cost per unit: 0.25 zl
