Serves: 4
Total cost: 2.88 zl per person (59 UK pence, 3 Romanian Leu, 69 Euro cents)
The last in the barbecue series for now ....
This one is dead easy with straightforward simple flavours: rosemary and garlic. You could add other herbs too. I opted for simplicity and a clean taste.
You'll need:
- 8 chicken drums or 4 thighs and 4 drums
- 2 good sprigs of rosemary
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1/3 tsp chilli powder
- juice of 1/2 lemon
- a good old glug of olive oil
- salt and pepper
Let's rock!
1. Skin and gash the chicken. Get the marinade ingredients ready
2. Chop up the garlic and run the rosemary sprigs through your fingers to release the leaves. Combine them in a bowl with an egg whisk which helps to blend the juice with the oil. "Rough up" the rosemary a bit by scrunching in your hand before adding to the bowl to release more flavour.
3. Marinade the chicken for several hours
4. Barbecue magic!
What did this cost?
- Chicken: 9zl
- The rosemary: 2 zl
- the rest: 0.50 zl
Total: 11.50 zl
Serves: 4
Per person: 2.88 zl
A barbie makes a pretty good substitute for a tandoor ( a traditional Indian clay oven fired by hot coals) in terms of high temperatures and a smokey feel.
Don't worry about a bit of singeing and charcoal on the chicken! Contrary to what you might have read, it won't kill you. You won't get cancer and you won't die a horrible death. You will die of stress, working yourself to death in a job you hate driving over an hour to work and back every day in horrendous traffic jams wondering what it's all about. But that's a different story. Relatively speaking, the singed bits on the barbecued chicken are highly survivable. Back to the food.
This serves 4
Cost per person: 3.20 zl (65 UK pence, 60 Indian Rupees, 107 Albanian Lek)
It's an Indian classic from the Punjab region so you'll be needing some nice spices in there!
Start by making the garam masala from a previous posting.
Or just buy some from a shop! Cheat, why don't you! Because when you make you're own you know you get those full flavours and those aromas... Whoah! Yeah!
So, you'll need:
- 8 chicken drums or 4 thighs and 4 drums
- 1 onion
- 1 inch ginger
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 green chilli
- 1-2 tsp garam masala
- 1 tsp paprika (if you want it kid-friendly) or 1 tsp of chilli powder (if you want a little kick)
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 2 tsp coriander
- 1 tsp salt
- juice of 1/2 lemon
- small tub of thick yoghurt (around 200g)
Let's get stuck in!
1. Skin the chicken pieces and gash - this let's the flavours and spice penetrate the meat and give you those full flavours!
2. Whizz up the onion, ginger, garlic and green chilli in a coffee grinder until you've got a fine paste. Add to a bowl.
3. To this bowl, add the rest of the ingredients. Mix well and add the chicken pieces. Work the marinade into the flesh with your hands. Massage that chicken!
4. Leave overnight in the fridge to marinade fully
5. Barbie! Barbie! Barbie!
6. It should take about 30 minutes - keep turning and make sure the chicken is safe to eat by skewering it all the way through and checking if there's no blood. No blood - that's good!
Enjoy!
What did this cost?
- Chicken: 9 zl
- Onion, ginger, garlic, chilli: 1.50zl
- Yoghurt and lemon: 2 zl
- Spices: 0.20 zl
Total: 12.70zl
Serves: 4
Per person: 3.20 zl
Next up in the summer barbecue series, here's a really simple way to put aubergines on a grill!
Serves: around 4 (not a full meal, though)
Cost: around 20 UK pence per person (1 Polish zloty, 9.51 Thai Baht, 30 US cents)
What you need:
- an aubergine
- some olive oil
- a handful of fresh basil leaves
- salt and pepper
Let's get fired up!
1. Cut the aubergine into fairly thick rings. Salt them in a bowl and leave for 30 minutes. Rinse, drain and squeeze out the excess water.
2. Chop up some fresh basil. Pour a couple of good glugs (spell check doesn't like "glugs" but I'm leaving it in) of olive oil in a bowl with the basil. Mix in the aubergine and season with a little salt and a good amount of freshly milled black pepper.
3. Put it on the barbie! Should take 5-10 minutes. Turn a couple of times. After the first turn, baste with the left over olive oil from the bowl.
4. You don't want it getting too brown, just as it's starting to brown - whip it off the barbie and enjoy!
What did this cost?
The aubergine - 60 p from Tesco
The olive oil - let's call it 20p
Total: 80 p
Serves: 5
Cost per person: 20 p
Serves: 2
Total cost: 4 zl per person (80 pence UK, 4.43 Qatari Riyal, 1.22 USD)
Here's a robust South East Asian Green Chicken barbecue recipe with a touch of India. We'll be using chicken legs - thighs and drums - because they're juicy enough to withstand the intense roasting of the barbecue. Chicken breast doesn't barbecue very well at all since it suits a fast style of cooking like stir frying. The longer you cook a chicken breast, the tougher it gets. The legs, that's a different story: you can give them a real good roasting and those juices will keep flowing!
The green comes from the 4 main ingredients of the marinade: green chilli, coriander, chives and basil.
Here's a breakdown of what you'll need:
- 3 green chillies
- 1 handful of basil leaves
- 1 handful of coriander leaves
- 1 handful of chives
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1 inch of ginger
- 1 tsp black pepper corns
- 1 tsp garam masala (see the recipe in a previous post)
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 2-3 tsp soy sauce
- juice of one lemon
Let's get to work!
1. Get the marinade ingredients ready
2. Start to grind the ingredients bit by bit in a coffee grinder (you could use a pestle and mortar if you prefer). Start with the dry spices - pepper corns, garam masala, salt and turmeric. Grind up.
3. Add the garlic, ginger and chillies. Grind up.
4. Add the green leaves bit by bit, grinding and pushing down into the mix and grinding again until it's all done. Squeeze in the lemon during this grinding process - this will provide the liquid required for a fine paste. Add the soy sauce at this stage too.
5. Skin and gash the chicken. This lets the flavour right down into the meat, which is exactly where you want it!
6. Rub the marinade over the chicken and leave overnight.
7. Fire up the barbie! Get the chicken on there pretty soon because it will take around 30 minutes to cook. Turn after 5-10 minutes and make sure the chicken is nicely done all the way through. After around 30 minutes, check the chicken by sticking a knife all the way through. If you see any red juices or blood, cook longer until there is no redness.
8. Magic! It's great combined with chicken done in other ways like rosemary/ garlic (as in the photo at the top) or tandoori (check out the recipe on its way soon!)
What this cost:
- 2 chicken legs: 2.80 zl
- other ingredients 5.20 zl
Total 8 zl
Serves: 2
Total cost per person: 4 zl
Just to prove this is foolproof, I totally forgot about the rice when cooking and it ended up getting 5 minutes too long on the heat. That would normally mean rice pudding city, but not with this method! Ok, I'll admit it - the rice at the bottom was a bit burned and couldn't be used, but the rest was perfectly fine!
What you need:
- some basmati rice
- 6 cardamon pods
- 2 cloves
- one inch of cinnamon
- 2 bay leaves
- 1/2 tsp salt
- a little vegetable oil
How do we do this?
1. Soak the rice for at least 30 minutes. Meanwhile, get the spices ready and boil up the kettle
2. Drain the rice
3. Heat a little oil in a pan
4. Turn the heat to medium low and pop in the spices. This will release some nice flavours into the oil which in turn will lend the rice a warm fragrance. Do this until the bay leaves just start to brown slightly
5. Turn off the heat and stir in the rice so that it's all nicely coated with the oil. Add the salt
6. Add enough boiled water to just cover the rice by about 1 cm.
7. Turn up the heat and cover. Wait till the water starts boiling vigorously then turn down as low as you can go
8. Cook the rice for as long as it says on the packet then turn off. Discard the spices
9. Voila!
It keeps for a few days in the fridge and whenever you need some, just microwave before serving. Contrary to what some people would have you believe, microwaving rice doesn't kill you. I'm still going strong!
What's a mung bean? They're little tiny green beans that don't really need soaking so you can just boil them up within an hour and they're ready to rock. Packed full of protein and joy, they're sure to brighten your day. They can also be sprouted and then used in salads - that's the trendy thing to do. I'm just going to be unhip and cook with them.
What's a dal? It's any kind of curry made from a pulse (lentils or beans). Why bother with it? Because it's healthy, tastes good, doesn't involve any death and is bloody cheap!
Spinach needs no introduction, so on with the show...
Serves: 4
Will cost you: 1.68 zl per person (33 British Pence, 39 Euro Cents, 1.71 Romanian Leu)
What you need:
- a couple of handfuls of mung beans
- 1-2 tomatoes
- 2 onions
- 2 green chillies
- 1 inch of ginger
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- 1 heaped tsp of coriander powder
- 1 tsp turmeric powder
- 1/2 tsp garam masala
- 200g spinach
- a dash of cream (optional)
- 200g basmati rice
Let's rock!
1. Boil a couple of handfuls of mung beans in UNSALTED water for around an hour until they're soft but not a mushy pulp. Don't salt the water - this will harden the beans and makes it difficult to soften them.
2. Chop the tomatoes. Finely chop the onions. In a pestle and mortar, pound up 2 cloves of garlic, one inch of ginger and 2 green chillies. Pound it real good!
3. Get the dry spices ready on a plate
4. Wash the spinach and then finely chop.
5. Heat some oil in a wok. When hot, add the cumin seeds.
6. When they crackle, chuck in the onions.
7. Sprinkle in a little salt and after around 5 minutes, bung in the pounded chilli, garlic and ginger.
8. After about 5 more minutes when the onion is pretty much done (reduced and starting to brown slightly), add the turmeric
9. Give it all a good old stir
10. Add the tomatoes
11. Mix it all up
12. Rock in the spinach
13. Sweat the spinach down for a minute then add the coriander powder
14. Yeah!
15. Add the mung beans
16. Add the garam masala
17. I know what you're thinking - it's too healthy so far! Yup! So, how about a dash of cream?
18. Check the salt - add more if you like. Turn off the heat and serve with rice.
Brill!
What did all this cost me?
- a couple of handfuls of mung beans: 2 zl
- tomatoes, onions, green chillies, ginger, garlic: 1 zl
- spices: 0.20 zl
- spinach: 1.80 zl
- cream: 0.10 zl
- 200g basmati rice: 1.60 zl
Grand total: 6.70 zl
Serves: 4
Cost per person: 1.68 zl
