Ate something similar to this in Laos and damn tasty it was too! It's better known, though, under the name of its Vietnamese counterpart - pho. Rice noodles in a fragrant broth.
Went a little over budget, basically because ingredients like tofu and rice noodles are fairly expensive here in Poland...
Enjoy!
Serves: 4
Cost per person: 5.50 zl (0.95 GBP)
What do we need?
- a pack of tofu
- a leek
- a white radish or kohlrabi or other such vegetable
- a carrot or two
- an apple
- an onion or two
- 2 inches of ginger sliced up
- salt and sugar
- 1 piece of cinnamon
- 1 star anise
- 2-3 cloves
- 1 tsp pepper corns
- 2 black cardamons
- rice noodles
- mung bean shoots
- fresh coriander
- 1-2 green chillies deseeded
- 1 lime
- soy sauce
- spring onion chopped
It looks daunting, but it can be broken down into convenient stages.
Stage One - the stock
1. Dry roast the onion, ginger and spices in a pan on low-medium heat until the onion starts to brown nicely (15 mins approximately)
2. In the meantime, chop up the stock veg (and apple).
3. Wack them into a large pan and cover with boiling water
4. Salt and sugar in
5. Check those dry roasted onions. Get them in!
6. Cover and simmer for around 75 minutes.
7. Drain the liquid through to a new pan. Discard the veg
8. You'll end up with a fragrant light brown liquid.
So, you can do this the day before. Makes life easier.
Stage Two - the tofu
1. Cut up the tofu and leave on kitchen roll to draw out some of that moisture.
2. Now, that's not dry enough. You need to put these pieces on a plate (round the outside rim works best - the water then drains to the centre) and microwave in 3 minutes stages, checking dryness after each stage. You're looking for a fairly dry result without massacring the tofu.
3. Oil in wok - heat up to high. Tofu in. Fry for a couple of minutes.
4. Splash in a good amount of soy sauce to season the tofu. Cook down for another 30 seconds. Take off the heat.
Stage Three - the rice noodles
1. Soak them in cold water for 10 minutes
2. Boil in salted water for 5 minutes or until reasonably soft (or al dente). Drain
Stage Four - assembly
1. Get the bean shoots, lime, chilli, spring onions and coriander on a plate. Looks like I took the photo before I added the spring onion and coriander. Trust me - they were there in the end!
2. Put some noodles in the bottom of a deep bowl.
3. Add around 6 pieces of tofu per bowl.
4. Ladle over the broth (obviously this needs to be reheated for this stage)
5. Add a handful of the raw stuff - spring onion, bean shoots, coriander, chilli - and squeeze a little lime over
Eat!
Costing:
- a pack of tofu: 8 zl
- veg for broth: 4 zl
- rice noodles: 4 zl
- mung bean shoots: 4 zl
- 1 lime: 1 zl
- the rest: 1 zl
Total: 22 zl
Serves: 4
Cost per person: 5.5 zl
Cauliflowers can be big old beasts and soups are the perfect way to use these fellas up. Combined with parsley and other herbs - magic! And healthy! And cheap...
Serves: 4
Cost per person: 1.75 zl (0.30 GBP, 0.41 Euros)
You'll need:
- half a cauliflower
- half a leek
- an onion
- a clove of garlic
- a bunch of parsley
- a pinch of marjoram
- a pinch of lovage
- 1/2 tsp turmeric
- salt and pepper
- a dash of Greek yoghurt
Let's go!
1. Pan on medium heat. Butter in
2. Onions. Season
3. Leeks. Sweat down nicely
4. Finely sliced garlic. Give it another 5
5. Break up the cauliflower and get it in. Add turmeric
6. Cover with boiled water
7. Parsley
8. Other herbs - marjoram and lovage
9. Add pepper. As you can see, I added a pinch of chilli. This proved to be unnecessary and if I was making this again, I'd leave it out.
10. Cover and cook on low for around 10-15 minutes until the cauliflower is soft but not annihilated.
11. Whizz up with a hand blender and add a dash of yoghurt
12. Serve with a bit of baguette and enjoy!
Cost:
- cauliflower: 2 zl
- parsley: 2 zl
- rest: 1 zl
- bread: 2 zl
Total: 7 zl
A bit posh, this one. And yes, it does break the 5 zl budget rule. But, hey, if you can't treat yourself now and again, what's it all about, eh?
Serves: 3
Cost per person: 7.70 zl (1.32 GBP, 1.82 Euros)
So then, we'll need:
- around 600g of cod
- the red pepper sauce from the previous post
- some old bread
- a good old handful of basil
- 1-2 cloves of garlic
- salt and pepper
- 1 egg
- a little flour
- around 400g of potatoes skinned
- 1 chopped spring onion
- a little butter and greek yoghurt/ creme fraiche/ sour cream
On with the show:
1. Chop up some old bread. Add to the mixer with some basil, garlic, salt and pepper. You can add other herbs if you like. Just go with your own flow.
2. Whizz up nice and fine. Transfer to a bowl.
3. Cut up the fish into equal pieces. Remove any bones first. The tail end is thinner so fold over so all the pieces are more or less of equal thickness.
4. Now you'll need 3 more bowls/ plates. One with a little flour. One with a beaten egg and one more to keep the fish on until you're ready to fry. Dust the fish in flour first.
5. Egg
6. Breadcrumbs (forgot to take the photo). Make sure a nice amount of breadcrumbs have stuck to the egg wash. Get some veg oil in a frying pan. Heat up. When hot, put in the fish and fry on medium. Boil up the potatoes and heat up the red pepper sauce at the same time.
7. Woah! Let's just back up there... The potatoes - peeled and roughly chopped. Into a pan of water. 1 tsp of salt. Boil up from cold. Should take around 10-15 minutes or until a fork goes through easily.
8. After 4-5 minutes of frying, turn over the fish pieces and fry on the other side for the same length of time.
9. Remove and rest on kitchen paper.
10. Drain the potatoes. Return to the pan. Add a glob of butter and a big spoon of Greek yoghurt (or whatever). Mash well.
11. Stir in the spring onion.
12. Plate up and enjoy!
Cost:
- cod: 17 zl
- sauce: 4.5 zl
- potatoes: 1 zl
- the rest: 0.50 zl
Total: 23 zl
I cook this one up to accompany the herb crust cod dish which I'll be posting up next. I reckon this sauce would also work with meat dishes too.
Some like it hot - if that applies to you, add a chilli pepper to the ingredients. The list is short and the technique is simple.
Serves: 4
Cost per person: 1.5 zl (0.25 GDP, 0.35 Euro)
Ingredients:
- 2 red peppers
- 1-2 tomatoes
- 1 onion
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1 chilli pepper (optional)
- 1 sprig of rosemary
- salt and pepper
- olive oil
Let's rock!
1. Get the oven up to around 180. Roughly chop the peppers, tomatoes and onion. Rub everything generously in olive oil. Add to a roasting tin. Season.
2. Whack it in the oven for around 15-20 minutes.
3. Pull off some of the burnt bits without being too pedantic.
4. Transfer to a tall container for blitzing.
5. Whizz up and then pass through a sieve into a pan.
6. Reduce on a slow simmer and check the seasoning. Voila!
How much did that cost?
Around 6 zl I reckon!
