Barbecue Aubergine

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

Barbecue Green Chicken

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

Foolproof Basmati Rice

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!

Mung Bean and Spinach Dal

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

British Fish and Chips (version 1)

Serves: 4

Total cost: 4.93 zl per person (99 pence UK, 1.15 cents Euro, 89 Indian Rupees)

One of the first things on my list when I go back to the UK is get into a pub as soon as possible and order some traditional fish and chips washed down with a pint of ale! Delicious! Until relatively recently, I used to have a mental block about mushy peas - they just didn't look good at all. It was worth getting over that one because they sure taste good! 

I'm using cod freshly caught, straight out of the Baltic Sea and bought from a fishmonger at my local market. I usually buy it with the skin on - it gives you more flexibility over how you cook it.

Ok, hand up... I'm cheating slightly here by buying oven chips. I'll post a recipe for real chips later on...

Here we go!

You'll need:

500g cod

4-5 good handfuls of frozen peas

6 handfuls of frozen oven chips

some flour

1/2 tsp salt for the batter

1 tsp of baking powder

beer

vegetable oil

a pinch or two of salt for the peas

pepper to taste

a generous knob of butter

malt vinegar

Let's go:

1. Trim the fish and pull out any bones with a pair of pliers. Get the oven heated up to 180 degrees (for the chips).

2. Meanwhile, simmer the peas in a pan with a minimal amount of water

3. Cut the fish into 4 pieces and coat with flour

4. For the batter you'll need to put some flour in a bowl. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Throw in the baking powder and salt. Mix up and make a well in the middle. Pour in enough beer to form a thinnish batter (crepe consistency)

5. Whisk into a smooth batter - no lumps allowed! Some time around this stage you could put the chips in the oven (they'll need around 20 minutes)

6. Heat some oil up for deep frying. Do the "bread test" - throw in a small piece of bread. If it starts to fry immediately, then the oil's hot enough. Dip the fish into the batter so that each piece is thoroughly covered and immediately add to the oil. Deep fry on a medium heat to ensure that the fish is cooked through (roughly 10 minutes) but the batter isn't burned. Drain on kitchen paper.

7. Add the butter to the peas. Squirt in some malt vinegar, a couple of pinches of salt and a good amount of freshly milled black pepper. 

8. Mush up coarsely with a potato masher.

9. Finish off that beer and enjoy your meal!

The cost:

500g cod - 15 zl

frozen peas - 1 zl

frozen oven chips - 1.80 zl

flour, salt, baking powder, pepper, vinegar, butter - 0.40 zl

beer - I'll assume you were going to open one anyway!

vegetable oil - 1.50 zl

Total: 19.70 zl

Serves: 4

Cost per person: 4.93 zl

Aubergine Moile from Goa

Serves: 4
Cost per person: 2.10 zl (42 pence UK, 0.63 cents US, 0.49 cents EURO)

Moile or molee or moilee, depending on which way you like it, is a South Indian style of cooking with a generous use of turmeric and coconut.

This one is a version with aubergine and goes well with rice. It's also a vegan dish.

No, I'm not a vegan.

One word about Indian vegetarian cuisine or Indian cuisine in general - it's not really a one-dish kind of thing. Generally speaking, an Indian meal consists of a variety of dishes served at the same time in the middle of the table and everyone tucks into whatever they fancy. So, I've written at the top "serves 4" as if it was just one dish and rice. However, it should really be serving 12 because there should ideally be 2 other dishes (also serving 4) on the table for you to nosh on. So, try this one with some other Indian stuff on this blog and fill your boots!

What you'll need:

2 medium sized aubergines
2 cloves of garlic
One inch cube of ginger
2 green chillies
1 medium sized onion
1 tsp cumin seeds
1/3 tsp red chilli powder (or paprika for a milder touch)
1 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1 cup of coconut milk
1 tsp salt
some vegetable oil

Here we go!

1. Make a batter out of the turmeric and salt by adding a little water and whisking up.

2. Coat the aubergines in this batter and leave for around 15-30 minutes

3. In the meantime, get your other ingredients together - finely chop the chillies. Slice the onions nice and thin. Pound the garlic and ginger in a pestle and mortar.

4. Fry the aubergines in enough oil to just about cover them.

5. When golden remove and place into a sieve over a bowl to drain off any excess oil

6. Use any excess oil for the next stage. Heat a little oil in a wok and add the mustard seeds. When they start to pop a bit, throw in the cumin seeds. When they crackle a bit, add the onion. Add a little salt. When they've cooked down a bit, add the ginger and garlic.

7. After a minute or two, add the green chilli

8. When the onion is golden, add the coconut milk. I used about a 1/5 of a block of creamed coconut diluted in a glass of hot water.

9. Add the aubergine and red chilli and cook down till the sauce slightly thickens.

10. Serve with rice.

Yum!

What it all costs:


aubergines - 4 zl
garlic, ginger, chillies, onion - 1.40 zl
spices and oil - 0.40 zl
coconut - 1 zl
rice - 1.60 zl

Total - 8.40 zl
Per person - 2.10 zl