Indian Spiced Pancakes with Potato and Cauliflower Curry (Aloo Gobi)

As you may know, I'm on a bit of a mission to save some pennies in the kitchen and although I'm willing to compromise on some points (more veg and less meat), I am not willing to compromise on flavour. I'm lucky enough to have a decent stash of herbs and spices and it's something that I've built up over the years, adding to it bit by bit, replacing each jar as the contents diminish or get a bit 'past it' and I know that I'll never give this up. Because the easiest (and probably the cheapest) way to pep up a meal is to stick a few spices in here and there. I especially like cumin, paprika and chilli powder, but I do find that I probably use ground coriander and turmeric the most. And I like to use spices in both their whole form as well as ground and although you can grind your own, which is preferable to some as it keeps the spice fresher, I find that I use so much of the stuff that convenience wins and I tend to buy lots of spices already ground.

I also like to use a lot of fresh herbs. Although they're not cheap, I find that they really are worth their weight in gold, in terms of flavour and I buy a large bunch of both parsley and coriander every week or two for a couple of quid from Castle Market. The fresh leaves really do pack a punch and they are great in salads. Having said that, I do also use dried herbs a fair bit and I much prefer using dried rosemary with my roast potatoes and dried bay leaves are a real staple in my herb rack.

Of course, it isn't just flavour that can make a cheaper, or vegetarian, meal more interesting, appetising and appealing, there's the way it's served and I've been trying to think of different, 'fun' ways to serve food lately. A couple of weeks ago I made mac and cheese bites, this week I wanted to have a go at pancakes. Being a lover of savoury food, my pancakes are, more often than not, going to be a teatime treat rather than a dessert and I quite fancied the idea of sticking some spices into the batter mix.

An Indian themed dinner was the obvious way forward and on taking inspiration from the masala omelette, I went for a traditional English style pancake with the addition of Indian spices. I served them with a potato and cauliflower curry (or aloo gobi).

First of all I got the curry going by frying off a teaspoon each of mustard seeds and cumin seeds in a little oil over a high heat. Once the seeds started popping I added a whole cauliflower chopped into florets along with two large potatoes, peeled and copped into small chunks and turned the heat down to medium. Next went in a masala paste of 4 birds eye chillies, a clove of garlic, a chunk of ginger and a little salt all whizzed up in my mini blender. I stirred the malasa paste in with the veg and added a teaspoon of turmeric powder, a tablespoon of ground coriander, 3/4 teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of sugar before pouring in 100mls of boiling water. Lid on, I let this cook away for 25 minutes or so, adding more water as and when the curry looked a bit dry.

Meanwhile Gav cracked on with the pancakes (he's just better at them than me). He fried off a couple of green chillies, sliced, with a teaspoon of cumin seeds which was then added to a standard batter mix of 100g white flour, one egg, 300mls of milk and 15g of melted butter all whisked together. He also mixed in a teaspoon of turmeric powder and a small bunch of fresh coriander, chopped.

Using a small non stick omelette pan, Gav cooked each pancake for two minutes each side and he managed to get six pancakes out of the mix. If you want some tips on how to make pancakes, check these pancake recipes out (this page also includes a video of how to make American style pancakes!).

We had two pancakes each with the curry and I have to say that I was quite impressed. They were quite thick, so don't expect anything like the Indian dosa, but full of flavour and they just added a little something to the curry. They looked stunning too; the yellow of the turmeric came through really well and complemented the green coriander leaves nicely. I think I'd use red chillies next time, to add further colour.

With two left I decided to serve them with a coriander chutney I had made earlier (coriander stalks whizzed up with two birds eye chillies, 2 cloves of garlic, a drizzle of oil and a little lemon juice with some salt) and I think I actually preferred serving them in this more simple way; it let the flavours of the pancake sing.

I'm already thinking of different ways to serve these pancakes. Maybe with crisp rashes of bacon for breakfast? Some spiced minced lamb for tea? Or maybe just with some lemon and sugar for a lunchtime snack. I think I'll also play with the spicing of the pancakes too. Chilli and paprika served with a tomato salsa could be good. Or how about a chocolate, cardamom and chilli pancake for dessert?

The possibilities may well be endless! What are your favourite pancake dishes?

Hungry Hound Pizza, Sheffield

I bought a KGB deal voucher for Hungry Hound Pizza a while back, but completely for got about it until earlier this week. With it expiring on Saturday and our wedding anniversary on Friday, I planned celebrations around pizza and a bottle of Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc (a leaving present from my Nabarro colleagues).

The deal included a 'Beast' pizza and a couple of garlic breads and although I knew that the 'Beasts' were 18 inches, I didn't really twig just how big they actually were. So when Gav returned home with the largest pizza box I HAVE EVER SEEN, I couldn't quite believe my eyes! They are huge; mahoosive some would say.

Having said that, we actually worked our way through all 12 slices quite comfortably and I think this is thanks to the thin and crispy bases; just how I like my pizza. The topping (super hound) was tasty and there was a good spread of ingredients; a good ratio of cheese to base too.

Garlic breads were significantly smaller (thankfully) and, although a lot more doughy than the pizza, they were enjoyable. After spending so many years in fear of takeaway pizza (I really don't like doughy, stodgy pizza), I'm so glad to have found these guys and I'd be happy to go back. Prices are reasonable too; check out their promotions here.

Cheap Eats #1

When I need to cut back on spending, the first thing I look at is the food we eat at home. It's not that we are all that extravagant at home but I always find something that we can cut back on. And for the past three months I've been making our lunches, buying Gav's snacks in bulk (workplace vending machines are so expensive!) and eating more vegetarian food along with some cheaper cuts of meat. With a food budget of around £30-£40 a week I've discovered quite a few new food ideas - all of which are healthy and filling as well as cheap! So, I figured it would be a good idea to start documenting them; a handy 'go to' guide for the future.

This week began with fish and chips. A large haddock fillet was sliced into two, pan fried on a high heat and served with these mushy peas and some homemade chips (Boston potatoes, chopped and par-boiled before being coated in oil & cayenne pepper and baked for 20 mins in a hot oven). Gav declared that my chips were 'excellent' and I must admit that I did think they were pretty bloody good. In fact the whole dish was a success and each portion came in at less than £2; using split peas for the mushy peas kept the cost really low and they seemed to work just as well as marrowfat peas. And I can thank Simmonite's on Division Street for the £3 fillet of haddock.

I turned to A Girl Called Jack's blog for midweek inspiration and I made both the kidney bean burgers and the falafels. We had more homemade chips, homemade flatbreads and salad with the burgers and some pittas and salad with the falafels. Both were easy and incredibly cheap meals, and best of all, there were leftovers for lunch too. I did alter the falafel recipe a little; I added some chilli to the mix (and next time I will also add some lemon juice) and I baked them rather than frying. In terms of costs I would say that both the burgers and the falafels, including the sides, came in at less than 60p a portion and they were worth every single penny!!

With not so fond memories of turkey casseroles cooked in my mum's slow cooker it's taken me a long time to come round to the idea of buying one of these gadgets for myself. But with plans of beef cheek casserole and a day in the pub, I finally gave in yesterday and bought this Breville from Argos on the basis that it's large, oval (which I hear is good for cooking whole chickens) and currently on offer. I used this recipe for the casserole, but ditched the skirt for beef cheeks. I also only used half of the ingredients as I wasn't feeding the five thousand and I skipped the dumplings. Using the slow cooker was extremely simple; I just seared the diced cheek meat before sticking it, and everything else, into the casserole dish and switching the cooker onto 'Auto'. Then we went to the pub for about 8 hours.

I served the casserole with some mash that I'd made earlier, (reheated in the microwave) and it was delicious. The meat was super tender, the veg was soft, but not mushy, and it was perfect post pub grub! Thanks to Beeches of Walkey who had some beef cheeks for £4 a kilo and the use of Tesco Everyday Value wine which is £1.49 for a 250ml carton, the whole dish cost about £7.40 to make. I'll get 5 portions out of it, so that's about £1.48 a portion (plus, say, 40p for each serving of mash). And tonight I'm gonna serve it as a ragu with some pasta; my favourite way to use leftover casseroles.

Now to plan next week's meals... you got any tips?

Tamper: Sellers Wheel - an Exposed Blog

Since it opened its Westfield Terrace doors in the winter of 2011, Jon Perry’s Tamper Coffee has gone from strength to strength. The coffee offering has always been strong, but the food menu has slowly grown from a few pies to a full weekend brunch offering including mushroom and chorizo on toast and the like. I've certainly enjoyed many coffee fuelled breakfasts here.

Unsurprisingly, news of Tamper: Sellers Wheel (their second venue) was very well received; especially as I learnt that there was going to be more of a focus on food along with a wine and beer menu, thanks to collaboration with Ben Smith of The Hop Box. And with a New Zealand chef in the kitchen, I knew that things were going to get a little bit more exciting than mushrooms on toast! After all, aside from the odd steak and cheese pie at the first Tamper, I had never experienced New Zealand food before and I’m guessing that a lot of Sheffield has a similar experience.

Read more here.... 

Mac & Cheese bites with a Tomato and Paprika Dipping Sauce

My mum may not be the best cook in the world (and she will kill me for referring to her cooking skills again...), but she makes the best cheese based dishes ever; mac & cheese (or macaroni cheese as we called it in my day) and quiche being my favourites. The secret to her success? A shit load of cheese. There was none of this runny white sauce lark; my mum's cheese sauce was so thick that we sliced into a macaroni cheese, rather than spooned it onto a plate. Quiche fillings were also so packed with cheese that I wonder whether she actually ever put any eggs in the mix...

But, although these dishes were far from traditional, they were bloody lovely and macaroni cheese remains a firm favourite of mine, it's just a shame that nobody else seems to share the whole shit load of cheese sentiment.

Anyway. I fancied recreating this dish recently, but I wanted to pep it up a bit, try something a bit different. I considered sticking chopped up boiled eggs into the mix, but I figured that would make one incredibly rich dish even richer, almost sickly! So, instead, I went the other way; I decided to cut make something that would cut through the richness and tomatoes immediately sprang to mind. But rather than just sticking a few slices in with the pasta, I wanted something different and I came up with the idea of mac 'n' cheese bites with a tomato sauce, pepped up with a bit (quite a bit) of paprika.

First up I set about making the sauce. I softened a chopped up red onion in a small pan with some oil, and once soft, I added a couple of garlic cloves, chopped, a tin of tomatoes and a teaspoon of paprika. I then let this bubble away whilst I made the mac 'n' cheese.

I melted 50g of butter in a pan and mixed in 50g of plain flour to make a roux and then slowly whisked in 300mls of milk. I then put the pan back on a low heat and cooked the sauce, stirring constantly, until it was thick and smooth. Then I stirred in 270g of grated cheddar until it had fully melted into the sauce. I then cooked 250g of macaroni to al dente, drained and stirred it into the sauce. I added pepper, but not salt as there's enough in the cheese already. The mix was then spooned into greased muffin tins and baked for about 20 minutes at 200C.

Once cooked, I let the mac 'n' cheese cool a little before working the bites out of the tins. I checked the seasoning of the sauce and added a little sugar and then served it in a bowl with the bites.

Sounds easy, aye? Well, it was... bar the scooping of the bites from the tins. To be honest I lost a few as some weren't quite solid enough, and I wonder whether I needed a higher sauce (glue) to pasta ratio and maybe I should have chilled the baked bites for a little longer before trying to move them. Hey ho. The rejects were just as tasty served in a bowl topped off with a good ol' dollop of that tomato sauce.

Mmmmm. Now then, what's your favourite mac 'n' cheese twist?

Back of House Sheffield - An Exposed Blog post

With a strapline of ‘Food’s got Proper’, Back of House (or BOH), Ecclesall Road’s newest restaurant has caused a bit of a stir amongst some Sheffield foodies. What is this ‘proper’? Why have we not had it before? Rather, does BOH not know that we already have ‘proper’ food?

Instead of getting bogged down in semantics, I took this strapline to mean that BOH was going to offer British food done well and without any pretence. Yes, of course we already have this in Sheffield; The Milestone do it particularly well in fact, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t have room for another, and so what if they want to use a strapline that tries to set them apart from others?

With this in mind I was delighted to manage to bag myself (and the husband) a table on their launch night and on seeing their menu for the first time, I was glad to find that the food was, indeed, ‘proper’. It was only when Thomas Robjohns (bar specialist and joint owner, along with chef Richard Bucklow and Jaye Taylor) told us to expect the unexpected explaining that dishes wouldn’t be quite as they seemed from the menu that I started to question the BOH concept. How could a dish be ‘proper’ but also not what it seemed?

Read more here.... 

An easy midweek tea - lamb chops with lentils

Gav and I went to Manchester last weekend which meant that the fridge was nigh on empty when we got back. And, as I hadn't had time to plan any of our meals for the week ahead I had to both decide what to cook tonight and buy all the ingredients on my way home from work. Luckily Simmonite's, from Castle Market, have set up shop on Division Street, and they opened today, so I popped in there for some inspiration.

A pack of lamb chops and a tub of char-grilled aubergine slices later I had  a menu in mind; lamb with a warm lentil 'salad'.

The lentils were incredibly easy to make. I rinsed off some puy lentils and set them off cooking on the hob along with a chopped carrot and a small bunch of parsley (tied together with a piece of spring onion). Once cooked I removed the parsley and drained the lentils and carrot off. I then added a sliced chilli, 2 sliced spring onions, 2 chopped tomatoes, some fresh parsley (finely chopped), a teaspoon of capers (chopped) and the char-grilled aubergine slices (about 100g - chopped) and heated everything through as I char-grilled the lamb.

Delicious!

Indian Spiced Lamb and a Couple of Salads

I've had the book Smoke & Spice for a few months and even though it's full of gorgeous sounding recipes (such as Lavender Salt Crusted Leg of Lamb, Matambre and Cajun Crispy Pork Belly) I hadn't got round to cooking from it until today. And despite being tempted by some of the more interesting and special sounding recipes, I wanted something quick and simple. I also wanted something that didn't involve any expensive ingredients, or rather, didn't require any spices that I didn't already have. Indian Spiced Lamb fit the bill perfectly.

A mix of cumin, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, turmeric, paprika and garam masala was rubbed into two thick lamb steaks before leaving them overnight in the fridge. I then cooked them on the char grill pan, sliced and served up with a couple of salads from HFW's Veg (a cucumber and mint salad which can be found here and an avocado, grapefruit and chilli salad).

The lamb was really tasty; the rub added a nice level of spice without overpowering the flavour of the meat, but the highlights for me were the salads. Once again, HFW had pulled it off. Avocado and grapefruit? Who knew? I don't even like grapefruit, but the avocado helped to cut through the bitterness and made it much more palatable. Needless to say the chilli and coriander were also enjoyable additions to the dish. Cucumber and mint is a more obvious combination and I would probably experiment by adding lime juice and crushed peanuts next time.

A delicious, healthy and light dinner... what did you have tonight?