I think I’m due a badge: I’m the last person in the UK to never have eaten at Nando’s. If I walk past a branch around dinner or lunch there’s always a queue around the block. I’m not sure why. It seemed to creep into the public consciousness out of nowhere. I’m sure it’s wonderful, but I’ve just never felt the compulsion to try it.
Therefore I was nonplussed when a bottle of Nando’s Smokey BBQ sauce dropped through my letterbox. But I was intrigued. It was a little tangy, a little sweet, a little spicy… so it ended up in this hash, which owes a small debt to Jools’ Pregnant Pasta.
Get a large pan on very hot. Add a splash of oil and add the carrot, celery and bacon.
After a couple of minutes stir-frying the bacon should be starting to colour. Add the mince and a grind of seasoning. Continue to stir-fry for another 8 – 10 minutes.
Add the BBQ sauce and stock. You want it quite soupy for serving with potato. Stir to combine well and check for seasoning. Serve with a jacket potato and creme fraiche.
Whenever my son is offered a treat out to a restaurant, say for a birthday or good school report, before I’ve even finished the question he replies “Wagamama“. And he always orders the same thing: chicken katsu curry.
I’ve hard arguments with people on Twitter about Wagamama in the past; that it is lowest common denominator stuff, that it’s Westernised muck… they are aiming at global appeal to be sure. I can’t speak to its authenticity but I know I like what their kitchen serves up. My favourite dish by a long shot is yaki soba, and I must’ve had it a hundred times in and out of the restaurant.
But the katsu curry is really good too. Super-crunchy chicken and a spiky curry sauce, with fluffy rice to soak it up. I have got the Wagamama cookbook but this recipe isn’t in there, so here’s my interpretation which I think is pretty damn close. They have salad alongside theirs, I went with some more Autumnal veg in fitting with October diets. But it’s the curry sauce I’m absolutely overjoyed with, a dead simple and really tasty condiment that goes with so many things.
Chicken katsu curry (serves 4):
4 chicken breasts
100g panko breadcrumbs
2 eggs, beaten
2 tablespoons flour
Mugful basmati rice
1 star anise
4 cloves
3 cardamom pods
2 carrots, peeled and diced
1 red pepper, diced
1 Knorr chicken stock pot
White wine vinegar
1 tablespoon Patak’s curry paste (whichever flavour you like)
You’ll need two frying pans and two saucepans on the go for this one. Sorry about that. You should also put the oven on a low setting, about 100°C and pop a baking tray in there.
Get the large saucepan over a medium heat and add the rice, the star anise, cloves, cardamom and two mugfuls of water. Cover and stir occasionally while you get on with everything else.
In another saucepan, gently fry the carrots for a minute in a little oil. Then barely cover the carrots with water and add half the stock pot. Simmer. After 5 minutes, add the peppers and when all the liquid is reduced add a punch of sugar and a dash of vinegar – check for seasoning.
In a saucepan over a high heat, add the curry paste and cook out for a minute. Then add the coconut milk and the other half of the stock pot. Simmer until thick.
Get a large frying pan, cover the base with oil and set it over a medium heat. Between two pieces of clingfilm bash the chicken breasts with a rolling pin until 1.5cm thick. Dust with seasoned flour, dip in egg then coat in breadcrumbs. Fry the chicken in batches as your pan allows, browning on both sides and transferring to the baking tray while you finish the rest.
When all the chicken is cooked, the rice is fluffy (it will probably need some salt and pepper) and the veg is tender, serve with lashings of the curry sauce.
Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals was a literary behemoth, tearing up the records for fastest selling non-fiction book, and causing many snooks to be cocked in its direction. But for people willing to give it a proper chance, approach it with an open mind and “get in the 30 minute frame of mind” it was a way to push what you can achieve in a small amount of time. Aim higher! I was certainly taken it with it, and gave me some great ideas how to make the best use of your time. Take the food processor: previously left for weekend projects, I now employ it 3 or 4 times a week to chop, grate or slice things in a flash.
cheeky chappie
What’s that coming over the hill, is it a monster, is it a monsterrrr? No, it’s another Jamie book, poised to take over the world. And this time it’s Jamie’s 15-Minute Meals. Yes, half the time. And the knives are already out in a pointless linkbait exercise. But I was approaching it with energy and excitement.
Flicking through, much like 30 Minute Meals there’s a wide variety of cuisines that should satisfy your mood. There’s an obsession with serving everything on wooden boards which I really like but isn’t practical for most dinners. Towards the end of the book there’s also a weird section that doesn’t really belong, talking about muesli and other breakfast odds and ends. Granola aside there’s definitely loads I will be trying over the coming months. I picked out a handful to try straight away and started with this golden chicken recipe.
I hit a snag immediately. Jamie juggles a frying pan, a saucepan and a baking tray on the hob simultaneously. I have a regular 4-burner hob, and this just won’t fit. Maybe all the recipe testing was done on a 5-burner but this was automatically going to put my time back as I couldn’t multi-task as effectively.
And this leads me on to another issue: there are no timings given for anything. It’s just “do this, then this, by this time the first thing will be ready.” But if for whatever reason you can’t stick to the timeline you don’t have a way of knowing how long things should take. If you are a confident cook this isn’t a problem but I can see it being a real boundary for a lot of people.
These issues aside, the dinner was very good, although it took me 28 minutes. Best of all was capturing a really good potato gratin in 15 minutes, that really is impressive. So do try out the 15 minute recipes – but do read it all carefully before starting. And don’t get hung up on the time and focus instead on creating great food quicker than you would expect. That’s the key.
Golden chicken with potato gratin and greens (serves 4):
800g potatoes
3 onions
1 chicken stock cube
½ teaspoon dried sage (Jamie demanded fresh but I couldn’t get any)
100ml single cream
30g Parmesan
4 chicken breasts
Fresh rosemary
2 rashers smoked bacon
1 large leek
200g baby spinach
200g frozen peas
Get a large saucepan filled with boiling, salted water over a high heat. Finely slice the potatoes and tip them in. Get a large roasting tray over a hob with a little oil in, and after passing the peeled onions through the food processor throw them in the pan. Crumble in the stock cube and sage, and stir often.
Spread out a large sheet of greaseproof and lay the chicken on. Scatter over some salt, pepper, sage and rosemary. Fold the paper over and using a rolling pin bash to about 1.5cm thick. Get a frying pan over a medium heat and fry the chicken in a little oil. Flip as they turn golden in colour.
Warm another pan and add a dash of oil. Wash and finely slice the leek, and then add to the pan. Get the grill on high and drain the potatoes. Tip them into the pan with the onions, spread into a single layer and pour over the cream. Grate over the parmesan and bung under the grill until the edges are catching golden brown. Slice the bacon and add to the chicken pan.
Add the spinach and the peas to the leek’s pan, add some seasoning and toss well. Cover and leave until the spinach has wilted, and then serve the chicken with the greens and potato fresh from the grill.
Not having money sucks. Worse still, not having money and really enjoying food sucks. The time you most notice this is when you’re a student. Most Wanted, the magazine for VoucherCodes.co.uk has asked me to come up with some recipes that are frugal but hopefully don’t feel like it!
The first of these is lemon chicken on crispy noodles. It’s inspired by a Ken Hom recipe that’s a favourite in our house. It’s tasty, messy and great fun to eat. It also scales up really well if you need to feed a few more friends.
The ingredients in this are pretty basic but raised up by making the flavours big and punchy. Shopping around you could save money on the chicken, and can be adjusted to suit any other sturdy vegetables you wanted to add, such as peas or green beans. However don’t cut too many corners with the stock, it forms the base of the flavour and carries the rest of the dish. I like Knorr products so look out for good brands of stock cubes and stock pots: stock is handy in almost all savoury recipes. One thing to watch for in this recipe is it needs two frying pans on the go, so you may need to borrow another! You should be in and out of the kitchen in 15 minutes once you get the hang of this one.
Approximate cost for main ingredients, excludes storecupboard ingredients (prices from Tesco.com 4th Oct 2012): £1.72
Lemon chicken on crispy noodles (serves 1):
1 packet of instant noodles
1 chicken breast, diced
250ml stock made with ½ stock cube
1 lemon
2 carrots
1 teaspoon cornflour
Get a pan of water on a rapid boil and add the noodles. Cook for 3 – 4 minutes until tender and then tip into a sieve to drain. Rinse with cold water to completely cool them down.
Get two frying pans on over medium-high heat. In one of them you will cook the noodles; this should have a layer of oil to coat the base of the pan. The other just needs a tiny bit into which to cook everything else.
While the pans heat up dice the chicken and prepare the carrot. Peel the carrot, and after you’ve discarded the skin keep peeling until you reach the bitter core, which you can chuck away. Being very careful to avoid spatter add the noodles to their pan and spread out with a wooden spoon so they cover the base. Add the chicken to the other pan and stir fry for a couple of minutes until coloured all over, then add the stock and carrots.
Into the chicken pan grate in the zest of the lemon and the juice of half. Stir well to combine and let it bubble away for a couple of minutes. The noodles should be crisp on one side now so with confidence flip them over. While the other side cooks taste the broth. You may want to add more lemon, or possibly a pinch of sugar or salt to balance everything out. When you’re happy with the flavour add a splash of water to the cornflour in a small dish and mix well, then tip this into the sauce.
When the noodles are done tip them on to kitchen paper to drain, and then into your serving bowl. Tip the chicken and the sauce over the top and start slurping!
