https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJrcr_IY1y8

Bodged Saag Paneer from Sainsburies ingredients:

All quantities just rough estimates:
450g paneer (diced)
3-6 cloves of garlic
a good chunk of ginger
500g spinach
20g "birds eye" chillies (use different or adjust quantity to taste. 20g is quite a lot)
TRS "Asia's finest foods All purpose" seasoning (internationally available).
300ml "double" cream (just thick cream)
Vegetable oil

One big pan, like a wok.

Wash the spinach then put to one side.

Blend the garlic, ginger, chillies & a shot-glass of water to a paste. Put that aside in a cup for easy access.

Fry the diced paneer in a decent quantity of oil, stirring occasionally until golden brown on most sides.

Put the paneer on a plate, liberally season with the TRS stuff, quickly before the oil is absorbed into the cheese. (The seasoning has all the salt in it that you're going to add to flavour everything).

Put the blended stuff into the wok oil (beware hot oil spitting) and stir for a minute.

When that starts to go a deeper green, put in the spinach*, a handful at a time, stirring to mix well with the blend.

Let the spinach cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally so it doesn't stick/burn. Add water or put a lid over it if it starts to get too dry**.

Stir in the cream & paneer, cook it on a low heat for another 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Put a lid on if the liquid gets too low/thick.

That's it.


*If you want the sauce to be completely green, put aside about 1/5 of the spinach and stick it in the blender with the cream before you add that to the pan later. If you want a green/cream/yellow contrast, don't.

**Put the rice on to boil. Rinse white rice at least 3 times before cooking. 1 cup of rice and 3 cups of water is two portions. Bring it to boil, then down to simmer, keep the lid off and when the water stops bubbling through the holes, it's about done.
To make your rice look fancy on a plate, put it into a small bowl then up-end it carefully so it keeps the shape of the bowl. Garnish with something green.

>>15045
If you can't get paneer and live in a good sized city you can often find cans of "Cottage cheese" in foot tall cans. It works just as well.

>>15046
Only those big city boys can get those hard to find ingredients like "cottage cheese".

Got a tin of snails for £1.70. What can I do with them? Was thinking butter and garlic and parsley, but that seems a bit pedestrian.

>>15149
Throw them at your local conservative HQ.

Egg/flour dough. Maybe a some turmeric for colour. Knead, might need a tiny splash of water to come together. Knead some more until you have a non-sticky tennis ball of dough. When your arms are tired, let it sit for a pint or two.

Have some flour handy and start flattening that ball. Use your hands to make a disc, then start rolling it out. Use a bottle if you don't have a bin. Keep rubbing in flour so it doesn't stick. And keep rolling until it's about as thin as a q-tips stick. If in doubt and you run out of space, cut it in half and deal with that part later. Once rolled out, find a beer can, rip off the tab, and use the business end to stencil out dough circles.

Minced meat (not that Christmas shit), actual meat. Pork/beef mix is best, at least 20% fat and ideally more. Add hatever cheap spice you can: salt, MSG, "mixed herbs", whatever. Take a ball of meat, about the size of... you've done arts and crafts and wrapped a present. A 1" ball or so, put that on a dough disk and wrap the dough around it. Work the dough more than the filling. Seal the edges, you can do fancy hand crimping, use a fork, or just accept you're making soup.

Boil them in salty water (how much salt? As much as you can stomach) for about 15-20 minutes.

Goes well with anything.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBZHXSJ0jn4

My Nigerian neighbours cook this every weekend. It smells lovely out in the garden.

If you put some golden syrup on normal cornflakes, it's an acceptable emergency substitute for crunchy nut corn flakes.

>>9546
I've just found someone contributed a cake in a mug recipe to BBC Good Food at the end of 2013 which is virtually identical to the one I copied into my .gs cookbook. I wonder if they read the site, or if it was just doing the rounds at the time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yNrRwODzTI

The inspiration for Cheese and Onion crisps must come from somewhere, so I put together the only major ingredients left in my cupboard - cheese and onions - into a frying pan with a teaspoon of sugar, 2 teaspoons of flour, a little pepper and some vegetable oil.

It was alright. In places the flour didn't distribute well which created a welcome firm, almost crispy, texture.

I'll think I'll go full batter next time, stir it up into chuncks.

>>15625
Have you never seen a cheese and onion pie or pasty?

This is probably the best tasting very cheap recipe I've found. Probably not the most nutritious, but just have a salad for lunch or breakfast, idk.

>>15628
Who has cheese crust lying around?

>>15629

Italians, or anyone else who uses shitloads of parmesan.

>>15630
Cheap in the sense that caviar is cheap because you already ate the whole fish and it's left over.

Christ, I hate you whinging cunts sometimes. Firstly, the cheese crust is not integeral to the dish and is more of a nice bonus, so feel free to skimp, as I did. Secondly, it's cheap because the cost of everything else in the recipe is about five pence a portion.

>>15626
Oh shit, yeah. I forgot about those.

>>15633
They never forgot about you.

>Recipes only, no comments.
Fuck that, this is now food general.

I just made chicken and leak. That's it, just chicken and leak with some salt.

Simply diced the chicken, sliced the leak, put them in a pot with a dash of salt and some boiled water. Oven at 200c for an hour, then boiled off the excess water in a frying pan.
It came out much better than I expected, for such basic preparation and minimal ingredients.

How do you make the creamy sauciness you'd get in a chicken and leak pasty?

>>15674

You use cream

I have a kitchen conundrum of my own.

I use only jars of pre-minced garlic, because fuck it life's too short. When it sautés, however, it splatters and I end up with specks of garlic all over my hob. Any advice to prevent this? I assume it's to do with the water content?

>>15689

Something to do with the oil it's preserved in? Maybe drain it in a sieve or dab it in some kitchen towel before throwing it in the pan.

>>15689

>I assume it's to do with the water content?

Yep. The water boils off instantly in a hot pan, the pressure of steam causes little explosions and it spatters all over the place. If you add the garlic to a cold pan, it shouldn't spatter.

>>15691
> If you add the garlic to a cold pan,
Can't really cook with a cold pan though can you lad.

Got a pot of Sharwoods chicken tikka and rice form the foodbank a few weeks ago.

When I opened it up this morning to have for breakfast inside was some kind of mushroom and pasta meal instead.

I poured the water in and ate it anyway. It was good and nice.

A low point of sorts, basic oven chips. To start with put the oven on 200, doesn't have to be fan you already know how your oven works.

One large potatoe, cut it into little finger sized pieces (skin on) and add about 3 spoons of dry carb of choice. Wheat flour, cocoyam, whatever. Get your hands in there, coat them strips. Add no more than a spoon full of any spice you fancy, it'll burn. Massage that spud again, don't worry about an even coating. Cover in oil of choice, sesame olive sunflower mixed whatever who cares. Cover, don't drown. Get your hands in there again, this time it counts. If there is oil left after you fondle those carbs you overdid the oil.

Some care now, put the spud strips on baking paper or tin foil. No ifs or buts, it's one or the other. Place them individually, no touching! In the oven they go, helps to have a board to slide them in. 15-30 minutes in the oven, you'll have to pay attention and know your tater and spice. Slightly brown? Probably not enough but there's a thin line between burnt spice and well cooked. If you did everything right they'll have some skin but will still fragile.

Now smother in sauce of choice, half mayo and half chili is my usual, but one should not judge. Slice, spice, oil & bake. A finer depression meal you cannot make.

>>15772

You have to par-boil them first you psychopath.

>>15773
Nah, that's what the flour is for. I'd wash and dry them if this wasn't the simple version.

>>15772
I might give them a go - I've been frying sliced potato in oil/butter in a pan, usually comes out okay if a little dark.

I'm really into mushrooms at the moment. Somebody give me some good ideas of what to do with mushrooms.

I had them on top of my scrambled eggs this morning, fried in loads of butter and bacon juices. Absolutely delicious.

>>15957
>Somebody give me some good ideas of what to do with mushrooms.
Well you could try to open your third eye or see something pretty.

>>15957

Cream of mushroom soup. I made some with wild mushrooms last weekend. But you can also make it with your button mushrooms from the shop.

>>15957

Risotto or stroganoff, both of which are easier than you might imagine.

>Recipes only, no comments

Why're my slowcooker meals so shit?

I put together a basic curry of lentils, onions, fresh and tinned tomatoes, chicken and mixed spices.

Compared to cooking on the hob (sans fresh tomatoes and chicken) it's inferior. Granted it's a very basic meal but I'm good with that for now. From the slowcooker it's too sweet with a very 'high' located taste in the mouth, despite no added sugar. Salt helps to bring it down a bit but there's no core, no base flavour.

Even other stuff I've tried is bad - mixed veg especially (sweetness and tang of parsnips ruins it, have yet to try without as I throw most of it away), even chilli con carne isn't great (though edible - to memory still 'high' on the palate).


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUQaxSE_dGg

Had some sweetheart cabbage today with my steak and potatoes.

Just slice and dice the cabbage, add some finely chopped carrot and one smallish sliced onion. Steam in a sautee pan for 20 minutes with water, salt, vegetable stock, a dash of white wine and just a little bit of curry powder. Then discard the cooking water and add some butter and stir for a bit till the butter melts.

Delish.

>>15981
Are you browning, all the things that could reasonably be browned, in the frying pan first?

>>15983
I sweat the onions in butter first, but otherwise chucked it all in and leave it for 6 hours as I thought go every slowcooker recipe.
I thought browning ingredients seals the flavour. I wanted the frozen diced chicken to absorb flavours (it didn't).

>>15984 I thought browning ingredients seals the flavour.

That'll be because seal and sear sound slightly similar.
Browning ingredients makes them tasty.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillard_reaction

Not sure which thread the mention of vinegar on pork to make crackling was in but here's good. I tried putting it on half the meat and it didn't make the blindest bit of difference.

>>16001
It was me that posted it originally. Thanks for doing the experiment.

I thought it worked when I did it the first time, but that was actually the first time I made crackling so I had no comparison.

I bought into food content creator "tips". What a fool I am.

>>16002
It's possible I didn't put enough on so I will try the experiment again at some point but none of the reasons I've seen given for why it supposedly helps really make sense to me.

Salt, yes absolutely. Add far too much rock salt then brush it off mid-cook, that'll help. Oil will also help increase the surface temperature and crisp it up. Cooking the thing through wrapped in foil but giving the skin a shorter blast of very intense heat, that makes sense too. But treating it with a liquid that's 92%+ water, whether or not you then pat it dry (Different recipes I found had different approaches), is either adding nothing at all or adding a lot of moisture, which will have the opposite effect.

Also, a number of the pages that mention vinegar (https://thekitchentoday.com/what-does-vinegar-do-to-pork-skin/) look suspiciously AI generated.

I like a stew, mirepoix, and whatever veg I find. Mushrooms do a lot of work to make this work, and given what "mushroom" means it's an excuse. How long for, though. what did you get?

>>16002

I tried again (there was a joint with skin on in reduced), this time I put a generous amount of vinegar over the whole skin and let it stand for 30 minutes before patting it dry, applying oil then salt. Completely ruined the crackling. The only bit that went well is the corners I missed.

Stick with oil and salt.

>>16105
I made it myself (this recipe, anyway)
https://khinskitchen.com/naga-chicken-curry/
Used halloumi instead of chicken, butter instead of ghee/oil, two large spoonfuls of Mr. Naga pickle instead of one and I don't own garlic or ginger paste so just blended half a bulb of garlic with a similar size piece of ginger in a little water. It is so fucking good.

Picked up the Mob Veggie book in a charity shop. The shahi spinach paneer recipe is very good, although I can only find an American version online to share:

https://eu.statesman.com/story/lifestyle/food/2020/11/05/recipe-of-week-craving-takeout-herersquos-how-to-make-spinach-paneer-at-home/114711368/

>>16151
Why would you ruin a perfectly good curry by putting nuts in it? Fuck off.

>>16152
Cashews improve everything.

>>16153
I bet you rate Pad Thais you cunt.