Chicken and Carrot pie with White Wine Sauce

Takes:  About 50 minutes

Ingredient	Cost	Notes
3 cups flour	10p
1 cup cooking margarine eg. Stork	30p	Butter works well too, but don’t attempt with anything healthy. Blue Flora in particular won’t cook right. If it claims to in any way be good for your heart, you probably shouldn’t be eating pie anyway
2 eggs	35p	One for pastry, one for egg wash
2 chicken breasts	£2.00	If you’re using funky chicken, scrape any slime/discolouration off first, and fry for an extra five minutes. Classy
3 onions	30p
1 cup corn flour	5p
1.5 cups white wine	40p	Plus at least one for the chef. Don’t be fancy here, get out your boxed stuff
4 carrots	25p
1 tub sour cream	£1.00	Tasty stuff, but you could try using cream or even yoghurt

Total: £4.75
or £1.19 per person

Method:

1. Pastry
   
   
   • Pre-heat your oven to 200C because we are lazy and cannot wait for slow cooking
   • Blend the flour, butter and 1 egg together with a little salt and pepper (alternatively, rub in the butter with your fingers and then add the egg to amalgamate)
   • Knead lightly until it forms a ball
   • Separate a third for the lid. Roll the rest out to cover the inside of the pie dish- make sure it spills over the edge a bit- it’s going to shrink back anyway
   • Prick with fork, egg wash and blind bake for about 15 minutes. Prepare everything else now
     
     

     

     Still dangerous, obviously

2. Prepare pie innards
   
   
   • Peel and chop carrots and boil for 15 minutes on a medium heat
     
     
   • Chop onions and chicken and fry until chicken no longer looks dangerous
     
     
   • Drain carrots- put a small bowl under the colander to collect carroty water
     
     
   • Put drained carrots in with chicken and onions and take the whole thing off the heat
     
     
     
     
3. Pie sauce
   • Create cornflour slop with 3 tablespoons cornflour mixed with 3 tablespoons white wine
   • Pour into chicken pan
   • Add more white wine and carrot water until sauce forms- you may need to put the cornflour back on the heat in order to activate its incredible propensity for forming terrifying glutinous lumps around your chicken. When this happens, add more liquid
   • When a reasonable but boring looking sauce has formed, add a tub of sour cream
   • Stir and season thoroughly, then slop in blind-baked pie dish (suddenly remember you had a blind-baked pie dish in the oven…)
     
     
     
     
4. Lid
   
   
   • Roll out last third of pastry, cut into an appropriate lid-shape and slice an “X” in the middle to let steam out
   • Have your boyfriend or anyone who is supposedly cooking with you mould the remaining pastry into a retarded version of the animal inside the pie
   • Cut the excess pastry off the sides of the pie dish
   • Brush the linking edges with egg wash
   • Flop the lid on top, push a fork down on the sides to make it pretty and egg wash the whole thing (don’t forget to add the somewhat confused animal or your sous chef will cry)
   • Bake for about 20 minutes or until brown/extreme hunger
     
     

     

     Squirrel? Chicken? 

     
     

     

     Now, cooked!

5. Plate up
   
   
   • Pie can be a meal in itself, but I’m serving mine with mashed potato and fancy broccoli because FUCK THE POLICE
   • Chow down
     
     

     

     Mash and broccoli, because there weren't enough carbohydrates on this plate

     
     

     

     Appropriately dressed for dinner

     
     
     

Chicken Curry with Rice

 Multitasking level: Medium

Ready in: 30 minutes
Serves: 6

Ingredient	Price	Notes
6 Chicken thighs	£2.69	Chicken thighs are cheaper than chicken breasts, but fiddlier to prepare. I get chicken thigh fillets as an in-between measure
2 Onions	20p	Gotta have some onion if we’re making a pan meal
3 handfuls of any raw veg	£1.20	Search Reduced To Clear section for nice things. Here I’m using green beans, mushrooms, sugar-snap peas and a tomato
Rice	1.39 per kilo- probably using about 40p worth here	Not the boil in the bag stuff, that stuff is weird and expensive.
1 lime	23p	Lemon’s alright too
2 Bell peppers	80p	Any colour, but not green (they taste like grass) Buy in ugly-buggers multipacks- these are expensive at the moment
Spices	Start building a collection- steal from back of parents’ cupboards	Basically use what you have and alter proportions as necessary, but here we’re going to use: 1 tsp turmeric 2 tsp cumin 1 tsp coriander 1 tsp cinnamon ¼ tsp ground cloves 1 tsp ground ginger 2 tablespoon coconut powder or desiccated coconut
2-3 tbsp natural yoghurt	30p	I get the Total 0% big packs because it's refreshing and doesn't go off

                                          Total: £5.82
                                            or £0.97 each
Utensils:

• Wok, balti or large frying pan
• Small saucepan and lid for rice
• Chopping board and knife
• Spatula

1.      Rice

a.      Measure: Put some rice in the saucepan. Remember that it will expand to double its size, so work out how much you're likely to eat

b.      Wash: Put cold water in the rice pan and swirl it around with your hand until the water turns cloudy. Block the rice with your hand and drain the water out. Repeat these steps until your water turns clear- about 5-7 times

c.       Water: Place your finger so the tip just touches the rice. Fill the pan with water until it reaches the first joint on this finger. That’s the right amount of water.

d.      Cook: Put on full heat until it boils. Don’t take the lid off, at all. Turn right down to the lowest heat for 10 minutes or until all the water is absorbed. Start cooking the curry now. After ten minutes, take off the heat WITHOUT TAKING THE LID OFF and leave it to steam itself off the bottom of the pan until you’re ready to eat

2.       Curry

a.        Put 1tbsp oil in the pan. Add sliced onions and cook on medium heat until soft

b.       Chop chicken into pieces no bigger than your thumb. Take off the hard fat at this point, because it’ll taste gross cold. Put the chicken in the pan too.

c.        Add spices: Sniff each spice before you put it in to remind you what it does for the curry. Then when you taste the curry later you’ll know what to add again. Keep stirring things because burned spices are gross.

d.       Add hardy veg: Anything you actually want cooked. This generally means green things because otherwise they taste grassy. Add chillies now if you want to add those to the recipe. Cut up delicate veg.

e.        Add delicate veg: Bell peppers, tomato and mushrooms, in this case. Stuff that doesn’t need much time

f.         Add yoghurt and give a good stir- It should be looking like you’ve completely ruined your curry by dropping a tonne of moisturiser on it, but it’ll soon go brown and delicious with the spices. Add your lime juice. Taste some of the veg and add more spice as required- the yoghurt will make the spice less spicy, so alter as necessary.

3.       Plate up

a.        Give the rice a good fork-through to fluff it up

b.       Shove curry on top and realise that while this curry tastes amazing it looks like hell on a plate

c.        Chow down

SO BRIGHT IT HURTS MY FACE

Tomato couscous with Foolproof Chicken Stir Fry

                               

                           

Ready in: fewer than 30 minutes
Multi-tasking level: Low
Feeds: 6 for this version, cut down accordingly

Ingredient	Price (approx.)	Notes
5 Chicken breasts	~£5.00	Thigh fillets are cheaper, but fiddlier to cut up. Evaluate whether you can be bothered.
2 lemons	50p
3 cloves garlic	10p
Couscous	60p a bag- we’re using about 30p’s worth here	Wholegrain couscous is tasty. Remember couscous works really well cold/reheated- cook more than you need
1 can value chopped tomatoes	38p	Sainsbury’s basics ones are actually the best. Nice red colour, come in a carton not a jar
Splash of red wine	15p	Don’t bother with fancy wine here, it’s really just to give it some depth
1 tablespoon soy sauce	10p	Only buy from Chinese supermarkets if you can- it’s a staple there, so it’s MASSIVELY cheaper than supermarkets (and the bottles look impressive)
1 tablespoon cornflour	3p	Cornflour is the best for thickening sauces and soups. Buy a box and it will last forever.
About 4 fists of chopped veg	~£3	Seasonality keeps it cheap, otherwise check reduce to clear. Try to get lots of pretty colours in there. Here I used: 1 white onion, a bunch of asparagus, a few mushrooms, two handfuls of baby spinach, three bell peppers (two red, one orange. Never green. Taste like grass.)

                                          Total: £9.58
                                         (Or about £1.60 each)

Utensils:

·       Small saucepan for couscous

·       Large frying pan/ wok/ balti

·       Chopping board and knife

·       Small bowl and spoon for cornflour

·       Plastic bag

Method:

       1.  Marinate the chicken- this is a really good thing to do if the chicken’s on its last legs/ bought from reduce-to-clear but it looks a bit funky

a.        Cut the chicken breasts into bits as tall as your thumb- remove sinew (stringy white bits) because they will never taste nice

b.       Put the chicken in a plastic bag with the juice of 2 lemons and three chopped cloves of garlic

c.        Leave it for between 5 minutes and 12 hours, depending on how funky your chicken is looking/how hungry you are

       2.  Couscous

a.        Put a third as much couscous as you want to eat in a saucepan

b.       Add 1 ½ times as much liquid as there is couscous in with it. In this recipe, put a tin of chopped tomatoes on it, a splash of red wine, the last squeeze of lemon juice from the skins of the lemons you used in the marinade, and 2 teaspoons of sugar (otherwise it will just dissolve your face when you try to eat it) – and some chopped basil if you’re feeling fancy

c.        Put on the hob on a high heat and stir frequently with a wooden spoon. Turn it down after 2 minutes. Just make sure it’s not sticking to the bottom. Start cooking the stir fry now.

                                                                       i.       Cooking the couscous will require some attention. It ought to look a bit frogspawny after about 5 minutes- if it starts sticking to the bottom at that time, put a splash more water in it

                                                                     ii.       After 10-14 minutes it should be done (right)

RAW BUT WITH POTENTIAL

COOKED TO PERFECTION

      3.  Stir fry

a.        Put a tablespoon of oil in the pan. Wait until it’s hot (it will be shimmering like a poncy vampire), then add the chicken, but not the marinade. When water hits hot oil it spits, so watch out. Drain water off it when it starts to bubble or they’ll never cook

b.       Start chopping veggies quickly. You want to add the veggies in descending order of how cooked you want them, and then chop the next sect of veggies, so here it goes:

                                                                       i.       Onions

                                                                     ii.       Mushrooms (clean dirt off them with kitchen towel, chop in quarters)

                                                                   iii.       Asparagus (chop and discard two inches from the end to avoid woody stems)

                                                                   iv.       Bell peppers (speed-chop the way Gordon tells us)

                                                                     v.       Baby spinach leaves (add these once the stir fry is cooked and off the heat)
4.        Sauce:

                       a.       Pour the remaining marinate over the stir fry

                       b.       Add 2 tablespoons of sugar (look, I know this sounds weird, but just do it. You just added a bunch of acid, this will make it all sweet-and-sour)

                       c.       Put 1 tablespoon of cornflour in a small bowl, add 1 tablespoon soy sauce and mash all the lumps out with a spoon

                       d.       Take the stir fry OFF THE HEAT and add the cornflour mix- stir in well to avoid weird gloops

Delicious cornflour slop makin'

 your sauce all thick and tasty

       5.  Plate up

a.        Flop the couscous into a sieve just in case there’s any water lurking about still, then back in the pan

b.       Precariously balance the stir fry on a blob of couscous because you’re trying to imitate the food-in-tiny-towers they do on Masterchef

c.        Chow down

THIS IS WHY WE USE ALL THE COLOURS

Edit: Tomorrow's corresponding Bento lunchbox
Top box: This meal
Bottom box: Salad of spinach leaves, spring onions,
peppadew sweet chillis and crystallised ginger