Wontons and Mini Quiche

Alright! Today we're making wontons (or Jiǎozi as they're properly known. Actually what we're cooking are Gyōza, the Japanese version, because we're using garlic and such, but the wrappers should be thinner if we're going Japenese authentic. I get geeky about this stuff. Let's just call them wontons.)  and using the leftover gunk to make mini quiches, the best kind of quiches. 

Wonton preparation takes a while, so be sure to make an absolutely massive batch. Use the wontons in soups (boiled ones only) salads, lunch boxes over rice and for dipping in soy sauce or sweet chilli sauce.

Ingredients:

Happy little package of convenience!

• Three turkey breasts (or equivalent in just about any light meat)
• Three spring onions
• A cup of chopped bacon bits or cured ham if you're fancy (to counteract the healthy blandness of the turkey)
• One tablespoon oyster sauce
• 1tsp crushed garlic
• 1 tsp crushed (and chopped) chilli
• Wonton wrappers from the local asian supermarket 
• Look, I know you can make your own. I've done it. But these ones come in a lovely little packet and don't make a mess. If you really want to, it's just flour (preferably rice flour) and water. Go wild.
• 2 eggs (one for the mixture, one for sealing the wontons)

Extra ingredients for the quiche:

• Plain flour
• Some kind of butter, stork or (at a push) animal fat
• Another egg. I sure do love cholesterol in my cooking

Method:

1. Prepare wonton filling

1. Cut the meat like it owes you money. Seriously, as finely as you possibly can. It should look disgracefully not-meat-like by the end. If you have big lumps, they will make your wontons burst while cooking, and then that mix will stick to other wontons so even the successful wontons will remind you of your past failures
2. Chop the spring onions finely and add to the bowl, season with salt and pepper
3. Add 2 teaspoons of crushed garlic and 2 of crushed chilli, according to taste, and 1 tablespoon of oyster sauce. If you don't have oyster sauce, mix a tablespoon of soy sauce with a pinch of sugar and enough cornstarch to form the consistency of tomato ketchup, and add that
2. Wontons, Assemble!





Prussian Efficiency

1. Assemble in batches. Put a teaspoon of filling in the middle of the wonton wrapper
2. Beat an egg in a seperate dish and smear it around the outside with your finger while trying to take pictures/use a pastry brush like a responsible adult
3. Fold in half and crimp the edges. Here are three pictures of valid ways of crimping the edges. The one with the fork most shouts "White girl cooking Chinese food" so that's what I generally go with. Also it reminds me of delicious pies

   

   Words can't bring them down, oh no no.



3. Cook wontons

1. Fill a kettle with boiling water and add a splash of soy sauce to help with flavour
2. Lower wontons in carefully with a slotted spoon
3. Boil them until the last wonton has risen to the top of the pan (Protip: Lay a wooden spoon over the pan to stop thing accidentally boiling over. If you work on gas, make sure to line it up with the handle of your pan or you'll burn it and everyone will laugh at your foolish error)
4. Drain in a colander

This is how I like my wontons:
Pure and delicious, almost healthy

This is how my little sister likes hers.
All you have to do is pan fry after boiling-
gives them a nice crispy skin, for easier
dipping

Great! You've got wontons! And a whole bowl of wonton mixture left over! Fortunately, wonton mixture is basically the same as quiche mixture. If you're very foreign and don't know what a quiche is, it's an omelette pie. Am I making this sound glamorous? Quiche is manly, let's go.

Preheat the oven to 190C (374F), add the rest of the egg you used to seal the wontons to the bowl of slop and quickly knock up some short crust pastry:

Rolling pins are for losers
(this recipe only)

1. Guesstimate the volume of pastry you want and put about half as much flour as that in a bowl. It's better to be over than under. Also add a generous pinch of cayenne pepper- this makes cracking pastry
2. Add half as much fat as there is flour (stork or butter is best-- steer clear of anything that claims to be healthy) and rub in with your fingertips until it looks like breadcrumbs
3. Crack and egg in and form into a ball with your hands. Sloppy? Add more flour until it resembles what you think pastry looks like

Spray your muffin tin with oil spray (or grease with butter and some kitchen towel). Now rip the pastry into balls, flatten with your fingers and line the muffin tin with them

Slop the mixture in each one, sprinkle grated cheddar delicately on top and whack them in the oven until the cheese starts going brown where it's spilled over on the muffin tin. Also it should smell like Cheese On Toast (Americans, I believe you have something called a "grilled cheese". Use that as guidance)

Smells like the dishonour of a filthy
muffin tin

Smells like the glory that is Cheese On
Toast

Cool on a cooling rack and chow down.

Quiche just doesn't look good in photos.
Trust me that this is delicious.
I think it's the arbitrary bits of spring onion
that really make it sparkle.

NB: Both these things are amazing in bentos (lunchboxes). The quiches can be just wrapped up in tin foil and eaten as a hearty mid-morning snack. Go crazy.

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

     
     
     

Monstrous Pavlova Sandwich

Making pavlova is ridiculously easy since most of the time is spent ignoring it. If you're making it for a party (at which it is an impressive yet inexpensive gift), make the bases the day before and whip the cream and assemble just before you go, so the meringue doesn't go soggy.


Ingredients:
8 egg whites (Don't be a pussy about this. Yes, it's a lot of egg whites, but leftover egg yolks are delicious. Make Crème Brulée, custard, lemon curd, or just double them up instead of a normal egg in cakes for added richness. Also, they freeze really well.)
450g caster sugar
2 tsp cider vinegar
2 tsp cornflour
1/2 tsp salt
400g berries
1 1/2 tubs double cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup icing sugar
Zest of 1 lemon

DEM PEAKS

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180C and grease two baking trays

2. Whisk the 8 glorious egg whites in a large bowl until they form stiff peaks when you take the whisk out. If you can see froth, they're not done

3. Stir in the sugar a couple of tablespoons at a time, and give it a good whisk in between. Observe how your meringue mix now has a soft shine to it. Fancy meringue

Now: creamy and delicious

4. Remove the whisk altogether and stir in the salt, cornflour and vinegar by hand. The vinegar will make them a little bit chewy at the bottom

5. Flop the meringue in two large circles on the baking trays. Make one flat, and one textured for the top

6. Put in the oven, and immediately turn the temperature down to 115C and set the timer for an hour and a half. Go and play outside



7. When the time is up, turn off the oven and ignore your pavlova some more until it's cool. Don't even take it out of the oven. This is seriously lazy baking

8. Whip up a tub and a half of double cream (or whipping cream, but not single cream. Don't even try, it's doomed to failure) with a teaspoon of vanilla essence, half a cup of icing sugar and some lemon zest

9. PAVLOVA PARTS, ASSEMBLE! Spread cream on pavlova base. Artfully arrange berries atop it. Somehow slide pavlova top onto it to create a delicious pavlova sandwich


10. Chow down

GLORIOUS PAVLOVA SANDWICH MOUNTAIN

Prawn Curry in a Hurry

Takes: 15 minutes

Multitasking level: Low

Feeds: 4

Ingredient	Price	Notes
1 pack pre-cooked prawns	£2.50	These were just in the fridge. Use any pre-cooked leftover meat to cut down on cooking time.
1 handful green beans	30p	Or any green veg that’s on the cheap
1 orange bell pepper	30p	Any colour except green, as green bell peppers are the devil of all vegetation
1 large white onion	10p
1 inch ginger	5p
2 cloves garlic	10p
1 lemon	25p	Always use lemon where there’s a tomato based sauce, or it feels really bogged down
Enough rice for 4 people	30p	There’s a post on this if you can’t remember how to measure it all
Various spices	Steal from parents’ cupboards ~30p's worth here	1 tablespoon garam masala, 1 tsp ground cinnamon, 1 tablespoon cumin, 2 tablespoons dessicated coconut, 2 tsp chopped chilli
1 carton chopped tomatoes	38p	Sainsbury’s value are the best for juiciness, consistency and colour- Tesco’s ones look a bit mutant

                                              Total: £4.28
                                               Or £1.07 each

     1.      Sort 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.       Make curry

a.        Slice the onion and fry on a medium heat in 1tbsp oil until soft

b.       Add all the spice, the green beans, chopped ginger and the chopped garlic

c.        Add the chopped tomato, the prawns and the bell pepper- stir for 3 minutes

d.       Add the juice of half a lemon- taste it, if it's too hot, add a little yoghurt

3.       Plate up

a.        Fluff up the rice with a fork and pop some on the plate

b.       Pile curry on top in a hopefully appealing way, remembering that curry always looks like a mess

c.        If you’re trying to make an effort with your presentation because your blog is starting to make you money, garnish with a somewhat arbitrary bit of parsley

The compulsion to take cheerful pictures of my food means I have not eaten a piping hot dinner in quite a while

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

Grilled Mackerel with Tomato Couscous and Tartar Sauce

Ready in: Under 20 minutes

Multi-tasking level: Very Low

Feeds:  4, and goes well in lunch-boxes. Scale down as necessary

Ingredient	Price (approx.)	Notes
2 butterfly fillets of mackerel	£3.51	These ones came in a packet, but keep checking fish that are reduced at the counter. It can be intimidating, but those people are there to help you- always ask to have your fish descaled and gutted by the person serving you, or descaled and filleted if you don’t want to use the whole thing. It’s free, and they’re very happy to do it. Also, you can ask for the bones back to boil up for stock if you so please. Don’t be intimidated just because you have to talk to someone
1 lemons	25p
3 teaspoons mayonnaise	15p	I use light mayo because I’m a girl and therefore like to trick myself into thinking mayo isn’t just oil and more oil
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. Edit: They now sell versions with herbs in them. Cool story, Sainsbury’s.
Splash of red wine	15p	Don’t bother with fancy wine here, it’s really just to give it some depth
1 tablespoon capers	30p	Capers are delicious. Keep them in your fridge. The jar is pricey, but will last for months, even a year
4 handfuls baby spinach leaves	Bag costs about 75p, we’re using about 30ps worth	Delicious go-to salad because it doesn’t have a disappointingly airy texture like other salad bits
Chopped basil and lemon thyme	30p	Growing herbs (of the culinary kind) in your student digs will make it look prettier and disguise generic student smells. Also you can eat them

                                         £5.94
                                           Or about £1.48 each

Impressive bang-for-your-buck

Utensils:

·       Small saucepan for couscous

·       Grill pan (or roasting dish with a cooling rack inside)

·       Chopping board and knife

·       Small bowl and spoon for tartar sauce

·       Spatula

·       Possibly a pastry brush, if you have one (NB: Buy a silicone pastry brush. You can get them from supermarkets. Ones with actual hairs will leave actual hairs on your food and your friends will question your personal hygiene)

      Method:

        1 .  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, a squeeze of lemon juice, 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. Just make sure it’s not sticking to the bottom. Sort the mackerel out 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

        2.  Mackerel

a.        Turn the grill on high

Delicious baste

b.       Take out your mackerel fillets and admire their value for money

c.        Make a baste

                                       i.       Put the juice of half a lemon, a tablespoon of olive oil, chopped lemon thyme and basil (optional) and half a teaspoon of salt in a bowl

                                       ii.       Mix together to emulsify (stop the water and oil separating and make it thicker)

d.       Paint the baste onto the fish skin with either a pastry brush (if you’re cool) or your fingers (if you don’t bake enough pies and therefore have no pastry brush)

Crispy deliciousness

e.        Put the mackerel under the grill, skin side up, for 5 minutes. Start making the sauce

f.         Take out- Drain any lemon juice from on top and add lots of salt- this is going to make the skin all crispy. Cook for 4 minutes more

g.        When the skin looks delicious, flip and cook for about 1-2 minutes flesh side up

Tartar bits

       3.  Tartar sauce (we’re not making the mayo. Shop-bought mayo is just fine.)

        a.        Put 3 tablespoons of mayo in a bowl

        b.       Chop up 1 tablespoon of capers as finely as you can and put them in

        c.        Add a squeeze of lemon. If you want it to taste homely and familiar, add a teaspoon of sugar

        d.       Mix together

       4.  Plate up

a.        Flop the couscous into a sieve if there’s any water lurking about still, then back in the pan, then a bit on your plate

b.       Put spinach leaves on top because layers are so "now"

c.        Put half a fish on top of that- admire that crispy skin

d.       Slop a little tartar sauce on the side

e.        Chow down

Look how fancy this looks. Hella fancy, that's how fancy

Also: Is anyone else's mind blown by the techno-awesome pattern on mackerel? Click on the picture of the fillets to get a good look- I cannot believe that actually happens naturally...

PS.

How tartar sauce should look,
for the uninitiated 

                                             Seriously impressed with
                                                          The size of these babies...