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Shin Beef
This used to be a common and low cost cut. But it’s generally bought by the Burger Chains now and it’s not often available in the supermarkets around here. So when I found 500g packs yesterday we thought it would be a bit of a treat and essentially within budget. We were not wrong!
Ingredients:-
500g of Shin Beef, cut into larger cubes
2 Red Onions , peeled and roughly chopped
3 Carrots , peeled and roughly chopped
3 sticks of Celery , trimmed and roughly chopped
4 cloves of Garlic , peeled
2 Sprigs of fresh Rosemary
2 Bay Leaves
1 Box of ‘Wild’ Mushroom, roughly chopped
1 Stick of Cinnamon
1 tablespoon of Plain Flour (Gluten free for us)
2 Tins of Plum Tomatoes
⅔ of a bottle low price Red Wine
Olive Oil
Freshly ground Black Pepper
Sea Salt
Method:-
(1) Preheat your oven to 180ºC/350ºF/gas 4. In a heavy-bottomed ovenproof saucepan / Dutch Oven, heat a splash of olive oil and gently fry the onions, carrots, celery, garlic, herbs, Muchrooms and cinnamon for 5 minutes until softened slightly.
(2) Meanwhile, dust the pieces of beef in a little seasoned flour, shaking off any excess. Add the meat to the pan and stir everything together, then add the tomatoes, wine and a pinch of salt and pepper.
(3) Gently bring to the boil, cover with the lid and place in your preheated oven for 3 hours or until the beef is meltingly tender and can be broken up with a spoon. Taste and check the seasoning, remove the cinnamon stick and rosemary sprigs and serve.
We served ours on a bed of mashed Potatoes with Savoy Cabbage & fried Bacon Lardons and Courgette Fritters.
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- Written by Tony Carson
- Category: Recipes
A few days ago we decided to go on another of our little “Around The World for £4 or Less” adventures. Siberia isn't a nation state as such and this isn't a very traditional recipe. Our local butchers don't stock Bear Meat!
Our attempt at Siberian Pelmeni.
Ingredients:-
Dough:-
300 g flour (We used Gluten Free)
3 eggs, whisked
25 g Margarine, melted
100ml water
Salt
Filling:-
150g Pork / Beef mince
1 Beef stock cube dissolved in 100ml of warm water
25g Margarine
2 peeled garlic cloves, thinly sliced
¼ tube of Tomato Purée
Salt & Pepper to season
Method:-
(1) Mix the dough ingredients in a bowl to form a still dough which to will be able to roll out. If it feels too dry add a little extra water.
(2) Roll the dough into a ball by hand and let it rest covered.
(3) Mix the filling ingredients together.
(4) On a floured surface roll the dough out until it is about 2mm thick.
(5) Us a circular pastry cutter of large mug, in our case, to cut the dough into circles.
(6) In each dough circle add a little of the filling mix. Not to much as you need to close the dough around the meat fix.
(7) Form the dough into balls around the meat, using a little water to seal the edges. If you are feeling very patient you could try to form a more traditional Tortellini shape.
(8) Boil or deep fry your Pelmeni.
We served ours dressed with Sour Cream and chopped Coriander, with fried Courgettes, Red Cabbage, Sautéed Mushrooms.
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- Written by Tony Carson
- Category: Recipes
We're at “R” in our Around The World for £4 Or Less experiment. So it had to be Beef Stroganoff really....
This is what Wikipedia has to say:-
“ Beef Stroganoff or beef Stroganov is a Russian dish of sautéed pieces of beef served in a sauce with Smetana (sour cream). From its origins in mid-19th-century Russia, it has become popular around the world, with considerable variation from the original recipe. “
Well we're not sure if this is the original recipe, but it's a pretty good gig regardless. We had a piece of rump steak from the local supermarket in the freezer which cost the princely sum of £1.97, so we're well within budget with this one.
Ingredients:-
Decent Beef, cut into strips. (You don't need a vast amount of steak as the sauce is quite rich.)
1 Onion, sliced
50g Butter or Margarine
100g of Mushrooms, quartered
1 tbsp Flour ( We used Gluten free )
1 Beef Stock cube
A pinch of Mustard powder
1 tbsp Tomato Purée
220g Crème Fresh / Sour Cream
Salt & Pepper to season
Method:-
(1) Season the Beef strips with Salt & Pepper.
(2) Sauté the Onions until they are translucent.
(3) Add the Mushrooms and stir for 2 minutes.
(4) Add the Beef and sauté 5 minutes.
(5) Stir in the Flour.
(6) In a bowl dissolve the stock cube in 500ml of hot water and add the Mustard powder and Tomato Purée and blend well.
(7) Add this to the pan and bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
(8) Spoon some of the sauce into jug with the Crème Fresh / Sour Cream and mix. This will stop it splitting.
(9) Add the tempered Crème Fresh / Sour Cream to the pan.
(10) Season to taste.
We served ours on a bed of boiled rice with a salad and pickled Courgette strips to add a bit of colour.
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- Written by Tony Carson
- Category: Recipes
We often say food on a (very restricted) budget, doesn't need to be boring. So here's our Sunday dinner at a cost of less than £4 to feed two humans and Buster the Dog!
Giant Yorkshire pudding – Recipe here – Total cost less than £1
Roast potatoes, red and green Cabbage and a couple of Carrots – say £1
½ a small Chicken – Exactly £1.06!
Chicken stock gravy – say 25p
There is a well known Yorkshire Pudding Wrap business in York where you could pay £6.95 for a quarter of that in a paper wrapper. But you do get a fancy branded napkin!
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- Written by Tony Carson
- Category: Recipes
Some folk go out on a Saturday night, have a meal in a restaurant and the few pints. Followed by a kebab to walk home with. Us? We made this unholy union of East meets West! OK it's perhaps not quite as unhealthy as the kebab, but we'll fry them in Lard next time!
Joking aside these mini Chicken Kievs in Onion Bhaji batter were really tasty and well worth the fiddling about.
Ingredients:-
½ a small Chicken boned out and cut into medium sized pieces
Garlic Butter. (Butter / Margarine, minced Garlic and dried Parsley)
Onion Bhaji mix – Recipe here
Flour (We used a combination of Gluten Free flour and Arrowroot)
Method:-
(1) Make your Onion Bhaji mix. (We also made and pre-fried the Bhajis. Our recipe is here)
(2) Make your Garlic Butter and put it in the freezer to harden for ½ an hour or longer if you have the time.
(3) With a boning knife remove every last scrap of meat from ½ a Chicken and remove the skin. Cut the breast meat into medium pieces.
(4) Wrap each piece of Chicken meat in cling film and beat out with a rolling pin.
(5) When the Garlic Butter has hardened put a teaspoon in the middle of each piece of Chicken meat and then press and roll the meat around the butter with your hands.
(6) Flour each piece so the batter has more chance of sticking.
(7) Heat your deep fat fryer to 190C. (You could also roast these in the oven at 180C to avoid the oil.)
(8) If you are frying pre-heat the oven to 150C
(9) Fry 3 or 4 pieces at a time until golden brown. The batter expands quite a bit so don't worry if some of your “Poppers” look a little small initially. Place in the oven to keep hot as you fry the remaining “Poppers”.
We served ours with home made Onion Bhajis, a salsa style dipping sauce, Potato fritters and a dressed salad.
- Details
- Written by Tony Carson
- Category: Recipes
Giant Yorkshire Puddings are a favourite here. A great way to fill up with inexpensive ingredients. But they do offer a bit of a challenged as Sue cannot have any Wheat / Gluten in here diet for medical reasons. So her recipe is always evolving. Jake from York Secret Helpers provided us with some Arrowroot from a commercial ingredients donation which they had received. Always good to try new recipe variations Sue created this. At first we though it was going to be a total failure. But it's just a slow starter! The results as you can see were pretty impressive. What you can't see in the picture is that the texture was considerably better than our previous recipe without the “Suggy bottom” Yorkshires sometimes have. In fact this is probably better than the traditional Wheat based recipe....
Ingredients:-
100g Arrowroot
40g Potato Flour
3 Eggs
140Ml Milk
Salt & Pepper to season
Method:-
(1) Mix the Arrowroot, Potato Flour, Eggs, Salt and Pepper and combine well.
(2) Place a deep sided oven tray with Oil in the over on 220C to heat until smoking hot.
(3) Add the Milk and give your batter a really good whisk.
(4) Pour the batter into the oven tray and cook on the middle shelf for 30minutes, until golden brown.
We have ours with a roast Chicken dinner with lots of vegetables and gravy with the roasting juices from the Chicken.
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