The Fresh Guide to Food

I was reading a student food guide the other day as my sister is about to start university and I couldn’t get over how unbelievably patronising it was. What’s more the book seemed to suggest that you need a stock of larder ingredients bigger than most restaurants have. So this guide is going to operate on the assumption that most people heat up baked beans by putting them in a non-metal container and use the microwave. It’s also going to operate on the assumption that you don’t want to spend half your loan on herbs and spices and what not. So what I’m going to suggest is just 4 basic ingredients, as follows:

_Mixed herbs or Italian herb mix _– this will cover your basic pasta sauces and fried potatoes etc.

_Chinese five spice _– Stir-fries are a student essential, they are quick, easy, cheap and it’s a great way to pack in the veg.

_Medium curry powder _– you can use this to indianify some dishes or add a bit more flavour to a shop bought curry sauce.

_Vegetable stock powder or cubes _– absolute essential for soups, risottos or if you have the powder its great seasoning stirred into something.

Now obviously this is quite basic and say if you wanted to make a curry from scratch you would need more than just curry powder. Also as a little tip, fresh rosemary is awesome with meat and potatoes and it grows around campus so you could take a sly sprig.

The first recipe takes about half an hour, is incredibly easy and can be pimped up if you want to.

**Mushroom risotto**

What you will need:
A saucepan and a frying pan
Chopping board and knife

A good handful of any mushrooms you fancy (it will taste better if you buy better mushrooms but cheap is still pretty awesome)
1 medium onion
1 clove of garlic
Risotto rice (cheap and lasts for ages – don’t be put off because it sounds poncey)

First things first, get a bit of oil in your two pans. Slice the mushrooms and put them aside apart from two of them. These two you want to finely chop and chuck them in the saucepan. Then finely chop the onion or if you have a rubbish knife then grating works, just try not to also grate yourself (!). Same thing with the garlic, get that chopped up nice and small then bung it in the pan and put the heat to medium. Once the onions start to sizzle turn the heat down a bit and chuck in a lump of butter and some mixed herbs (about half a teaspoon) and cover the pan. Leave that for 5 mins just to get the onions nice and soft. Whilst the onions are doing their thing get your stock ready. Its 2 teaspoons of powder or one stock cube to 500ml boiling water, but you don’t have to be ridiculously precise. Give it a good mix up.

Now the onions are soft add about a handful of risotto rice, its puffs up a lot so don’t go over the top. Give the rice a stir to coat it in all the butter and general flavours in the pan, then pour in about a mug of stock, give it a stir then leave it simmering away. Then get your frying pan nice and hot and throw in the mushrooms. You don’t want much oil as you want the moisture to be drawn out of the mushrooms. Basically fry them ‘til they take on a bit of colour. A bit of salt will help draw the moisture out. The point of doing the mushrooms separately is that by frying them you get a nice nutty flavour and a good texture, rather than having slimy mushrooms. But of course you need some mushroomy flavour in the rice hence the finely chopped ones you added earlier.

When the stock has evaporated give the rice a stir and add more stock. Just repeat ‘til the rice is cooked. Taste the rice for seasoning then stir in the mushrooms with a bit of butter and serve.

You can of course pimp this up a bit if you wanted to, for example add some dried porcini mushrooms to the equation, stir in a bit of parmesan at the end, drizzle a bit of truffle oil over it or more simply you can add a bit of diced sweet potato or butternut squash at the start and that works nicely.

**Singapore noodles**
This can be quite an ingredient heavy dish but I’ve made it simpler and cheaper and it’s still pretty tasty I reckon.

You will need:
Standard egg noodles
Soy sauce
Curry powder
1 rasher of bacon
Handful of those little prawns (you can buy these frozen from Tesco for a quid)
1 red pepper, sliced
1 egg

So, get a pan of water boiling for your noodles, they should take about 4 minutes to cook.
Chop the bacon small and put in a hot wok or frying pan and give it a good stir. Once the fat starts to render out chuck in the sliced red pepper and once it starts to soften a bit, add the prawns and heat through. Meanwhile, beat the egg with a teaspoon of curry powder. Once the prawns are hot, add in the cooked noodles, a good splash of soy sauce and the egg mixture. This binds all the ingredients together. Stir rapidly and serve just before the egg becomes like scrambled egg.

**Chicken tray bake**

Pack of chicken thighs (much cheaper than breast especially if it’s still on the bone and much tastier!)
1 medium onion, red works best, cut into eighths
1 pepper any colour, cut into large chunks
3 cloves of garlic
Tomatoes, quartered
Balsamic vinegar if you happen to have some
Honey, again if you have any.
A baking tray

Very simple this, get a bit of oil on the baking tray and put it on the hob on a medium heat and also turn on the oven to get it nice and hot. Get your chicken thighs and slice down to the bone skin side. Rub some salt, mixed herbs and pepper into the chicken then put on the baking tray skin side down to sear. After a couple of minutes take the baking tray off the heat and turn the chicken skin side up. Scatter over the onion, tomatoes and pepper, take the garlic and just crush it lightly with the heel of your hand and chuck that in as well. Sprinkle with mixed herbs, salt, pepper and a good dose of balsamic vinegar; don’t be afraid, the flavour mellows.
Put this in a hot oven for 25 minutes, then drizzle a bit of honey over it and put it back in the oven for a couple of minutes. It should come out nice and crispy with a sticky glaze. And that’s it!

P.s If you find rosemary it goes brilliantly in this.

**Easy onion soup**
This is always great to have a few batches in the freezer, this recipe will make left overs.

1 leek
2 medium onions
Any hard cheese, whatever you fancy
Butter
Veg stock
Mixed herbs
A slice of bread, if it’s a bit stale even better!

Thinly slice the leek and onions then add to a sauce pan with a drizzle oil and heat ‘til sizzling, then turn down the heat, add the butter, mixed herbs and some salt and pepper, put a lid on and leave for 10 minutes. The mixture should be nice and soft now, all sweet and caramelised. Make up your stock. Then grate a bit of the cheese, finely if you can, then stir ‘til the onions blend with it completely. Now add the stock, you want about 3 times as much liquid as onion. Leave to simmer for 5-10 minutes if you have the time. Meanwhile get your grill on. Spoon the soup into a bowl, then slice some cheese and put it on the slice of bread. (That in turn goes on top of the soup) so place under the grill ‘til the cheese is bubbling. Done.

P.s The onion mix, before you add the stock, is great with a bit of diced chicken, mushrooms and cream, on its own or in a pie. Try it!