Council cooking

Foundations

Just like every structure, every kitchen needs good strong foundations. These will be the building blocks for each meal, and as your confidence grows you will be able to use these to construct more complex or cheaper dishes based on your needs at the time.

Flour and self raising flour

I put flour first for a reason, because I hate people who have gluten intolerances!

That is a joke, but if you do have a gluten intolerance you will not have much bother putting together most of the meals in this book, as each recipe is extremely modular.

Back to flour. It can be used to bulk up sauces, used for doughs like pizza bases and breads, but it can also be mixed with lard and water to make traditional Scottish doughballs that go well in any beef stew or good old fashioned mince and tatties.

Do not forget doughs are not just for baking. You can steam and boil them too, and in fact these are my preferred methods of cooking two ingredient doughs. Flour is fantastic and extremely cheap for the calories you get.

Beans and legumes

Beans and legumes include, but are not limited to, navy or haricot beans, kidney beans, garden peas, black beans, and chickpeas. Garbanzo beans if you are American.

Much like potatoes, you can boil beans, mash them, and stick them in a stew. I also include canned sweetcorn or peas in this category, as I use it in the same way I use beans, although it is not quite as versatile as something like a navy bean.

My preferred packaging for beans is a can, as there is no need to soak overnight or anything like that.

Beans are a great way to add a little more protein to dishes like chilli, especially on weeks where you are really trying to stretch that 250g packet of mince into a few meals, which I have done regularly. You can also use beans as a condiment, like black bean paste, or turn them into something like falafel.

Tomatoes, tinned and paste

Tomatoes are obviously a great foundation for pastas, but also curries and African stews.

Mixing a tin of tomatoes with either a beef or chicken stock gives you the start of a brillaint chilli or pasta.

Tomato paste is not just the thing you add to get an extra tomatoey taste. It can also be used to give a dish more volume when browned and fried on a high heat.

You will be surprised by the dishes you can put tomato paste in.

Lard and olive oil

I know it is a little strange to have the poor man's cooking fat and liquid gold in the same paragraph, but these are the only cooking fats I use other than butter.

I am not here to debate the health risks of seed oils. Use them if you want, but I personally avoid them.

I use lard when cooking at a high heat, or when cooking Asian and South American dishes. Olive oil is used at the end of cooking for flavour, and also in Mediterranean and African dishes.

Pastas and rice

Although important, there is no need to overcomplicate this.

Long grain rice like jasmine or basmati is perfect. In regards to pasta, spaghetti and any tubular pasta will do.

This is just a solid source of calories, and with just two or three ingredients you can make a very tasty and cheap meal or side.

Herbs and spices

I highly recommend you find five or six dishes you really enjoy and just buy the spices for those dishes. There is no point in having turmeric if you are never making Indian dishes.

The same goes for most spices, with a few exceptions which I will list now: paprika, whole peppercorns, coriander, and cumin also whole.

The versatility of these spices cannot be overstated. Paprika can be used in your Italian meatballs and your pilaf toasted rice . It can be used to add a smoky flavour to a curry or some barbecue chicken, or just some colour to your chicken parm.

Peppercorns have not just peppery kick to them, but also some light floral notes that add depth to most dishes, from carbonara to Ghanaian stew.

Coriander and cumin are less important, but in my opinion they are a great foundation for spice mixes, as they have fairly diverse applications, like in barbecue mixes and Middle Eastern styled grilled meats.

For herbs, I suggest you have a large tub of mixed herbs and maybe one or two live plants if you have a green thumb. Rosemary and basil would be my go-to choice if I had to pick two.

Alliums

Alliums are things like onions, garlic, and shallots. They are unique to other veg as they have such a range when it comes to their flavour.

Onions will taste different diced to how they taste sliced, and they will taste sweet when slow cooked and caramelised, but sharp and peppery when diced and added raw to a burger, like in McDonald's.

I recommend always having garlic and onions on hand. It is almost impossible to have a good meal without some form of an allium.

Acids

Sulfuric acid pairs fantastically with steak.

No, not that sort of acid.

Lemon juice, vinegar, wine, Worcestershire sauce. Tomatoes act as an acid too, but if a dish is very rich, I tend to pair them with Worcestershire sauce rather than leaving the tomatoes to do all the work. If you feel your dish is missing something, it is likely an acid.

Meats

You may have noticed I did not mention any animal proteins in the last section, and this was not a mistake.

I do not believe we should use meats as the foundations of our meals. This is not because I have gone vegan on you, it is because meat is expensive, and that is it.

Almost every recipe in this book will contain meat, but you will be able to drastically reduce the amount of meat in each dish or even completely substitute it based on your budget while making that meal.

That being said, meat and the way you use it is important, and it will greatly impact the quality of your meals.

Beef mince

Beef mince comes in a few different forms, and that is usually 5% fat, 15% fat, and 20% fat.

Unless you are making burgers, I always go for the 20% option. If you want a low fat dish, just render the fat off the mince and keep it for another meal.

This book assumes you have no experience cooking, so to render fat off mince:

1. First, get a frying pan or a pot with a spout, the larger the cooking vessel the better, and put it on the highest heat.

2. Grab a wooden spoon or spatula. Please make sure it is wooden so you do not damage your pan. Add the meat to the piping hot pan and do not overfill it, otherwise you will not fry the mince but instead just boil it.

3. Add a pinch of salt. This helps draw moisture out of the mince, then break the mince up into small pieces using your wooden utensil with a stabbing motion.

4. Let the mince cook and you will see the fat render out. Pour this into a container to keep for future meals, or keep it in and use it as the base for a gravy or sauce.

Things that pair well with beef mince are tomatoes, tomato paste added in the frying process, onions, garlic, paprika, cumin, thyme, and almost every cheese.

Honestly, beef mince is so versatile there is very little I would not pair with it.

Whole chicken

Honestly, this will be the thing that saves you the most money out of everything in this book. Learn to butcher a whole chicken into an 8 piece. That being breast, wings, thighs, and drumsticks.

The beauty of butchering a whole chicken is you get 8 cuts of meat for 6 quid, and you get to keep the carcass for stocks.

Here is how to use each cut of meat and what their strengths are:

Breast: Pretty straightforward. Great for things like fajitas, curries, and stews. It is probably the driest cut, so I mostly use it in very saucy dishes and dishes that are quite heavy on the spice, as the breast is quite a lean meat.

The fattier a meat is, the less effort you need to put into making it taste good, although some paprika, salt, and a high heat pan will give you some tasty breasts every time.

Wings: Probably my least favourite cut. I usually use these for a stock, or I save them up in the freezer and do a big batch of deep fried wings with a homemade nacho cheese dip.

Thigh: The best cut by far. The thigh is so high in fat that it is just dripping with flavour.

One of my favourite ways to use thighs is in dishes that require a pan sauce. This is where you deglaze the pan with water, stock, alcohol, or juice, scraping off all the browned bits of meat from the side of your pan to make a rich and delicious sauce.

My go to is honey chilli chicken, where the foundation of the sauce is chicken stock and honey. A perfect dish for when you are under the weather, as it has ginger, garlic, and honey.

Drumstick: The drumstick is probably the most underrated cut, as it can be used in stews, be deep fried, and even deboned and attached to the thigh in a more Japanese style.

I personally use it as a substitute for breast in most meals, as I prefer the higher fat cuts of meat to lean meats.

Carcass: Perfect for stocks. You can be very straightforward and boil it in water for 6 hours, or you can get fancy and use something like pork loin to help clarify the stock and have a very clear Chinese style stock for noodle dishes.

You can add some onions and carrots for a more British stock too.

These are the main meats I use, although of course I use bacon, sausages, and other cuts of meat, but I have much less to say about them. There will be recipes that cover things like cooking bacon and even spam.

Japanese Hot dogs

No clue if they actually make these in Japan. I made these because I could not afford hot dog rolls and I had some Japanese mayo in the fridge.

I pick this as the first recipe because it perfectly shows how you can use what you have to make a solid meal.

Ingredients

- Self raising flour

- Salt

- Hot dogs

- Spring onions

- Lettuce

- Japanese mayo (optional)

Steamed bun

1. Use self raising flour with a 2:3 ratio of water to flour, so 300g of flour to 200ml of water, then add salt to taste.

2. Mix with a spoon or your hand. Knead until you have a pizza dough consistency, and feel free to add more flour or water if you need to.

3. Roll into circles about the size of a small pancake.

4. Add to a steamer and steam for 5 minutes each side. If you do not have a steamer, sit a small plate on an upside down bowl in a pot of water with the lid on. Do not let the water reach the plate.

Hot dog

1. Fry the hot dog.

Toppings

I advise you to keep it simple and just dice some lettuce and spring onions. Some Japanese mayo is good too, but you can add whatever sauce you like.

Chicken stock

Right, let's get this right out of the way. What we are covering now is stock. It is boring, it is easy, and it is versatile.

You take your chicken carcass left over from butchering your chicken, you put it in a big pot of water, and you boil it. That is it. It really is that simple. You boil it.

You can add carrots and celery and stuff like that if you want to give it a richer taste, but it does make it slightly less versatile. So for the basic version, keep it simple first. Chicken carcass, water, boil.

Ingredients

- Chicken carcasses

- Water

Optional extras

- Carrots

- Celery

- Other aromatics

Method

1. Put your chicken carcasses in a big pot and cover them with water. I normally do three carcasses at a time because I have a big soup pot, but use what you have.

2. Boil the hell out of it for a couple of hours.

3. Let it reduce by about half.

4. Remove the carcasses.

5. Reduce it by half again.

6. Freeze it in little ice cube trays, or use it for whatever you need it for.

That is the basic version. Super simple. Do not overcomplicate it.

Notes and swaps

You can roast your chicken carcasses before boiling them and you will get a richer, more roasted-tasting stock. Ideally, you probably play with it. You could roast one carcass and keep the other two raw before boiling them. That works as well.

It depends what you want from it. You are going to be butchering enough chicken that, to be totally honest, you will probably be sick of seeing carcasses. So play with it. Roast some, boil some plain, cook some with vegetables and aromatics. The sky is the limit with it, and you can look up videos on how to improve your stock if you want to get more into it.

The reason I say keep it simple first is because the plain stock is more versatile. If you add loads of carrots, celery, and aromatics, it might taste better for one thing, but it also pushes the stock in a specific direction. Plain chicken stock can go in almost anything.

You can also get fancy and clarify stock. Pork loin can help with that because it catches some of the foamy bits at the top, but then you are adding pork to your chicken stock, so you are changing it slightly. That is not exactly bad. Mixing proteins is normal in a lot of Asian cooking. Chicken with pork, pork with prawn, chicken with prawn; that sort of thing is common. We do not do it as much in Western cooking, but it is not that odd.

Black bean paste

This one started because I went to a food bank and got given black beans. Obviously they gave me other stuff as well, but the black beans were the thing I looked at and went, right, okay, I am going to have to figure out how to use these.

So I fried them with what I had: lard, garlic, ginger, and soy sauce. I always have stupid amounts of soy sauce in the house, like two or three litres of the stuff, so that was not exactly hard to reach for. I fried the beans down with the soy sauce, mashed them up into a paste, and kept cooking until the liquid evaporated and it turned into this proper black bean paste.

Later on I started adding just a drop of rice wine vinegar, not loads. You do not want it tasting of vinegar at all. It is just that little spark at the back of it that brightens the whole thing slightly. This is a very umami condiment, or a very umami side, so the vinegar is only there to stop it feeling too heavy.

Ingredients

- Lard

- Black beans

- Garlic

- Ginger

- Soy sauce

- Rice wine vinegar

- Five spice

- Sichuan peppercorns, toasted and ground, if you have them

- Black peppercorns or white peppercorns, if you do not have Sichuan peppercorns

- 1 or 2 red chillies, optional

Peppercorns

1. Toast the peppercorns first if you are using them. You can do this with any spice that benefits from being toasted, but the rules matter: preheat the pan first, use no oil, then put the spice into the dry hot pan and toss it about for about 90 seconds. Two minutes is the absolute maximum. You only want the tiniest bit of browning and a better smell; any darker and the spice can go bitter.

2. Sichuan peppercorns fit the theme of the dish best, but black peppercorns or white peppercorns will still do the job if that is what you have.

3. Grind them up in a mortar and pestle and keep them ready for later.

Bean paste

1. Put a bit of lard in a pan and get it hot enough to fry in.

2. Add the five spice and the toasted ground peppercorns. Let the spices hit the hot lard first so they wake up and flavour the fat.

3. Add the black beans and soy sauce. Stir everything together and start mashing the beans slowly with a wooden spoon.

4. Add the garlic, ginger, and fresh red chilli if you are using one. These are the main aromatics here, so you do not need to overcomplicate it.

5. Keep frying and mashing until the liquid evaporates and the beans turn into a proper paste. You are not making a loose bean sauce here. You want it cooked down until it is thick and spoonable.

6. Add a tiny drop of rice wine vinegar near the end. It should brighten it slightly, not make it taste like vinegar. The five spice is essential here; you can mess about with the peppercorns depending on what you have, and Sichuan peppercorns are my favourite because they fit the theme of the dish, but the five spice stays.

Use it as a condiment, a side, or as something to build other dishes from. That is why this one does not need to be overcomplicated: it is there to bring a big savoury, umami base into other food.

Notes and swaps

The toasted Sichuan peppercorn is worth doing properly if you are using it. The red chilli is not the point of the recipe. If you have one or two left over, use them. If you do not, do not worry about it.

Go very easy on the vinegar. You are looking for brightness, not acidity as the main flavour.

Mince and tatties

This one here is my favourite because it is budget friendly and I get to use my favourite filler item, doughballs. We are also making a gravy from scratch, although I do add gravy granules to get a thicker gravy. You can replace the gravy granules with flour or cornflour if you are really desperate.

Ingredients

- 20% fat beef mince

- Potatoes

- Mixed herbs

- Black pepper

- Cumin

- Onions

- Garlic (optional)

- Beef stock cubes

- Worcestershire sauce (optional)

- Lard

- Self raising flour

- Carrots

- Garden peas

- Gravy granules

Prep

1. Chop your onions. You want onions as the baseline allium here but if you have garlic then add it too. Alliums are pretty interchangeable in this respect but ideally you always have onions.

2. Chop your carrots if you have fresh ones. Frozen peas can go in as they are.

3. Cut your potatoes into cubes if you are roasting them. I personally chuck mine in the air fryer because it is easy and they come out great.

4. Lightly crush your black pepper and cumin if you have whole cumin.

Mince

1. Get a high percentage fat mince, ideally 20%.

2. Put a pan on a super high heat and add the mince.

3. Fry the mince until it goes crispy and the fat renders out. Do not be scared of colour here, that crispy mince is flavour.

4. Add black pepper and cumin while the fat is rendering. Let them bloom until fragrant in the fat so you get more flavour out of them.

5. Add the onions and fry them in the rendered fat. Add garlic here too if you have it. Add Worcestershire sauce after the alliums if you are using it.

6. Add your carrots and peas.

This is where you cook based on how skint you are. If you do not have a lot of money, only use half the packet of mince and use more carrots and peas.

Doughballs

1. Mix self raising flour with lard.

2. Add water a little at a time until you get a play dough consistency.

3. Shape them into 4 or 5 balls. Make them just under half the size of a tennis ball because they will roughly double in size and you want them to end up around tennis ball size.

4. Add the doughballs to the pot.

Gravy

1. Deglaze the pan with hot water and a beef stock cube, or just use beef stock if you have it.

2. Ideally use a stock cube because it gives you a stronger beefy gravy.

3. Add enough liquid for the doughballs to cook in.

4. Put a lid on and leave it until the doughballs are cooked through.

5. Add gravy granules until it is as thick as you like it.

6. If you do not have gravy granules then use cornflour or flour. It will not be exactly the same but it will thicken it.

7. Finish with mixed herbs and more black pepper if it needs it.

Potatoes

I personally roast my potatoes for this. Just cut a potato into cubes, chuck it in the air fryer and have them ready for when the mince and gravy is done.

You can boil them and make mash if you want. The best way is to boil the potatoes, put them in a sieve and press them through with a wooden spoon. It makes the nicest fluffy mash but it takes a lot of effort and roast potatoes are a lot easier. I save mashed potatoes for Christmas dinner.

Notes and swaps

This is one of those meals that shows what this book is about. You can use proper technique, render fat, bloom spices and make a real gravy, but still stretch a small amount of mince into a proper dinner.

Mince and bean chilli

This is built off the same mince technique as the mince and tatties. You are still frying the mince hard, getting colour on it, rendering the fat and using that fat to carry flavour. We are using the same techniques, then moving it in a chilli direction with beans, tomato and spices.

It is also one of those meals where the minimum version still works. At its minimum you can do mince, spices, beans and tomatoes. If you are really skint, you can stretch it with more beans, or even rice and beans with just a quarter pack of mince. You still get beef in there, the fat carries through the dish, and you keep that rich beefy taste without needing to use the whole pack.

Ingredients

- Beef mince

- Lard

- Onions

- Red onion

- Garlic

- Cumin

- Coriander seeds, crushed, or ground coriander

- Black pepper

- Paprika

- Tomato purée

- Tin of tomatoes

- Kidney beans or haricot beans

- Stock, ideally beef or chicken, or water

- Salt

- Mixed herbs, to finish

- Fresh coriander and lime, to finish if it needs brightened up

Good veg for this:

- Peppers

- Fresh chillies

- Celery

Mince and spices

1. Put a pot or deep pan on a high heat.

2. Add the mince and fry it hard, the same way as the mince and tatties. You want colour on it. Do not just grey it gently.

3. Add cumin, crushed coriander seed, black pepper and paprika.

4. Let the spices bloom until fragrant in the fat from the mince so they actually taste of something.

5. Add the tomato purée and fry it with the mince.

You want to cook the tomato purée out a bit here. You are using the heat to deepen the flavour from a fresh tomato taste into a rich beefy taste.

Alliums and veg

1. Add any or all of these alliums: onions, red onion and garlic.

2. Fry them in the mince fat, spices and tomato purée.

3. If you are adding peppers, chillies or celery, add them now before the tin of tomatoes goes in.

4. Add a little lard if the pan looks dry or if the mince has not given you enough fat.

Beans and tomatoes

1. Add your beans.

2. Use a wooden spoon to slightly mash some of them against the side or bottom of the pot.

3. Do not fully mash them. You still want beans in there, but you do not want every single bean sitting whole and separate.

4. Add the tin of tomatoes.

5. Scrape the bottom of the pot so all the tomato purée, spices and browned bits come back into the sauce.

The mashed beans help thicken the chilli and make it feel more substantial.

Liquid and simmering

1. Add stock or water.

2. Do not go over a one-to-one water-to-tomato ratio. If you have one tin of tomatoes, add no more than one tin of water or stock.

3. I would usually go less than that if I want it thicker, but one-to-one is the ceiling.

4. Bring it up to a boil, then turn it down and let it simmer like a chilli.

5. Let it cook until the sauce thickens and everything tastes joined together.

6. Taste it at the end and adjust the salt, pepper or spice if it needs it.

7. If it tastes like it is all on one level or a bit one-note, brighten it up with lime and fresh coriander.

8. Finish with mixed herbs if you are keeping it simple.

Mixed herbs at the end is the easy win. Just chuck mixed herbs in at the end and you are sound. If the chilli needs lifted, lime and fresh coriander are the better finish.

Notes and swaps

Cumin is the solid all-round spice here. It works with mince, beans, tomatoes and the general chilli direction.

Coriander seeds are best if you crush them in a mortar and pestle because you get a fresher flavour and a bit of texture. If you do not have a mortar and pestle, ground coriander is absolutely fine.

Fresh coriander and lime are where the acid bit comes in. Sometimes a chilli tastes heavy, flat, or all on one note. That is when you reach for acid. For a beefy chilli, especially one made with beef stock, you could use a little Worcestershire sauce if that is what you have, but really lime is the one I would go for. Lime and fresh coriander together fit chilli better than lemon. Lemon would technically brighten it, but lime has that fresher, greener taste that makes more sense here. Mixed herbs are the easy version, fresh coriander and lime are the version that wakes it up.

Depending on how spicy you make it, you can add yogurt at the end. Cheese works too. They both make sense as toppings if that is what you have or if the chilli needs mellowing out.

The beans can be kidney beans, which are the obvious chilli bean, or plain haricot beans. Haricot beans are the beans you get in baked beans, just without the tomato sauce. Cannellini beans would work too if that is what you have.

For the stock, the sky is the limit. Beef stock makes obvious sense because it is beef mince, but I usually have chicken stock in the freezer so I use chicken stock. A beef stock cube is also completely fine. If you have none of that, water from the tomato tin will still work. Just do not go above one-to-one with the tomatoes or you will make it watery.

Lard is useful here because it is cheap, fairly neutral and does the job. I personally do not like seed oils, and lard gives you a nice cooking fat without making the chilli taste weird.

Peppers, onions and celery are the veg I would stick to for this dish. I personally would not put carrots or peas in it. If you have carrots and peas, just make mince and tatties. The veg is less versatile than the meat in my opinion, so work around what actually suits the dish.

If you really need to beef this out and you do not have a lot of beef, use a quarter pack of mince and bulk it with rice and beans. Because you are still getting the beef fat and the beef flavour through the dish, it still tastes rich without using a full packet of mince.

If you want it meat-free, you can drop the mince and make it a bean chilli, but then you need to be a bit more deliberate with fat, spices and stock because you are losing the beef flavour.

Fridge clearer dumplings

I am calling these fridge clearer dumplings, because that is the most honest name for what they are. You can make them more wonton-ish if you fold them small and put them in broth, and you can make them more potsticker-ish if you pan-steam them and let the bottoms fry, but I am not pretending this is a perfect traditional wonton recipe. This is a technique for turning offcuts, veg, and a bit of dough into something genuinely brilliant.

The point of this one is using what you already have. When you butcher a chicken, you end up with little bits of meat that are not really part of a proper cut, but are not the carcass either. Normally I would probably just feed those bits to the cat, but you can put them aside, dice them up, and turn them into dumpling filling.

I like doing chicken offcuts with prawns, partly because I do not eat enough shellfish and this is a good way to get some into my diet. Prawns are expensive though, so do not treat that as the only version. Chicken and pork works. Pork and prawns works. Chicken, pork, shellfish; that is the lane you want to stay in. Ideally you get one land protein and one sea protein, but really this is built around what you have.

This is also a proper fridge-clearer. Cabbage is my go-to filler veg because it cooks well in this and it is a good way to get cabbage into you. If you have leftover cabbage, pickle it. I am not getting into pickling cabbage in this recipe, but that is what I would do.

Ingredients

Filling

- Chicken offcuts from butchering a chicken

- Prawns, pork, or another suitable mince/meat you have

- Cabbage

- Spring onion, garlic, and ginger, ideally at least two of the three

- Carrot, green beans, fine beans, or other veg that makes sense

- Black bean paste, optional, if you have made the earlier section

- Soy sauce

- Five spice

- Black pepper

- MSG, optional

- Toasted ground Sichuan peppercorn or toasted ground chillies, optional

- Sesame seeds, optional

- Sesame oil, if you have it

- A little lard

- Fish sauce, optional

- Fresh chillies or chipotle, optional

Dough

- Plain flour or self-raising flour

- Water

- A little salt

Filling

1. Dice or mince your meat as finely as you can. If you have mince already, brilliant, just use that. If you are using prawns or chicken offcuts, you are basically mincing it with your knife. It is tedious, but it is worth it.

2. Dice the cabbage finely. Cabbage is the main filler veg here because it cooks well and bulks the filling out without making it weird.

3. Dice your aromatics. Spring onion, garlic and ginger are the best direction. You probably want at least two of them.

4. Dice any extra veg you are using. Carrot works. Green beans or fine beans work. Most fridge-clearer veg works as long as it fits the dish.

5. Put the meat, cabbage, aromatics and veg into a big mixing bowl.

6. Add soy sauce, five spice, black pepper, a little sesame oil, and a little lard. The lard helps keep the filling juicy when you eat it.

7. Add MSG if you have it. Add toasted ground Sichuan peppercorn or toasted ground chillies if you have them. Add sesame seeds if you have loads of them. Add a little fish sauce if that is your thing.

8. Mix everything together properly until it is one big bowl of filling.

Dough and wrappers

1. Make a simple dough with flour, water and a little salt. Plain flour works. Self-raising flour works too, but it will be puffier and more airy.

2. Knead it until it comes together into a workable dough.

3. Roll it out as thin as you can without it ripping. You are talking roughly a millimetre, or four or five sheets of paper together. Basically as flat as you are willing to go.

4. Cut it into little rounds or squares. They do not need to be perfect.

Folding

1. Put about a teaspoon of filling in the middle of each wrapper.

2. Wet the edge of the wrapper.

3. Fold it over and seal it. It does not need to be pretty. You can get as fancy with the folding as you like, but you really do not have to.

Cooking

You have a few ways to cook these.

Steam them if you have a steamer. That is the cleanest version.

If you do not have a steamer, put them in a frying pan, add a little water to the base, put a lid on, and let them steam in the pan. Once the water cooks off, let the bottoms fry so you get that nice fried bottom.

You can also put them into broth. This is where the chicken stock section comes back in. Heat your chicken stock with whatever simple bits you want in it, carrot, celery, maybe a bit of pork if you have it, then add the dumplings as the main thing in the bowl. I would not call this a full soup recipe. It is more dumplings in broth, and that is enough.

You can boil them too, especially if you have frozen them.

Freezing and quick meals

You will probably make more filling than you expect. That is fine. You can freeze the filling, or you can make the dumplings and freeze them before cooking.

That is one of the best things about this. Once they are made, they become an easy quick meal from the freezer. Steam them, boil them, put them in broth, or chuck them in the air fryer for something more wonton-style and crispy.

Notes and swaps

This is definitely more of a technique recipe than a strict recipe. It is tedious, but it is straightforward.

Cabbage is the best filler veg here for me. Carrot works. Green beans or fine beans work. Most veg works if it suits the direction of the dish. I would avoid red bell peppers and red onions here, or anything that pushes it too far into a Mexican sort of direction.

I do not usually use onions in this, but you could. I would rather use spring onion, garlic and ginger.

Prawns are expensive, so do not force them if they do not make sense for your budget. Chicken offcuts and pork would still be good. Pork and prawn is brilliant if you have both.

The black bean paste from earlier is optional but very useful here. It gives you a big savoury base without needing to invent a new sauce.

Chipotle sounds odd, but if you are doing pork and prawn, a little smoky chilli can be ridiculous. Do not overdo it; just enough to give it that smoky edge.

The nutritional win here is that you are getting a proper mix of stuff: a few different vegetables, a couple of proteins if you have them, ideally something from the land and something from the sea, and you are turning scraps and offcuts into a freezer meal. It is brilliant. Honestly brilliant.

Crispy pork and potatoes on rice

This is cheap, easy, and properly filling. You have got rice, potatoes, lard, spam or bacon if you have it, and a load of flavour from five spice, garlic, ginger, soy sauce and chilli.

Ingredients

- White rice, ideally sushi rice, but any white rice will do

- Potatoes

- Spam, cubed, or bacon bits if you have them

- Lard

- Five spice

- Salt

- Sugar

- Garlic

- Ginger

- Soy sauce

- Chilli crisp, if you have it

- Fresh chillies, chilli flakes, chipotle, or whatever chilli you have

- Spring onion, optional, for the top

Method

1. Put your rice on first. Sushi rice would be ideal for this, but it does not really matter. Any white rice will do.

2. Cube the spam. If you are using bacon bits instead, get them ready as well.

3. Put lard in a pan and fry the spam until it has colour and goes a bit crisp. Take it out and keep it to the side. Do the same with bacon bits if that is what you are using.

4. Dice the potatoes into cubes. About 1 cm by 1 cm is good, but 2 cm by 2 cm works as well. It does not really matter, just remember the bigger they are the longer they take because you are not boiling them first.

5. Coat the potatoes in five spice, salt and sugar. Go fairly heavy on the sugar because this is supposed to be a sweeter dish. About a tablespoon of sugar for every two or three potatoes is the sort of place I would start.

6. Fry the potatoes in the lard from the spam or bacon. Keep frying until they are nice and crispy.

7. Add garlic and ginger while the potatoes are frying. This is important. Be generous with the aromatics here because they are a big part of what makes the dish work.

8. Put the rice in a bowl and top it with the crispy five-spice potatoes and the fried spam or bacon.

9. Pour soy sauce over the top.

10. Add chilli crisp if you have it. If you do not have chilli crisp, use fresh diced chillies, chilli flakes, chipotle, or whatever chilli you have.

11. Finish with chopped spring onion if you have it. Raw spring onion on top of stuff is lovely.

Notes and swaps

The size of the potato cubes is not a strict rule. Smaller cubes cook faster and get crispier quicker. Bigger cubes work too, they just need more time in the pan because you are frying them from raw.

Spam is probably the best fit here because it fries well and makes the dish feel more like a proper meal, but bacon bits work too. If you had neither, the potatoes and rice would still work as a cheap bowl of food.

Chilli crisp is the best topping if you have it, because it gives you chilli, oil and crunch all in one go. But do not avoid making this just because you do not have chilli crisp. Fresh chillies, chilli flakes or chipotle will still get you there.

This is sweet on purpose. Do not panic when the sugar looks like a lot. The soy sauce and chilli balance it out, and the rice makes the whole thing feel like a proper bowl rather than just fried potatoes.

Honey chilli chicken

Okay so the first recipe was extremely simple but this… this is my favourite thing to eat and cook by far. It is perfect when you are ill or when you just need a hearty meal. Relatively cheap too, especially if you are already using chicken thighs and making stock.

Ingredients

- Garlic

- Ginger

- Chicken thighs

- Honey

- Chicken stock, or water and a stock cube

- Red and green chillies

- Soy sauce

- Salt

- Rice, to serve

Prep

1. Dice the ginger and garlic finely.

2. Salt the chicken thighs and lightly season them with a teaspoon of dark soy sauce.

3. Let the chicken sit for about 15 minutes.

4. Preheat the wok or pan on the highest heat.

5. Chop the chillies.

Chicken

1. Fry the chicken skin-side down until the skin crisps.

2. Flip the chicken and fry the other side for about half the time.

3. Add the garlic and ginger.

4. Drop the pan to a medium heat once the aromatics are in.

Stock and honey sauce

1. Use hot chicken stock, or water with a stock cube.

2. Add honey. Around 170g for 4 thighs is the place to start, but you can do this to taste.

3. Add 1-2 tablespoons of soy sauce.

4. Stir it together so the honey loosens into the stock.

Deglaze and finish

1. Pour the stock and honey mixture into the pan.

2. Scrape the side and bottom of the wok so all the browned bits go into the sauce.

3. Add the chopped chillies.

4. Reduce it until the sauce is at a consistency you enjoy.

Serving

Serve it with boiled rice. It is one of my go-to meals and it is so simple to make.

Notes and swaps

Chicken thighs are the best fit because they have enough fat to stay juicy and give the sauce something to work with. If you only have another cut, use it, but thighs make this easier.

The honey is not there to make it taste like a pudding. It gives the sauce body and sweetness, then the soy sauce, chilli, garlic and ginger pull it back into dinner territory.

Nacho cheese sauce

This is the best dip I have ever had and I make it every time I have burgers or nachos. I normally end up eating it from the pot too because it is so good.

The useful part here is learning to make a roux. The nacho dip is just a good way to apply this skill. Once you know how to do that, you can make a cheese sauce, a peppery sauce, a peppercorn sauce with a bit of brandy if you want to get fancy, or just a basic white sauce for whatever you are making.

Ingredients

- Butter

- Flour

- Milk

- Black pepper, ideally freshly cracked or lightly crushed peppercorns

- Green bird's eye chillies, finely chopped

- Cheddar, ideally mature or anything quite rich and bitey

- Parmesan, pecorino, blue cheese, or any cheese you need to use up

- Mustard, about a tablespoon if you have it

- Salt, if it needs it

Method

1. Melt butter in a pan over a medium-low heat.

2. Add the black pepper to the butter and let it bloom until fragrant. Keep it gentle so the pepper flavour gets into the fat without catching.

3. Add roughly the same amount of flour as butter and stir it together. It should turn into a paste. That paste is the roux.

4. Cook the roux gently for a minute or two. Do not blast it. You just want to cook out the raw flour taste.

5. Add milk a little at a time, whisking or stirring as you go. At first it will look too thick, then it will loosen. Keep adding milk slowly until it looks like a smooth white sauce.

6. Keep it on a low heat and add your cheese bit by bit, stirring as it melts. Cheddar is the main one for me, especially a mature cheddar, but this is also a good way to get rid of little bits of cheese you have. Parmesan, pecorino or even blue cheese can all work.

7. Add the finely chopped green bird's eye chillies.

8. Add about a tablespoon of mustard if you have it. It helps the cheese sauce taste a bit sharper and more rounded, but it is not the end of the world if you do not have any.

9. Taste it and adjust it. If it is too thick, add a splash more milk. If it is too thin, keep it on the heat a little longer and let it thicken.

Notes and swaps

Green chillies work really well here because they cut through the rich, bitey cheese without taking the sauce in a completely different direction.

You can keep this really simple and just make it as a peppery roux if you want. That is the beauty of learning a roux: once you understand the butter, flour and milk part, the rest is just where you want to take it.

This goes well with roasted potatoes topped with fried bacon bits, burgers, nachos, chips, grilled meat, or anything else that needs cheese sauce poured over it.

Sausage stovies

A Scottish classic and my granny's favourite other than a vodka and coke. Potatoes are rich in loads of nutrients, which is probably why they are the staple of so many cultures' diets. Sausages are a good cheap source of protein and fat, especially if you get the cheap frozen ones.

Ingredients

- Potatoes

- Sausages

- Onions

- Peppercorns

- Mixed herbs, or fresh rosemary and thyme

- Lard

- Beef stock cube, optional but useful

- Water or stock

Prep

1. Chop the potatoes into golf-ball sizes or slightly smaller.

2. Slice the onions into half moons. This keeps them a bit sweeter and more mellow than just hacking them up any old way.

3. Lightly crush the peppercorns.

4. If you are using fresh herbs, pluck the thyme or rosemary. If not, just have your mixed herbs handy.

Sausages and onions

1. Add lard to a large pot.

2. Fry the sausages on a medium heat until golden.

3. Add the onions and lightly fry until they soften.

4. Add the peppercorns and let them bloom until fragrant in the lard and sausage fat.

Potatoes and stoving

1. Add the potatoes and lightly fry them for a minute.

2. Add water or stock to cover everything.

3. Add a beef stock cube if you are using one.

4. Let it boil on a medium-low heat until the potatoes have broken down into a porridge-like texture.

5. Add more water when needed so it does not catch.

6. Finish with mixed herbs, or the fresh rosemary and thyme.

Notes and swaps

This is a real simple and cheap one. You can stretch the protein by adding more onions and potatoes.

Cheap frozen sausages work because this dish is about sausage fat, potatoes, onions and time. You do not need fancy sausages for stovies to make sense.

Council “Carbonara”

So the Italians do not come for me. I have put carbonara in quotation marks because this does not use guanciale, which is traditionally used in the dish. Instead I am using cooking bacon because it is extremely cheap.

Ingredients

- Spaghetti

- Cooking bacon

- Egg yolks, 2 or more depending how much you are making

- Parmesan

- Black pepper

- Salt, for the pasta water

Pasta

1. Boil water on a high heat.

2. Salt the water well.

3. Add the spaghetti once the water is boiling.

4. Cook it until done, around 10 minutes depending on the pasta.

5. Keep a little pasta water before draining.

Bacon

1. Dice the bacon.

2. Preheat a large pot or pan.

3. Add the bacon and fry until crispy.

Sauce

1. Add the cooked spaghetti to the pan with the bacon.

2. Drop the heat to low.

3. Add the egg yolks.

4. Grate parmesan into the pot and mix until the pasta is covered.

5. Add a splash of pasta water if it needs loosened.

6. Add black pepper to taste.

Notes and swaps

This is not traditional by any means because we are using parmesan and bacon, but in all fairness carbonara itself only came about around World War Two from US rations during the liberation of Rome. This is the council version: cheap bacon, spaghetti, egg yolk, cheese and pepper.

Pilaf toasted rice

This is one of the newer recipes I have started using, but it is a complete life saver when you are on a budget. I am going to stray from the traditional ingredients list here because you can use any two or three spices that pair well together.

Ingredients

- Long grain rice

- Lard

- 2-3 spices that pair well together

- Stock

- Veg or legumes, optional

- Grilled meat, optional, if you are making it a bigger meal

Possible spice combos

- Indian-ish: cardamom pods, turmeric, paprika and cumin

- Middle Eastern: cumin, paprika and coriander

- Tex-Mex-ish: chipotle, cumin and sumac

Blooming spices

1. Heat a frying pan to a medium heat.

2. Add lard.

3. Add your spices.

4. Bloom until fragrant.

Toasting rice

1. Add dry uncooked rice to the spice mix.

2. Toss the rice in the spices until fully coated.

3. Toast it for about 1 minute.

Stock and boiling

1. Add the stock of your choice. This can also be something like tinned tomatoes if that suits the direction.

2. Mix slightly.

3. Add a lid and leave for 15 minutes on a high heat.

Serving

This topped with grilled meat like a chicken leg, or served on the side of something like a curry, is brilliant. If you are really on a budget though, this rice will get you through by itself.

Meat-over-rice version

1. Season the meat in the same direction as the rice. If the rice is going Middle Eastern, use the same sort of cumin, paprika and coriander on the meat. If the rice is going Tex-Mex, do the same with the meat.

2. Fry the meat first in the pan, whether that is a chicken leg, thigh, drumstick or whatever you have.

3. Let some of the fat render out and get some colour on the meat, then take it out.

4. Use that same pan for the rice.

5. Add a little lard if the pan needs it, bloom the spices until fragrant, then follow the recipe from there.

Notes and swaps

The point is that the rice picks up all the goodness from the meat and you are not wasting the flavour stuck to the pan.

Do not get too hung up on the spice combinations. Use two or three spices that make sense together and keep the whole dish moving in one direction.

Gluten Free Chicken Parm

My chicken parm does not use breadcrumbs. The sensible reason is that chicken thighs give you so much more flavour when you fry them, and this version also works if you are avoiding gluten. It is not the most budget-friendly option in the book because the parmesan and butter are fairly expensive and you are using a lot of them, but it is totally worth a try.

Ingredients

- Chicken thighs

- A whole bulb of garlic

- Tin of tomatoes

- Chicken stock

- Lots of parmesan

- Black pepper

- Mixed herbs

- Butter

- Salt

- Pasta or gluten-free pasta, to serve

Prep

1. Salt the thighs.

2. Crush the black pepper.

3. Dice the garlic.

4. Grate the parmesan.

Chicken and sauce

1. Fry the chicken skin-side down on a high heat in a large pot.

2. Flip once the skin is crispy.

3. Once the chicken is lightly browned on both sides, add the garlic.

4. Drop the heat until the garlic is fragrant.

5. Add black pepper.

6. Add a tin of tomatoes.

7. Fill the empty tin with chicken stock and add it to the pan.

8. Raise the heat and let the sauce reduce.

9. Add butter.

10. Add mixed herbs near the end so the flavour stays brighter.

11. Add a hearty amount of parmesan and stir it into the sauce.

Serving

Have it with pasta or gluten-free pasta.

Notes and swaps

The thighs are doing a lot of the work here. They fry well, they give you better fat and flavour than breast, and they make the sauce feel richer.

This is richer and pricier than most of the book. Not every recipe has to be the absolute cheapest thing possible. Sometimes the budget win is knowing where the money is going and making the meal worth it.

Refreshing tomato basil pasta

This is one of those meals that feels a bit fancy but is still within budget. It is not the thing I would make when I am skint skint, because cherry tomatoes and olive oil are not the cheapest things in the world, but you can still make this for under a fiver and it is brilliant if you want something fresh and light.

This is a Friday night meal, or the kind of thing you make if you are cooking for a vegetarian and still want it to feel like a proper dinner. It is delicious, refreshing, light on the stomach and brilliant when you want a cheaper meal that still feels a bit special.

Ingredients

Pasta, ideally tagliatelle or spaghetti

Cherry tomatoes

Olive oil

Garlic

Fresh basil

Parmesan (or any cheese you have)

Salt

Black pepper (optional)

Tomatoes

1. Get a pot and put it on a low heat.

2. Add a generous amount of olive oil. Olive oil here is essential. We are not just using it as a cooking medium.

3. Add cherry tomatoes.

4. Salt the tomatoes while they cook.

5. Let them slowly cook until they pop and soften, but do not completely break them down. You still want the tomatoes to keep a bit of their structure.

6. Add garlic once the tomatoes have started to pop.

We keep the heat low because you do not want to destroy the flavour in the olive oil by cooking it on a mad high heat. The garlic also keeps a bit more bite because you are not blasting it for ages.

Pasta

We are using a long strand pasta here. I think tagliatelle is the best for this, but it is on the pricier end, so spaghetti works perfectly. Any long strand pasta will do.

1. Boil your pasta in well salted water.

2. Before you drain the pasta, keep a little bit of pasta water.

3. Add the pasta to the tomatoes with a splash of pasta water.

Basil

1. Dice up some fresh basil.

2. Add it at the end after the pasta goes in.

3. Add the basil at the end and keep the heat gentle so you hold onto that fresh basil flavour.

Cheese

1. Add a little bit of parmesan at the end.

2. Toss it through so it melts into the tomato, olive oil and pasta water.

3. Taste it and adjust the salt if it needs it.

Seasoning

Make sure the pasta water is well salted. Salt the tomatoes while they cook and taste it again at the end. In this dish you are salting at all stages, so do not be scared to salt while you are cooking.

I personally do not add pepper to this. I think it takes away from the freshness. You can add black pepper if you want because pepper does have a floral taste to it, but for me this dish is better without it.

Notes and swaps

Cherry tomatoes are more expensive than tinned tomatoes, and you could technically use a tin of tomatoes, but I think that takes away from the point of the dish. Tinned tomatoes are better for chilli, bolognese or something heavier. For this, you want the freshness of the cherry tomatoes.

I grow basil myself and that keeps the cost low. It is a very handy thing to grow and it is easy enough to grow inside on your window. Basil is not that expensive to buy either, so it is not a big deal if you just get it from the shop.

Parmesan seems out of place in a budget book because it is expensive, but because it is so rich you do not need a lot and it keeps for ages in the fridge. It stretches quite far, so it works perfectly here.

You can use pecorino if you have it, but at that point we are getting into the posher cheeses. Mozzarella works. Cheddar works too, but it has a stronger taste and more of a bite, so go easy on it. If you have no cheese at all it is not the end of the world. You just want something that gives a little bit of that umami cheesiness.

Olive oil here is essential. We are not just using it as a cooking medium. You cannot really swap it for another oil because the olive oil is part of the sauce and part of the flavour.

If you want to price it up a bit, you could fry some chicken and put it on top, and that would go really well. But really this is best as a fresh, light pasta.

Healthier homemade beans

This is not super budget, because you can obviously buy a tin of baked beans cheaper than making this from scratch. But I still think it belongs in here, because it is a good idea. It is basically a healthier, homemade version of beans on toast where you actually know what is in it, and if someone already likes baked beans then you have got a decent chance of getting this into them without a fight.

It also uses the sort of ingredients that are already in the book: beans, tomato paste, alliums, lard or olive oil, herbs and spices, and a bit of sugar. So even if it is not cheaper than buying one tin of beans on its own, it can work out cheaper in the real world because you are using what you already have, and you are building from the same cupboard of ingredients rather than buying a whole new set of things for one meal.

It is also one of those meals where you can sneak bits and bobs in. You could finely dice a carrot or two and let it disappear into the sauce, or if you want to make it more of a kiddie meal you could slice up hot dogs and stir them through. It is more about making something familiar, a bit healthier, and a bit more flexible.

Ingredients

- Lard or olive oil

- 1 small onion, finely chopped, or the allium of your choice

- Cumin

- Paprika

- Black pepper

- Coriander seeds, if you have them

- Tomato paste

- 1 tin pinto beans, haricot beans, cannellini beans, or whatever beans you have

- Worcestershire sauce

- Chicken stock or beef stock, optional, if you want the beans looser

- Brown sugar, ideally, or molasses, honey, or even white sugar

- Oregano, mixed herbs, sage, or thyme

- Salt

Alliums and spices

1. Put a little lard or olive oil in a pan over a low heat. I used lard because that is what I had, but olive oil would probably be a little bit nicer here.

2. Add the onion, or whatever allium you are using, and fry it for a few minutes. Do not overcomplicate this bit. Just fry it until it smells good and starts softening. In some recipes it really matters how you do your onions; in this one, not really. Do it how you like it, and if you do not have onion you could use another allium instead.

3. Add the cumin, paprika, black pepper, and coriander seeds if you have them. I did not have coriander seeds on hand, but they would work nicely here. Let the spices bloom until fragrant in the fat so they wake up and flavour the oil.

Tomato and beans

4. Add the tomato paste and let it cook in the pan for a minute or two. You want it to darken slightly and lose that raw tomato-paste taste.

5. Add the beans and stir everything together. I used pinto beans, the sort of regular beans you would expect in baked beans, but really you could use almost any beans here. Chickpeas would even work. Let the beans fry down a little so they pick up the tomato, spice, and onion flavour.

6. If you want the beans a bit runnier, add a little stock. Homemade chicken stock would be my go-to because it is not super rich in flavour, but it gives you that hearty goodness and a nicer mouthfeel. A beef stock cube would work too, but if you are already butchering chickens and making stock, this is another place to get it into the meal.

7. Add Worcestershire sauce. I would say this is almost essential. It gives you that savoury, tangy depth that makes the beans taste rounded instead of just tomatoey and sweet. If you really cannot use it, you could try a little balsamic vinegar or another vinegar, but Worcestershire is the one I would reach for.

8. Add a little brown sugar to taste. Brown sugar is ideal, but you could use molasses, honey, or even white sugar if that is what you have. It brightens the whole thing up and gives you that gentle sweetness you expect from baked beans without turning it into syrup.

9. Add oregano or whatever soft dried herbs you have. I used oregano because that is what I had and it worked. Mixed herbs would work. Sage or thyme would probably work. Rosemary might be a bit much for this, but use what tastes right to you.

10. Season with salt, taste it, and adjust it how you like it. Everyone knows how they like their beans, so just keep tasting and balancing it until it suits you.

Serving

Serve it on toast, with rice, or as a side with sausages, eggs, or whatever you are making.

Notes and swaps

You could get a bit more frisky with the onion stage if you wanted. Garlic would be preferred here, but I did not have any at the moment. Red onion would work. Celery also works with tomato flavours, and in some cases it can act a bit like an allium, but it gives a more bitter, grown-up taste. I personally would not put celery in this version because I do not think I would like it as much, but if you like celery, finely dice it and fry it with the onion.

If you want to give it more substance, you could fry bacon or pork with the allium before adding everything else. That would make it a bit more filling and lean it more smoky, especially if you are trying to turn it from beans on toast into more of a proper meal.

You can make this smoky or spicy if you want. Chipotle would be nice. A diced chilli would be nice. You could also add finely diced carrots if you want extra veg in there.

This is a good simple alternative to regular baked beans. It is healthier, you know what is in it, and you can turn it into a proper little meal while still keeping the familiar beans-on-toast idea.

Green sauce chicken stew

This is inspired by a Ghanaian dish, but it has been changed for budget reasons. So if you are from that part of Africa, forgive me. This is just a home version for people trying to budget. I am not trying to take away from the actual dishes made over there.

What I like about this one is that you are cooking chicken on the bone. I very rarely cook with chicken on the bone, but this is perfect for it because you get that marrow and bone flavour going into the sauce. If you are butchering whole chickens a lot, you are going to end up with drumsticks, and this is a brilliant way to use them.

You fry the chicken first to get colour on it. If you try to finish it in the pan, the outside will go too far before the stew has done its job. Once it has some colour, it gets boiled in the sauce. After about 40 minutes the bone flavour works its way into the stew and it is unreal.

Ingredients

Chicken

- 4-6 chicken drumsticks, or chicken on the bone

- Olive oil

Green sauce

- 2 white onions

- 4-5 sticks of celery

- 1 green pepper

- A lot of basil, about 2 packets if you are buying it from the shop

- Garlic, ideally a good amount

- Ginger, about 2 thumb-sized pieces, or to taste

Red sauce

- Tomato passata, or 2 tins of tomatoes

- 1 red pepper

- 3-5 Scotch bonnets, depending on how spicy you want it

- Chicken stock

Spices and seasoning

- Cumin

- Black pepper

- Paprika

- Chilli flakes

- Chilli powder, optional but good

- Coriander, optional, if you want more of a floral taste

- MSG, optional

- Salt

Optional stretch/add-ins

- Kidney beans

- Rice

Green sauce

1. Put the white onions, celery, green pepper, basil, garlic and ginger into a blender.

2. Blend it into a green sauce.

3. Do not skimp on the basil here. You really cannot skip it. This is one of the times where you want a proper amount of basil, not just a polite little sprinkle.

Garlic is technically optional because you already have onions in there, but I will be honest: garlic is ideal in this. Very, very ideal.

Chicken

1. Coat the drumsticks in the green sauce.

2. Put olive oil in a pan and get it onto a medium-high heat.

3. Add cumin, black pepper, paprika, chilli flakes, chilli powder and coriander to the oil and let them bloom until fragrant. We do not do enough of this, and it gets more out of the spices.

4. Add the chicken and fry it until you get some colour on it.

5. Move it around as it fries.

6. Take it off once it has colour. It will finish cooking in the stew.

Red sauce

1. Put the red pepper and Scotch bonnets into the blender.

2. Add enough chicken stock to help it blend. If you are using tinned tomatoes instead of passata, you can add about half a tin of tomatoes as well so the blender has moisture to work with.

3. Blend it into a red sauce.

You do not need to clean the blender between the green sauce and the red sauce. If there is a bit of green sauce left in there, it is all going in the same pot anyway.

Stew

1. Once the chicken has colour, add the red sauce to the pan.

2. Add your tomato passata, or the rest of your tinned tomatoes.

3. Add more chicken stock if it needs more liquid.

4. Add MSG if you use it. People associate MSG with Chinese cooking, but it works in African cooking as well, and it is useful here.

5. Bring it up to a boil, then let it simmer for about 40 minutes. You can go longer if you want.

6. Taste it and adjust the salt and spice.

After that simmer, the marrow and bone flavour from the drumsticks gets into the sauce. That is what makes this dish so good.

Rice, beans and serving

You can serve this with rice on the side, but what I normally do is just add rice into the stew and let it cook in the sauce. Then it becomes a proper one-pot stew and you do not need to boil rice separately or make more drama for yourself.

You could also add kidney beans if you want more protein or you want to stretch it further. Beans make sense here because they sit well with the tomatoes, stock and spice.

This is on the spicy end because of the Scotch bonnets. This kind of stew is supposed to have a kick.

Notes and swaps

You can use a whole chicken for this if that is what you have, but drumsticks are a really good fit. They are on the bone, they are cheap, and if you are breaking down chickens yourself you are going to have them anyway.

The spice mix is the same sort of all-rounder mix I use a lot: cumin, black pepper, paprika, chilli flakes, chilli powder and coriander. They are useful, flexible spices and they work across a lot of budget cooking. Blooming them in the olive oil is worth doing here because it gives the stew a better base.

If 3-5 Scotch bonnets sounds like too much, use fewer. Scotch bonnets are spicy, and you know your own tolerance. But the Scotch bonnet flavour does belong in this direction, so I would not swap them out unless you really have to.

Chicken coconut curry

This is one of the less exact recipes in the book, because curry is one of those dishes where you taste, adjust, taste again, and then suddenly it comes together. Mine can taste awful for the first 45 minutes and then turn into something brilliant right at the end.

The base is simple: ginger, a whole bulb's worth of garlic and onion. That is the core. You do not need to overcomplicate it. From there you build fat, spice, tomatoes, coconut milk, yogurt and whatever meat or veg makes sense for what you have.

I usually do this with chicken thighs because they give you the most back. Ideally use deboned thighs. They release fat, they stay softer than breast, and they are more forgiving while the curry cooks down. You can use drumsticks if you do not mind bones, breast if that is what you prefer, or even prawns, lamb or beef if that is what you have. Beef is not something I lean on much in this book because it is expensive. Most of the beef I buy is mince, and if you are regularly buying chunks of beef for curry, you probably do not need me telling you how to cook on a budget.

Ingredients

- Chicken thighs, ideally deboned

- Lard or olive oil

- Onion

- Whole garlic bulb's worth of garlic

- Ginger

- Salt

- Black peppercorns, lightly crushed

- Turmeric

- Curry powder

- Paprika

- Cumin

- Ground coriander

- Chilli powder

- Cinnamon

- Mixed herbs

- Tinned tomatoes

- Chicken stock

- Coconut milk

- Yogurt

- Fresh chillies, whatever heat you like

- Optional: curry paste

- Optional: a whole coconut, cracked, peeled and finely chopped

- Optional veg: carrots, parsnips, mangetout peas, roasted baby potatoes, or whatever needs used

Method

1. Start with the chicken. Cut it how you like it. I usually just cut thighs in half, but smaller pieces work if you want more sauce around them.

2. Season the chicken with salt, crushed black peppercorns, turmeric, curry powder and paprika. Be generous with the turmeric. It is cheap enough as a powder, it gives brilliant colour, and it belongs in a curry.

3. If you are using fresh coconut, prep it now. Crack it, peel it, slice it thin, then chop it really finely, almost like parsley. A food processor works as well. Some people boil coconut first so it breaks down more, but I do not. I like the bite you get from it.

4. Heat lard or olive oil in a pan. I usually use lard because it is cheaper and it works, but olive oil works here too.

5. Add the cinnamon, cumin, coriander, chilli powder, mixed herbs and a bit of curry powder if you are using it. Let the spices bloom until fragrant in the fat. Keep the heat sensible so they smell good without catching.

6. Add the onion, a whole bulb's worth of garlic, ginger and fresh chillies. Fry them into the spiced fat until they soften and smell good. Red chillies, green chillies, bird's eye chillies, Scotch bonnet, whatever you like. Go by your own heat tolerance.

7. Add the chopped coconut, if using, and fry it with the aromatics. You want it mixed right through the base, not sitting there as big hard chunks.

8. Add the seasoned chicken and fry it until you get colour on it. You are building the flavour here before the wet ingredients go in.

9. Add a little chicken stock to deglaze the pan. Not loads, just enough to lift everything stuck to the bottom.

10. Add the tinned tomatoes and stir everything together until the sauce starts looking like curry rather than tomatoes with chicken in them.

11. If you are using curry paste, add it here and stir it through. Curry from complete scratch can be difficult, and curry paste is fairly cheap for what it gives you. Curry powder works as well.

12. Let it cook down. Taste it as you go. Curry is not one of those things where I can pretend there is a perfect fixed route every time. Sometimes it needs more chilli, sometimes more salt, sometimes more cinnamon, sometimes more fat, sometimes more time.

13. Add coconut milk and yogurt. Use them to round the curry out and stretch the sauce. If it needs more body, a bit more yogurt, butter or coconut milk can help.

14. Keep simmering until the chicken is cooked through and the sauce tastes joined up. If it tastes flat, keep adjusting. This is one of those dishes where the early version can taste rough and then suddenly it turns.

Veg and extras

Carrots and parsnips work really well if you like a slightly sweeter curry. Mangetout peas, the big flat pod ones, can go in as well. Roasted baby potatoes are ridiculous in this. Roast them in curry seasoning and put them with the curry, and you will end up picking around the chicken just to get to the potatoes.

You can take this in different directions if you want, but for this book I would keep the main version simple: chicken, aromatics, spices, tomatoes, stock, coconut milk and yogurt.

Notes

Cinnamon might sound odd if you mainly think of it with baking, but it is perfect in a curry. I would not make curry without it. You do not need loads; just enough bloomed at the start so it sits underneath everything.

This is also why I like chicken thighs here. They give the sauce fat and body in a way breast does not. Breast works if you like it, but thighs make the curry easier to get right.

Final thoughts

This book is not supposed to cover everything. It is not meant to make you some kind of chef overnight, and you probably will not use every single thing in it. You might take one or two ideas away. You might try a couple of recipes and leave the rest. That is fine.

The point is to give you a few tools.

Once you have a handful of skills, cooking gets a lot less scary. You can look at flour in the cupboard and a tin of tomatoes and start thinking about what could be made from it. You can see two tins of beans and half a packet of mince that needs used and think, right, that is a chilli. It is just about looking at what is there and knowing enough wee tricks to make it work.

You do not need the most sophisticated palate in the world. You just need a few flavours you enjoy and a rough idea of how they fit together. Alliums, spices, acids, stock, beans, rice, pasta, flour, tomatoes; once you know what these things can do, they stop being random bits in a cupboard and start becoming options.

Sauces are a big part of that. A basic tomato sauce, a roux, a cheese sauce, a pan sauce, a good stock; these things carry meals. They also let you move up and down depending on what you have. If money is tight, you can use beans, rice, pasta, cheap cuts, tinned tomatoes and stock. If you are cooking for people and want it to feel a bit nicer, you can upgrade the same ideas. Chicken thigh can become steak. Chicken stock in a pan sauce can become red wine. A simple tomato sauce can become the base for pasta, pizza, or something with a cheese sauce over the top.

Here is a tiny bonus one that does not need a full recipe: cut an onion in half, roast it with as much garlic as you have, then blend it with a tin of tomatoes. That gives you a brilliant base for pasta, pizza, or anything else that wants a deeper tomato sauce.

And use Google. Seriously. If you have cumin and pepper and you want to know what else might go with it, look it up. If you go out somewhere and try a sauce you like, search how it is made. You do not have to copy it exactly. Half the time you will look at a recipe and think, I do not have that, I do not like that, or that costs too much. But if you understand the basics, you can start swapping things. You know what alliums do. You know beans can stretch meat. You know rice can bulk a meal out if the sauce is good. You know stock can make something taste like more than water.

I am not saying everyone needs to stop eating meat or cook like this forever. I am saying these tools give you options. You can cut meat with beans and still make something filling. You can use rice or pasta to stretch a sauce. You can turn a carcass into stock and use that anywhere you would normally use water but want a bit more flavour and goodness.

I do not know what situation you are in. You might be doing totally fine and just want to cook better. You might be really struggling. When I was struggling, cooking helped me a lot, because even if I could not fix everything overnight, I could at least make dinner, save a bit of money, and feel like I was getting better at something useful.

Saving money on food can change more than just your food shop. If you save even a decent chunk each week, that can go towards a course, a skill, your house, a deposit, or just a bit of breathing room. It sounds small until you actually feel the difference.

That is what I want this book to give you: not every answer, just enough tools to start. If it helps you waste less, eat a bit better, save some money, or feel more in control, then it has done its job.