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Pineapple Tarts

2012-01-14T09:39:00.000-08:00

Lunar New Year is almost upon us, but it has been almost seven years since I have actually spent it back home. Amongst other things, I miss the festive snacks and tidbits, though my friends do bring some up to the UK every year or so, such that I have an ample supply. This year, my friend's fiancee was baking pineapple tarts, and given feedback from a reader to do something festive, I decided to join in, albeit a few thousand kilometres away. Since Sainsbury's has all the ingredients in their Basics range, right down to pineapple pieces, I can take the liberty of documenting my experience here.

Pineapple tarts consist of a shortbread topped with a pineapple conserve. Based on that knowledge and experienced cook would have been able to make this without any guidance, but as I am relatively inexperienced with baking I had to look up the recipe on the Net. I managed to find one at Rasa Malaysia, the Southeast Asian culinary blog that has made the rounds in the States. I will refrain from publishing the instructions here other than adding my own comments as we go along. If using one can of Sainsbury's Basics pineapple, halve all quantities listed on the blog (You will need half a block of Sainsbury's Basics salted butter, and no salt). I also have some suspicions about the liberal amounts of sugar used, so reduce where appropriate.

Making the pineapple conserve. Pineapple after blending....

... and after cooking and turning into a conserve.

Simple shortbread pastry making. I overestimated the flour to be used here, but then again, I don't have any weighing scales in the kitchen.

They may not look pretty, and certainly nothing like pineapple tarts found on other blogs, but they certainly are palatable. The Sainsbury's Basics Pineapple pieces were very suitable for making jams and conserves from, so like most of the other Basics products, they will help where presentation does not matter.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Pineapple pieces in juice	£0.20/kg	227g	+£0.41	Not known. slices is +£0.28 from basics pieces.

Beef Pot Roast

2012-01-07T02:42:00.000-08:00

Braising is best suited for cheap but tough cuts of meat, where the time that slow cooking affords goes into tenderising the meat and mingling of flavours, leading to a very rich dish, and meat that has melt-in-the-mouth texture. Finding braised meat while dining out however is difficult, unless you happen to be in Chinatown, where cheap cuts of meat are favoured for their cost-effectiveness. Braised beef brisket happened to be one of the few things I ordered when I was out with friends for dinner while at university. I still order it today, and it happens often enough that in recent times I found myself looking at the Sainsbury's Basics Beef Pot Roast, wondering if I can braise beef the way the Chinese restaurants do.

There are a couple of techniques that the Chinese use for tenderising meat that I was told about quite some time ago. While searching for recipes to braise the beef, there appears to be some confusion and lack of familiarity on the Internet about using such techniques, and as such, I thought I will try to shed some light on the matter, and use the techniques in my braised beef to see if they will work.

The first techinque involves adding bicarbonate of soda to the beef, leaving it to stand for a while, and then washing it off. This is the more difficult of the two techniques as if the soda is not properly washed off it will adversely affect the final flavour of the food. From what I've read on the Internet so far, the bicarbonate works by making the beef more alkaline (hence the ruined flavour if not washed off), allowing the coiled up proteins in the beef to straighten out, making it more tender.

The other technique involves covering in cornflour. This then acts as an insulating layer when frying so that the direct heat doesn't result in a toughened cut of beef. Since we are limited to the Sainsbury's Basics range, we shall use Basics plain flour instead, along with whatever we want to marinate the beef in (we use Basics black pepper and herb mix here). An extension of this technique, known as 'velveting', involves marinating the meat in cornstarch, egg white, and rice wine along with other seasonings for about 30 minutes.

So while waiting for the beef, prepare anything else that you want to braise together with the beef. I have opted to go 'Yankee-style', as described by Wikipedia, and included a parsnip and carrot. Chop up some onion as well.

Heat a wok, before adding olive oil. Fry the onions until they just start turning brown, and then start browning the beef.

Deglaze the wok using Sainsbury's Basics vinegar, and then transfer contents into a saucepan or pot. Add the rest of the ingredients and cook until tender.

This was only fairly successful. The parts of the beef that were in contact with the bicarbonate of soda and flour were tender, with the rest of the beef making for rather tough eating. While it is reassuring to know that the techniques work, my approach to braising beef might need a bit of tweaking before I can try it on my friends.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Beef Pot Roast	£6.49/kg	by weight	+£unknown	Better quality beef?

Chocolate Wafer Biscuits

2011-12-30T11:47:00.000-08:00

While stocking up on snacks that I might want to have for my flight out of London for the holidays last month, I came across these Sainsbury's Basics Chocolate Wafer Biscuits. I bought myself a pack, thinking that I would be able to kill two birds with one stone, having something to eat and featuring it on this blog. Given that the length of this blog post will not amount to much though, I thought I might as well write about it while everybody is away on holiday, and save the meatier material for after the festive season.

For its price, the chocolate coating is decent and is light enough to not spoil your main meals even if you eat these close to dinner or lunch time. At the same time, have a couple of these and you would be able to last for a bit. As with the Bourbon Creams reviewed some time ago, these are really good so it's probably safe to assume that quality across the Basics biscuits range is on par with their regular own-brand counterparts.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Milk Chocolate Coated Wafer Biscuits	£0.42	6	+£0.58 for 9	Not known

Mince Puffs and other Christmas sweets

2011-12-17T07:16:00.000-08:00

Christmas is upon us, and with that comes the usual festive dinners and general eating. We are in the midst of a eurozone crisis however, as the states that make up continental Europe have put various austerity measures into effect. Since Europe is the UK's largest trading partner, it's no surprise that people here would feel it too, but nonetheless it was rather surprising to have come across so many more Christmas-themed items in the Sainsbury's Basics range than the Basics Christmas Pudding I spotted in 2010. Seeing that this is the run up to Christmas I thought I should interrupt my usual publishing to write this so that you may know what is currently available.

I can't buy them all though, since I didn't want to spend all of winter eating them myself, so I decided to make do with the Basics Mince Puffs. These particularly amuse me, as about 3 Christmases ago, Sainsbury's actually did a Basics version of Mince Pies, as reviewed on Terrific Horrific. I have failed to spot them last year though, and given that mince-related items come out around this time of year, I'm guessing this is the substitute.

The puffs contain 42% mince, and as you can tell from the pic below, they fail to take up the generous space offered by the pastry. While they are not unpleasant, and are pretty cheap, I believe they are relatively poor value, and are no substitute for proper mince pies that are one of the key things that make a Christmas dinner.

I will be taking a break from writing to commemorate Christmas, and I'm sure that you would be enjoying yourself over the next few weeks or so. Have a blessed Christmas and a fruitful New Year!

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Mince Puffs	£0.63	8	+£0.37 for 6	Actual mince pies. Recommended.
Christmas Pudding	£0.98	454g	+£1.52	Higher fruit content, healthier
Iced Rich Fruit Cake	£1.90	400g	+£0.25	Higher fruit content, healthier

Grapes

2011-12-08T18:45:00.000-08:00

EU regulations on food create a lot of waste - fruit and vegetables that are perfectly edible but oddly shaped cannot be sold in stores, as per the EU's Commission Regulation (EEC) No 1677/88 . Only vegetables and fruit that are considered as close in appearance and size to the European ideal are given the dubious honour of Class I, with those that are not, but not grotesquely misshapen enough to be discarded, designated Class II.

The same applies to grapes. When I came across these I suspected that these grapes failed to pass muster due to their colour, not being red enough for consumption. The labelling also seemed to suggest a problem with sizing as well. Either way I found them to be perfectly fine.

And in this case, they were seedless too. Given the regular grapes cost more than twice as much, I feel rather smug about finding this. I'm still not sure what exactly made these fail classification as Class I, but if there is an opportunity to engage in a consumer's version of what finance professionals call regulatory arbitrage, I will surely take it.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Grapes	£1.00	500g	+£1.25	Choice between white, red, or red and white.

Cod Fishcakes

2011-11-26T13:00:00.000-08:00

I never understood the appeal of fishcakes. Wikipedia suggests that the fish cake, as the British know it, came about as a means for astute housewives to make the most of leftover fish and potatoes. So as I snubbed them for the umpteenth time at the company canteen in favour of the steak pie on Fish Friday, I wondered to myself as to why catering would offer them in the first place. Who would want to deliberately eat leftovers?

However, as I wandered through Sainsbury's later looking for something to pop into the oven while I showered, I came across the Basics Breaded Cod Fishcakes. I realised that I was getting bored of most of the other things that I usually have on weekdays, namely breaded chicken, fish fingers and pizzas, and so decided to give these a go.

The fishcakes are smaller than the ones offered in Sainsbury's own-brand fresh and frozen ranges; you would probably need 2-3 of these to make a meal. Don't be fooled by the labelling - 53% of 66% (that's the amount of cod that goes into the fishcake, ie. 53% of the fishcake that makes up 66% of the total) is somewhere around 34% which means that this is more carbohydrate than protein.

The fishcakes were pleasant, although the texture leaves much to be desired, with very few reminders of flaky fish and more of creamed potato. To be honest, I would rather have the fish fingers, which are cheaper, and yet have more fish per unit weight.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Cod Fishcakes	£1.39	10, 500g	+£1.61 for 2, 300g	Includes bacon,slightly higher cod content

Taste Test: Bourbon Creams

2011-11-13T04:55:00.001-08:00

A while ago I had the chance to talk to two people who worked in the groceries sector. Through our conversations they got to know that I ran this blog and asked me certain queries about their own value line, specifically my attitude towards it, so that they could understand what their consumers want. I noted that while most people I know treated value lines as a way to reduce expenditure on frequently used essential items, I have noticed that there is another demographic distinct from this - that of university student societies and clubs.

Some memories came back of eating Sainsbury's Basics crisps and other such tidbits while attending various meetings held by the societies I participated in. A thought occurred to me if what they were doing was just a way to stretch out of extreme necessity the club's budget for as long as it can hold out, or if they were really on to something.

Where I work now, it is customary for a member of the team to bring something to snack on for our weekly team meetings. I thought that it would be the perfect opportunity for me to bring along two lines of Sainsbury's Bourbon Creams, one Basics, one own-brand, and arrange for a blind taste test. With that in mind, I got to the office early that morning, piled the biscuits into two separate plates and set them before my colleagues to sample from. Surprisingly it was difficult to tell them apart, as they tasted the same. That is, until somebody spotted a visual difference in the biscuits themselves.

The photograph you see below is a poor attempt at showing that difference. The Sainsbury's Basics Bourbon Cream on the left has less chocolate cream compared to the regular own-brand one on the right. To be honest, as noted above, none of us at the workplace could tell the difference, so considering the savings of almost 50%, if you are buying biscuits in bulk for the next gathering of any sort, do give the Bourbon Creams a try.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Bourbon Creams	£0.45	400g	+£0.38	Thicker chocolate filling.

Cashew-crusted Salmon

2011-11-06T12:27:00.000-08:00

As I start to actively explore other areas of the Sainsbury's Basics range that I have not gotten round to reviewing, I noticed that there is a lack of coverage on fish. Given that my flatmate is fond of salmon, I decided that I should write up on the salmon fillets.

Unlike most of the other cheaper fish options available under Sainsbury's Basics, which are usually available as proper cuts, the Basics Scottish Salmon Fillets are off-cuts - in other words, whatever happens to be left of the fish after fillets have been cut from it for Sainsbury's own-brand range, or for that matter, other brands that the supplier happens to cater to. If you are lucky though, you might get a healthy sized steak - the pack shown in the photo above contains one small chunk, right, and a whole fillet, left and covered by the label. The sizes of the cuts I got in the pack can be seen later on.

As I am also clearing down my cupboard in preparation for my holiday out of town I searched on the Internet for recipes that use both cashew nuts and salmon. I've seen salmon prepared with almonds before, so I reasoned that cashews would not be too radical a departure from normal preparations. As it turns out, not only does the blogging community generally approve of my idea, the first page of hits on Google suggest a recipe which also uses Parmesan and Basil, ingredients I can easily substitute with Basics grated hard cheese and herb mix, which ties in nicely with clearing as much as I can.

The preparation appears straightforward enough. Blend in a food processor,or grind manually, the following things to make your crumb coating: Basics dried mixed herbs, cashew nuts, grated hard cheese, garlic cloves, and a bit of olive oil. Use the resulting mixture to coat the top of the salmon, placed skin down.

Bake at 210 degrees Celsius for 10 minutes.

Even though the coating looks fairly innocuous, it is packed with nutrition, containing cheese and nuts, both high in protein and fat. This might be a filling alternative to the usual breadcrumb mixture that you might use to coat oily fish, though use of this to coat other meats is as yet unproven. From experience I would not recommend using this to coat white fish given its lighter taste.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Scottish Salmon Fillets	£10.98/kg	by weight	+£5.69/kg, +£2.06/kg for wild salmon	Guaranteed boneless fish, more regular cuts.

Apple Juice

2011-10-30T06:57:00.000-07:00

Commodity prices, especially those of agriculturals, have been increasing significantly over the past few months in the wake of speculation and poor harvest yields. Only a few weeks ago did I come across an article warning of the imminent increase in the price of peanut butter, at least in the United States. More recently, Sainsbury's also started increasing prices of their own-brand ranges of fruit juice. It now costs £3 for 3 1L cartons of juice from concentrate, a discount of only £0.10 per carton over individual pricing.

On the bright side however, the Basics range of juice is now available in new packaging. Given that I was inundated with work and real life over the past two weeks, I thought that putting up this little review of the apple juice would tide you, the reader, over, until I have more time to come up with more interesting things.

I find this to be generally palatable, albeit a bit on the sour side. I do remember though that when I bought the Basics orange juice, once it was opened, its quality rapidly deteriorated as we approached the best before date. Given that there seems to be no end to increasing prices though, this might be an attractive option, short of switching to UHT juice.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Apple Juice	£0.74	1L	+£0.36	Longer lasting, better tasting juice

Meat Shroom

2011-10-16T04:50:00.000-07:00

When I was in university, I remembered a friend describing something they made for lunch while I was away from the flat. They took a bunch of portobello mushrooms, sliced out the stem, and stuffed the cap with pate before grilling. As the mushroom cooked, the pate absorbed the liquid exuded, enriching itself with mushroom flavour.

It was an idea that has lingered in the back of my mind even as my university friends graduated and left the country. When I came across a tray of Sainsbury's Basics mushrooms that were as large as their regular portobello mushrooms the memory came back and got me thinking about recreating this. The problem was that Sainsbury's did not have a Basics pate, although they used to. I was browsing mySupermarket in search of an alternative stuffing when I came across this.

This Basics meat paste contains 42% chicken and 26% beef and a whole bunch of miscellaneous fillers. From what I could see inside the bottle, its consistency is akin to that of pate. I saw a small range of other similar products at Sainsbury's while trying to get this from my local store, but am puzzled by what it could be used for. The first thing that crossed my mind was sandwich fillers, but the supermarket chain stocks a good range of sandwich fillers, deli meats, and yes, pate. What niche does this product fill? True, it has a very long shelf life, extending up to mid-2013, but once open it has to be consumed within 3 days, so longevity doesn't seem to be its appeal.The meat paste products are pretty cheap, costing 32p for Basics and 49p for regular own-brand, but only give you 3 servings per bottle. With modern refrigeration you might as well get proper pate.

If you are able to point out where in British cuisine this stands I would love to hear from you, so please put your thoughts in the comments.

Prepare the mushroom as shown above. Spread two teaspoons of the meat paste all over the inside of the mushroom before topping up with the stalk, chopped up, and sprinkling with Basics Grated Hard Cheese or whichever cheese you have available.

Bake or grill at 225 degrees for about 20 minutes.

The meat paste tasted exactly like pate, so it came in as a suitable substitute. Overall this was pretty enjoyable, and can make a good starter, or a light lunch. Also worth noting about this is that the meat paste only contains about 34 calories per tablespoon serving, and combined with the intrinsically low calorific nature of mushrooms, could be useful to those looking to cut down on their calorie intake.

The pescetarians amongst us might want to know that there is an equivalent Basics fish paste, though again, you might be better off buying pre-prepared tuna mayonnaise.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Meat Paste	£0.32	75g - about 3	+£0.17	Choice between chicken (pure chicken) and beef (37% beef and 33% chicken).

Meatball Spaghetti

2011-10-01T06:06:00.000-07:00

Every now and then at Sainsbury's I will pop by the canned food aisle, looking at the general availability of the Basics range in that area and coming up with ideas. After all, canned food is the epitome of cheap - in the aftermath of World War II it was canned food that most people subsisted on as they returned to economic normality. So far however, the only canned food that I could bother with is the Pork & Bacon Meatballs, being cheap at 38p per can and containing a fair amount of meat at that price. Having featured the Basics Tinned Tuna to death, curiosity got the better of me and so I bought myself a can.

Already the contents of the can do not look very encouraging, with the meatballs floating in a sauce of a rather familiar colour. So familiar in fact that I might just start terming it Sainsbury's Basics Tomato Red.

So for lunch, I chopped up a large mushroom and sauteed it with garlic, before throwing in the meatballs. After the spaghetti was done, I added that into the pan, before seasoning with Basics mixed herbs, black pepper and grated hard cheese.

The meatballs tasted as per expectations - somewhat like tinned sausages drenched in a sauce similar if not identical to Sainsbury's Basics pasta sauce. I find this very amusing. These will be very useful to have around, since they are cheap (38p for a can that can cater for two meals), and being canned they last for a long time. There has at to be a tastier alternative to stock your cupboards with though. On the other hand, if you are going on a short camping trip and don't mind the dent in your morale from eating mediocre food, then this is for you.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Pork and Bacon Meatballs	£0.38	16 - 392g	+£0.38 for Fray Bentos	Better tomato sauce.

Siu Yuk - Roast Belly Pork

2011-09-25T11:12:00.000-07:00

If there is anything that the Cantonese and British have in common, it is an appreciation for a good roast. In particular, a good pork roast. Both groups would not say no to moist and succulent porcine flesh topped with crispy and light crackling from the skin of the pig. Where they might differ however is the cut of the animal to use. While the British favour the loin and to a lesser extent, the shoulder, mention roast pork to any Chinese who has barely heard of a roast dinner and the first cut that comes to mind is pork belly. Even as the likes of Jamie Oliver promote the use of the cut in the UK, both groups differ as to their preparation methods. The Cantonese have a more involved process which include blanching the pork skin, marinating in five-spice powder and poking as many little holes in the skin as they can (as opposed to the British approach to simply scoring it). Given that it is Sunday, a day for roasts, and I have two rashers left from my pack of Basics streaky rashers, I thought it would be appropriate to have a go at making siu yuk.

Chubby Hubby describes my sentiment very well - there are too many recipes on the Internet for roast belly pork, each one claiming to have the most excellent results. I guess this is to be expected - Just as the world likes their bacon (which, incidentally, comes from pork belly), they appear to like in almost equal measure their roast pork, and the crackling that comes with it. Given the many ways that people have done this, the supposed ease of execution, and the constraints of my own kitchen, I've come up with my own method, which I will try to document as much as I can below:

After using tweezers or some other mechanism to remove hairs from the skin of the belly pork, we start by blanching the skin of the pork belly in boiling water. Most of the recipes I've come across call for pouring hot water carefully down the skin. I opted for a quicker route and used a shallow pan of boiling water, placing the pork skin down. Try to make the water level as shallow as you can, so that we minimise the amount of pork flesh that gets cooked as collateral.

With the skins cooked, shake and/or pat dry with kitchen towels. Use a sharp object to poke little holes all over the skin (I used a toothpick). Rub five-spice powder all over the flesh, but not the skin, of the belly pork. Leave in fridge to marinate and dry up for as long as you can hold out for, preferably overnight.

Preheat oven to 220 degrees Celsius. Roast the pork, skin side up, for 15-20 minutes, before turning the heat down to 180 degrees for a further 40 minutes. Turn the oven up to 250 degrees for a final 15 minutes of roasting. At this stage, if you want, pour a small amount of rice wine over the pork skin for extra crispiness before the final roasting phase.

I took a few short cuts to bring this to you, including not drying the pork out completely before marinating, and in the case of Chubby Hubby's recipe, using a steam bath in the oven to evenly cook the pork. The result are most apparent in having a rather inconsistent and visually unappealing crackling that looks more like roast pork than siu yuk. It is still crispy and deeply satisfying though.

If you're like my flatmate, who is not very keen on eating Basics meat products, but you still want to try this recipe, you might want to consider the belly pork that is available in the butcher's section of Sainsbury's, or your local butcher. The regular pork streaky rashers do not have any skin to make crackling with.

Tau Yu Bak - Belly Pork Braised in Soy Sauce

2011-09-21T12:32:00.000-07:00

A few friends who came to the UK around the same time I did have mused that there were several dishes from back home that they didn't like at all prior to making their way here, but have since changed their minds and miss it just as much as their favourites. As I grew up, I remembered not looking forward to dinner when I learnt that my mother had cooked tau yu bak, but have since acquired a taste for it and do miss it when in the UK.

To make the dish, whole slabs or bite-sized pieces of belly pork (the same cut used to make streaky bacon) are braised in soya sauce with Chinese mushrooms and an assortment of typical Chinese spices - cinnamon, cloves, star anise, fennel and ginger, though the concoction might vary - for about an hour. The meat is tender and has a small amount of fat that provides a flavourful punch. Typically this is served with rice.

Given that the preparation is relatively simple, it is surprising that while I was here none of the households I was in ever prepared it. I guess we were content with stir-fries for typical meals, reserving special occasions for the likes of laksa, chicken rice and chilli crab. When Sainsbury's introduced a Basics version of pork streaky rashers, belly pork in another guise, I thought I might as well give this a go for nostalgia. A quick Google search also showed that not everybody in the UK knew what to do with this, so this blog post might be of interest to curious British readers.

Since I was planning to cook for my flatmates as well I bought the regular rashers. The photo above shows a side-by-side comparison. The two rashers below are the Basics ones, while the two above are regular Sainsbury's.

To make this, I used the recipe taken from NoobCook, written by a fellow countrywoman. Due to ingredient scarcity, I left out the mushrooms and resorted to using ground versions of the spices she listed as well as granulated sugar. I also chopped the pork up to make it easier to manage when eating later. As this is a derivative of somebody else's recipe, my notes will be limited to discussing the things I did while cooking.

My experience with browning things is limited to using non-stick pans, so I browned the pork in a non-stick frying pan first. I sliced off the pork belly skins and rendered them for their fat, which would allow me to not only cook the pork without oil, but also add some flavour to the vegetables I'm stir-frying later.

Cooking in a separate pan means that I can get to place my stew ingredients in the pot ready to go though.

This is a photo of the pot prior to simmering for one hour.

One hour later, the eggs are added in and left to simmer for a further ten minutes.

I have not had rice at home in a while, so to be able to sit down and enjoy a home-cooked dinner after a day at work was definitely welcomed. There was no almost no difference in taste between the Basics and regular pork, and if you can get over the smell when handling the rashers, the savings can be significant. A few of my colleagues at work have been eagerly anticipating this; perhaps I could make this for them if the opportunity ever presents itself.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Streaky Pork Rashers	£4.27/kg	4, typically	+£0.72/kg	Less smelly rashers, more regular sizes.

Bacon Jam

2011-09-11T11:05:00.000-07:00

The Internet is obsessed with bacon. From a Wikipedia project to improve the quality of articles regarding bacon, to YouTube sensation EpicMealTime's permanent feature of bacon in every show they make, it is difficult to deny its pervasiveness in the culture that has built up from a decade or so of the Information Superhighway. About a year or so ago, a colleague of mine mentioned in passing about trying home-made Bacon Jam. Further enquiries revealed that the recipe was taken off the Internet (where else?).

As it turns out, Bacon Jam was created a couple of years ago by Skillet Street Food, a Seattle-based company burger chain which caters to consumers via burger vans. Needless to say, it captured the imagination of the Internet, and the foodie blogger community made various attempts to recreate it from their own kitchens. A Google search places Not Quite Nigella's recipe as its first result, which took inspiration from an earlier recipe by Homesick Texan. Months of procrastination prevented me from following in their footsteps, until two things happened - I acquired a food processor, and Sainsbury's dropped the price of their Basics cooking bacon to £1 for 670g.

There are two problems with buying and using the cooking bacon. One is the packs containing either rashers, or whole hunks of bacon which have not been sliced into rashers. This is easily avoidable by inspecting the packs before buying. The other is that the rashers are clumped together rather than nicely packed like the other bacon products that Sainsbury's has, making them finicky when teasing the rashers apart to put in sandwiches. We can solve this latter problem by making the whole pack into bacon jam.

The process is relatively straightforward and rather fun, and lists amongst its ingredients maple syrup, vinegar, coffee and of course, bacon. People who have completed the recipe have lauded it for its potpourri of flavours, the sweet, sour, bitter, and salty flavours all melding together and boosted by a chilli kick. Excited, I got together the ingredients, including the coffee.

The last time we did a review on the Basics Ground Coffee we went with a rather poor attempt of making a cold brew, so since we had another opportunity to try it, we brewed ourselves a cup. The coffee was pretty smooth and had a nice amount of kick to it, being made from Robusta beans, which have a higher caffeine content compared to the Arabica beans found in most blends. Surprisingly, it was not bitter, which would have been characteristic of Robusta, so Sainsbury's must have adjusted the roasting process to compensate, which kind of shows the amount of detail they put into even Basics products.

The recipe for bacon jam that I used can be found at Not Quite Nigella through the link I have above, so I shall restrict my commentary to the tweaks and other little things I did while making this. For adaptability reasons I have substituted Basics vinegar and honey for cider vinegar and maple syrup respectively. I also added a dried chilli from a pack my flatmate bought in Chinatown to add an extra kick.

The packet of Basics cooking bacon will have to be fried in two stages. If you want to you can also trim the fat off some of the rashers to form a starter batch, which would be rendered of fat in the pan for easier frying of the main bacon batches.

If you do use the starter batch, have it at the side of the pan while frying the bacon so that they can continue to render and become nice and crispy in the process. It is a lot of effort to tease out the bacon rashers before chopping them up, but if you are not planning on using a food processor to grind up the resulting jam later on, you might want to consider doing this if you want a finer-textured jam.

1 hour later, it turns out that I had the heat on too low, so I decided not to add any water at all and crank up the heat to mid so that I can simmer the water away more quickly. Unfortunately, 2 hours from the time I started simmering, I am nowhere near the nice dark colour that Not Quite Nigella managed to get.

On the 3rd hour however...

Satisfied with progress, I turned off the heat on the stove to let it cool slowly. After that, a brief spin in the food processor, and the bacon jam was ready to be spread on Sainsbury's Basics Baguette.

This was a resounding success. The bacon jam, effectively a pate, tastes great, if perhaps a little too sweet and oily, and will go well with anything that usually calls for bacon. Already I'm thinking of not just spreading this on my bread, but taking up the suggestions floating around on the Net and putting it into pastas, serving it with poached eggs, and perhaps even with asparagus, if it happens to be cheap. I might have to work out a way to not make it feel so oily, perhaps by leaving out some of the liquid from the cooking, or patting the bacon dry with kitchen towels before transferring to the pot. This recipe will nonetheless be a godsend to anybody in university who might love bacon, but want to have it cheaply, and without the fuss of carefully peeling apart randomly mashed rashers at 8.30 in the morning, half an hour before the first lecture of the day.

Bananas - The One-Ingredient Ice Cream

2011-09-04T11:05:00.000-07:00

My research for material sometimes involves me looking at recent food-related trends on the Internet. It is quite interesting to see what a random person has discovered that quickly catches on in the section of the blogosphere devoted to culinary misadventures. A very good example of this would be the one-ingredient ice cream recipe that The Kitchn came up with, which has since been re-posted by a good many people over the span of two years.

The idea seems simple enough - freeze some overripe bananas, peeled and sliced, for a number of hours so that they partially solidify. Toss them into a blender and blend, letting the heat and mechanical processing from the blades liquify the bananas into a lovely goo with the texture of soft-serve. Refreeze to get the consistency you would find in regular ice-cream.

Most of the blogs who have re-posted the recipe from The Kitchn don't seem to heed the re-freezing step, so I thought that this might be an interesting opportunity to recreate it as pictured in the original post. I also added some melted dark chocolate into the blend to provide a contrast against the bananas.

Due to some technical difficulties, the resulting ice-cream I made was more icy than what I was hoping for, but nevertheless, this is an undeniably fun way to enjoy (or get your children to enjoy) bananas. Given that bananas are pretty cheap at supermarkets I can see this being a dessert that students can prepare when they have guests around, and a healthy and cheap alternative to the Ben & Jerry's regularly offered at a discount at Sainsbury's. The only drawback is having to put down money for a good food processor or blender - mine in particular cost £30, but would provide returns for as long as it lasts.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Bananas	£1.15	8	+£0.22	Not much.

Tuna Pasta Bake

2011-08-27T04:32:00.000-07:00

Sainsbury's recently ran a campaign where they offer plans for five meals that you can feed a family of four with. The second meal plan had for one of the meals a tuna pasta bake, that consisted largely of Basics ingredients. Aside from the ingredients you see above, and aside from the obvious pasta, the bake also contains mushrooms. I decided to give this recipe a little go this time as it involved something that I still have some doubts over - the Basics pasta sauce.

While preparing the mushrooms for the bake I noticed that the caps of most of them were fully open, gills exposed. I remembered from the article about the white button mushroom and its brethren on Wikipedia that what are commonly marketed as white mushrooms (Sainsbury's included) are young mushrooms that have closed caps. Portobello mushrooms on the other hand are those who have been allowed to fully develop into giant caps of mushroom flavour. Those that go into the tubs of Basics mushrooms then are those that are neither here nor there. If you are not planning to go for presentation though, like slicing mushrooms for pizzas, and don't mind the extra effort to clean the dirt off the mushrooms, they make a good buy.

Most of the recipe can be found in the link above. For this particular one I left out the tomatoes as I didn't want to buy the fresh ones or the canned ones (too expensive, and too much liquid respectively)

The pasta sauce threatened to ruin everything, but ultimately it was the mozzarella and mushrooms which saved the day. I still don't think I can easily recommend the pasta sauce to people yet, until I can find a way to compensate for its sourish flavour. It also does not help that it does not have much actual tomato content, understandable given the relative high price of tomatoes.

Peanut Butter Cups

2011-08-20T12:45:00.000-07:00

A regular reader of mine sent in this link, asking if I could try doing this with Basics ingredients. Oddly enough, I do miss eating peanut butter cups, which are readily available in the States and back where I come from, but are difficult to find in the UK. And I'm not alone. My housemates and their friends are all pretty fond of the confectionery, and I have to keep that in mind when I buy some to take back with me. Indeed, once when a group of Americans asked me why I was buying a sizable supply of Reese's Mini Peanut Butter Cups in New York, I simply pointed out the lack of availability where I was based. They nodded understandingly and approvingly.

I would need some form of paper cups to put my chocolate in though. Luckily, my local Sainsbury's stocks Petit Four cases, available in packs of 100, for under a pound. It's unlikely I would be needing this very often, so I'm glad that I didn't have to pay too much for this.

The recipe was originally sourced from Epicurious, which in turn cited it from the December 1990 issue of American food magazine Bon Appetit. While following the recipe I made some improvisations and mistakes, detailed below.

Make the peanut butter blend according to the recipe instructions. The recipe called for sour cream and whipping cream to be blended into the peanut butter, but not wanting to buy a tub of each for the express purpose of making confectionery, I improvised and made the blend from one tablespoon of peanut butter and a splash of semi-skimmed milk. The effect achieved was similar, a smooth peanut butter filling.

Leave the peanut butter filling to cool for a few hours in the fridge.

A couple of hours later, start up a steam bath and proceed to melt some chocolate.

Use a teaspoon to pick up a dollop of melted chocolate and drop it into the centre of a paper case. Use the back of the teaspoon to then line the walls of the paper case with chocolate, as shown above. Leave to cool in fridge for 20 minutes, and do not do as I did, which was to proceed to the next step without the fridging.

Drop a dollop of the peanut butter filling into each case, and seal off with chocolate. Leave to cool at room temperature before packing into a box for further cooling in the fridge.

It was good being able to bite into something that I have started to miss when my supply of Reese's ran out. I'm guessing that this would probably be most useful to the sizable population of Americans, particularly the youth, who are currently based in the UK for one reason or another, and miss peanut butter cups but are unwilling to pay the price charged by some places here for the privilege of eating them. In the meantime, I suppose this experience may come in handy when entertaining guests in future.

Dan Dan Mian

2011-08-11T11:42:00.000-07:00

Dan Dan Mian, or dan dan noodles, consists of noodles in a spicy soup consisting of minced pork and other tasty ingredients. Some variations would add a dollop of sesame paste, especially when eating in Taiwan or the United States. Since peanut butter bears some sort of resemblance to sesame paste, putting together a Sainsbury's Basics version using Basics Peanut Butter should work.

Or so the theory went anyway. Fortunately for me, there are some versions of the noodle dish in the States that indeed use peanut butter in the soup, so I should be in safe territory. In recent times I have been taking a look at peanut butter, intrigued about how something as cheap as that (Sainsbury's Basics' version costs 79p) can provide so many calories per unit weight (615 calories per 100g, to be precise), and wonder if it can be used for more than breakfast sandwiches and confectionery. If an university student can work out how to incorporate this into his meals, and does not mind a bit of monotony, he would be able to last that little bit longer on the same food budget.

I started off by dicing an onion and slicing up a few mushrooms. This is largely for flavouring, extra bulk and to add extra liquid to the soup I will create later.

Once that was done I heated a pan, and browned the Sainsbury's Basics mince. Because its fat content is pretty high and the pan is non-stick, there was no need to add any oil. As the fat is saturated though you might want to consider draining it off at some point. Add onions and mushrooms and continue to cook.

Add half a Sainsbury's Basics Beef Stock Cube and a healthy tablespoon of Basics Peanut Butter to the mix. Follow this up with as much chilli flakes or oil-based chilli sauce that you can willingly take.

Cook spaghetti according to instructions, but drain two minutes early. Add to the wok along with some hot water to make the peanut soup.

I was pleasantly surprised by the result. To be honest, I thought this was going to be another of those pre-planned failures involving a crazy idea for a recipe. The noodle soup was filling, and for good reason too, thanks to the carbs from the pasta and the peanut butter from the soup. Ingredient cost is also pretty low too, and could possibly go lower if you could bring yourself to use the Sainsbury's Basics Mince from the frozen section, but that's scope for another discussion. Authenticity would probably be off the mark, but it's good to know that some form of dan dan mian can be created using things from the Sainsbury's Basics line.

Chicken & Vegetable Pie

2011-08-01T17:00:00.000-07:00

I have just returned from my break, and I am slowly getting round to my regular routine again. That includes posting regularly on this blog, although again, I am doing a slow-rolling start instead of jumping straight into cooking demonstrations that are de riguer here. One of the things I managed to stash prior to going for my break are the Chicken & Vegetable Pies shown above.

Aside from Fish & Chips, pastry pies of various sorts are deeply ingrained in British cuisine, offering warm comfort from the colder parts of the year. It's somewhat surprising though that the Sainsbury's Basics range only offers Chicken & Vegetable pie. The other pies in the range are usually potato-topped, or pork pies, which are slightly different from the pies that people outside of the UK are used to. Beef is not that expensive in this country, and in fact, there is a Sainsbury's Basics Cottage Pie, so I fail to see why there isn't a beef-based pastry pie available.

As I was feeling particularly hungry, I decided to pop two pies into the oven. Given also that I have spent two weeks eating outside of the UK, the pies were a gentle reintroduction to the food I'm used to over here.

While the pies had real chicken (making up 9% of the total pie, according to the ingredients), and had chicken stock to flavour the filling, the pie still tasted bland overall. The pastry was pretty good though, being crispy though not too greasy. The pie would probably be best accompanied by richly flavoured mashed potato, say with cheese or mustard, to make up for the blandness of the pie.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Chicken & Vegetable Pie (frozen)	£1.00	4 x 121g	+£1.00 for 4 x 150g	Higher chicken content. Recommended.

Strawberries

2011-07-17T10:35:00.000-07:00

Despite the weather, summer is finally in full swing in the UK, and that usually means that strawberries are in cheap abundant supply. This is also the period where Sainsbury's will switch strawberry suppliers from those based in countries with warmer climates to the British Isles. The Basics range is no exception, except that unlike the regular strawberries, there is no price change, for some odd reason.

If memory serves, these strawberries have been featured by Jamie Oliver on a TV commercial, where after commenting on oddly-shaped they looked, proceeded to incorporate them into an attractive-looking dessert. The picture below probably demonstrates why - Most of the good looking strawberries will fetch more. For good reason too - I think strawberries are one of the few things that I can think of amongst the fruit and vegetables section where presentation really matters. As far as I know, most of the other fresh fruit available in the Sainsbury's Basics range are still pretty presentable on its own; the bananas, kiwis and apples come to mind. Perhaps they may come in less regular sizes, but at least visual deformities are not as pronounced as with the strawberries.

The condition of the strawberries are not as good either - A few of them were soft and mushy which made me less able to tell if they were still safe to eat. I can however imagine these being fun to make jam with, especially as summer draws to a close.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Strawberries	£1.00	250g	+£1.00 for 400g	Better looking, better condition strawberries. Recommended.

[Note: I am currently spending time away from the UK and will return towards the end of the month. Apologies for my absence in the meantime. However, I will happily entertain any guest submissions that readers want to make. Just leave a comment on this blog post with some form of contact details and I will get in touch.]

[Edit: An ad featuring Jamie Oliver showcasing Sainsbury's Basics strawberries can be found here.]

Lasagne

2011-07-07T11:13:00.000-07:00

As I wind things down here in preparation for my summer break out of the UK, I find myself increasingly unavailable to cook meals from scratch. I hence have to resort to either eating out or buying ready meals to tide me over the times when I am at home. I thought that this would hence be an opportune time for me to explore the ready meals within the Sainsbury's Basics range.

Generally however, I avoid them. As I discussed with somebody who left a comment on my blog some time ago, the more processed a product is, ie, the more steps involved in manufacturing it, the more opportunities Sainsbury's will find to cut costs. They could skimp on the amount of ingredients, use cheaper substitutes, and in some cases, use fillers, as is the case with the Chicken Kiev, and the Low Price frozen mince I bought before Sainsbury's changed their budget branding to Basics. But that's a story for another time.

Of the several pasta meals that Sainsbury's carries, I decided to go with the lasagne. I can easily make most of the other pasta dishes from scratch, but making lasagne is a time-consuming and difficult exercise which I have yet to fully master.

The lasagne is thoroughly disappointing, severely lacking in beef content, which would explain why they are probably unable to label it as "Beef Lasagne". When supplemented with a salad and an orange however I was reasonably sated, so perhaps the tag line "Part of a complete dinner" would be pretty fitting.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Meat Lasagne	£0.74 or £2.98	300g or 1.5kg	+£1.16 for 400g, +£2.02 for 1.5kg	More substantial serving. Recommended

Char Siew - Chinese BBQ pork

2011-06-26T10:00:00.000-07:00

I miss home. I miss being able to roam out for dinner, scouring the food court for good cheap fare. If there's anything my stay here has taught me however, it's that a lot of the food that I and many others miss can be replicated to varying degrees of success. One which I have not seen done too often though is char siew - Chinese BBQ pork. Typically, the meat is marinated in a sweet sauce made of various ingredients, including honey, hoisin sauce and rice wine, amongst others, before being roasted, all the while being basted with the same sweet sauce. The process is pretty involved, which given the timetable constraints faced by most university students, might explain why I never saw my friends try this at home.

Curiosity got the better of me however, and when I came across the Sainsbury's Basics Pork Shoulder Joint, I knew I had to try it, somehow. If anything, I guess to the British readers who form the majority of my reading audience it might be an interesting variation on the traditional pork roast.

In coming up with a recipe for char siew I made use of two references. The recipe itself was by and large taken with slight modifications given what I had to hand in my kitchen from Jacqui Tezyk's Recipe Quest, a forum where recipes are shared between members. I used this as it featured marmalade, which piqued my curiosity; perhaps the author is also based away from home and had to improvise. The cooking technique from Rasa Malaysia was used as it appeared to be more suitable for cooking large joints of meat similar to what I bought.

Combine the following for 1.4kg of meat:

2 tablespoons marmalade
4 tablespoons oyster sauce
4 cloves garlic, crushed and finely chopped
8 tablespoons light soya sauce
2 tablespoon dark soya sauce
3 tablespoons honey

Soak the meat in the marinade overnight, draining all fluid from the pork before putting into the bowl. If you made a mistake like me and had the fluid in the bowl, set it up as follows, damming the marinade up, assuming the bowl is that small.

The following day, preheat the oven to 220 degrees Celsius. Shake off excess marinade from the pork before transferring to a roasting pan.

To calculate the amount of time needed for roasting, for every 500g of pork, add 45 minutes, and on top of all that add an additional 20 minutes. After 30 minutes, reduce the temperature of the oven to 160 degrees Celsius. Reduce the excess marinade that you may have, and one hour before the roast is due to be done, take out of the oven and coat with the reduction.

It's a pity that I burnt the skin of the pork, as it would probably have been one of the tastiest parts of the joint. I'm supposed to bring this for my bible study group session on Tuesday evening, but I have had a taste of the reduced marinade and have found it to be close enough to the taste of char siew that I'm familiar with. Not sure how much the marmalade actually contributed though.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Medium-cut Marmalade	£0.30	454g	+£0.61	Choice of cut, higher fruit content
Boneless Pork Shoulder	£2.99/kg	by weight	+£2.00/kg	Not known, better pork quality?

Honey Beer Cake

2011-06-19T10:38:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since my trip to the States. While I was there I have had the privilege to get to meet my counterparts at work and people who like me have left our home country to be overseas. While staying over at one of theirs I came across Booze Cakes, a cookbook dedicated to making cakes using alcohol. While this might raise a few eyebrows in the UK, this is perhaps considered normal amongst Americans. In any case, within the book was a recipe that would come in useful in running down my leftover Basics lager, while also providing the British another way to enjoy what is by far their most popular form of alcohol - beer.

I have decided to make a few changes to the recipe found in the book, adding Sainsbury's Basics sultanas. Having never tried these sultanas before I cannot offer much information on them, so I went to do a bit of research. It appears that sultanas actually refer more to a grape variety, although they are nowadays commonly accepted to be the raisin derived from the grape. Known for their sweetness, sultanas are also also known as the threeway grape to their triple use in winemaking, raisins, and being served as table grapes. In light of this information perhaps a future feature on wine cake might be appropriate.

But for now, let's begin. Mix together 430g of Basics plain flour with about 3 teaspoons of Bicarbonate of Soda, a bit of salt and some cinnamon, and set aside.

Cream one stick of Sainsbury's Basics butter and sugar until fluffy. Add four eggs before adding 10 tablespoons of Basics honey.

Pour in the flour mixture and beer, alternating between the two. Fold in the sultanas and bake at 165 degrees Celsius for 45 minutes, or until a knife can be cleanly inserted and taken out.

Please don't do as I have done and use the Pyrex bowl that you mixed the cake batter in for baking. Transfer the lot into a shallow tray instead, to allow the cake to cook quicker. It also helps with the washing up as the cooked cake batter on the surface around the inside of the bowl is now harder to remove.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Sultanas	£0.99	500g	+£0.55	Not known

Home-made Jaffa Cakes

2011-06-12T10:04:00.000-07:00

If there is anything that I would miss when I go back home, it's Jaffa Cakes. Apparently I'm not alone too; while browsing on the web, I have come across many people outside of the UK who laments the lack of availability of the incredible chocolate-topped snack cake with an orangey centre. Or if they're available, that they're not affordable. Already I get regular complaints from readers who came to the UK for studies and have since gone back to their respective hometowns about not being able to get their Jaffa Cake fix, and that efforts to try to get their local distributor for McVities products to import the snack have proven in vain.

The next best thing then, is to make the cakes from scratch. A quick Google search reveals that the Jaffa cake is nothing more than a low-fat sponge topped with some gelatinous substance before the entire top is coated with chocolate. The difficult bit is trying to find the low-fat sponge recipe, which wasn't too difficult; that information came along with the jaffa cake recipe search. Which leaves us with the fun stuff - the chocolate coating and the jelly-like centre.

Some recipes I've come across call for proper jelly to be in the centre, but others have commented that marmalade would suffice. I gambled and just used Sainsbury's Basics Orange Marmalade, and found it to suffice. Since it's medium cut, there would be a fair bit of rind and other bits suspended in the spread, which might annoy some. Personally, I think it provides for some interesting texture.

So start by making the low-fat sponge. Beat one egg together with 50g of caster sugar until fluffy. Add 50g of plain flour and keep beating until a smooth batter is obtained.

Grease a muffin tin, and add the batter to the tin holes. It should be good enough for six cakes, so scale the recipe as desired.

Bake at 180 degrees Centigrade for about 8-10 minutes.

Melt some Sainsbury's Basics chocolate either in a double boiler or a microwave set on high for two minutes. I went with milk chocolate as I felt that some contrast was needed against the slightly bitter and sour Basics marmalade.

Put a small teaspoon of marmalade in the centre of each cake, before applying a coat of chocolate over the top. Adjust thickness of coating to taste.

Leave to cool before transferring to fridge to let the chocolate set.

I overdid the coating, such that it overpowered the marmalade and made the cake stodgy overall. Had that gone well though, the cakes would have made for a really great light snack. It's also good to know that the joy of eating Jaffa Cakes is also no longer restricted to places which sell them, since the recipe is pretty easy to reproduce at home.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Medium-cut Marmalade	£0.30	454	+£0.61	Choice of cut, higher fruit content

Cereal Bars

2011-06-03T05:24:00.000-07:00

I'm off to Europe for a short break. I still have a bunch things to do though, and my flight is today, so anything that can help me save time through the morning would be beneficial. I came across the Sainsbury's Basics Cereal Bars while doing my groceries yesterday evening and thought that they might be could make a quick breakfast.

The bars come in boxes of six, and come in two varieties - chocolate, and oat & raisin. The latter has a few extra marks on the side of the box that promote its health benefits, while the former quietly states that it is suitable for vegetarians.

Of the two, I very much prefer the chocolate one. It has chocolate bits both on top of the bar and embedded within it, and certainly had more flavour than the oat & raisin bar, which pretty much tasted like cardboard. A comparison of ingredients shows why: 15% chocolate-related goodness overall compared to just 7% raisins.

I was still pretty hungry after eating the two bars though. I suppose they are supposed to be a snack or a side in a packed lunch rather than a complete breakfast in itself. At about 15.5p per bar, these might provide some level of comfort from either all the other value foods that you might have in your diet, or the convenience foods that you might have had or might be having as meals while studying, with exams around the corner.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Oat and Raisin Cereal Bars	£0.82	6	+£0.64	Yoghurt and Cranberries for Red Fruit Balance Bars
Chocolate Chip Cereal Bars	£0.92	6	+£0.54	Healthier, less chocolate content

GUEST CHEF - Marcus "Pierre White" Lim

2011-05-24T20:43:00.000-07:00

Dear readers, no doubt in recent days you may have heard that your regular, trusted blog author has been laid low from an acute case of salmonella poisoning, due in no small part to a rather misjudged attempt at making custard from some pigeon eggs he found on a ramble through Hyde Park.

In much the same way a trusted senior executive is often jetted in to rescue an embattled, and embezzling CEO, or how shadowy American forces are parachuted in to extricate a banana republic dictator, I am very glad to be invited by Señor Alwyn Tan to guest host this gleaming bastion of bargain banqueting, this towering mansion of marked-down mastication, this truly magnificent den of discount dégustation.

Today, we will be recreating an old classic, oven roast chicken breast stuffed with sage-infused mustard butter, wrapped in seared Serrano ham, over a bed of ravioli alla spagnuola.

As usual, apply to your nearest Sainsbury's for their cheapest choice products as follows:
1. Basics Chicken Breast (£4.27)
2. Basics Tomatoes (£0.67)
3. Basics Mushroom Tortellini (£1.12)
4. Basics Salted Butter (£0.54)
5. Basics Mushrooms (£0.85)
6. Basics Tomato and Herb Sauce (£1.67)

The other three products are not in the basics range, but as Alwyn is busy vomiting up his smaller intestines in the next room, I feel it safe to embark on a few value judgements the cheap bugger would otherwise nix.

Firstly, Taste the Difference Serrano Ham at £1.87 for five slices,

Fresh sage at £0.78, and

Sainsbury's French Dijon Mustard, at £0.57 - a whopping 12p more expensive than their basics tin of yellow goo.

Preparations - Meat course
To begin, chop the tomatoes in sixths, and then the mushrooms.

Layer fresh sage leaves seven deep, roll up lengthwise, and shred. Take a moment to breath in the smell, and think of the French countryside.

Combine shredded sage in a bowl with four tablespoons of French dijon mustard and three of butter. Mix well. Think of a French milkmaid churning butter.

Slice chicken breasts halfway through the fleshiest parts. Think of the French milkmaid's.....er.. cows....

Spoon a generous amount of sage butter into chicken breast. Then, carefully wrap with two slices of Serrano Ham for each breast.

Sear breasts in a hot oiled pan for 30 seconds on each side, until brown.

Transfer to a pan and roast in preheated 210 degree oven for 15 minutes.

Preparations - Tortellini

Sautée mushrooms in pan, when brown, add tomatoes.

Combine in saucepan with Tomato and Herb sauce. Bring to boil

In separate saucepan of boiling water, boil tortellini for no more than 7 minutes.

Spoon generous amount of sauce into bowl, then using a slotted spatula, spoon three heaps of tortellini into bowl.

Mix sauce and pasta, then transfer to plate.

Remove chicken from oven, let rest for 2 minutes.

Slice and serve.

Just d'alors! We are done, no? What is it you say? It looks too good to be just a Sainsbury Basics dinn-ah?

Mais oui! You are correct, a maintanente, it eees 'ow you say eet? A bluff...

You think a dinner pour deux like dees costs only £12.34?

Yoo are mistaken! eet was actually flown in from my restaurant on zee Amalfi Coast, and would 'ave cost yooo almost two 'a-hndred euros, plus service.

What you say? eet does not look like a two 'a-hndred euro meal, well zehn, Ah speet in your face, Ah have nev-ARH been soo insulted in mah lahfe.....

To contact our Guest Chef, you may write to:

Marcus "Pierre White" Lim

Ristorante The Le Tratteria

512 Rue le Fiffi, Via del Puttacesca

The Amalfi Coast, BRISTOL

BS1 2EL

[Editor's note: Today's post is brought to you by a good friend of mine from my secondary school days. If you haven't done so already, please peruse the oxygen masks that have deployed from the overhead compartments. We shall resume our normal programming shortly.]

Tomato and Herb Pasta Sauce

2011-05-24T12:41:00.000-07:00

I was supposed to have a guest contribution this week from a friend of mine who cooked lunch for the both of us, using as much Sainsbury's Basics ingredients as he could bear himself to use, but unfortunately he has yet to submit it to me. He did leave behind a fair amount of leftovers though, and curiously, a new item. I've wanted to review the Tomato & Herb sauce as it was the only other tomato-based pasta sauce in the Sainsbury's Basics range, but saw little need to do so, as I felt that its relative high cost compared to the one found in jars would preclude the university students in my target audience. When he left behind a tub of the fresh sauce though, curiosity got the better of me.

The tomato content of this is much better compared to the jarred variety, at 15% (8% tomatoes + 7% tomato puree), but is still pretty little compared to the regular tubs, at 57%, with Italian tomatoes to boot. If you're not too fussy about this though, it would make a better-tasting alternative to the jarred Basics pasta sauce.

I whipped up some seafood spaghetti using the leftover ingredients he left behind and my stash of Sainsbury's Basics frozen prawns, topping the whole lot off with Basics Grated Hard Cheese. It was pretty satisfying, the taste reminding me of a tomato-based seafood soup that I had at a certain pizza restaurant found back home. If you're cooking for many, it might be a good idea to buy this and blend it together with fresh tomatoes in order to save on pasta sauce, as well as time. The alternative would be to make your own pasta sauce but that takes longer to prepare.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Tomato and Herb Sauce	£1.29	500g	+£0.21 for 350g	More variety, higher tomato content.

Green Beans and Prawn Stir-Fry

2011-05-14T12:11:00.000-07:00

Originally this post was to be about experimenting with the remaining Basics feta-like cheese as an omelette filling. Sadly, the storage instructions to "consume within 3 days" once opened were to be taken seriously, and so I had no choice but to throw it out. This however freed me up to have a look at the Sainsbury's Basics Green Beans that I first came across about a couple of years ago.

I remember disliking eating green beans as a child, but grew to like them, especially when stir-fried with sambal belacan, a paste-like sauce made from chillis and prawns. Coming over here, I noticed that most vegetables in British cooking are almost always baked or boiled, but with the exception of mushrooms, never fried. Green beans are most commonly boiled in the UK, which makes for pretty bland eating.

The green beans that are available in Sainsbury's are mostly fine beans, which are thinner and firmer in texture. The Basics green beans are a bit mushier, but most people would be fine with this, particularly since when eating out back where I come from restaurants and other eateries would use this, being cheaper than fine beans.

While defrosting the prawns, prepare the beans by snipping off the ends and halving them, and mince 2-3 cloves of garlic.

Fry the garlic under medium heat, before tossing in the green beans, followed by the prawns. Season with vinegar, and optionally, some chilli or sambal that you can probably find at your nearest oriental supermarket.

With a decent amount of rice this could be eaten on its own, however most of the time this would be shared amongst 2-3 people along with a meat-based dish. As my flatmates are usually adverse to me serving them Sainsbury's Basics ingredients I would probably have to substitute products in their own-brand line if I ever cook this for them.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Green Beans	£1	200g	+£0.50	Trimmed fine beans, or Fairtrade fine beans.

Breaded Scampi Bites

2011-05-07T02:55:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the delay, I returned from the States last week and took a while to get into the swing of things in the UK. It seemed that quite a bit has changed while I was out: I went to my local Sainsbury's hoping to get myself a box of Basics fish fingers only to find that they no longer appear to stock that in their frozen seafood section. Which is a pity, it was only recently that I found that it was Young's Seafood (yes, really) that supplied the product. I do however see a revamped line, and something new.

Scampi is a type of small lobster, small enough to be considered by most to be a prawn. It is also known as a Langoustine. Langoustines are considered a delicacy by Larousse Gastronomique, the French gastronomic encyclopedia, and should be prepared only by boiling very briefly in stock, to preserve its inherent sweet flavour. The British, perhaps in defiance of the French, and as a result of the animosity between the two, usually have theirs minced up, breaded with breadcrumbs, and deep fried.

This product is no different from the scampi the UK is familiar with. The amount of seafood is alarmingly small (the amount of scampi even smaller, having been blended with fish), but for £1, it's pretty cheap, considering that it will last you for about 2-3 meals.

It's still not as cheap as the Basics fish fingers though, and certainly not as nutritious. It's a real shame that Sainsbury's have decided to discontinue what is arguably a very cheap source of protein (I still remember being able to get this and the Tesco fish finger's at 20p for 10, as recently as 7 years ago). I might be mistaken about its status in the line though, since mySupermarket has not updated its listings, so if you do continue to see the Basics fish fingers at your local Sainsbury's, let me know.

UPDATE 1: It seems that the Basics Fish Fingers are available after all, now repackaged as Responsibly Sourced Fish Fingers. A lot of the product revamp appears geared towards sustainable fishing.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Breaded Scampi Bites	£1	9-10 bites	+£N/A	N/A, no direct requivalent

Peanut Butter Jelly Bread

2011-04-23T04:48:00.000-07:00

I am going for a trip to the States over the Easter break, so to mark the occasion I decided to make something for the charity bake sale at work. I happened to have Linda Larsen's Everything Meals on a Budget Cookbook handy, so I decided to leaf through it to find something cost-effective to make and yet distinctly American.

Sure enough, there was something which fit the bill. The book had a recipe for peanut butter bread, described as a good and cheap source of protein and carbohydrayes, lending itself to a cost-effective breakfast. To make things even more American, I made use of the Basics strawberry jam I had remaining in the fridge as the jelly part of today's post; what they refer to as "jelly" is actually fruit preserve without seeds. I made a few tweaks to the recipe to simplify the ingredidnts list. I started with a jar of Basics peanut butter, combined with brown sugar (250g, though I used half of that), and three eggs.

In another bowl, combine about 500g Basics plain flour with bicarbonate of soda and half a teaspoon of salt. Mix this into the peanut butter mixture alternately with 250ml of milk.

Pour the resulting mixture into a tray lined with greaseproof paper. Dribble Basics strawberry jam onto surface, and use a knife to work through it, creating a marble effect.

Bake at 180 degrees Celsius until you can dip a toothpick in and out of it cleanly.

The initial impression left on the bake sale organisers was very good: I suppose it was due to the visual appeal of the final product. A colleague of mine also had the chance to try it, and while the taste wasn't memorable due to my messing up the proportions, at least she didn't fall ill.

Courgette Rice with Feta & Olives

2011-04-16T09:16:00.000-07:00

While searching for ways to use up my courgettes, I came across the BBC Good Food magazine. I tend to associate it with the well-heeled, having found it prominently in Waitrose and the like. They had a recipe that got my attention, since it only needed ingredients that the Sainsbury's Basics range can cover adequately.

The recipe calls for Feta Cheese though, something available only in the form of Greek-style Salad Cheese. PDO labelling regulations stipulate that real Feta cheese has to be made in Greece using at least a mixture of sheep's and goat's milk. As cow's milk is cheaper, the Sainsbury's Basics Greek-style Salad Cheese is not entitled to the shorter label enjoyed by its more upmarket cousins.

It's not going to stop me from enjoying this though.

So roughly chop up the courgette and finely chop some onion. Put the cheese into a bowl of Basics sliced olives and some Basics herb mix. In the meantime, soften the onion in a pan, before adding the courgettes. When the courgettes are slightly brown, add Basics long grain rice and stir until the rice is well coated in oil.

Prepare some vegetable stock from Basics stock cubes, about 1 litre to 250g of rice. Stir in a small amount of stock into the rice until completely absorbed. Repeat this until all the stock has been used. Simmer until rice is tender. Combine with the feta-olive preparation and serve.

This was pretty simple to whip up. The only drawback is the time spent waiting for the rice to cook in the wok. The cheese tasted like most feta cheese I have come across, so no complaints there. Considering how cheap it is, I wouldn't mind exploring other recipes involving feta.

[Special thanks to my flatmate who kindly provided photography for today's blog post.]

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Courgettes	£1.64	1kg	+£0.11 for 500g	None. Buy loose for £1.80/kg.
Greek Style Salad Cheese	£0.77	200g	+£0.72	Proper feta, from sheep's and goat's milk.

Salmon and Courgette Pasta

2011-04-10T10:21:00.000-07:00

In the time that I have been running this little corner of the Internet I have been recommended by at least two blogs. I was browsing through one of them, Dulwich Munchies, one evening, for inspiration, during one of those times that I needed ideas. From what I can see, she also lives near a Sainsbury's and tries the recipes they publish on a regular basis. One in particular caught my eye - Salmon and Courgette Pasta .

I have not been eating very well for the past two weeks, and so I figured this would be an opportunity for me to start including vegetables in my diet again by trying a version of this made exclusively from Sainsbury's Basics items. £1.64 would buy you 3 oddly-shaped courgettes totalling 1kg in weight. That should be good for about six meals. Squ1rr3l, the author of Dulwich Munchies, followed the Sainsbury's recipe more or less to the letter, but I made two modifications. I skipped the creme fraiche as I prefer a lighter pasta, and I avoided boiling the courgette, as advised by the BBC Good Food guide, which suggested light sauteing to preserve flavour.

While the pasta is boiling in a pan, slice the courgette into thin slices and saute with oil, adding a little water halfway through.

Once that is done, toss everything together, including the salmon trimmings and lemon juice. Sprinkle with Basics black pepper.

This is by far the easiest recipe I've ever done on this blog, kudos to Sainsbury's and their Try Team for coming up with the recipe. The flavours also blend well together, the tanginess of the lemon, the saltiness of the salmon and the bite of the black pepper all contrasting against each other. The addition of creme fraiche would probably have smoothed things over, but I think you can make do without it.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Courgettes	£1.64	1kg	+£0.11 for 500g	None. Buy loose for £1.80/kg.

Strawberry Lamb Roast

2011-04-02T01:32:00.000-07:00

I have a jar of Basics strawberry jam that has been sitting in the fridge for quite some time and have been looking for a way to get rid of it. A few weeks ago my friend actually suggested strawberry lamb. I recoiled in horror until she revealed that she has already tried it herself, putting roast lamb with jam and other condiments in sandwiches. The more I thought about it, and the more I researched on the Internet, the more it sounded like a nice idea.

I have come across recipes involving the combination of mint, strawberries and pepper in various permutations, and while not personally keen on the idea, have heard people rave about it. Effectively, you combine that with the ingredients for a spritzer (see above), and use it as a lamb marinade. This sounded like a great adventure. I get to try new tastes, and I also get to muck around with alcohol-based marinades. Other than a chance for a decent meal, I don't have much to lose..

The lamb has to be prepared 24 hours in advance, to allow for time to marinade. Begin by slicing onions and lemons and adding to a bowl.

Add the lamb, and about two and a half tablespoons of strawberry jam. Season with Basics pepper, and Sainsbury's Mint, or Sainsbury's Basics Mint sauce.

Add a glass of Basics rose wine, and marinate for 24 hours. Place on aluminium foil and roast in oven for 2.5 hours at 180 degrees Celsius.

While the lamb is in the oven, reduce the leftover marinate by about half. Take the lamb out of the oven, cover with the reduction, and return it, leaving it there for the remaining time.

While the lamb tasted good, I think the strawberry marinade did not manage to permeate beyond the surface of the roast. In addition, the roast was very fatty; I can see why not everybody sees this as a good cut of meat. Still, it's very cheap - even cheaper if sourced from a local butcher - so if I can find an open roasting spit or something or other that would allow the fat to drip away that would be great. An open fire could even plausibly be fed by the melting fat to sustain itself.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Rosé Wine	£2.85	750ml	+£variable	Many
Lemons	£0.87	4	+£0.63 for 5	More consistently sized lemons

Salami in Rosé Wine pasta

2011-03-26T07:18:00.000-07:00

I was originally supposed to pick up a bottle of Basics red wine for a lamb dish that I am planning to feature soon, only to find that my local Sainsbury's had run out of stock. In increasing desperation, I had to make a decision between choosing between white and rosé. I decided to go with the latter, as this would allow me to feature a new item on the blog.

Sainsbury's describes the wine as medium-dry with hints of raspberries and strawberries, which is more or less accurate. I did a recent crash course in wine tasting with my flatmate, and one of the things that I finally understood about the ritual was the swirling of the wine, which would indicate the alcoholic content (from the number of 'legs', or the little streams of liquid that form around and cling onto the glass surface after swirling), and the sugar content (from how slowly the legs would travel back into the glass). Sad to say, no legs formed post-swirling, and the liquid quickly went back to the base of the cup. Still, it made for easy drinking, and conceivably, would be a good mixer for punch.

For today's pasta lunch I simply fried Basics salami in the pan, without any oil. Before they turn crisp, I added half a glass of the wine, seasoned with Basics herb mix, and turned the heat down, allowing the heat to reduce.

Once the pasta is cooked, I added that to the pan, and tossed everything together until mixed thoroughly. After sliding everything into a bowl, I added Basics grated hard cheese, and settled down to enjoy it.

If there's one thing I have found cured meats to be useful for, it is to be able to fry in the pan without having to add more oil. Most of the wine flavour ended up being absorbed by the salami, but the pasta was still enjoyable thanks to the cheese.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Rosé Wine	£2.85	750ml	+£variable	Many

Cheese-infused Beef Ragu

2011-03-21T13:23:00.000-07:00

It's been brought to my attention that the price of beef has gone up at Sainsbury's over the weekend. Sadly, the Sainsbury's Basics range was not spared, and so, a packet of diced beef now retails for £2.75, a 25p (10%) increase. I thought I should mark the occasion by making a beef ragu, using some interesting information I picked up a couple of weeks ago.

The Toasted Salami Sandwiches that I did the last time left me with the rind of the Basics Italian Hard Cheese. I was about to throw it away when I read on the web that many enterprising chefs would use the rind of hard cheeses in soups and stews, adding a rich flavour to whatever it infused. Armed with this knowledge and a sense of curiosity, I set upon making my own cheese-infused pasta sauce.

So I start by frying some an onion and garlic on high heat, before tossing the beef in. Seal the beef, you want it to be pink on the inside while seared on the outside. This will hopefully allow the beef to remain tender with the beefy flavours sealed in while the sauce is stewing.

Add the Basics herb mix and ground black pepper for seasoning, and then a splash of vinegar, before putting in one packet of Basics chopped tomatoes. At this point, drop the cheese rind in and mix everything thoroughly. Leave to stew until half the liquid evaporates.

The rind did lift the flavour subtly although it did not provide much more than that. I attribute it to the type of cheese used: had I used a strong quality Parmigiano-Reggiano it's likely to have made the sauce more cheesy. Still, it's a good way to make use of your cheese rinds.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Diced Beef	£2.75	440g	+£0.74	Leaner cuts.

Toasted Cheese and Salami Sandwiches

2011-03-12T11:23:00.000-08:00

Heston Blumenthal did the ultimate toastie as part of his foray into food trends in the 1980s. One of the problems he faced was sourcing for a cheese that is stringy enough and also up to his gourmet standards. To that end, he went as far as to recreate the manufacture of stringy cheese (or so he claims) using two different types of cheese that he found acceptable, to great effect. I had some leftover cheese and the other ingredients necessary to recreate it in my own home, and I have not had a toasted sandwich in the longest time, so I thought to myself, why not?

Some quick research into the topic reveals that toastie makers are the least-used but most-acquired item found in the kitchen. My personal brush with the toastie was during my years in university, when helping out with the Christian Union. Our household currently does not have a working toastie maker now, so I will be using the oven to grill my sandwiches.

Heston Blumenthal starts by heating some white wine and lemon juice in a pan. He did not specify at what heat level he set the stove to, so I just set it such that the liquid was bubbling but not boiling.

He then adds the cheese and lets the entire mixture thicken. I'm not sure of proportions, so I'm afraid that you're on your own this time.

A word of warning, constantly stir and watch the pot, or your cheese would burn and discolour, like below.

Add slices of salami to 4 slices of Basics white bread, and grill until done.

The sandwiches were good. I suppose that the cheeses I used (Basics British Blue and Italian Hard Cheese) were crumbly in texture, so attempting to make them stringy is difficult, to say the least. Still, if I had some cheese more suited to this, I would not mind trying this again.

For those of you who want to see him in action, look no further than below.

Taste Test: Soya Milk

2011-03-06T09:15:00.000-08:00

One of the problems living near my alma mater's campus is that there is little access to Asian groceries, which means that we have to go into London Chinatown on a regular basis, which can be a hassle. Alternatively, one could source for similar items in the nearby Sainsbury's. Soya milk from Asia is pretty expensive, so it might make sense to try the one offered by Sainsbury's. For today, I've set up a blind taste test between Vitasoy, a leading Asian brand, and Sainsbury's Basics Sweetened Soya Milk, to see if I can tell the difference.

Sadly, I can. Vitasoy, pictured left above, had a much stronger sweet soya taste, while the Basics soya milk felt more like slightly sweetened water. The colour also looked a lot paler to Vitasoy. A brief check of the ingredients list quickly revealed that there was a stark difference in soya bean content - 65% vs 6%. The regular Sainsbury's sweetened soya milk is little better at 8%. I had a brief discussion with my flatmates and we concluded that the supermarket chain made this as a milk substitute and is hence not supposed to be like the soya milk we are familiar with back home. That said, I personally feel there's nothing wrong with using Vitasoy with your breakfast cereal.

Well, at least it has additional vitamins and minerals.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Sweetened Soya Milk	£0.59	1l	+£0.06	Marginally higher soya content. Skip both and get Vitasoy.

Blue Cheese and Mushroom Risotto

2011-02-28T10:52:00.000-08:00

My flatmates have expressed their concern for the rate I go through Basics food items, only to leave them lying around in the kitchen while I fret over the possible recipes I can use them in. More often than not, I fail, and am forced to throw grossly expired items away. I am more or less open to ideas, so if you have a creative solution to make the most of the Italian hard cheese and blue cheese sitting in my fridge right now, feel free to contribute through the comments.

For now however, I have managed to come across something interesting. I have not come across blue cheese risotto before, but there are several recipes floating around the Internet for such a dish. When I saw one that incorporated mushrooms, hence negating the need to cook meat separately to make a complete meal, I was sold. The recipe originally appeared on delicious magazine, but I've come up with my own version, shared here.

Dice some mushrooms, garlic and onion. Fry the mushrooms until cooked, then set aside. Add more oil to the pan to brown the onions and garlic.

Toast about 3/4 cup of Basics rice in the wok until slightly brown. Add a glass of Basics white wine and continue to stir until the rice has absorbed some of the liquid.

Crumble half (not one as I did) cube of Basics chicken stock into the wok, and slowly add a bit of boiling water at a time until you have up to about 1.5 cups of water in the pan per person. Cover for about 10-15 minutes.

Finally, stir in Basics Italian hard cheese and Blue Cheese and add in the mushrooms. Stir everything together until the entire thing is consistent.

I'm not sure why I ended up with the brown hue as pictured, though I suspect that it's due to the use of the Basics chicken stock cube. Reducing it by half and perhaps using vegetable stock instead would probably result in a better colour, and improve the flavour by not having so much sodium and glutamate. The italian hard cheese, blue cheese and mushrooms also contributed to the glutamate levels in the risotto, resulting in a rather meaty flavour but leaving me very thirsty afterwards. I suspect this can be counteracted by reducing the amount of cheese involved, since the risotto can already hold itself together.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
British Blue Cheese	£6.49/kg	~ 200g	+£0.86/kg	Shropshire Blue. Proper Stilton will cost even more.

Lemon Curd Ice-Cream

2011-02-26T05:21:00.000-08:00

I might have mentioned this before, but I love ice-cream.One of the things that I would probably miss about the UK when I leave for good is the regular offers on Haagen-Dazs, Ben & Jerry's, and other premium brands of the frozen confectionery. It is a pity though, that the Sainsbury's Basics range offers few products that would give these brands a run for their money, largely due to the cheap ingredients they use to keep things cheap. The only exception would be the Basics Vanilla & Choc Cones, whose ingredients list more closely resembles something you would find from the more upmarket equivalents. This still leaves a gap in the Basics product line for good ice cream sold in tubs though, and it seems that one has no other choice but to make it from scratch.

Amongst other sources, I regularly scour the Internet for recipes, looking through culinary blogs to find something that would fit the demanding and unique circumstances that I have to work within. I was reading through thecattylife's ice cream recipe for cookies and cream, when I chanced upon one of the comments made on that post. The comment mentioned a recipe she came across on the MoneySavingExpert forums which merely involves a tin of Basics custard, a jar of Basics lemon curd, and an ice-cream maker.

A brief sanity check validated the recipe: most of the ice-cream recipes on the Internet involved making some form of custard before freezing the contents, so why not use ready-made custard? I don't have an ice-cream maker, but a quick Google search turned up this excellent article written by David Lebovitz showing how to make ice-cream without using a machine. Excited, I made a quick trip to Sainsbury's to pick up the ingredients.

Apparently, lemon curd has been quite popular as a form of dessert spread through the ages in both the UK, with the States catching on through lemon-meringue pie. To be honest, I have not come across lemon curd ice-cream during my various trips taken around the country during the warmer parts of the year, but would most certainly look for it specifically now.

The mixture seems pretty resilient to freezing. I was not disciplined enough to check on it every 30 minutes as prescribed by Lebovitz, only giving it a good whisk once before tumbling into bed. When I checked on it the next morning, the texture still resembled some form of ice-cream.

It tasted pretty strange though prior to freezing, somewhat like Strepsils, although the strangeness was a lot more toned down after freezing. I attribute this to the lemon curd used. Perhaps I could explore using other ingredients to make Basics ice-cream though, like adding rum-soaked raisins to Basics custard before freezing. It's certainly an avenue worth exploring!

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Lemon Curd	£0.22	411g	+£0.57	Less artificial taste?

Broccoli and Stilton Soup

2011-02-21T11:43:00.000-08:00

The Aurora restaurant in Soho was the venue for a social outing involving my Christian fellowship group, and it was there that I was introduced to Broccoli and Stilton Soup. Arguably, the soup was really good, and might impress even people who have an aversion to blue cheese. I have since been meaning to reproduce this in the kitchen using Sainsbury's Basics ingredients, but have not gotten round to doing so as fresh and new ideas for items keep popping into my mind. With a recent dearth of ideas however, and a naan and some butter expiring in my fridge, I thought the time has come for me to present this.

A quick Google search indicates that the recipe is relatively straightforward: dice some broccoli, potato and onion and fry everything together in butter or olive oil. Add flour to combine with the fat to form a roux before ladling in chicken stock, leaving the entire thing to simmer for about half an hour. Finally, crumble some blue cheese and add to the pan along with some milk, leaving the result to cook for another 10 minutes. Add a tablespoon of cream before serving. This is thus very useful for novice cooks who wish to make something unusual for a group party.

The Sainsbury's Basics British Blue cheese is the closest thing in the range to Stilton; the latter holds Protected Geographical Status such that any cheese claiming to be Stilton has to comply with strict requirements, including being made in one of only three counties. I am unsure as to the origin of the Basics Blue, but if you are not too fussy about authenticity, I guess this will suffice. It is certainly not one of the strongest tasting blue cheeses I have had, which would probably bode well for people who do not wish to offend at the dinner table.

I couldn't taste much of the blue cheese in the soup. The recipe at CookUK suggested 55g of cheese for 2 servings, which I suspected to be insufficient to get a nice strong cheese flavour. If I ever get the chance to do this again, I'll probably increase it by half. Overall however, the soup is filling and provided some warm comfort amid the cold spell of weather that we are having. It's cheap too, coming up to a ballpark figure of £1.40 for two servings (the wedge of cheese I bought was £1.41 for about 225g, with milk costing 45p and the potato and broccoli costing 45p each). I had it with the remaining naan bread I had, which should see me through to breakfast tomorrow.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
British Blue Cheese	£6.49/kg	~ 200g	+£0.86/kg	Shropshire Blue. Proper Stilton will cost even more.
Plain Naan	£0.59	2	+£0.30	Not known

Curry and Naan

2011-02-11T11:04:00.000-08:00

Yet another new Basics product from Sainsbury's spotted at my local this week. It seems though that the Sainsbury's Basics Naan has been around for a while, being first given attention in the MoneySavingExpert Sainsbury's Basics forum thread around July 2009. Whoever runs the Sainsbury's product development department probably realised that Indian food is very pervasive in life in the UK, and that introducing Naan in the Basics range would be a godsend to university students and everybody else looking to reduce the grocery budget, particularly during the more intense periods of the economic crisis. Not having had Indian food for a while, I thought this would be interesting for today's post.

I needed something to go along with the naan though, and I have already covered the Sainsbury's Basics Curry Sauce in a previous post. Wandering around the aisles, I remembered there were other curry products in the Basics range, and one of them came with no staple, and so fit the bill nicely.

Canned food is cheap, lasts long, and is often ready to eat by heating the contents, making them suitable for university students, who often have tight budgets, may have to cancel plans for dinner for last-minute outings, and could devote the time or energy usually used to prepare food to other things that make university life so fulfilling. Most of my friends from or at university though shun this because we all come from a country that places emphasis on good food. So the only reason why I'm venturing to try the Sainsbury's Basics Chicken Curry is to complement the naan.

Since I have the Sainsbury's Basics Italian Hard Cheese lying around, I could make a really nice cheese naan, which could double up as my fall back meal should the canned chicken curry prove to be horrible.

And horrible the chicken curry most certainly was. It turns out that 13% chicken content in a tin of chicken curry amounts to almost nothing, short of a few strands here and there. The curry was bland, and almost lacking in any spicy kick, suspiciously similar to the Basics curry sauce. You might as well buy a jar of the curry sauce and add in your own vegetables and meat, as illustrated in the Kiev Katsu Kurry Don I posted a while ago.

On the other hand, the naan managed to save the dinner by being soft and chewy with a pleasant flavour. The addition of Basics Italian Hard Cheese also added a nice touch. I ended up finishing the curry first before going the naan, saving the best for last.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Chicken Curry	£0.48	392g	+£0.60	Choice between mild and hot, triple the chicken content. Recommended.
Plain Naan	£0.59	2	+£0.30	Not known

Tuna, Pesto, Pasta

2011-01-27T12:01:00.000-08:00

I came across Student Recipes, a website which caters to students and their unique requirements, such as providing recipes for one, as well as recipes for party food, snacks and quick meals. All contributors appear to be students. One recipe which caught my eye was for a tuna pesto pasta dish. Since I had some pesto already made from last time, I thought this would be an opportunity for me to use it. The recipe called for a pepper though, and since I was not keen on buying a whole bag of Basics peppers given that I am due to go skiing this weekend, I decided to buy this instead.

I believe this is a relatively new product, not having come across this before in my previous visits. It is pretty much similar to the Basics Olives in Sunflower Oil that I have reviewed earlier, but includes both green and black olives. I do not see any fresh alternatives to this, not even from the brand names. In my mind, tuna and olives really go well together, and mixing in the homemade pesto would give a nice mix of flavours; the slightly salty tuna, the fruity olives, and the general intensity of the pesto coming together.

Preparation was a simple matter of mixing in the can of tuna and packet of olives into the bowl of pesto that I had prepared in the previous post. The result was a cheap and nutritious base to which I can add pasta or rice, or use as a sandwich filling. The total estimated cost came up to about £2 to last for 3 meals, half of which can be attributed to the olives. Your initial outlay may be a bit high however, having to get the Italian Hard Cheese for £2 first.

When used with pasta, I got something that looked fairly fancy, which tasted good as well. I certainly would not mind doing this again in future, if only to save time preparing food when I come back from work.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Roasted Salted Cashews	£1.32	200g	+£0.39 for 100g	More consistent sizes, whole nuts instead of halves.
Italian Hard Cheese	£2.00	200g	+£0.50	Actual proper Italian cheese, stronger taste.
Sliced Mixed Olives	£1.09	90g	+£N/A	N/A, no direct alternative.

Poor Man's Pesto

2011-01-23T08:35:00.000-08:00

The Sainsbury's Basics Italian Hard Cheese was only introduced around 6 months ago, when the supermarket chain revamped their own-brand cheese product line. I have been meaning to try this out and compare it to the Parmaggio Reggiano and other true Italian hard cheeses that I have become familiar with while being here. I never had the opportunity to do so however, until during the December holidays when I was carefully planning what I should review so that everything flows nicely in sequence, and in keeping with festive occasions, like the cashew nut review for Chinese New Year. Speaking of which, cashew nuts happen to be a cheap substitute for pine nuts that supermarkets and other food manufacturers will use in pesto, since it tastes rather similar. With that in mind, and an open and half-used packet of cashew nuts, we are going to use the Basics cheese to make a poor man's pesto.

Unlike the likes of Parmaggiano Reggiano, Pecorino Romano and Grana Padano, all of which are used to make what's commonly known as Parmesan, the Basics Italian Hard Cheese is made using both cow's and buffalo milk. I'm not certain as to why the latter is used, as it is known to be more valuable and hence more expensive than cow's milk. The Wikipedia article on Buffalo Mozzarella notes that buffalo milk yields more dairy product than cow's milk per unit litre, and I would imagine that any production of buffalo milk would immediately go into Mozzarella production, which is pretty high in demand.

In any case, the cheese tastes fairly lighter than the regular Italian hard cheeses, which might make it useful when introducing people to cheese tasting, I guess. Other than its unusual makeup, there is nothing low quality about this product, which might explain why it garnered the Gold Value Q award at the annual Quality Food Awards in 2010. The awards page has also revealed some of the suppliers of Basics products, which merits its own investigation at a later time. For now, it is enough to say that this product is manufactured by Rondanini UK, which I gather is a major player in the UK food industry, and founded by an Italian.

Begin by finely crushing a clove of garlic and a small handful of cashew nuts, with the back of a heavy spoon on a chopping board or some other appropriate implement. Add these to a small mixing bowl.

Grate about 15 grammes of the Sainsbury's Basics Italian Hard Cheese into the bowl.

Add one canister of Sainsbury's Basics Dried Mixed Herbs, or less. Pound together and mix well.

Finally, add as much olive oil as your budget or conscience allows.

I will probably use this for dinner tomorrow, where I can take the time to introduce another Sainsbury's Basics product.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Roasted Salted Cashews	£1.32	200g	+£0.39 for 100g	More consistent sizes, whole nuts instead of halves.
Italian Hard Cheese	£2.00	200g	+£0.50	Actual proper Italian cheese, stronger taste.

Cashew Nut Cookies

2011-01-17T13:38:00.000-08:00

Chinese New Year, the first day in the new year of the lunar calendar, falls on the 3rd of February, and where I come from, that usually means extensive visiting of extended relatives for families, monetary gifts in red packets (angpow in the local language) for the children, and biscuits, sweets and all forms of confectionery for all. Over here in London however, scores of working professionals and students would either gather around a table and reminisce about home, hopefully with festive treats brought here. For those unfortunate to be without friends or treats however, the experience can often be one of isolation, even loneliness. I cannot do much about the former (other than to advise to get out more, especially for the events organised by the government back home), but I can certainly hope to take care of the latter by providing a relevantly-themed post, hopefully to encourage others to try baking Chinese New Year goodies to alleviate some of the homesickness my friends may be experiencing.

While searching for recipes, I came across this post, and have been struck by the thought that despite being separated by two continents and the Mediterranean Sea, I am able to mark the occasion in solidarity with fellow countrymen (or countrywomen as the case might be) through the blogosphere. I was hoping to participate in Aspiring Bakers #3: My Favorite CNY Cookie (Jan 2011), but unfortunately, the cookies did not turn out well. More on that later.

In keeping with the general theme of this blog however, and bearing in mind the general background of my readers, I will stick to using only Sainsbury's Basics ingredients where possible. Today's featured item in the Sainsbury's Basics range is their Roasted Cashew Nuts. I had to trek to the Sainsbury's hypermarket in Finchley Road in order to get one of these, having no luck finding them in my local one. I realise that being salted, they may not actually be suitable for use in baking cashew nut cookies, but I figured that I could probably get away with rinsing them briefly before use. These offer pretty good value, giving you 200g of cashew nuts for less than half the price per unit weight compared to the higher-priced option, but you will have to contend with varying sizes, and nut halves compared to say, the whole nuts you get in Sainsbury's Jumbo Cashews.

The recipe that I will be using for this post can be found at My Kitchen Snippets. For brevity's sake, I will not quote the recipe verbatim, sticking to posting photos, with additional commentary when appropriate. I have left out the vanilla essence in the recipe, and aside from the ingredients that I have taken in the photo above, I will be using regular caster sugar, baking powder and cornflour.

Unfortunately, most of the cookies other than the nine shown above completely crumbled on transfer to a surface to cool. This is all that's left. On the positive side though, they did taste like the cookies I remembered from home, so I guess it's a bittersweet conclusion to this post.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Roasted Salted Cashews	£1.32	200g	+£0.39 for 100g	More consistent sizes, whole nuts instead of halves.

White Chocolate and Strawberry Marble Cheesecake

2011-01-09T09:51:00.000-08:00

About five months ago I bought this tube of Sainsbury's Basics Digestive Biscuits from a Sainsbury's Local. I needed to get cashback from the till as all the nearby ATMs were busy or nonfunctional, and the biscuits were very cheap at 23p. I figured that at some point in the future I will get round to using this to making a cheesecake, since this is perhaps the only kind of recipe I know that involves digestive biscuits. Now with less than a week to go on its expiry date, it was time to get cracking.

The biscuits themselves are smaller in size compared to say, McVitie's Digestives, and seem to crumble more easily. Probably would not make them suitable for dunking, quite contrary to what the label suggests. However, since they seem to taste quite similar to McVitie's, they would be great for making cheesecake bases with.

The recipe I have in mind for today is one found in Todd Wilbur's Top Secret Recipes, where he attempts to mimic the White Chocolate and Raspberry Truffle Cheesecake at The Cheesecake Factory. In it, he dots the top of the cheesecake with slightly diluted raspberry preserve, before using a knife to create a beautiful raspberry swirl pattern. I could do something similar with my Sainsbury's Basics Strawberry Jam, and in so doing run down my Basics inventory.

Microwave 25-50g of butter until it liquefies. Add 100g of Sainsbury's Basics digestives (about a quarter of the packet) and smash everything up until you get a butter crumb mixture.

Press the butter-crumb mixture firmly into the base of a cake tin. Refrigerate until ready to use.

While waiting for the base to set, combine 75g of caster sugar, one packet of Sainsbury's Basics cream cheese and an egg in a bowl.

Break up a bar of Sainsbury's Basics White Chocolate without opening the packet, using a hard object to further pulverise if necessary. Open the packet and dump contents into the cheese mixture before mixing thoroughly.

Now, take the butter-crumb base out of the fridge and pour the cheese mixture on top. In another bowl, add about 1 tsp of water (not 1.5 tbsp as I have inadvertently done) to about one tablespoon of Sainsbury's Basics Strawberry Jam and microwave on high for about 10 seconds. Stir into a thick sauce, and then drip a few dots onto the surface of the cheesecake. Use a knife or similar tool to 'connect the dots', resulting in the marble effect you partially see here.

Bake in oven at 170 degrees Celsius for about 30-35 minutes until the centre is just set and the edges are firm. Turn off oven and leave to cool in there for another 2 hours before transferring to the fridge to set overnight.

I will be taking this to my workplace tomorrow for my colleagues to have a sample, since they are always entertained by the work I do here. I will try to get them to comment on this post so that you will have an idea of how good (or bad!) it is.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Digestive Biscuits	£0.23	400g	+£0.60 for 500g (McVities)	The real deal. Recommended.

Jamie's Beef Stew with Herb Dumplings

2011-01-03T13:50:00.000-08:00

On the 4th January 2010, Sainsbury's ran an ad on TV featuring Jamie Oliver using the Sainsbury's Basics Casserole Beef and promoting it to the general public, touting its price ("£2.50.. what you pay for a burger of chips", he said). On the eve of the ad's anniversary I decided to try to recreate it for dinner. I could do with a good stew to keep me warm, and the idea of herb dumplings for staple with stew was certainly enticing, or at least worth learning for future stew recipes.

One of the problems I came across while trying to prepare this though was the lack of availability of the Sainsbury's Basics Vegetable Selection, which consists of a parsnip, a carrot, a potato and an onion. I remembered seeing it on the racks of vegetables at my local Sainsbury's just before I left for my holiday, so I was surprised that I wasn't able to find it this time. To compensate, I decided to use the Basics Casserole Vegetables. Thought priced similarly (£1.00 for the selection vs 90p for the Casserole Vegetables), the packet contains a different range of vegetables (namely suede, carrot, leek and onion), and is about a third of the weight. On the upside however, I get to save time on chopping things up, though I have to use an onion from my own larder to complete the ingredient list.

The full recipe can be found here (those of you with an affinity to Facebook can find it here). Due to copyright concerns and to avoid duplicating unnecessary information I shall just stick to showing pictures of the meal preparation as I went along.

Since I didn't really want to get my fingers too dirty grating butter or rubbing it in the flour to form breadcrumbs, I used a knife to chip bits off the butter before using it to mix everything in.

I'm happy to verify that the casserole vegetables can be used to substitute the relevant ingredients in Jamie's recipe, and have settled down to a very enjoyable dinner tonight. However, since I didn't have a weighing scale, I didn't measure out enough flour for the dumplings, and so they turned out to be a gloopy mess sticking to the casserole contents. They were still edible however, and lent a nice bread-like fragrance.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Casserole Vegetables	£0.90	450g	+£1.10 for 700g	Not known, probably not much.

Those of you interested in seeing the ad can find it below. Enjoy.

[This post is dedicated to my brother and his coursemates who will be here in the UK for six months on exchange. Enjoy your time here guys.]

Holiday

2010-12-26T15:37:00.000-08:00

Just a quick post to assure readers that I'm still around. I'm currently entertaining family and friends over the Christmas and New Year holiday season, and will try to resume blogging again once life returns to normal. Don't worry, I have a few recipes planned and am quite keen to tackle them.

Cold Brew Coffee

2010-12-12T01:32:00.000-08:00

In between endless sessions of playing Alien Swarm, my outsourcee has been asking me for more products to sample and review. I have come across the Sainsbury's Basics Ground Coffee a few months ago and have thought of trying to do Tiramisu with it, as my former roommate made it on a regular basis and I wanted to have a go. Having been unable to find Basics alternatives to the other ingredients that made it up though, a number of my friends have suggested that the outsourcee could try his hand at making cold brew coffee.

The premise is simple - put a tablespoon of coffee and a cup of water together, and leave in the fridge for at least 8 hours. What you should have as the end result is a cold and refreshing alternative to one of the most common forms of caffeine intake. In practice, the outsourcee found that the drink did not even remotely resemble coffee (which I suppose was kind of the point, it's not meant to be coffee). It did however taste somewhat like coffee, and did keep him quite awake through the day, perhaps even more so than his usual order from the coffee shops.

And this is perhaps why: the Basics coffee is made from 100% Robusta beans. Those who are more familiar with their coffee would know that this has higher caffeine content than Arabica beans, which are more commonly found in most blends of coffee. They also happen to be cheaper, which makes it even more attractive as a cost-effective solution if one needed regular caffeine intake over a given period of time, like preparing for examinations or meeting a project deadline.

The outsourcee has yet to try this in a regular cup of coffee, as the effect of the caffeine currently coursing through his veins has yet to wear off, but he is happy to let you know how it is like, perhaps in a pre-Christmas footnote. I anticipate however that this is probably not so much for the coffee connoisseurs as it is for the caffeine junkies.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Ground Coffee	£1.29	227g	+£variable	Better tasting coffee, maybe

Shampoo and Conditioner

2010-12-04T06:19:00.000-08:00

When I was at university, there were certain products that I tried to avoid from the Basics range, largely due to my suspicions of obvious inferior quality, and my expectations of how much they can get away with. Toiletries in general were a class of products that fell into this area, as it's not too difficult coming up with a shampoo that cleans and does nothing much else for cheap, and so, for my entire time in the UK I avoided such things.

Until my colleague, a regular reader, gave me the Basics shampoo and conditioner on my birthday to try. Now, other than my apprehension already described, there is also a hitherto unspoken policy I had when running this blog, and that is that I will try not to run reviews of non-food items, since it is difficult to demonstrate how to combine them with other items in the Sainsbury's Basics range to get something practical in everyday life (like you would when you put ingredients together to form dinner).

However, as I'm away on holiday, I need to outsource some of my evaluations of Sainsbury's Basics products to somewhere in Asia. As this is the first time I'm perusing their services, I've started them off with a simple review, with no cooking or food preparation involved, and the shampoo and conditioner were sent to them for evaluation, as it presented an excellent test case to see how well they would fare.

The outsourced reviewer was not as thrilled as my colleague was after trying the products. He told me that the shampoo was thin and left his hair dry and brittle after washing. The conditioner fared little better, although he did note that it did take away some of the dry feeling he felt. He hence recommends that the Sainsbury's Basics hair products should be avoided at all cost, and if they must be used, that the shampoo and conditioner be used together, to minimise the impact to hair.

In the meantime I am encouraged by the output from the outsourcee and have promised him that I will send more interesting products and an assignment that will involve making something soon.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Shampoo	£0.33	1000ml	+£variable	Many
Conditioner	£0.24	500ml	+£variable	Many

Tuna Avocado Pasta

2010-11-25T12:52:00.000-08:00

I have never really had to cook with avocados, largely because I'm not too keen on them. I would happily eat guacamole, and would tolerate them in salads, but other than that, I would not go out of my way to have them. It is only because my flatmate had some Basics avocados that were near their Best Before date that I decided to have a play with them, so that you might be acquainted with them.

Usually coming in bags of four, each Basics avocado tends to be slightly smaller than the standard ones, and are not as ripe. Given that most recipes call for the avocados being peeled and chopped up though, this shouldn't make much difference. I would imagine that they would also keep for longer, although they are probably not best used immediately.

As I had a can of Basics tuna around and some cream cheese, I decided to make the pasta equivalent of a tuna and avocado salad. So, once you peel the avocado and remove the stone, dice it. Heat oil in a pan and fry the avocado together with about a can of Basics tuna. Include the tuna water, to prevent the avocado from burning.

Season generously with black pepper and Basics herb mix. Add Basics cheese spread and cooked Basics penne to the pan and turn off the heat, mixing thoroughly.

The mild fragrance of the avocado complimented the savoury tuna, contributing to an enjoyable meal that can serve well both in the colder months of winter as well as over the summer. The cheese spread however completely disappeared into the tuna, nowhere to be found. I suppose omitting the cheese and compensating by adding more pepper would allow for a lighter dish while still maintaining the overall flavour.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Avocados	£1.39	4	+£0.40 for 2	Bigger size, riper avocados

Instant Bak Chor Mee

2010-11-15T03:58:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend, I had to run a few tasks in addition to my regular routine, and so had less time than usual for meals. As a result, I had to resort to preparing something quick. Given that I had a fair bit of cooked turkey mince left over from the previous post, it wasn't long before I decided to resort to cooking instant noodles and microwaving the mince to go with it.

While I was at it though, a thought came to mind that I could prepare the instant noodles without the soup. I will still use the soup base to cook the noodles, but then I would remove them from the soup and add a few additional seasonings to it, namely Basics vinegar and some sesame oil. I would have added soya sauce as well, but figured that the noodles will already be slightly salty from the soup base.

The result is a weak analogue to the bak chor mee that I enjoy back home. If I had greater flexibility about the number of non-Basics ingredients I could add to a recipe, it would probably come quite close. Still, it's worth knowing that the Basics turkey mince can indeed be used in this way, and that the Basics instant noodles are just as good when they are served dry as when they are served in soup.

Turkey Zha Jiang Mian

2010-11-07T11:22:00.000-08:00

Zha jiang mian, or fried sauce noodles, is commonly found in China, consisting of wheat noodles served with a pork sauce made by frying pork mince with fermented soya bean paste. Over here in the UK, my flatmates have made variations of stir-fried noodles by frying spaghetti with a variety of ingredients and condiments. I chanced upon Sainsbury's Basics turkey mince while shopping at my local, and thought that because it has been a while since I have managed to describe something my acquaintances or I cooked while at university that I have not covered yet, this would be suitable for review.

I still have not gotten round to taking a look at the Parmesan substitute they have put on the shelf, and yet it seems that Sainsbury's is introducing more products to the Basics range than I can keep up with. The number of turkey products - both in the Basics range and in general - seems to have a sudden increase, perhaps in line with the supermarket chain preparing for the Christmas season, since roast turkey is always served on that day. We now have Basics turkey mince, and although it is more expensive than the Basics beef mince, it is certainly a lot lower in fat. Probably suitable as a cheap alternative to lean steak mince.

So, in a wok, brown the turkey mince with one clove of garlic. Season with black pepper, Sainsbury's Basics herb mix, and if desired, some vinegar. Once browned, add half a can of Basics sweetcorn.

After adding the sweetcorn, add some black bean chilli sauce. You can find this at most grocery shops in Chinatown.

Cook Sainsbury's Basics spaghetti according to instructions. Drain and add to the wok, stirring until noodles are coated with the sauce. Serve.

The turkey mince, when cooked, has a significant but not strong taste reminiscent of pork, but still absorbs other flavours. The texture is rather fine and powdery, which would actually make it suitable for use in bak chor mee, or minced pork noodles; in fact, if not for the complexity involved in making the noodle sauce, I would have probably featured that recipe instead of this one.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Turkey Mince	£2.00	550g	-£0.01 for 500g	Better tasting cheese spread. Skip both and go for cream cheese.

Fish Finger Sandwich

2010-10-31T06:24:00.000-07:00

This is yet another new product in the Sainsbury's Basics range. I don't ever remember Sainsbury's ever including a cheese spread in any of their lines, although in my times at university I remembered using Primula ham and cheese spread to go with bread for breakfast. It was a reminder of the Kerrygold Ham and Cheese spread that I was so fond of when I was growing up.

Had this been around when I was studying, I would most certainly foregone any benefits in taste and bought this. At 42p I could easily buy three of these and my total spend would still be lower than if I were to buy one tube of Dairylea.

For the fish finger sandwich that I will have for lunch today, I decided to make an analogue to tartar sauce by combining the cheese spread with some Basics French dressing, with some interesting results.

The assembly of the rest of the sandwich is pretty straightforward: one slice of bread, some Basics cheddar cheese, 3 fish fingers and then the tartar sauce.

It might be a good idea to bake the 3 fish fingers in a way such that as little of the fingers are in contact with the baking tray. The fingers have a tendency to stick to the foil owing to the oil that seeps out during cooking.

The sandwich was enjoyable, even without the tang of tartar: any excuse to replace an ingredient with cheese would after all be welcome. While the cheese spread was not that strong tasting as promised by the packaging, it would serve as a good substitute for the mayonnaise in mayo-based sauces.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Cheese Spread	£0.42	150g	+£0.63 for Dairylea	Better tasting cheese spread. Skip both and go for cream cheese.

Beef in a Bag

2010-10-16T10:48:00.000-07:00

So it appears that another item in the Sainsbury's range has been demoted from the regular in-house range to Sainsbury's Basics. After the Grated Hard Cheese, the other product I have spotted to have had the chop is the pitted olives (both black and green). When the recession hit hardest, Sainsbury's actually reported a spike in sales of its Basics range, so one could speculate that they are rebranding several of their own-brand products in a bid to get customers who identify with Sainsbury's Basics to purchase them.

For today, I decided to grab the olives and some Basics Diced Beef. I would then add some mushrooms to the mix, and then use a method I learnt from Jamie Oliver to cook it in the oven. It basically involves making a foil bag to put the ingredients in, before popping the lot in the oven. It also makes for convenient meals as well as the bags can be prepared in advance and frozen for future meals.

So we start by slicing up some garlic, the olives and mushrooms.

On a 30cm by 30cm sheet of foil, place the ingredients in the centre and season with black pepper. Fold the sheet in half, and then fold each side twice towards the centre, creating a bag. See the second picture down from this sentence to have a rough idea of how it should be done.

Pop into the oven and bake at 225 degrees Celsius until done.

This was a very effective way of cooking the Basics Diced Beef, well known for its toughness and hence the need to resort to slow cooking methods. The mushrooms also provided the liquid which could be used to further stew the beef. I suppose I am now looking forward to baking the second bag of beef that I also prepared in the same session, some time in the future.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Black Pitted Olives in Oil	£0.99	90g	+£1.20 for 180g	Different methods of dressing and styles.

Cheddar and Bell Pepper Strata

2010-10-09T12:06:00.000-07:00

While it seems that bread and butter pudding never really caught on in the United States, a savoury version of this did. I came across the idea of a strata while searching for recipes to use up the remainder of the cheddar cheese from previous posts. Somewhere between a bread pudding and a quiche, the dish calls for the layering of buttered bread slices with other ingredients to form strata, with the assembly flooded with milk and eggs.

The recipe I have decided to use today came from Epicurious, and allowed me to conveniently use not just my cheese, but the rest of my milk and the Basics mustard that has been living in my fridge for months. I also realise that I have not really paid attention to any vegetarians amongst my readers, so consider this my olive branch to you.

This time round I used Basics pitta bread over white sliced bread, the former having fewer pittas than the sliced loaf has slices. This is good as I am not planning to be home over the next week, and Basics bread products usually spoil very quickly.

Butter the bread, slice up a Basics bell pepper and an onion, and grate or cut some cheese into thin slices.

Start layering the strata. Begin with half of the buttered bread, followed by a layer of cheese.

Fry the onions and peppers. Use this as a third layer for the strata. Repeat the layering process with the rest of the ingredients, layered in the same order.

Prepare the egg and milk mixture. Beat an egg into about 3/4 cups of milk, and add a teaspoon of Basics mustard. Season with pepper and herb mix, and then pour into

Bake in the oven at 175 degrees Celsius for about 30-45 minutes. You want to see the strata set at the centre and lightly browned on top.

The comments on the Epicurious recipe generally recommend leaving the strata to rest for at least 6 hours before baking. While it might help, I don't think it is absolutely necessary. Overall however, this was good, filling, and cheap. Most of the ingredients are readily available in a student's larder, with the possible exception of the bell peppers and mustard.

I realise that I have been focussing quite a bit on American dishes of late. Hopefully the next post would see me return to my familiar pattern of looking at the UK or my hometown.

Beer Cheese Soup

2010-10-01T04:56:00.000-07:00

If there is anything I have learnt while spending four years studying at an university in the UK, it is that there are two items that are vital to the kitchen of any student, and they are cheese and beer. Cheese can be bought cheaply, lasts long, and is filling. Beer largely has the same attributes, is an integral part of British culture, and also has the added advantage of providing some form of relaxation or distraction from the more annoying aspects of student life, notably, studying.

So I find it surprising that up till now, nobody I know has tried to incorporate the two together in food. A recent discovery while reading through the Everything Meals on a Budget Cookbook turned up an interesting idea: Beer Cheese Soup. Further searches on Google revealed that this is actually quite popular in Wisconsin, the biggest producer of cheddar cheese in the United States. There is also a Youtube video which shows food journalist Anthony Bourdain sampling the fare at a local restaurant and discussing the dish.

Unlike the premium ingredients used in the video however, we are going to use humbler and more affordable ingredients. Previous posts on this blog have already introduced the Sainsbury's Basics full-flavour cheddar cheese and middle bacon, so today's new ingredient is, for better or worse, Sainsbury's Basics Lager. Surprisingly, I do not know any student who actually has had to resort to drinking this. I suppose it is a matter of priorities; students would prefer to scrimp on their food budgets so that they can afford better quality beer. A taste test by my flatmate and I quickly revealed why, and it seems that a BeerAdvocate user agrees with our observations, the beer striking us most as coloured water.

The recipe on which I based my post on can be found here. I have deviated a bit from it, mostly to conserve on the amount of fat used and to compensate for the lack of ingredients in my kitchen. Start by frying the bacon until crisp, and then using the drippings from the bacon to fry some chopped celery and carrot. If you become uncomfortable about the amount of fat that is coming from the bacon, feel free to remove them from the wok and use the oven to take care of the rest of the cooking.

Add flour to the vegetables to make a roux. Pour in half of the beer from the can, and add a chicken stock cube.

Add some milk, and slowly stir in the cheese until the soup is thick and smooth. Add the beer and stir for a while. Serve with bacon for garnish.

Anthony Bourdain was told that Beer Cheese Soup found its way into Wisconsin cuisine since it provided nourishment to the people coping with the cold harsh winters common to the region, and I could not agree more. This would provide some comfort at meal times as the weather in the UK starts to take a turn for the worse. As it is, the soup is cheap to procure, but if you want to further reduce costs, you can substitute the middle bacon with Sainsbury's Basics Cooking Bacon and the cheddar with the Basics Grated Mild Hard Cheese, both of which have a significantly lower cost per unit quantity than the ingredients they replace.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Lager	£0.92	4	+£Variable	Many.

Bacon Cheese Pizza

2010-09-19T11:53:00.000-07:00

Sainsbury's recently lowered the price of their Basics mozzarella cheese balls to 30p, just in time for the start of the academic year. I had made a batch of bread dough earlier on in the week for bread to supplement my dinner, so I took the opportunity to make a pizza with the remainder of my dough, the leftover Basics pasta sauce I have, and the now-cheaper mozzarella cheese ball.

In recent times I have started craving for bacon, and while surfing the Net for related articles I suddenly recall the streaky bacon that I am so used to back home but have forgotten, having gotten used to back bacon being the norm here in the UK. The closest thing that the Basics range have are the middle bacon rashers, and not having tried these before and being informed by Wikipedia that these are a cross between streaky and back bacon, I thought I would give these a try.

As you can tell from the picture on the right, the rasher is made of two parts, the medallion hanging off which is usually part of the back bacon, and the rest of it, which you would usually find in streaky bacon. The only problem that I have with this is that they are expensive, at £1.99 for a 450g pack. By comparison, although not exactly the same class of product, a 670g pack of Basics cooking bacon will go for £1.52, although in exchange for a lower price you would end up with part rashers and a variety of other loose cuts of either streaky, back or middle bacon.

I'm hungry, so let's proceed. Take out your bread dough and lay it flat on a sheet of foil, which has been dusted with floor or spread with some oil, so that the dough will not stick while baking. Leave for 25 mins.

Add the toppings. Start with the pasta sauce, then the cheese, then whatever you wish to add to the pizza. Finish with Basics herb mix.

Cook in the oven at 225 degrees Celsius for about 30 minutes.

The only problem with this pizza was the pasta sauce, which we know all along to be rather inadequate. It also might have been a good idea to bake the base first partially before laying on the ingredients. Overall however, the fundamentals of this recipe are sound, and merit another attempt in future.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Middle Bacon	£1.99	450g	+£0.01 for 225g	Streaky bacon instead of middle bacon

Corned Beef Stir-Fry

2010-09-18T06:25:00.000-07:00

Complications at work, general lethargy and a newfound fondness for the computer game Alien Swarm have delayed the delivery of this post. To make up for it however, I have a few ideas in my mind that would cater to university students, British and overseas alike.

I remembered having a fondness for corned beef (what the Americans call minced corned beef, the kind sold in cans) as a child, especially its strong salty flavours. My mother however was rightfully worried about its high sodium content, and so served it sparingly. Whenever she did, it was always fried together with cabbage, and served with bread. As we grew older however, I did not crave for it as much, gradually forgetting about it altogether. The first time I encountered this again was when I had the New York Deli sandwich at EAT, albeit in the form of pastrami. It got me thinking again about corned beef, and given how it has been associated with British Army field rations, I thought it might be quite interesting to do a post about it.

The Basics Corned Beef slices are rather simple, and don't merit much description. They do keep pretty well even after opening the packet, so long as the packet is wrapped in cling film shortly after. So far, I've only seen the British use this in corned beef sandwiches, and the most they've gotten to cooking it is to stew it with potatoes, according to Wikipedia. For this post, I've decided to recall how my mother used to do it, and stir-fry it with Sainsbury's Basics Vegetable Stir Fry, in the absence of Basics Cabbage from my local supermarket.

So start by heating up a pan on medium-high heat on the stove. While that is going on, break up two slices of the corned beef. Do not worry about the slices burning, there is enough fat and water in the beef to prevent that from happening.

Your hash should end up looking like this:

Add Sainsbury's Basics Vegetable Stir-Fry, and cook until vegetables have shrunk a little and a little gravy has formed.

This was a cheap, tasty and filling meal: the relatively mild taste of the Basics vegetable stir-fry went very well with the strong flavours of the corned beef. It would have been even cheaper had I used the canned corned beef, but that has to be used all in one go, and will not be so convenient to keep in the fridge. The cost of this meal came up to about 68p (43p for 2 slices of corned beef and 25p for quarter pack of vegetables), excluding some bread or rice for staple, which itself should be quite cheap. This post would be just in time for the start of the Fall term at my alma mater, where the incoming batch of international students may find this useful, as they spend the first few weeks familiarising themselves with the local Sainsbury's, living on their own, and the UK in general.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Corned Beef Slices	£1.70	8 slices	+£0.89 for 200g	Better quality meat?

Pepperoni Pizza

2010-08-31T11:12:00.000-07:00

I am a bit tired of cooking today, so I decided to just pick something up from Sainsbury's to pop into the oven or microwave. Something compelled me however to do a mini-post on the Basics Pepperoni Pizza that you can find in the fresh pizza counter at Sainsbury's.

These have been around for about a year or so now, but I've never really thought of reviewing this; when it was first introduced, the amount of pepperoni and cheese was measly, at best. It appears that things have gotten slightly better now, but still not enough to justify the £1.59 price tag. For £2.30 I can buy the 12" Basics pizza for £1 and Basics pepperoni for £1.29, and last for two meals.

It seems however that today's Basics pizzas were reduced to clear, so I happily bought one, dressed it up with what remained of my Basics Brie and some Basics herb mix, and popped the lot into the oven.

The pizza was left a little too long in the oven unfortunately, which would explain why it looks so dark in the picture. The pepperoni tastes exactly like the Basics Pepperoni you would find at the Deli meat aisle, and the cheese is somewhat like the Basics Grated Hard Cheese mentioned elsewhere in this blog. The base was alright, reminding me of the base found in deep pan frozen pizzas, without the thickness. Overall, not unpleasant to eat, but not value-for-money unless marked down for clearance.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Pepperoni Pizza	£1.59	1	+£0.80	Bigger pizza, choice of crust, bigger and more pepperoni.

Chicken-Fried Steak Parmigiana

2010-08-28T11:46:00.000-07:00

Back in my days at university I remembered that I shared quite a few grocery items with my roommate. One of these was a 250g plastic can of Sainsbury's Grated Hard Cheese, that we would use to sprinkle liberally on anything remotely Italian: Bolognese, Carbonara, even Swedish Meatballs from Ikea. Still, given our love for cheese and our inability to afford the more authentic Parmigiano Reggiano, Pecorino Romano and Grana Padano, it kept our spirits high, at least at mealtimes, while we worked out way through university.

Sainsbury's recently reorganised their cheese section, and added a few new items across the range. I originally intended to use this blog post to investigate the new Basics Italian Hard Cheese, made with both buffalo and cow's milk, in contrast to the sole use of cow's milk for the three Italian hard cheese mentioned above. However, I don't currently have a cheese grater in my kitchen, and doubt that I can finish a wedge of hard cheese in 2 months, especially given the lack of Basics cashew nuts at my local to combine with to make pesto. It was around that time that I discovered that, horrors of horrors, the Grated Hard Cheese has been demoted to the Basics range.

I suppose that with the apparent upturn in the economy, Sainsbury's thinks that it can afford to target the more upmarket consumers and rearrange their product line in a bid to encourage them to buy the more expensive items. Given the circumstances then, I will have to put off the review of the Basics Italian Hard Cheese to later. Perhaps a shoot-out between that and its other equivalents in the Basics and other ranges is in order.

Let's focus on today though. I have one more Basics frying steak left, and given that similar cuts of beef are commonly used in the southern parts of the United States to make chicken-fried steak (effectively steak, battered and deep-fried like chicken), it might be fun to try to do this. Topping it with cheese and tomato sauce before baking the whole thing would then make it a Parmigiana of sorts.

So start first by preparing some flour mixed with pepper, and a mixture of milk and egg (approximately 1:1 and beaten together, unlike the 2:1 unbeaten mixture shown in the photo). Dredge the steak in the flour first, then the milk-egg mixture, and then the flour again, so that the steak looks like below.

Deep fry the steak, or if you're feeling healthy, fill a shallow pan with enough oil to cover the bottom surface, and then fry both sides.

Put into baking tray and top with Basics pasta sauce and the Basics Grated Hard Cheese. If you want you could also supplement it with a soft cheese. I had some Basics Brie still hanging around in my fridge so I used that.

Put the steak into the oven at 180-200 degrees Celsius. Ideally, the batter of the steak will still remain crisp, without the cheese burning out. Meanwhile, cook some Basics spaghetti. Skim off the oil in the pan used to fry the steak, leaving just a little behind. Use this to fry the spaghetti with herb mix after it is done. If you still have some of the milk-egg mixture remaining you can add this to the mix to make a primitive carbonara.

This recipe can be time consuming, but curiosity can get the better of you and help you see it through to the finish. The ingredients involved all seem to be very mild in flavour so feel free to be a bit more liberal with the seasonings, eg the pepper and Basics herb mix. Just like other items found in Southern States cuisine, this can be a very hearty meal to keep you warm over the winter, or freak summer weather spells like the one we've seen recently.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Grated Hard Cheese	£2.50	250g	N/A	N/A; no direct alternative

Brie Rice Bisque

2010-08-21T06:36:00.000-07:00

With a significant block of Basics Brie cheese to go, I had to start looking of ways to get rid of it. Taking the opportunity to try to run down other items in my inventory, I searched for recipes on Google, using the items I have on hand as keywords. Unfortunately, looking for "Brie Rice recipe" only turned up this particular page. I slowly warmed to the idea, deciding to substitute the chicken and leeks that the recipe called for with other ingredients. That the recipe came from USA Rice Federation gave me some amusement; after all, Sainsbury's Basics Long Grain Rice is usually American in origin.

For today I would be adding seafood sticks and broccoli florets to Brie and rice to make some sort of Brie rice bisque, a form of poor man's baked rice. The seafood sticks were recently reintroduced, as far as I can tell, to the Basics range, so I was quite keen to get my hands on some. The broccoli florets were actually a mistake, please avoid buying this and just buy loose broccoli if you want to save on money and can afford the extra time.

So we start by frying the broccoli and chopped crabsticks on medium heat. Add the rice to the pan and season with black pepper and Basics herb mix.

Make some chicken stock from half a stock cube and some water. Add to pan, and let simmer under cover for about 10 minutes. Stir and add hot water when necessary.

Break the brie up into pieces and add to the pan. Let it melt for a while before stirring it completely in. Add some milk, turn up the heat, and cover for about 2-3 minutes.

The Brie actually mingled well with the rice, and the resultant texture was quite pleasant. This made for quite a filling meal with plenty of bulk coming from the rice and seafood sticks, which also balanced out the potential stodginess of the cheese. Given that the sticks cost only 50p and can last for four meals, this is probably quite cheap to procure, more so when you substitute the Brie with a cheaper cheese like the Basics mild grated cheese featured some time ago.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
French Mild Brie	£0.95	200g	+£0.84 for 300g	Better-tasting Brie, choice between French Mild, French ripening or Somerset (prices may differ)
Broccoli Florets	£0.79	300g	+£0.31	Half portions of cauliflower and broccoli, more regular shapes. Skip both and get loose broccoli instead.

Strawberry and Brie Baguette

2010-08-16T13:20:00.000-07:00

To be honest, I bought the Basics Brie not only because I wanted to make cheesesteak, but also because I came across an interesting article on my RSS news reader about somebody who tried making a Raspberry and Brie panini. Long story short, it convinced her to buy a panini maker.

By my books, if a recipe can persuade a person to buy expensive kitchen equipment, it has got to be pretty good, or even one step away from life-changing (after all, that eqiupment is going to affect the person's kitchen habits one way or another). The problem though is that I had to make do with the Sainsbury's Basics Strawberry Jam since their range is so limited. On the other hand, strawberries are nothing like raspberries, for a start, the latter tend to be quite tart. If memory serves, the writer of the panini article was waxing lyrical about how the smoothness of the brie contrasted perfectly with the raspberry.

Given how sweet the Basics jam is however, I don't really see this happening. The fruit content is pretty low too, so it might feel as if I'm just eating melted sugar jelly. Yet at the same time, I was really curious as to how the combination would turn out, so without much hesitation, I put bits of Brie on one side of the other baguette half, spread jam on the other, and grilled for a while.

The sandwich was actually quite pleasant, almost like a cross between a Victoria Sponge and a strawberry cheesecake all wrapped in crusty coating. It might be a welcome lunch alternative, especially to those who have a sweet tooth.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
French Mild Brie	£0.95	200g	+£0.84 for 300g	Better-tasting Brie, choice between French Mild, French ripening or Somerset (prices may differ)
Strawberry Jam	£0.38	454g	+£0.60	Higher fruit content, reduced sugar option

Brie Cheesesteak

2010-08-15T13:25:00.000-07:00

It seems that the leftover Basics groceries I've accumulated over the past few weeks or so would lend themselves to making a cheesesteak. Since childhood, I have been fond of food combining beef and cheese together, including cheeseburgers, pizza, bolognese and lasagna. I have never tried a Philly Cheesesteak however, and having spent some time in the States walking their streets and sampling their fare, I'm curious about it, and hope that if I were ever to go on a culinary roadtrip through America with like-minded friends, Philadelphia would be one of the stopovers.

In the meantime though, I will have to make do with the groceries I have, and a little bit of applied creativity. The problem however is that I do not have cheese, and one would assume that cheese makes up half the cheesesteak. Of the common cheeses listed in Wikipedia that go into a cheesesteak, Provolone and Cheese Whiz are not easily obtainable in the UK, the former only available at Harrod's and specialist cheese shops, and the latter being almost impossible to find. I could use mozzarella or processed cheese singles too, but I have already covered both in earlier blog posts.

The next mild cheese I had in mind was the Basics Brie. I remember having come across this variety of cheese in various places, including articles on the Web using it as an ingredient, dinners in ski resorts and at various receptions held by companies to recruit university students. The labelling describes it as a soft mild cheese, which I felt would make it a viable candidate as a cheesesteak cheese. Sad to say then, that the Sainsbury's Basics Brie could be described in three words: "I've had better." Really, you would have thought that the French would have more pride than to make products like this.

So start by slicing up your beef and whatever garnish you wish to add to your cheesesteak. Mix together and season with liberal amounts of black pepper.

Bake a Sainsbury's Basics Part-Baked Baguette in the top rack of the oven, with the prepared beef and garnish at the bottom rack.

Once both are ready, split baguette in half. Put beef on one side and slices of brie on the other. You might find it useful to use a very sharp knife when cutting the brie. A blunt knife would force you to use more pressure, ruining the form of the brie in the process.

Press baguette halves firmly together, wrap in foil, and put in oven at 200 degrees Celsius for about 5 minutes.

It's a shame that I was working with Basics cheese, as I think its regular counterpart would have had more flavour, and lend itself better to the cheesesteak. Overall however, the cheese probably made the sandwich quite filling, despite the reduced amount of beef I had used.

Now, what I actually did with the other half of the baguette would be made known in my next post.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Frying Steaks	£6.77/kg	3-4 steaks	+£2.14/kg	More regularly shaped steaks, better cuts of beef?
French Mild Brie	£0.95	200g	+£0.84 for 300g	Better-tasting Brie, choice between French Mild, French ripening or Somerset (prices may differ)

Steak Fajita Pasta

2010-08-12T14:10:00.000-07:00

A colleague of mine got wind of the large pack of Basics frying steaks that I have acquired in my excitement. Knowing that I might have some trouble finishing it up before the expiry date, and given where he's based, he suggested that I try making fajitas. On this occasion however, I got lazy. Since I wasn't keen on getting the Basics pitta bread to substitute for tortillas, and wanting to run down my inventory of Basics items, I decided to add pasta for my staple.

Fajitas are usually done using skirt steak or flank steak, both taken from the front of the cow. These are considered to be one of the most flavourful cuts, but can be difficult to cook because they tend to get tough very easily, since they're near the respiratory system and hence consist of very lean well-exercised muscle. There are generally two approaches to cope with this; acid-based marinades would soften the muscle fibres through hydrolysis, while searing quickly would seal the insides of the meat, keeping it juicy, so long as no further heat is applied. Unfortunately, I am still unable to identify the exact cut of beef which the Basics frying steaks are taken from.

So, the night before, prepare the steak by cutting it into bite-size pieces. Marinate overnight with lime juice, pepper and Basics herb mix.

The next day, mince some garlic, and slice some onions and peppers into slivers.

Heat up some oil in a pan, and bring some water to the boil for the pasta. Mix the garlic into the marinating beef.

Begin cooking the pasta. Fry the onions first, then add the beef to the pan. Sear for about 20-30 seconds.

Turn off the heat and add the peppers, letting the whole thing cook off the residual heat from the electric coil. If using a gas stove, just lower to lowest possible setting.

Add the pasta when ready, coat it in the gravy, and serve. The Mexican food purists amongst you would do best to skip the next photo.

Thanks to the quick-cooking nature of the steak, this didn't take too long to produce. Probably not something that you would want to serve your friends for dinner due to the controversy of fusing two distinctly different cuisines together, but it might be fun to cook this for yourself.

Now I have to watch my back; if the mafia don't get me for bringing shame to their country, an angry mariachi mob will for bringing shame to theirs.

Steak and Mushrooms

2010-08-11T13:03:00.000-07:00

Many of my compatriots from home enjoy a good steak, and since most of us come from relatively well-to-do families, do get to have it fairly easily. Once on their own studying here in London however, they tend to cut back on expenses as living costs are high. Even so, thanks to Sainsbury's Basics, they can still get to eat steak occasionally.

So you could imagine my disappointment when I learnt that Sainsbury's discontinued the Basics Frying Steaks a few months ago. A member of staff told me that they are a seasonal item for summer barbecues, but I remembered eating these in the dead of winter. Perhaps she was mistaken.

You could also imagine my elation when I discovered that these were available once again in more recent times. This time round, I told myself, I will not miss the opportunity to document this, lest it goes away again. Since I was not very hungry I just decided to have a couple of large mushrooms to go with the steak. It is common in cheap British cafe restaurants, or "greasy spoons", to further supplement this with a fried egg, a grilled tomato, and chips.

Cooking is simple and shall only be described in pictures. Take care not to cook the steak for too long, as it gets done very quickly.

A nice thing about frying steaks is that if you do not mind having to clean up the kitchen afterwards, as noted above, they cook very quickly, and so they can be a very quick convenient meal for busy people. The steak comes from a cut of beef that doesn't appear exceptionally tender or flavourful, but for steak, it is very affordable.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Frying Steaks	£6.77/kg	3-4 steaks	+£2.14/kg	More regularly shaped steaks, better cuts of beef?

Burger Salad Pasty

2010-08-07T05:40:00.000-07:00

I still had some leftover dough from the last post. I figured that I could attempt to make a pasty of some sort, using the one remaining Basics burger patty in my freezer and some vegetables.

I still remember being introduced to the pasty when I was much younger, seeing it on the lunch menu and thinking that the word "pasty" was probably a typo. The person serving me wasn't particularly happy that I asked for "cornish pastry" however, and got me to repeat the correct word twice and explained to me what it really was before giving me what I wanted.

Since I was using burger patty as pasty filling, I thought it might be a good idea to also use common burger condiments for seasoning. To this end, I chose mustard and French dressing, the latter a key component in the Big Mac special sauce, according to Top Secret Recipes and other sources. In addition, while getting vegetables for today's lunch, I noticed that the Sainsbury's Basics mushrooms were now quite interesting. The supermarket chain has been offering 2-3 large flat white mushrooms for 50p for some time now, and it seems that some of the large mushrooms that don't make the cut find their way into the Basics range. I mean, look at the size of these!

So start by chopping up the ingredients you want in your pasty. I used the mushroom, a Sainsbury's Basics burger patty for meat, and 2 cloves of garlic for flavour.

Fry the ingredients, meat first, then garlic, then vegetables. Add half a teaspoon of Basics mustard and Basics French dressing to season.

Throw in a few spinach leaves picked from the Sainsbury's Basics Young Leaf Salad to add to the wok. prepare the pasty casing by taking the dough from the Murtabak recipe and pressing it into a flat sheet on some aluminium foil. Place the filling into the centre, and wrap into a pasty. Or at least some semblance of it.

Bake for 200 degree Celsius in the oven until golden brown.

This is a hearty alternative to your regular burgers, and a nice way to use up leftovers. Given its similarity to curry puffs, and the availability of Basics canned chicken curry, I might want to look into making some, once I get over having to deep-fry stuff and cleaning up after that.