Meatballs

When studying in university, swedish meatballs featured regularly in my lunches and dinners, amongst other similar mince or otherwise processed meats. I believe the first time I was introduced to them was when a good friend of mine and his household was moving out of his old place. He gave away his flatmate's half-finished bag of frozen meatballs to me amongst other things, which I gladly accepted. 

Over time I developed a taste for these things and so was glad that Sainsbury's offered packs of Swedish meatballs at a discount on a regular basis. They're still more expensive than the Ikea ones though, so whenever my flatmates bought new furniture for the new flat we were moving into, we would take the opportunity to buy and share bags of frozen Ikea meatballs to take home and share.

There is a recipe in my discount copy of Everything Meals on a Budget cookbook for meatballs that I thought would fit in nicely if I ever were to buy a bag of Basics frozen mince. At the time I was unfazed about rustling up all the other ingredients (which include amongst other things tomato paste, breadcrumbs and parmesan cheese), but of late work and other pressures have put me off doing it.

My kitchen now has most of the ingredients available now though, other than the tomato paste and breadcrumbs, so I no longer have much of an excuse not to do it. With the recent scare over horsemeat in Ikea meatballs, I thought this would be an interesting opportunity to explore making my own and remember yet another part of my university life.

I have never understood the need to add breadcrumbs to meatballs. I was aware though that breadcrumbs are absorbent, so they can retain any moisture that would otherwise be lost to cooking. A quick search on StackExchange's cooking page confirms this. 

So start by defrosting the frozen mince in a microwave. While that is going, dry a slice of Basics bread to make breadcrumbs, while beating an egg to use as a binder for the meatballs.

Combine egg and defrosted mince with Basics Grated Hard Cheese and Herb Mix.

Shape into meatballs and bake in the oven near 200 degrees celsius for about 12-15 minutes.

While the meatballs themselves bear a vague resemblance to the ones I am familiar with, having them together with Basics spaghetti dressed with herb mix and cheese certainly brought back memories. The meatballs would become dry if baked for too long, with the fats spilling onto the foil or baking pan, so time the time it takes to bake carefully.

Roti John Redux

Regular readers would know by now that I have been striving to finish the big bag of Basics Mince that I have in my freezer. Since we are due to move out of our current flat soon I have also been reluctant to buy groceries, and have been trying to get by with whatever little is left in our kitchen.

My most recent find is a Sainsbury's Basics part-baked baguette that I had left forgotten. The first idea that came to mind that involved both this and mince was Roti John, which I covered some time ago. In the interest of variety though, I decided to take a different approach, baking the baguette sliced in half, topped with the already cooked mince drenched in egg.

This turned out well, and probably is slightly healthier than if I were to fry it. The idea could perhaps be taken even further and done on a barbecue, although I only have vague memories of seeing the hawkers back home doing this at their stalls.

Quick Pepperoni Carbonara

One of the advantages that pepperoni holds over bacon is that they are ready-to-eat and hence require little to no time to prepare for consumption. Given that my work in recent times has made me more time-poor than ever before, this was useful to know. It was during one of these days when I wanted to whip something up quickly that Basics Pepperoni came in very useful.

The soup base found in the Sainsbury's Basics Instant Noodles might not be very healthy, but the noodles themselves are actually okay and are an interesting alternative to pasta. Indeed, Sainsbury's have posted a few recipes on their official website that involve the Basics instant noodles but not the soup base. I'm used to having my instant noodles served dry, without soup, so I combined that with a poached egg and some pieces of pepperoni that I microwaved for about 30 seconds.

This was quick to prepare and fairly satisfying, being very similar to the post I did a while ago with luncheon meat and instant noodles. The only problem is that featuring pepperoni regularly on one's diet would lead to somewhat adverse medical consequences, so I ought to identify a deli meat that is just as affordable and does not have as much fat. Perhaps the Basics Chicken Roll might fit the bill.

Bacon-Egg Rings

The sheer affordability of Sainsbury's Basics Cooking Bacon (99p for 670g) means that one can buy a pack just for experimentation. The Internet happens to have a fondness for bacon as well, so naturally, there is no end to the variety of recipes that one can play with, including chicken-fried bacon, bacon explosion, and even bacon jam. More recently, Lifehacker ran a post on bacon cups, aggregating various similar recipes on the web in one convenient point.

I decided to have a go with making the bacon-egg cup that Kirbie's Cravings did, as I missed my usual weekend slot to blog and this seemed quite straightforward to do. As I did not have a muffin tin, I used a small bowl and some foil to shape into a bowl instead, which worked surprisingly well.

Prepare the oven at 200 degrees Celsius. Mold the foil as shown, and then line the walls with bacon. If desired, line the bottom with bacon as well, so that the egg will not cook too quickly when in direct contact with the foil. Cook for 10 minutes or until cooked or half-cooked.

Turn up the temperature to 220 degrees Celsius. Take the bacon cup out of the oven and knock the egg in. Return to the oven for a further 8 minutes.

Serve as desired. I decided to have it on top of a bed of spaghetti as a variation of carbonara.

This worked out surprisingly well. With a bit of work it could look pretty for hosting guests, although working with the irregular shape of the Basics cooking bacon might take a little patience. The white of the egg actually absorbed some of the flavour of the bacon, and the bacon fat greased up the foil on its own. This is quick, convenient, and for the little time and effort spent, actually very presentable.

Peanut Butter French Toast

As we continue to wind things down here in preparation of a change in location, I am finding less incentive to buy groceries, including Basics items to make the stuff that go on this blog. Of particular bother is the bread I have bought and frozen a few weeks back, and the peanut butter from even longer ago. There are only so many peanut butter sandwiches that I would be willing to eat before I grow tired of them, so I thought of a way of jazzing it up.

I have come across a few bloggers on the Internet who have made peanut butter French toast by coating peanut butter sandwiches in beaten eggs before pan-frying. I am curious about how much oil I can extract from the Basics peanut butter for cooking purposes, so this would be a particularly interesting context to find out.

Oddly enough, the name used in France and other places for French toast is pain perdu, which translates to stale (lit. lost) bread.

An attempt to fry the peanut butter in an attempt to extract oil from it resulted in the butter being slightly caramelised. This explains the slight oil discolouration you might see in the photos.

Defrost two slices of Basics bread per person and spread with Basics peanut butter. Make a sandwich, and cut into four triangles, as shown.

Beat an egg until frothy, and soak the triangles in them. Pan fry until slightly golden-brown. Serve warm.

The blend of flavours from the peanut butter with the egg reminded me of min chiang kueh, a pancake-like snack served by the slice stuffed with a peanut paste. It was a pleasant surprise to discover this, and would be useful to know should I need to bring some sort of dessert for a group event or pot-luck. Unfortunately, I still have plenty of bread and peanut butter to go.

Congee

As we start to wind things down here in preparation for a move and the summer holidays, I decided to use up whatever was left of my Basics rice to make congee. For the uninitiated, this is a savoury rice porridge made by boiling rice in an excess of water or stock for an extended period of time until a thick consistency is achieved. I do not usually have congee while I am in Chinatown, and I remember not being particularly fond of it as I grew up, but thought that this might be helpful if ill or during a cold winter's day.

I decided to have my congee with the Basics mince that I had in my freezer. As the fat content in the mince is very high, it made sense to brown them first before adding them to the congee as it was cooking.

To liven it up a bit, I also decided  to knock an egg in.

If cooked using water, the rice alone will not be very flavourful and will have to be seasoned with something else. Unfortunately, other than perhaps black pepper, there is little in the Sainsbury's Basics range that would be appropriate here. If you are more flexible however, a little soya sauce and sesame seed oil will go a long way.

Mee Hoon Kueh

Growing up at home, Mee Hoon Kueh (面粉馃), literally "Flour Cake" in Hokkien, was something I ordered regularly when my family ate out, and is still something I would readily order when I fly home to visit family and friends. It is a simple hand-made noodle soup with various ingredients, commonly minced pork, leafy vegetables, a poached egg, shitake mushrooms, all topped with fried ikan bilis, or small anchovies.

Prior to my arrival in the UK as an university student, the local government gave us a pamphlet listing recipes contributed by various students who have been or are currently there, that we could make use of should we start to miss the food back home. Amongst them was one for mee hoon kueh. I did not give much thought to it, and soon forgot about it all. When I started this blog however, this was one of the things that I realised I could try doing, given the relatively simple list of ingredients and preparation. Again however, I forgot, until last evening, when a conversation with a friend back home led me to try this at home, limiting myself to Sainsbury's Basics ingredients, where possible.

It turns out that mee hoon kueh is surprisingly easy to make. There are numerous recipes out there on the Internet, but the one that I was drawn to the most was at Soy and Pepper, a food blog written by an overseas Singaporean. As the Sainsbury's Basics range is lacking in both ikan bilis (small anchovies), and even dark green leafy vegetables, I had to leave out some of the ingredients where I can.

Prepare some Sainsbury's Basics Minced Beef by seasoning with Basics pepper and a little Basics vinegar. Wrap and leave in the fridge.

Combine water and Sainsbury's Basics flour in the proportions suggested by Soy and Pepper so that you have a simple dough. Cover and set aside for 30 minutes to an hour.

Prepare your vegetables - I used choi sum bought from Chinatown here. Break the flour ball up into golf balls and flatten each one out as shown. Use extra flour to prevent sticking.

Prepare some stock using Sainsbury's Basics chicken stock cubes.

Add the mince once the stock is boiling. Skim off any scum and unwanted fat that appears.

Pinch off bite-size pieces of dough and add to the pot. They should cook within 10-20 seconds.

Finally, add your vegetables, and an egg to either beat into the soup or to poach.

If only I had discovered this sooner. This proved to be a filling, warm and hearty meal, which, given the recent drop in temperature in the UK, was welcome. The preparation, while not very involved, will involve some waiting time, so perhaps this is best done on weekends, or prepared in advance. The flavour can certainly be worked upon; I have noticed that some other recipes call for the use of shitake mushrooms in addition to ikan bilis to make the stock. Given that the Sainsbury's Basics range has neither of these, perhaps one way to achieve a similar effect is to boil and concentrate stock from Sainsbury's Basics mushrooms and Basics canned tuna.

Fun with Cheese: Cheese oil for cooking

While making the Macaroni and Cheese last week, I couldn't help but notice that the Basics mild grated cheddar I used was very oily. A thought crossed my mind then to try extracting and using the oil for culinary purposes. If proven effective, it would possibly be a way to save having to use more oil than necessary when cooking cheese-based dishes.

Chinese takeaways usually come in plastic microwave boxes with lids, so I microwaved the cheese on a lid on high for 30 seconds to see what happens. While the cheese quickly melted and gave up its oil readily, it was difficult to transfer the oil to the pan for cooking, since oil tends to stick to the plastic. An alternate approach was then tried where the cheese was put on low heat in the pan, and spread around to even out the distribution of any extracted oil.

Note the glossy sheen of oil the cheese has given the pan.

To see if the cheese oil is suitable for cooking, I made a three-egg omelette, adding a bit of Basics milk to stretch it out slightly and pepper for flavour.

From the photos, I suppose it is clear that the oil from the Basics grated cheese will be useful for frying. I suppose the most relevant application of this will be the making of cheeseburgers. The grated cheese can be microwaved or melted over low heat to form slices to place in the burgers later, with the oil it exudes used to grease the pan or grill to cook the burger patties.

It's a pity that the omelette, while tasty, did not turn out quite as well.

Spam Carbonara

Sometimes, your kitchen will not be as well-stocked as you hope it to be, because of your commitments, so much so that you will be left with very little to make something meaningful. I encountered one such situation today when all I had left was the leftover Basics chopped pork and ham, frozen from last time, a serving of spaghetti, an egg and some spinach. Then again, the British Army, known for their resilience, have managed to make do with less for much longer.

Due to the United States' involvement in World War II and its resultant global military presence, Spam was to be found almost everywhere you go, having left its cultural mark in the post-war period in the UK, South Korea, and the Philippines, amongst other places. It is claimed that in the mean time, the Italians were supplied by American occupation troops with bacon and eggs, giving rise to Carbonara, though the veracity of that claim cannot be ascertained. If it were true however, they could have just as easily used Spam instead, and so it would have been interesting if they really did. With all that in mind, I decided to make myself some luncheon meat carbonara.

The preparation was very simple: start by frying the luncheon meat with some garlic, while the spaghetti is cooking. Throw in the spinach when the spaghetti is almost cooked, and then add the pasta. Take the pan off heat, beat an egg, and then pour it into the lot, stirring vigourously. Add Basics grated hard cheese and serve.

This was quick to prepare, and satisfying. The only drawback here would be the nutritional value, but if you are, hungry, in a hurry and caught short on kitchen stock, that would probably be the last thing on your mind. Oddly enough, this also brought to mind the Spam sketch, Monty Python's last ever comedy item, where the overwhelming presence of the word "Spam" on the cafe's menu gave rise to its use to describe Internet junk mail.

Tiramisu

With February comes Valentine's Day, and with that come the joys and perils of courtship and romance. During this period, the sharing of gifts and food is just as common as the sharing of affections, and desserts often feature heavily. I fondly remember in particular my ex-flatmate, who, in the run-up to 14th February, made tiramisu repeatedly so that he can perfect his recipe and technique for his then-girlfriend. Needless to say, the entire household benefitted from all the tiramisu prototypes lying around. Given the timing of this post, I thought that it would be appropriate to attempt tiramisu.


One of the key components of tiramisu is Savoiardi biscuits (known as sponge fingers in the UK), soaked in a blend of espresso and Marsala wine. As none of these are available from the Sainsbury's Basics line however, we are going to have to make do with shortbread fingers, instant coffee and brandy.

In a region where people are very serious about their coffee, I've always been surprised that a product like instant coffee can thrive here. Sainsbury's Basics only recently introduced their version of instant coffee very recently, but would be handy to people like the final year medical students in my flat, who are currently studying for their final exams and would probably appreciate preparing a hot caffienated drink for cheap. The coffee itself is nothing yo write home about though, and from a cook's perspective, would be more useful in chilli con carne and stews than in desserts, where the ingredients get more attention.

As noted earlier, Sainsbury's do not have Basics sponge fingers, so I decided to use Shortbread Fingers instead. Other than being similar in shape, they also are richer than most biscuits, and hence share cake-like characteristics with the thing that they replaced.

I was planning to get Basics dark rum in place of Marsala wine, since fermented molasses sounded like a good substitute for sweet wine. However, it appears that Sainsbury's has discontinued both dark and white versions of the Basic rums. An empty shelf with a tag saying "Sale: While stocks last" stands where the white rum used to be. The only other spirit that I know is used in desserts is Brandy, so I grabbed a plastic bottle of the Basics version. Just as well, since in my opinion it is closer in refinement to Marsala wine than rum.

In making this Tiramisu I followed a recipe from the BBC by Katie and Giancarlo Caldesi from the programme Return to Tuscany, with the ingredient substitutions made above, along with Basics soft cheese in place of mascarpone. I also merged it with information from Cooking for Engineers, specifically the part involving making Zabaglione, to avoid food poisoning from consuming raw eggs.

So I started by beating three egg yolks, saving the whites for later. I then added 100g of sugar and about 85ml of the Basics French Brandy.

The mixture was then heated on a hot water bath until thick and smooth. 125g of cream cheese was then  beaten and added in.

About 125ml (use less if you're attempting this) of double cream was then whipped and added. The mixture was constantly kept warm and whisked frequently until thickened. If the mixture starts becoming lumpy it's being overdone, the result of which you can see in the final photo.

Prepare a cup of coffee using 3 teaspoons of Sainsbury's Basics Instant Coffee, and another 85ml of Brandy. Dip one packet of Basics Shortbread Fingers, biscuit by biscuit, and make them form the first layer. Cover that layer with the cheese/eggs/cream mixture, and repeat for one more layer.

Store in the fridge overnight.

I have very high hopes for this and will write back tomorrow on the outcome. Initial sampling of the cream cheese mixture has been very positive, and the substitution of the ladyfingers and mascarpone has turned out much better than expected. If this works well, this would be a very cheap way to make a very impressive dessert, especially with the soft cheese now costing 75p for a large 300g tub.

(Back to Sainsbury's Basics accepts no responsibility for any adverse effect this recipe or blog post might have on your marriage, engagement or relationship. Use at your own risk.)

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Shortbread Fingers	£0.37	160g	+£0.31 for 200g	Not known but probably not much
Instant Coffee Granules	£1.64	100g	+£0.30	Stronger coffee
Brandy	£9.29	700ml	+£1.20	Not known