Time Out

Back to Sainsbury's Basics will be taking a break between now and mid-July for the summer holidays and some personnel admin. We hope to resume publication when this is done. See you soon!

Hyperdecanting Wine

The process of decanting wine was done in the past to separate sediment that was present in wine. Modern winemaking techniques have substantially reduced the need to do this, and so, most people nowadays would use a decanter in order to expose the wine to air, allowing it to "breathe", in the hopes of having something more pleasant to drink. Hyperdecantation takes this to its logical extreme and substitutes the decanter for a blender, or milk frother, though perhaps at this point it really should be called hyperaeration. Both this and decantation itself have been the subject of intense debate, the former more so since it involves the violent and possibly unjustifiable treatment of good produce.

Recently I have been invited by a friend to a wine-tasting session organised by her sommelier friend at Praelum, a wine bar at Duxton Hill, Singapore. Given that he would probably be more perceptive than me when assessing wine, I figured that he would probably be best placed to determine if hyperdecanting wine actually works. Given that I cannot blog about this without using an item from the Sainsbury's Basics range though, the Basics Red Table Wine was all I could offer. Just as well though, since most people would not wish to put a good wine through a blender, especially for the first time.

The little experiment kicked off once the wine-tasting session was over, with my friend carrying out most of it. The frothy glass of wine next to the traditional decanter has been subject to a milk frother; participants would then be given two glasses, one containing Basics wine as it is, and one that has been blended, and asked to tell the two apart. As it turned out, not only was the sommelier present, his colleagues were also around and showed various levels of curiosity at what we were up to.

Since the Basics Table Wines have a generally poor reputation amongst the drinking community (it is a £3.39 wine after all..), never mind people who know and love their wine, I was a bit wary that the sommelier and his friends would have a lot to come to terms with (having drunk cheap wine put through a blender) within just minutes of getting to know me. All participants involved were able to tell which glass contained the blended wine, a testament to their expertise perhaps, and generally agreed that blending helped things. Given that we started off with a rather low standard of wine however, it was difficult, at best, to determine exactly how much hyperdecanting would be beneficial, other than knowing that the technique helps the wine open up significantly.

[Many thanks to the good and sporting people at Praelum Wine Bistro who were willing to put themselves through this!]

Chicken Roll

One of the few things I have bought as we pack up over here is Sainsbury's Basics Chicken Roll. This was done as I was looking for something to use to finish up the Sainsbury's Basics sliced bread that I have in the freezer for a while now. Since I have tried the Basics corned beef and ham already, I thought of having chicken roll for a change.

The chicken roll consists of reformed chicken, which, according to this link, is chicken that has been finely chopped, cooked, compressed tightly, then bound together with milk proteins, which give the result its milky colour. There is a Sainsbury's own-brand version of the product, though if you would like to have chicken that has not been processed as much, Sainsbury's does have other products in its range (though not in the Basics range) that is simply, say, sliced roast chicken.

For all intents and purposes though, the Basics Chicken Roll is just chicken. I have used it in a sandwich and found it very palatable, and at 97p for 400g of cooked meat, is a cheap source of protein that does not have as strong a smell as ham.

There has to be more use for chicken roll other than sandwiches though. Unfortunately I couldn't think of any, and so I had to run down the chicken roll with nothing but sandwiches. Feel free to comment here with suggestions as to what I could have done aside from sticking it into bread, for the benefit of other readers.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Chicken Roll	£0.97	40, 400g	+£0.18 for 10, 125g (!)	Slightly thicker slices

Beanless Chilli

There is a well-known cultural divide across the Atlantic, between the British and the Americans. As a result, there tends to be differences in just about everywhere, from speech (try asking an American and a Briton what suspenders are, for instance), to table etiquette (while Brits tend to cut steak up as they go along, the Americans will cut it all up first), to cuisine.

While people Stateside don't think of jacket potatoes as anything more than a baked potato with butter, perhaps at most sour cream, chives and bacon bits, served as a side to go with steak, over here in the UK people tend to have it as a meal on its own, using a wide variety of toppings - tuna mayonnaise, coronation chicken, and chilli con carne, just to name a few. And while the British don't think of chilli con carne as much more than just a bolognese sauce with chilli and kidney beans, in the States, there's a mind-boggling variety of chilli types, debates over the inclusion of beans that can border on the religious, and closely guarded spice mix recipes.

Amongst the more unusual things I have encountered while reading up on American chilli include the use of beer and coffee, and even the norm in Cincinnati, Ohio of serving chilli with spaghetti and grated cheddar. With about one serving to go in my pack of Basics minced beef, and plenty of odds and ends from the Basics range in my kitchen, I decided to try incorporating some of my discoveries in a beanless chilli.

Fry some Sainsbury's Basics mince together with some Basics garlic. Season with Basics black pepper and herb mix, and a dash of Basics vinegar.

Start adding in Basics beer (lager or bitter is fine), in quantities of about a mouth at a time. At some point stir in some Basics instant coffee as well.

Add Sainsbury's Basics chopped tomatoes and leave to simmer. Meanwhile, soak some Basics spaghetti so as to remove it of its starch. Add to the pan and simmer everything together until the spaghetti is done. Sprinkle with grated Basics cheddar (or Basics grated hard cheese, if you don't have cheddar), spike with your chilli of choice, and serve.

This turned out well, generally speaking. It was difficult getting the balance between the beer and coffee right,  but they lend an unusual, if bitter, edge to the final result. Certainly an interesting way to use your bolognese ingredients, and not too difficult to whip up if you already know how to do spag bol.

Vegetable Spring Rolls

Sainsbury's is currently offering a £5 meal deal which gets you a main and two sides (or a main, a side, and a dessert) until 22 May  Apparently, this includes ready-made items from the Sainsbury's Basics range, but if they are offering items for a flat fee getting Basics items probably would not make much monetary sense. I did come across the Sainsbury's Basics Spring Rolls reduced to 29p however; given the price, I decided to buy this, saving it for when I might need a snack to tide me over to the next meal.

Preparation seems simple enough - pop in the oven for a set amount of time, depending on if you took it out of the fridge or the freezer.

The spring rolls were surprisingly good - the skin was crisp and the filling - while having an odd hint of five-spice powder - tasted like the spring rolls you would get from your nearby Chinese takeaway. While one can certainly go for higher-quality options, there is no need for gourmet ingredients to make a good spring roll.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Vegetable Spring Rolls	£0.59	2	+£1.66 for 4	Not known. Other types of spring rolls available.

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.