Monday March 2, 2009

Do it on the cheap

Dont' Call Me Chef

What meal can you make for RM6.35? The four cooks put their budgeting skills to the test.

OH joy, we’ve got a boy this time – someone with the guts to take on a cooking challenge and publicly discuss it, too. Good on you, Lazyguy!

Why a budget of RM6.35, you may ask. Why not a nice round number? And is it really enough to feed a family? There’s no reason for the random figure – the number just popped into our heads. But it was enough to cover the cost of all the major items in our dishes, which serves four (although the prawn skewers will only serve as an appetiser) – we even have the receipts to prove it! This doesn’t include ingredients like spices, condiments and sauces as we assume everyone would have those already stocked at home.

Home economics

FOR the longest time, I thought that barley fuchok is made with soy milk. So, I never attempted to make it even though it’s what I order every time I see it on the menu. Then one morning, out of the blue, I just asked the uncle at the dried goods stall how to make barley fuchok. Turned out I don’t have to buy eight bottles of soya milk or grind my own. He just rattled off the ingredients, stashed them into a plastic bag and thrust it towards me. All in all, it only costs RM6.30 for a pot that feeds the entire family (of four). I can barely get two bowls of barley fuchok (with three miserly ginkgo nuts) in restaurants for that price.

That said, I usually just leave the nuts out ... I have better things to do with my life than devote myself to the tedious work of shelling ginkgo nuts and removing their centre pith. – Blessed Glutz

Barley Fuchok

2 litres of water

100g barley

200g fuchok

200g ginkgo nuts, shelled

200g rock sugar, or to taste

2 pandan leaves

Bring water to a boil and then add all the other ingredients. Turn the fire down to medium, and let it simmer for about 20 minutes or until the barley is soft and the fuchok is all broken into little pieces.

Layer, layer

I FINALLY repainted my study after years of living with a colour that Veggie Chick calls popcorn yellow, which sounds mouth-watering, but I describe as rancid butter.

The new colour’s pretentious name suggested nothing of the delicious melted coffee ice-cream shade that poured out of the can. After the second coat went on, I watched the paint dry – not at all dull! – to see it develop into a rich macchiato (hold the foam).

Painting is easy once the prep work is done – sanding the walls, masking off window frames, laying down drop cloths, etc. It’s the same with cooking.

Preparing food by marinating it first adds flavour and requires only a few ingredients.

Even as I was immersed in the painting, I was thinking of the prawns in the fridge, already tossed in a few store-cupboard staples and waiting to be grilled.

Quality paint generally comes at a higher price (but minus the stinky fumes). Making a nice meal, on the other hand, can be done without spending too much and will delight as much as that full-bodied coffee on the walls.

Grilling adds another layer of flavour to food, not to mention an intoxicating aroma. And it is so gratifying to see the prawns and pineapple change colour as they cook – like watching paint dry. – Marty

Chilli Lime Prawn and Pineapple Skewers

Serves 2

18-20 medium prawns (about 180g), peeled and deveined

2 pineapple wedges, cut into 1cm slices

3 stalks spring onion, cut into 3cm lengths

2 large limes, zest and juice

1 tbsp brown sugar + a little extra

½ tsp chilli flakes

2 tbsp fish sauce

2 tsp vegetable oil

2 tbsp finely chopped fresh coriander

100g tang hoon, soaked and drained well

Sesame Noodles, to serve

Mix lime zest, 1 tbsp sugar, chilli flakes, fish sauce, oil and coriander; marinate prawns in the mixture for 10 to 15 minutes in the refrigerator. Dredge pineapple with extra sugar. Soak 4 bamboo skewers in water for 30 minutes.

Preheat griddle pan, broiler or barbecue. Alternate prawns, pineapple and spring onions on the skewers. Grill for 3 to 4 minutes on each side until the prawns turn pink. Take off the heat and season with lime juice. Serve with Sesame Noodles (reconstitute 100g of dried tang hoon and dress with sesame oil, soy sauce and palm sugar to taste.)

One-pot wonder

AS my nickname implies, I prefer easy-to-prepare dishes that require very little time and minimal effort to make. And living alone, I tend to gravitate towards one-pot servings that can last at least a couple of meals.

Anyway, for this “experiment”, I decided to try a “dish” that my mother “invented” many years ago when our house in Pahang was caught in a flood, and we were stuck on the second floor with very limited ingredients for her to play around with. My siblings and I call this her “crazy rice” recipe, because she basically just threw in whatever she could get her hands on and managed to make an all-in-one meal for the entire family that we really enjoyed.

Now, I’m taking a lot of liberties with this RM6.35 budget, and I’m going to assume that you’d already have rice and stuff like dried prawns, oyster sauce and soy sauce. But since the recipe can actually serve two or three people, I reckon even with the extra expenses, it more than fulfils the limitation. Also, this is a dish that is very easy to play around with, which means that if it’s too bare bones for your liking, you can add more ingredients to the basic recipe to make it more interesting. – Chef Lazyguy

Lazyguy Mom’s Crazy Rice

2 cups rice

1 tbsp oil

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 tsp dried prawns, soaked

2 chicken drumsticks, deboned and chopped into small pieces

1 carrot, chopped into small cubes

10 stalks of French beans, chopped into small pieces

½ tsp soy sauce

½ tsp oyster sauce

Optional ingredients

Chinese mushrooms, chopped into little pieces

Any other vegetables you feel like adding, all chopped into little pieces

Cook the rice in a rice cooker. While it’s cooking, heat up the oil in a wok and fry the garlic and dried prawns until fragrant. Blanch the vegetables in hot water for a few seconds, and then throw the carrots, followed by the chicken, and then finally, the French beans into the wok to cook (if you’re adding any other extra ingredients like mushrooms or other veggies, do so now.) Add oyster sauce and soy sauce to taste, and simmer until everything is cooked.

Check on the rice – once it is already halfway done, dump the entire contents of the wok into the rice cooker, stir it around so it is mixed evenly, and let the whole mixture cook together with the rice.

Finally, once the rice is cooked, voilà! You have a nice steaming pot of crazy rice, ready to be served directly out of the rice cooker!

Couch potato

I AM a serious TV addict; the television is the first thing I switch on when I get home from work and the last thing I switch off before I leave the house and in between, it’s always switched on. Always, even while I’m sleeping!

As a result, my meals are always TV meals – not the pre-packaged frozen meals that go from your freezer to your microwave to your stomach (these aren’t the healthiest options because they are heavily processed), but homemade, no fuss, spill-safe meals that I can eat while lounging on my papasan or couch. Very bad habit, I know, but such is the life of a TV-holic.

Good TV dinners must fulfil a few very important criteria: convenience – minimal preparation for maximum satisfaction; clean – you should not have to get up and wash your hands or your plate mid-programme; and cheap – so cheap you can eat it every day. So, since we are keeping to a budget this month, I’d like to share my new-found easy-to-make TV meal. – Veggie Chick

Chickpea Pancakes with Spicy Potato Mash

Makes 8-10 pancakes

For the chickpea pancakes

225g chickpea flour (also called gram or besan flour)

½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

4 cups water

For the potato mash

3 large potatoes

½ cup green peas

1 medium-sized red onion, minced

2 cloves garlic, minced

½ tsp mustard seeds

1 heaped tsp of curry powder

Pinch of turmeric

½ green chilli, seeded

1 dried chilli cut up

Salt and pepper to taste

Butter

Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl and then add the salt. Make a well in the centre and slowly mix in the water with a balloon whisk until a smooth batter is formed. Set aside for about 15 minutes.

Boil potatoes till soft and mash into rough chunks. Add curry powder, turmeric, salt and pepper. Heat some olive oil or butter in a saucepan and add mustard seeds, onion, garlic and green and dried chillies. Once the onions are translucent, add the spiced potato and peas and cook until the potato turns a little golden.

Heat a skillet. Put in 1 tsp of butter and once it melts, put in about ¼ cup of pancake batter and spread it thinly. Let it set and cook (on low to medium heat) for about 3 minutes before flipping it over to cook for another 2-3 minutes. Be sure the pancake sets before you flip it. Slide it onto a plate and repeat.

The regulars

Veggie Chick has been in purée heaven since the purchase of her first blender. Blessed Glutz was the veritable child slave who had to shell gingko nuts, tail taugeh and knot lily buds.

Marty thinks food with griddle stripes is the prettiest kind.

The guest

Chef Lazyguy has a tendency to cook up easy-to-prepare dishes based on whatever happens to be in his fridge at the time, a technique that has served up its fair share of decent recipes as well as some, er ... “interesting” concoctions.

> Don’t Call Me Chef appears on the first Monday of every month. We can’t offer advice but we welcome feedback and suggestions on possible themes.