Cheese and Onion Pie

The Student is very busy with Uni stuff at the moment. I posted the above pie photo on the Facebook page and have been asked by a few people for the recipe/method. So I've decided to post it anyway.  The instructions were written with H in mind but feel free to hate peas and ponder on your Lancashire genes.

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The following recipe/instruction is for a classic Lancashire cheese and onion pie. In my completely un-humble view this is the best cheese and onion pie in the world. 

Despite you being a weird hybrid of being born in Yorkshire and living in Devon for most of your life you do have a massive Lancashire gene load – so you should be hard-wired to like this. There's nothing fancy about this pie, just simple pastry, cheese and onions. An equal weight of cheese to onion keeps things nice and moist and providing you make sure the onions are cooked properly, there's no squeakiness to be pooky about.

Today you are going to learn how to make pastry. You can make pastry with all butter, half butter and half lard, all lard, half margarine half lard or all margarine. You can even make it with oil. I use half butter half lard because that's what my mother and grandmother always did and they made the best pastry in the world. But you can use whatever you prefer/have in the fridge/can afford. I would say though that if you are going to use margarine you should buy the stuff that comes in a block like butter rather than the softer spreadable ones.

As this is a Lanky cheese and onion pie I have stipulated Lancashire cheese but in truth any crumbly white cheese would do if you can't get any for some reason, although possibly not white Stilton. Cheshire, Caerphilly or Wensleydale would be my suggestions for a substitute.

Make sure you read through all the instructions and understand what you are doing before you start. Then wash your hands.

You will need:

200g plain flour

100g fat (see above)

pinch of salt

cold water

250g Lancashire cheese

250g onion, finely chopped

Some milk

Make the pastry:

Put the flour in a roomy bowl. Cut the fat into small pieces and add to the bowl. Add the salt.

Now rub the fat into the flour. You do this by scooping up a small amount of fat and flour together then rubbing the mixture between your thumb and fingers, allowing everything to fall back into the bowl then repeat. Keep scooping and rubbing away making sure you go all the way to the bottom of the bowl. Gradually the two elements will mix together and you will find you have a sort of fine sandy rubble in the bowl. The way to tell when you've done enough is to pick up one of the bigger lumps and squish it. If it is mostly butter or whatever fat you've used then you need to keep going, if it looks like a paste then you're done.

Sprinkle a couple of tablespoons of cold water over the mixture in the bowl then take a kitchen knife and start cutting through the rubble and mixing in the water. Gradually the paste will clump together but you may need to add another tbs or so of water before it does. Go slowly with the water though – too much will make the pastry difficult to manage. You are aiming for everything to stick together and leave nothing behind in the bowl but not something so sticky it resembles an alien life form trying to assimilate into your body. Pat the pastry into a neat ball and either cover it with clingfilm or put it into a plastic bag then stick it in the fridge for half an hour to rest.

If you try and use pastry straight away it will shrink when you cook it and the end result won't be as nice.

While the pastry is resting prepare the filling:

Put the onion into a microwaveable bowl, add 4 tbs of milk and 2 tbs of water. Cover the bowl with clingfilm. Poke a hole in the top then microwave on high until the onion is completely soft. The ones I did today took a total of 9 minutes in three lots of three mins with a shake of the bowl in between each. Keep checking - some microwaves cook things more quickly than others. Once the onion is lovely and soft carefully remove the clingfilm and leave to cool a little.

You can also do this in a pan with a lid, over a low heat. It might take a bit longer to do but it is a perfectly acceptable way to do it. For some reason your Nanny always used the microwave, so I do too.

Grate the cheese on the big holes of the grater.

Preheat the oven to 180ºC/Gas mark 4

Assemble the pie:

Take the pastry out of the fridge and unwrap it. Cut off a third and set aside. Scatter a little flour on the worktop and your rolling pin** to stop things sticking and roll out the remaining pastry into a circle big enough to line your tin with a bit left over to hang over the side. Gently fold over the circle of pastry in half then into a quarter and lift it into the tin. Unfold and ease it out and up the sides of the tin making sure there are no air bubbles or gaps between the pastry and the tin. It helps to use a small wodge of pastry to push things into place - fingernails, however short, will cause holey damage really easily. If the pastry does tear for some reason don't panic, you can easily repair it – just break off a small piece, dampen it with a little water and press it over the tear until it sticks.

Once the pastry is in add the filling. I usually do a layer of onion then a layer of cheese. Don't worry if there's still a bit of liquid left in the onions, just stir it in before you spoon them into the pie. Repeat the layers until everything is in.

Now roll out the rest of the pastry making sure you roll it big enough to cover the top of the pie. Before you put the top on just wet your fingers and run them around the top edge of the pastry base to dampen it a little and help the lid to stick. Then place the lid on the pie and press all around the edge to seal. Trim away any excess pastry to leave a neat finish. You can now press all the way around the edge with the tines of a fork if you wish, it's just a simple way to 'crimp' the edges together but you don't have to if you don't want to, just make sure everything is glued together with water and a little pressure. Poke a couple of holes in the top of the pie to allow the steam to escape and brush the top of the pie with some milk if you like, this helps it look nice when it's cooked.

Put the pie in the oven and bake for 30-40 mins until the top is golden brown.

Remove from the oven and allow to stand for 15 minutes – it tastes much better when it has cooled slightly.

You can have this with salad (hollow laugh), or peas... [looks to camera], or baked beans and oven chips if you must.

**if you don't have a rolling pin, any straight sided glass bottle (wine, beer etc) will do the job perfectly well.

Thai Green Curry - New Tester!

My first non-student tester had a go at one of my recipes this week - why don't you have a go? It really is delicious and a lovely easy recipe to do. And extremely versatile... as you will see.

S: After the longest spell without cooking I wanted to give your Thai green curry recipe a go. I have veggies and most ingredients... Bar the essential Thai spice mix. Obviously at this stage I'm going to make it with whatever I have at home. What could I use instead? I have curry powder and some other stuff. Obviously I know that at this stage it stops being a Thai green curry, but hey, it'll be whatever it will be.


The spice mix was used as a shortcut for a poor student so it isn't essential, you can easily replace it. My usual spice paste has cumin in it and curry powder is often mostly cumin so I would use that instead. If you can I'd add a fresh chilli or two and lots of lime zest and juice. Other things to add if you have them or can find them - fish sauce (1tsp), Thai basil, a few black peppercorns, a bashed lemon grass stalk. If you have a blender I'd use that to make the paste because it's just easier Once the sauce has cooked for a few minutes give it a taste and add more of anything you think it needs. Don't stress about it too much, my green curry is different every time I make it!


S: Here are some pictures...

S: It was fantastic! Really, really enjoyed it.

I only had chicken because I am a fussy eater and don't like veggies, and no rice as I am low carbing again. My brother had veggies, chicken and rice. Husband has plenty of leftovers so that's good.

I used chilli powder, curry powder, cumin powder, peri peri spice mix and some lemon pepper spice mix. In addition to that I used some random powdered coconut (bought in Sri Lanka in our honeymoon) in addition to one can of coconut milk as it is what I had at home and wanted to make a big batch. For veggies I used courgette, aubergine, green beans and red pepper.

Delicious, thank you so much for inspiring me!

What a fantastic result. I am delighted it worked so well for you. (please note I didn't mention the muesli... :D xx)

Pimp My Potatoes

So here's another recipe/idea in the occasional series 'Things I Can Make Without Having Much Kitchen Equipment'. These potatoes are so much more than the sum of their parts. Of course you could just bake a potato, cut it open and sling the fillings over the top. But doing them this way doesn't take very long and the end result is delicious. I've used tuna here because I know that's what you are planning on using but you can use pretty much anything you like and in any combination you like. Things to consider include chopped ham, spam, corned beef, tuna, sardines, cooked chopped bacon or chicken, chopped peppers, snipped spring onions, sun dried tomatoes, Peppadews, prawns, smoked mackerel, leftover curry, leftover chilli, kidney beans or any other tinned pulses... I would say that the one thing you really must use is cheese. Preferably one you can grate or crumble so wobbly cheese slices probably aren't the best choice.

Be aware that when the potatoes have finished baking they will be full of steam and this can burn you really badly. So use the bear paw gloves to get the potatoes out of the oven and use a folded tea towel to hold the halved potato when you are scooping the middle out.

You will need:

1 large or 2 small to medium potatoes per person
A little salt for sprinkling over
25g butter or margarine
2-3 tbs milk
1 tin of tuna (or other fillings, see introduction)
Grated cheese to taste


Prepare the potatoes:

Wash the spuds but don't dry. Prick all over with a sharp knife or a fork and sprinkle with salt. Bake at 200ºc until soft when pressed (be careful) they will probably take between 45 mins to an hour and a half depending on the size of the potatoes.

Allow the potatoes to cool for 10 mins or so then cut each potato in half and use a spoon to carefully scoop out the soft, cooked potato into a roomy bowl, leaving a shell of baked potato skin behind.

Mash the cooked spud with a fork until smooth then mash in the milk and butter. Drain the tin of tuna and add to the bowl along with as much grated cheese as you like/can afford and stir until combined.

Spoon this mixture evenly between the empty potato shells and either sprinkle the tops with extra grated cheese or roughen the surface with a fork and top with a small knob of butter.

Put the filled potatoes on a baking tray or in a shallow ovenproof dish and put back in the oven for 15-20 mins, or until the tops are golden brown and the potatoes are piping hot in the middle.

I ate mine with salad. You will probably have baked beans.


***For students who don't have an oven, you can of course microwave the potatoes. Just be aware that the skins will be quite soft so scooping out the middles needs to be done with extra care. However, if split skins happen you can usually hide it quite well by spooning in the filling, pushing the skin around it and then nestling all the potatoes closely together so that they hold each other up. Then serve with a flourish and no one will know.

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H: Potate

Huzzah!

Is that a cooked potate?

H: Yep!

Looking good.

H: Ok pictures incoming:

Loving your work

Wasn't it easy?

H: I can't think of anything funny to say to be honest, it's a collection of terrible photos of me gutting a poor potato... It is a huge potato though.

Better or worse than you expected?

H: It was about what I expected really haha

And there we have it. Uninspiring a generation one recipe at a time.

H: I was tempted to eat the mash before putting it back in the potato...

Oh I do that every single time. Thank you chick xxx

You must do the pie now... I know I know... But PIE. And actually yum.

Wow look!

So Katie also decided to cook Thai green veggie curry too, and didn't she make a great job of it? She says it was really yummy and she enjoyed making it - proper cooking apparently :)

I am so delighted that the recipe worked for her and the effort was worth it.

Thai Green Veggie curry

Serves 2

Around 600g of frozen mixed vegetables

1 lime

1 tin coconut milk

2 cloves of garlic, peeled

1 small piece of fresh ginger about the size of your thumb.

1 onion, peeled

1.5 tsp Thai Spice Mix (in the Spice aisle, made by Schwartz)

1 supermarket pack of fresh coriander

1 supermarket pack of fresh mint

2 tbs light soy sauce

White rice – value is fine

This is a simple version of my usual recipe and will teach you a bit about making a spice paste and how to cook rice.

Making a paste without a food processor or pestle and mortar is slightly tricky but this comes pretty close. Fresh herbs are essential here though, Thai curries sing with fresh herb and citrus flavours so don't even think about using dried. Soy sauce comes in two types – light and dark. Ideally you want light soy sauce for this. Light is for flavour, dark is for colour. But if you can only get dark, use that.

Vegetarian dishes are good when the pennies are a bit tight. The very cheapest way is to use a pack of frozen mixed vegetables or buy fresh from a local market if there is one. Otherwise haunt the produce section of the supermarket and scoop up any 'Whoops!' (have a banana!) or 'reduced to clear' bargains. Technically you could make this with just a single vegetable, although I wouldn't really recommend it. However if that's all you can afford then so be it. It would work ok with cauliflower. I'd try to avoid using just sweetcorn though, the plumbing may not withstand it.

Make the paste:

You need the grater for this. For quite a lot of grating. Use the big holes for the onion, finer ones for everything else.

Halve the onion then grate it to a slush, tip the slush into a bowl.

Peel the garlic and grate into the bowl. There's really no need to peel the ginger, despite what lots of recipe books say, just cut off the dry ends and grate it straight into the bowl.

Add the grated zest of the lime and then squeeze in as much juice as you can, it helps if you stick a fork into the lime as you squeeze.

Add the soy sauce and a pinch of salt.

Add 1.5 tsp of the spice mix – anyone else doing this can add more if you like it quite spicy.

Remove the leafy bit of the coriander from the stalks and chop the stalks as finely as you can. Add the chopped stalks to the bowl.

Pick off the mint leaves, finely chop and add to the bowl and throw the stalks away.

Stir everything together until it is well mixed. If you have a rolling pin, or a mug, or a beer bottle or - well you get the idea - using the end to give everything a really good bash about in the bowl wouldn't hurt at this point.

Cook the rice:

White rice is almost always cooked 2:1 so 2 measures of water to 1 of rice. But small amounts of rice are a bit tricky and leftover rice freezes well plus it's as easy to cook a whole mugful as half. So I'd recommend cooking a whole mug of rice in two mugs of water then freeze any leftovers as soon as the rice is cool**. On zero money days a bowl of forgotten rice from the freezer reheated with some butter with a couple of fried eggs on top can feel like a nutritional hug.

Boil the kettle. Put the pan on the heat. Measure the rice first then the boiling water into a pan add a teaspoon of salt, a knob of butter and bring everything up to the boil. Stir once then reduce the heat to the lowest possible, clap a lid on the pan and leave for about ten minutes. After ten mins take a look. If the water has mostly disappeared and there are little craters/holes all over the rice, put the lid back on, turn off the heat and leave it alone. No craters... check again after another minute or so until the craters appear then put the lid back on, turn off the heat and leave it alone. It may take up to another 5 minutes depending on how fast the pan is simmering. It will now sit happily at the back of the cooker until the curry is ready.

Make the curry:

Open the tin of coconut milk and tip the contents into your widest, shallowest pan. You may have to scrape off any coconut cream clinging to the lid and sides of the tin but just and stir it in, it will melt as the liquid heats up. Bring it up to the boil and then cook briskly for five minutes to reduce it a little.

Stir in all of the spice paste and add the vegetables. Bring back to the boil then simmer and stir regularly until the veg is tender when poked with a sharp with a knife.

Serve:

Put some rice on the plate, spoon some veggie curry next to it and scatter the reserved coriander leaves over the top. This sauce is quite thin, if you prefer a thicker sauce you can grate in half a block of creamed coconut to thicken it up.

**This is very important. You must freeze any uneaten rice as soon as it is cool enough to go in the freezer. Leftover cooked rice that isn't stored properly will give you food poisoning. See here.

For a non-student version please email me for instructions at our sparkly new email address: twonerdsonescone@gmail.com

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Many thanks to Joanna for being my guest cook today :)

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J: Going to start making the recipe now! I'll let you know if I need any help :)

'Good luck xx *excited* and nervous if I'm honest - hope t works ok...'

J: Going ok so far. Do I use the whole bag of coriander/mint?

'Up to you. I always do.'

J: Okay paste done. Not sure if I chopped the coriander and mint quite fine enough

'That looks absolutely fine.'

'Without a blender or pestle and mortar the texture will always be different. Not worse, just different. The flavour will be fine though :)'

J: And here is the final product

J: Tastes great!

'Wheee!! Well done and huzzah that it tastes good too :) Thank you chick, I really appreciate it xx'

J: No problem. It was fun to make :)

A Big Thank You to Katie

The first student recipe tester who isn't related to me. Thanks so much for trying the fish pie Katie, I hope you enjoyed it. Apparently Katie used salmon instead of tuna and thought the recipe was easy to follow.

Phew. Thats a relief.

And look how well it came out too:

Genuinely thrilled to bits :)

Pancakes, Bacon and the Best Scrambled Eggs In World ™

Ooh look! A special weekend bonus recipe for you to try. These pancakes are really quick and easy to make and you can freeze any spare ones to have another day. Just zap them for a few seconds in the microwave. What isn't negotiable is topping them with butter after you've cooked them. It is the law.

You can use plain flour and baking powder as I have done here or replace these with self-raising flour if you have some. This is the smallest amount you can make because you can't really get smaller than one egg and it should make four good sized pancakes. However if you want to make more it is easy to double or triple the recipe.

First thing is to grill some bacon until it is crispy then turn off the grill, put the bacon on a plate and put this plate in the grill space to keep warm. Close the grill to keep the heat in.

So for the pancakes you need:

1/2 a mug of plain flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
1 tsp sugar
a knob of butter, melted (in the microwave)
1 egg, beaten
150ml milk

Whisk the dry ingredients together.

Whisk the wet ingredients together.

Whisk the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.

Heat a little oil in a frying pan over a low to medium heat.

Dollop large spoonfuls of the mixture into the pan. You will probably have to cook them two at a time.

Bubbles will appear on the top of the pancakes as they cook. When the bubbles have mostly all burst, flip the pancakes over and cook the other side for another couple of seconds then put them on the warm plate in the grill space.

For the scrambled eggs you will need:

2 eggs
splash of milk - or cream if you have some
large knob of butter

Whisk the eggs and milk together and put into a non-stick pan. Drop in the knob of butter.

So the secret to the best scrambled eggs in the world ™is very low heat and patience. Put the pan over the lowest heat possible and use a silicone spatula to stir. Initially nothing much will happen so you just need to stir occasionally but after several minutes the eggs will suddenly start to set on the bottom of the pan. Use the spatula to scrape the cooked eggs up, but do this gently because you want big soft pieces. This bit doesn't take very long, so you can't walk away at this point. If you do you will end up with an egg frisbee. Keep scraping and stirring gently until the eggs are cooked to your liking then tip them onto the plate with the pancakes and bacon.

Eat. Preferably in front of your jealous flatmates. I have to make do with the dog and cats. But they are definitely jealous.

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H: Should I fry the bacon first or after the pancakes since I'm not using a grill?

'I'd do the bacon first because it will take longer to cook. When it's done stick it on a plate and cover with something - upturned bowl? Another plate? Something like that x

'If you have any tin foil that works.'

H: Do I need oil to fry bacon?

'A little bit - like a teaspoon will get things going but you can do it without if you put the bacon in a cold pan and then heat it. It's up to you x'

H: K!

H: Can I whisk with a fork or should I borrow an actual whisk?

'Ok you have to remind me what you are whisking - it's been a while since I wrote the destructions'

H: Destructions he he he. I'm whisking the batter.

'Oh it should be fine with a fork. Just beat the shit out of it.'

H: Okay!

'Don't forget to photograph stuff xxx'

H: oh yeah! Ok

H: Do I need to whisk the dry and wet ingredients separately first? 'Cause I only have the one mixing bowl...'

'You can do it in one. The previous whisk rules apply though.'

H: Wooo...

'Oh my WORD! That's a PANCAKE right there...'

H: Eggs next!

H: Do I use my frying pan or one of my other pans?

'Are the other pans non-stick?'

H: I believe so

'Then any of those would be fine'

H: Can I use my wooden spoon cause I don't have a silicone spatula?

'Yes of course. I put wooden spoon first but thought you had a silicone thing instead...'

H: Nah that was Tanya's haha!

'Well that looks the business. Well done chick xxx'