With the cost of food and energy going through the roof, everyone started to act differently in the way that they shop and feed themselves and their family. And I really wanted to be as useful as possible to you in this time. So for me, it's about thinking about those basic cooking skills that can look after you.
I've had to study hundreds and hundreds of ingredients across four big supermarkets. Really go back to basics, principles, hacks, tips. Come on.
We might be cooking on a budget, but this is delicious food. Every single ingredient has been costed to offer recipes that are incredible value. Clever cooking to keep costs down. Have a look at that. Maximum flavor, minimum cost.
This time I'm celebrating frozen ingredients to create utterly scrumptious dishes. A pan of gorgeousness. And I've got a delicious one-pot meal to save on both energy and time. Look at that. Crispy bits. Hello. And I'm getting creative with two family favorites. Come on. Elegant and gorgeous. And I've called on my mate and ex-student Big H to share some tips on how to get a taste of the Mediterranean for a fraction of the cost. This is a very important Cretan dish. It's about sharing, but it's also about food of necessity.
By embracing your freezer, I've come up with the most delicious fish pie recipe at a fraction of the price. This stunning fish pie packs a real flavor punch. Turning frozen white fish, spinach, eggs, and crispy mash into a spectacular pie. Serving six. This family favorite is a proper catch.
Getting fresh fish into your shop on a budget tends to be a bit more expensive. And I think people are scared of cooking fish. I think, you know, as soon as you buy it fresh, you know, you want to use it quite quickly. But actually, the answer for me lays in here, the freezer. And I've got two ingredients here for this fish pie. First one is beautiful white fish fillets. Have a look in here. And I want you to see how plump and interesting this is. It's pollock. We've got immaculate fillets. They've all been trimmed beautifully. So look, this is what you get. This is on budget. Look at that. So I'm going to use two eggs. These are going to go into boiling water. I'll cook them for about 10 minutes. And that will hard boil the egg.
So then we've got spinach. Frozen spinach. This is my latest crush. So 480g into a little colander above the boiling water. And that will defrost. So I'm going to put this casserole pan onto a medium-high heat. I'm going to add into here two tablespoons of olive oil. I'm going to slice up the carrot into little discs. So, in we go with the carrot. That can start frying off. I'm going to finely chop the onion. And we'll go in with the onions. So, a nice pinch of salt and pepper. Just five minutes to soften these veggies.
Okay. So, let's just think through this. We've got the fish, we've got the spinach, we've got the eggs, we've got the veg. We're going to make a nice white sauce. So, for that, I'm going to use 500 milliliters of milk. And what I've got for you is a little trick that's going to guarantee you smooth, easy white sauce. This little fraction of milk there, I'm going to add two tablespoons of plain flour. So instead of stirring, stirring, stirring, trying to make the lumpy bits of flour and oil kind of smooth, add the two to the milk, mix it up almost like a little batter. So in with the last 100mls of milk and the flour. Immediately, this will start to thicken. I'm going to add some mustard to this. A little English mustard in this creamy sauce with the fish and with the egg is a beautiful thing. So, two teaspoons, that will give it an incredible color.
So, now turn the heat off. The eggs have had about 10 minutes. I'm just going to let these cool down in some cold water. It will stop the cooking process. Also, by cooling them down, they're easier to peel. So, back to the sauce. The spinach is beautifully defrosted and now we are ready to party with that. Okay, we're going to go in with cheese. Cheddar cheese is a good price. It melts beautifully. It's seasoned and flavored beautifully. What I might do is just save a little back to put a tiny bit on top. So, I'll put that to the side. And then this beautiful cheese here I'm going to put into the sauce.
You can see we've got an incredibly rich, beautiful sauce here. Now, knowing that an amount of moisture will come out of these frozen fish, they're going to loosen this sauce down in the most beautiful way. So, there's a pure layer of fish here, like the whole thing is going to be covered. If you've got any little gaps, you can just kind of break the fish up and fill the gaps. Now, pollock is a delicious flaky white fish. Very similar to haddock and cod. So, using different fish is really good. More variation, much better for the seas. So, next up, a little lesson on frozen spinach. Now, we've defrosted it. What we have here is a lot of excess moisture. So, you can just squeeze that out. Right, you've just made it nice and dense. I want to show you how to guarantee that this is a thing of beauty. Salt and pepper and just a little olive oil. So, I'm going to put spinach as a layer, not quite to the edge because I want the lovely creamy sauce to bubble up around the edges.
Okay, let me just quickly have a little wash back with the eggs. Just have a little tap up. Have a light roll. We'll just pick the shell off. Now, next up, all you need to do is slice up the egg. But I found a little friend the other day. Oh, yeah. From back in the 80s, and I just love it. Take your egg and just finely slice it. And then I'm just going to lay this around here. In the world of fish pie, there are passionate believers of the egg or haters. And I'm a believer, but I have members of my family that are haters. So, what do you do? You simply load one half or not with eggs. But look at this. Like, we're using eggs to stretch this dish for color, for protein. You know, it's also adding to the flavor.
Then, mashed potato, but I haven't boiled them. I've actually used the microwave. It just saves me using another pan. I've got one and a half kilos of potatoes that I give a little prick with a knife and put in there for like 25 minutes until soft. You literally just cut them in half and we let them steam a little bit. Take out the potato from the skin. Then we aren't going to throw the skins away. We are going to embrace them. The skin here, it's really nutty. Also, a lot of the nutrition is in that skin, so we can gain nutrition. We can gain flavor. So, we'll season them. A little drizzle of oil. Give them a little pat. Tear them like this. Then I'm going to put them around the edge. This will add an incredible almost kind of crouton-like vibe to the side of this fish pie. It's about utilizing everything, wasting nothing. And then here on a clean surface, season with a pinch of salt and olive oil.
We want our mashed potato to be nice and smooth. Whether you use butter or olive oil, it's all good. Use what you've got. When my mom used to do fish pie as a kid. Mom, what's for dinner? Fish pie. Yes. Yes. Like I want it to be one of those dishes in your home with these little edges. If you leave them like that, they'll catch a little bit. So just fold them in and that just protects them. Just the smallest grating of cheese. So there you go. This goes in the oven for half an hour exactly at 190°C, which is 375°F, until golden. It's going to be gorgeous.
Come on. Look at that. It's just blipping away. Oven off. A family classic right there. Crispy bits. Lovely sauce. A pan of gorgeousness. And the question is what to serve that with. I normally have this with baked beans in my family and that's how I was brought up. But when I was talking about this and costing it with the team, there was definitely a split camp. So it was frozen peas on one side, baked beans on the other. But then when we took the price over four supermarkets, it turned out that beans were a couple of pence more expensive. So like that's why I reduce the amount of cheese in the sauce. But can you see how I'm kind of changing my recipe to suit the promise and the price and the budget and all of that good stuff? So that's what cooking is all about. Being agile, responding to what people do and don't like. Right, enough talking. Let's plate up.
Right to the bottom. We're going to go. Can you see the layers? Look at the layers. Really beautiful. And if you go around the edges, you're going to get the skin and the crispy bits. And then my controversial baked beans. Let's get in there. That is utterly delicious. The fish is holding its shape. It's flaky. It's robust. It's chunky. What's nice about the skin, of course, is this would normally go in the bin, but the sauce has got its way in there and cooked into it. Crunchy, nutty. There's no reason to waste that. I love it. It's a fantastic way of getting fish into the family, embracing a few freezer favorites, and I hope that you can enjoy it with people you love at home, too.
I really wanted to develop a beautiful one-tray recipe for you because I know how helpful they are in my life and I hope they are in yours too. This one-pan spicy chicken dish is a super simple way to turn one of the cheapest cuts of chicken into a showstopping dinner. Cooked from start to finish in the same pan. It cuts down on washing up but doesn't compromise on flavor. Coming in under budget too. Originally, this dish was a tray-baked dish that was cooked in the oven, but with the recent increase in energy prices, I thought, could I do it in a nice pot on a hob in less time on a cheaper source of energy? So, this is really good. It got me thinking about how we can make flexible recipes, not just in flavor, but also in how you cook them.
So look, we are using chicken thighs. The cheapest way to get them is skin on, bone in. But as a cook, the best way to get more flavor is exactly that. So there's no compromise at all. So this pan is heating up. We'll go in with just a little oil. We're going to go in with our chicken thighs. Let's just get these browning off and gorgeous. We are going to season with salt and plenty of black pepper. I want to get crispy skin and golden thighs. And then we can start adding some really interesting flavors. Now, what I want to do is just cut these onions. I'm going to cut each half into three. We'll cook them until they're sweet and delicious.
So, what I love about being challenged by price is it's forcing me as a cook to come up with solutions. And a lot of people buy chicken thighs with the bone out, skin off. And by having them on, the flavor that comes out of the marrow of those bones is going to make the rice that I put in later the tastiest rice ever. So look, just after a couple of minutes, turn over the chicken. And then here with the skin, I'm going to take this off now and it will pull off nice and easily. And we're going to create crispy chicken skin crackling. And that will be sprinkled over the dish later. So, you know when like you have a roast pork dinner and everyone goes crazy for the cracklings? Like this is the bite. Can you see how golden and delicious these are? We'll take the crispy bits and we'll just add them to the plate. That with soft, fluffy rice crunching away is going to be a thing of beauty.
Now we'll go in with the onions. Toss those in all the lovely fat that's cooked out of the chicken. We can go in there with two tablespoons of curry paste. I've chosen to go with tikka paste, but you could use any paste that you've got. They often have like 10, 15 different ingredients, different layers of spices. Can you see how it clings to the chicken? That is flavor. And that is going to be a gorgeous mouthful of deliciousness. So, the next part of the story is going to be some tinned tomatoes. Plum tomatoes, perfectly ripe and delicious. So, look, just break open the plum tomato, shake out the seeds, and you'll have chunks of tomato, which I'm simply going to slice up. And then I'll twist that around and I'll slice the other way. And then with the juice that's left behind here in the tin, I'm going to simply sieve out the seeds. And we're going to reduce that down in one half of the pan and make our very own tomato puree.
We're going to have a carbohydrate in here. Lovely fluffy basmati rice. I've got one mug of rice. So, one part rice and two parts water. It's a nice principle to learn. It will give you fluffy, fluffy rice every single time. Have a look in this pan. It's almost going thick like tomato puree. I can mix all the chicken up with this. Now is the time to add the rice. If you just toast it for one minute, it will start to look a little bit translucent, right? It's absorbed in that flavor. And now we add the water, the liquid. We take the same mug that we put the rice in, and we fill that up with cold water. This is called the absorption method. Two to one and it works every time. We're then going to go in with the chopped up tomatoes. Just move the chicken around so it's kind of evenly spaced because what's going to happen is as it comes to the boil, the rice will absorb all that flavor and become quite fluffy and kind of almost grow around the chicken. Put a lid on top because that's good for energy. So, 15 minutes of browning and now 15 minutes of boiling and steaming and then we got a finished dish.
So, it's had 13 minutes and it is smelling good. You can see how this beautiful environment has created this lovely fluffy rice. Look at that. Beautiful. So, for the last couple of minutes, I'm going to put in 500g of peas. And it just literally covers like a lid on top here. I'm then going to go in with coconut milk. It's got beautiful tropical flavors. The coconut, the fragrance. Lid goes on. Just two more minutes. While that does its thing, I'm going to get my crispy bits here and we are going to just slice them up. Can you hear how crunchy they are? We're creating textures, layers of flavor. I love that. So, it might only be a few bits of skin, but that is going to be almost like the best bit on top of our hot, soft, steamy rice. It's had a couple of minutes. The sound has changed from that gentle sort of steamy sound to there's frying going on. And that's just at the edges. It's just beginning to catch and get crispy. So, let's serve this up.
Get into here. And move it all. Look at that. Look. Crispy bits. Hello. You know that's a good place when you have the softest, fluffiest rice, but then little crispy bits. So, let's plate up a portion. Lovely fluffy rice, the beautiful chunks of onion, perfectly cooked, tender chicken. Take a little of the rest of this coconut milk and just spoon this on the top. And then the crispy bits, some black pepper. And that, my friends, is a beautiful plate of food. Let's get in there. Juicy, succulent, pearly white chicken just falling off the bone. Let's take a bit of that chicken. Beautiful. Wow. The layers of spices are delicious. I get a hit every now and again of those sweet onions and little pops of sweet peas. The meat is so tender. The rice is so soft and delicious and spicy, but then I get a little crunch. Crunch? What is it? The chicken cracklings. Oh, whether you cook this in the oven or on the hob, one thing is for sure, this is a blinding dish to cook on a budget. No compromise on flavor whatsoever.
This next dish is a delicious way to keep costs down and family favorite flavors up. My creamy cauliflower cheese spaghetti uses my super simple white sauce to totally reinvent the classic. This beautiful dish is a taste sensation. This is coming in well under budget and I've literally taken my favorite veg dish and turned it into the most gorgeous pasta sauce. And the heart of this sauce comes from here, the freezer. A friend, a very good friend right now. So, I'm using frozen cauliflower. Great price. It's already prepped for you. So, get your cauliflower into a bowl. And then I'm going to grab a leek here, which I've washed. I'm going to take the end off, the green dark part. And then this lovely white part, I'm just going to put in with the cauliflower. That's going to go in the microwave for 10 minutes. Okay. So, that is going to semi-cook.
While that's doing its thing, I want to show you a really nice little cheat to creating possibly one of the most delicious sprinkles ever. Think garlic bread, but in sprinkle form, right? Interested? Yeah, I thought so. So, this is fresh bread. It could be stale. To make breadcrumbs without turning on a food processor, just get your knife, slice it up like this, one way, and then turn it. And then simply do it the other way until you've got breadcrumbs the size and consistency that you want. Okay. So, we're going to use that on top of our silky sauce with our pasta. And that crunch and that garlic is going to be so delicious. So, look, the first thing that we're going to do is add a little garlic. So, in we go. That will start to fry in no time at all. I've got this little lonely piece of leek here. Just open it out like this. And that will fry really crispy and be the most amazing little thing to have with our crispy garlic breadcrumbs. Put in the green part of the leek. And then we're going to put in the breadcrumbs. I've got some mixed nuts here. 20g. All of those flavors that will enhance that little sprinkle. The nuts go in and they'll go golden and delicious. We're going to season this with some salt and pepper. Imagine that. Garlic, oil, crispy leeks. There we go.
So, there is my partially cooked leeks and cauliflower. So, this lovely sprinkle is going to go on here. Next part of the story, we're going to have just a little olive oil in the pan again. One clove of garlic. Slice it up. Put that in the oil. Pan's already hot. So, as the garlic starts to take on a little bit of color, I'm going to use just a nice pinch of dried thyme. Dried herbs are a fantastic thing to invest in. When they're dried, they seem to be more robust, more savory, more substantial in flavor. Little touch of salt. With the leeks, I'm just going to slice these up just a little bit. Can you see how soft they are now? And in we go. Look at that. So, I want to do a humble white sauce. And I've got 400mls of semi-skimmed milk. So I'm going to put most of it in here. And then we'll start just poaching. And about 100mls of this, I'm just going to put in a little bowl. And we're going to go in with one tablespoon of plain flour. So just mix that little bit of cold milk and the flour together. That'll dissolve nicely. Pour this in. And that will start to thicken straight away. So use a potato masher to make a rustic white sauce.
Time to get the pasta on. Get yourself some spaghetti. So, what I want is 300g of pasta. This is a 500g pack. Salt the water. And then we're going to grab the spaghetti with two hands. In it goes. I'll put the lid back on just to bring it back to the boil. So, pasta's in. Crispy bits have cooled down. Go into our starchy boiling water and just steal a bit. And this will just allow it to smooth out a little bit. So the spaghetti is nearly there. And this I've let down to be a nice consistency. Let's have a little taste. A little touch of salt. A little touch more pepper. And then of course I've got 100g of cheddar cheese in this recipe. Cheddar is oozy. It's stringy. That's about 90g there. I want to get a nice consistency. Now, you can go chunky, you can go rustic like this, but one thing that I can't help myself is to just use a little hand blender to make it super smooth. So, in with the lovely cheese. And then I'm going to angle this pan and just blitz it up. It just sticks to the pasta in the most beautiful way. So, blend that up until it gets nice and smooth. And there you go.
Okay, sauce done. Pasta should be good. Let's have a little try. Yes. So, take that pasta over. And then what we can do, just get in there with the pasta and just move it around. So, look at that. Elegant and gorgeous. Let's get this going and just put a nice big pasta platter in the middle of the table. Go in with the crispy bits. Your mates will be so pleased with this one. Get amongst it. Bit more sprinkly bits. And don't forget we've also got enough cheese just kept to the side just for a little light grating. Silky sauce around the spaghetti. When you get your fork in there, it kind of just puts wave after wave of those lovely crispy bits. Beautiful. So good. Soft, silky, crunchy, garlicky, cooked with a bit of love and care and flair. And you get something delicious like that. Joy. Just joy.
In this series, I've asked some of my mates to share a few of their own delicious dishes. Big H is one of my old students and a celebrated chef in his own right with his family heritage being at the heart of his cooking.
