Category: Savoury

Cold Wrap fillings

Following up from how to make your own tortilla wraps, here’s some good things to put in them!

I’ll get round to doing some hot fillings when I get the time but here’s 10 cold ones to be getting on with.

Beef and horseradish

Spread the horseradish over the whole wrap, layer sliced beef on top and roll up, nice and hot.

Dairy lea and ham

I’m a sucker for this 😂 I make it for my daughter, like above just spread the dairy lea over the open wrap and layer the ham on top, then roll up and cut in half/in to bites etc.

Chocolate spread

Quick and easy, better on pancakes but nice if you want a quick sweet treat, just spread it over the wrap and fold/roll up. Nosh.

Smoked salmon and cream cheese

Spread cream cheese over the open wrap and layer smoked salmon over the top. You can roll this up and cut it into 1cm pieces to use as canopes or as little snack bites.

Ham and mustard

Another classic combination, spread the mustard over the wrap and put the ham over the top. Fold/roll and enjoy.

Mango chutney and cheddar

I love this, spread the mango chutney over the open wrap and the grate cheese over the top. Fold/roll it up as you would and munch. Pop it in the microwave for 20 seconds if you want melted cheese, the wrap might go a bit floppy though.

Coleslaw

As simple as it sounds, fill, wrap, eat, repeat.

Mozzarella and beef tomato.

Slice a beef tomato and ball of mozzarella as finely as you can lay the tomato over the open wrap, dash a little balsamic over the tomato and sprinkle with salt, the put the mozzarella on top. Roll up and eat.

Cheese basil and tomato.

Get some fresh basil and your favourite cheese. Slice the tomato as fine as you can. Spread some pesto over the open wrap and grate some cheese over the top. Put in whole leave of basil or chop it up and sprinkle over the top. Top with the tomato and fold/roll up.

Tartare sauce and tuna

Spread the tartare over the open wrap, open and drain the tuna and sprinkle over the top. Fold/roll up and enjoy.

Dirty Cajun rice recipe

Dirty rice come in many (delicious) forms. Cajun is a pretty classic combination so here’s something I’ve put together.

To the recipe!

Ingredients: £2.79 – serves 2 (£1.40) or 3 (£0.93) (per serving)

  • 200g basmati rice
  • 1 chicken stock cube
  • 1 beef stock cube
  • 500ml water
  • 100-200g diced cooking bacon
  • 1 ball of mozzarella, diced
  • 1 red pepper, diced
  • 1 large onion, finely diced
  • 1 tbsp garlic paste
  • 1 tbsp ketchup
  • 2-3 tbsp Cajun spice
  • You shouldn’t need any salt here as Cajun spice has a shitload already
  • Oil, for frying.

Equipmemt

  • Saucepan
  • Knife
  • Chopping board
  • Tinfoil
  • Frying pan
  • Wooden spoon
  • Plate

Prep and cooking (40-50 minutes)

  1. First cook the rice but be sure to put 1 tbsp of Cajun spice, 1 beef and 1 chicken stock cube in the water when cooking, leave it covered until needed.
  2. Heat some oil in a pan on a fairly high heat until it’s nice and hot. Cook the bacon until the fat is rendered down and nicely crisp. Remove from the pan and keep to onne side.
  3. Add the onion to the pan, you want to get it nicely browned so the flavour develops, turn the heat up but don’t let it burn though. It’s a fairly fine line between nicely browned and burnt.
  4. Add the red pepper and cook for another 2-3 minutes, be sure to keep everything moving.
  5. Now add the garlic paste and ketchup cook for another 3-5 minutes while stirring.
  6. Remove to the heat and turn your attention to the rice. Remove the kids and fluff with a fork, and 1-2 tbsp of Cajun spice and mix well.
  7. All that’s left to do is mix the two together! Dirty.

Dirty rice all round

Costing

Cutting the cost

Looking at cost there are a few bits you can cut to save a bit, you can’t really change the amount of rice as it’s the bulk of the dish, unless you’re just cooking for 1.

Using half the amount of Cajun spice will save about 30p and you can just add some extra salt, the flavour won’t be quite as strong but still good.

The red pepper can be optional, removing it takes off another 45p, as is the mozzarella which saves an additional 45p.

This can cut the cost down to £1.59, or about 80p a serving.

All the prices used are from tesco.com on the date of this post.

Nutrition (based on 1 serving, half the above amount or )

Nutrition information

As you can see it’s fairly heavy on the carbs and a nice whack of calories, just about enough for a mealtime.

More recipes soon, keep on sending in your requests!

How to rub in flour and butter

When a recipe calls for you to ‘rub in’ the flour and butter, it’s a simple task but if you don’t know how to do it then this short guide should help.

What you need

  • Mixing Bowl
  • Sieve
  • Flour
  • Butter

In this example i’m using 100g of flour and 50g of butter (half fat to flour) which will result in a crumble mix with no flavour/sweetness, but its just for explanation purposes.

What to do

First, the actual motion of rubbing in, i make a circular motion with my thumb into the other 3 fingers like this

rubbing in hand movement

You don’t have to sift the flour, but i like to as it removes any lumps.

Sift flour

Add the butter and coat it with the flour.

coat the butter with flour

Now start to pinch and rub the butter, like with the motion we learnt at the start.

As it all comes together start to rub it against your hands, it should be a pale golden/yellow colour and looks a bit like breadcrumbs.

And thats how we rub in flour and butter!

Tortilla wraps recipe

Tortilla wraps!

What better thing to roll food up in and munch on.

I’ve had a request for some recipe ideas for things to put in wraps, but first I thought it’d be good to show you how to make your own wraps, it’s not as hard as you might think.

Ingredients (makes about 8 wraps)

  • 400g self raising flour
  • 1-2 tsp salt
  • About 50ml olive oil
  • 300ml warm water

Equipment

  • Mixing bowl
  • Sieve
  • Rolling pin
  • Frying pan
  • Sieve (optional)

Prep and cooking (10-15 minutes)

  1. First sift the flour into a mixing bowl, add the salt.
  2. Add the oil to the warm water, now pour over the flour and mix with your hands until a dough is formed, if it’s too wet put some more flour on your hands.
  3. Knead the dough for 2-3 minutes.
  4. Cut into 8 equal pieces, roll them out into tortillas, I find it easier to do it just before cooking as the start to shrink when you stop rolling.
  5. Heat a little oil to a medium heat in a pan, cook the tortillas for 1-2 minutes on each side until they start to brown.

I wrote a song but it’s more of a wrap

So there it is!

Whilst tortilla wraps are generally cheap enough (about £1 for 8, or around 12p each) making your own is even cheaper! (and more satisfying).

These homemade tortillas come in at a whopping 2p each, maybe 4-5p if you use fancy flour or olive oil, so you can get 6 for the price of 1!

I’ll be putting up some recipes for how to fill these tasty beasts soon so keep an eye out!

TTFN.

Absolutely perfect, rich shortcrust pastry


Wonderfully crumbly but still holds its shape

Shortcrust dough

I love pastry, be it shortcrust or puff. I really feel sorry for people who are (genuinely) gluten intolerant, I know these days gluten free food is everywhere but let’s be honest, it’s not the same. Especially when it comes to shortcrust pastry, that said i do have a good recipe for a gluten free shortcrust pastry which i will post at a later date.

This recipe for shortcrust pastry is great for pies and tarts or quiches. And don’t worry! Pastry isn’t scary, (ok making puff pastry can be and not to mention pointless to make, but shortcrust pastry is fine), it really doesn’t take much time at all.

The main thing to remember is DON’T work the pastry too much when mixing, this will tighten the gluten and the shortcrust pastry will go hard and tough as opposed to soft and crumbly, as shortcrust should be.

Ingredients (makes about 800g of shortcrust pastry)

  • 500g plain flour
  • 250g butter or lard
  • 1 egg yolk
  • Salt
  • Water

Equipment

  • Mixing bowl
  • Scales
  • Hands
  • Cling film
  • Fridge
  • A sieve (not essential)

Prep (35+ minutes)

  1. Start by sifting the flour into the mixing bowl and add the butter, to make things easier you can cut the butter into cubes or just warm it in the microwave until it’s nice and soft (not liquid).
  2. Rub the flour and butter together with the salt, if you’re not sure what rubbing is it’s pretty self explanatory, it’s basically rubbing 😂 just pinch it all together with your fingertips until it looks sort of like golden breadcrumbs.
  3. Add the egg yolk and mix until the fully incorporated.
  4. Now start to add a bit of water at a time (don’t overdo it). This part is kind of down to intuition but keep adding water and mixing until you get a consistency you’re happy with, the less water you use the more crumbly the pastry will be, but make sure you adad enough to hold it enough to be able to roll out.
  5. When you’ve made the shortcrust dough and you’re happy with the consistency wrap it in cling film so it’s air tight.
  6. Put it in the fridge and leave it in there (chill) for at least 30 minutes to let the butter cool down. Use within 3 days, can be frozen for about 6 months.
  7. Go make some pie, or something that involves shortcrust pastry.

Cut the cost of pastry

While making this pastry works out at nearly equal to the price you’d pay for pre-made shortcrust from the shop, this contains actual butter whereas shop made uses margarine.

So onto costing, this pastry costs £1.10 to make 500g, but if you replace the butter with margarine it cuts the cost to as little as 40-50p/500g!

I personally prefer using real butter, but if you’re looking to save cash it can be handy and it still tastes delicious, just not quite as crumbly as it would be with butter.

Pancakes! Who doesn’t like pancakes? Vegans I guess, but here’s 2 spot on recipes depending on your style..


Yes, pancakes!

Pan + Cake = ?
Pancakes of course!

Don’t know about you but I love pancakes in any (edible) shape or form.

Over the years I’ve found all the variations of a pancake I’ve seen essentially boil down to 2 types, fluffy American style pancakes (scotch pancakes) or crepes (thin pancakes).

Fluffy American Pancakes / scotch pancakes (5 minutes)

Ingredients (makes 6-8 pancakes)

Fluffy American pancakes with berries and syrup
somethingsweetsomethingsavoury.com/
  • 150-200g self raising flour, the more you use the thicker/stodgier the pancake will be
  • 200ml milk (any kind but I find the higher fat content the better i.e blue milk)
  • 1 or 2 tbsp of sugar, granulated is fine.
  • 1 egg, 2 if you want them more cakey
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp oil
  • Oil/butter for frying
  • (Optional) pinch of salt/pepper

Equipment

  • Frying pan; if it’s not non stick or a well seasoned iron pan you won’t have a fun time here, you don’t want pancakes cooked to the pan, ideally you want a crepe pan but not everyone has one lying around 🙄
  • Hob, to heat pan for pancakes
  • Measuring jug, preferably 2 litre
  • Scales
  • A whisk or a fork, whisk is easier
  • Not essential but a sieve is handy

Prep and Cooking

  1. If you’re using an electric hob set it to 4 or 5 and put the pan on to warm it up while you prepare the pancake batter, if it’s gas it should only take 20-30 seconds to heat before cooking.
  2. Sieve the flour and baking powder into the measuring jug, you don’t have to sift it but the pancake batter will be lumpy; this means to get rid of the dry lumps you will have to mix it a lot more meaning the gluten will tighten up more. It doesn’t really matter but if you want a soft fluffy pancake you want to mix it as little as possible.
  3. Add the sugar and salt/pepper if using then pour in the milk and oil and mix gently until the flour is fully mixed, it shouldn’t take much just check round the edges on the bottom of the jug.
  4. Add the egg(s) and whisk heavily for 5-10 seconds until the egg is fully incorporated into the pancake batter.
  5. Take the pan to a medium low heat (around 3 on an electric hob, small flame on a gas hob)
  6. For each pancake use about 1/2 tsp of oil or 10g of butter, chuck it in the pan and swirl it about then put the pan on the heat and don’t move it again.
  7. Add the desired amount of pancake batter to the pan, just pour it straight from the jug, the more you use the bigger the of the pancake will be but I’d say about 50-80g per pancake is about right.
  8. Don’t disturb the pan and wait until bubbles start to come through most of the pancake batter, flip the pancake and cook the other side for the same sort of time the first side took (each side usually takes about 30-60 seconds each side for a 50-80g pancake)
  9. Eat teh pancakes 👍

Summary

  1. Mix all the ingredients in a measuring jug
  2. Heat a pan to medium low, add butter or oil
  3. Add pancake batter and leave to cook until bubbles start coming through the batter, flip and and cook the other side.
  4. Pancakes are delicious.

Crepes; thin pancakes (5 minutes)

Ingredients (makes 4-6 pancakes)

Folded crepe with chocolate sauce, banana and strawberry.
Chocolate crepe, with a strange houseplant garnish
  • 100g plain flour
  • 200ml milk
  • 1 – 2 tsp sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp oil
  • Oil/butter for frying
  • (Optional) Salt/pepper

Equipment

Same as above

Prep and cooking

  1. Heat the pan to a medium high heat while you prepare the pancake batter.
  2. Sieve the flour into a measuring jug and and the milk, sugar, oil and salt/pepper (if using), mix gently so the flour is fully incorporated.
  3. Add the egg and whisk heavily for 5-10 seconds.
  4. Heat some oil/butter in the pan and swirl it about.
  5. Take a ladleful of pancake batter, you don’t want loads as crepes are supposed to be paper thin, I find about 50ml (double shot) works well in a 25-28cm pan. This part is quite tricky as the pancake batter cooks so quickly, take the pan off the heat and tilt it at about a 40° angle and pour the pancake batter round the top edge of the pan. You need to try and cover the whole surface with the pancake batter. I still struggle with this sometimes so if you’ve got any tips please say in the comments below!
  6. When you see the edges start to brown a little underneath flip the pancake and cook the other side for a similar amount of time.
  7. Serve, eat, repeat.

Summary

  1. Mix all the ingredients in a measuring jug
  2. Heat a pan to medium high, add butter or oil
  3. Add pancake batter and leave to cook until the bottom edges start to brown a little, flip and and cook the other side.
  4. Pancakes are delicious.

Have your pan and eat it. Uh..cakes.

So there you have it, plenty of precious pancakes, use them wisely!

Personally I think there’s a lot to like about pancakes, for one they’re cheap as anything, with current supermarket prices they only cost about 5p each! Thought this might come in handy with pancake day around the corner.

Caviar blinis, proppa posh!

They also work great as a base for canapés, if you want to make blinis then just use the scotch pancake recipe but use a tablespoon of batter per pancake then you can put what you like on them (smoked salmon and cream cheeezzz 👍)

They’re also pretty diverse on the whole (pancakes). You can add any spices or herbs to savoury pancakes (smoked paprika is nice).

When it comes to savoury pancakes the combinations can be endless, cheese is always a firm favourite with me. I find you can use the pancake batter like you would an omelette mix.

And of course, how can anyone forget the possibilities with sweet pancakes? Icecream, fruit, syrup, honey, cream, apple crumble… you name it add a pancake and it’ll be even better (maybe not everything but you get the idea).

Where did pancakes come from?

Everyone love pancakes!
‘The Pancake Bakery’ by Pieter Aertsen. c 1508
Image from https://wikimedia.org

Apparently they were invented by the romans around the 1st century who would make a batter of flour, eggs, milk and spices. Market salesmen would sell them hot (crazy to think it’s been going on that long!) and they would sweeten them with honey rather than syrup.

They go nice with chantilly cream!

Got any ideas for good pancake recipes?

Post them in the comments below!

TTFN