This week’s recipes are dishes that go the distance for you, providing a nutritious dinner followed by a time-saving working-from-home lunch. Food can often become an afterthought of a busy working and family life, an annoying box that needs to be constantly ticked. This is especially true when there is a crowd looking at you every evening, asking “What time is dinner?” Can we just tell them to do it themselves?
The result on the plate is often what I call functional food. Designed and crafted only to banish appetite, it can be lacking in attention, care and often any sense of reason. Only last week I had a meal of fried mince on a toasted bagel, with a bag of popcorn. Case in point. There are certain busy weeks of the year when food becomes functional in our home: open the fridge and you’ll find an array of ready meals, with a cupboard full of coffee capsules and cereal bars. We’ve all been there.
First up, I’ve got a spatchcocked chicken taking inspiration from the Greek Islands. This is all about the chicken. I was cooking last summer for a group of friends and fired a spice blend from the cupboard on top of my bird with little thought before it was put into the oven to be forgotten about. It was the tastiest chicken we’d ever had. Further investigation of the spice blend, which came from a prominent supermarket, revealed garlic, rosemary, oregano and mustard seeds. I’ve recreated the blend using some easy-to-get ingredients. The garlic and onion powders are great store cupboard staples to pick up and are a base for many blends.
Traditional kedgeree recipes call for raisins but I see no benefit in eating rice with smoked fish, egg and raisins, so they are banished
Bulgur wheat is a handy starch to add to loads of meals, it’s easy to prepare and a great vessel for soaking up tasty things such as roast chicken juices. Once the dinner is done, I pack up all the leftover meat and salad to make a carb-heavy but flavour-packed roll for lunch the next day. A squeeze of lemon juice and dollop of mayo and you’ll be full for a week.
Kedgeree is another handy recipe to have up your sleeve, and a great way of incorporating fish cheaply into your recipe planning. It originated in India, where there were similarly composed dishes, and was brought to the UK in the 1700s via travelling British colonials. The dish was regularly served as a breakfast dish during the Victorian period. Rice and spices were transported from Asia, while smoked fish was a common ingredient of the time, the smoking process adding shelf life. Traditional recipes call for raisins but I see no benefit in eating rice with smoked fish, egg and raisins, so they are banished.
This is simple, nutritious cooking with some style. If I make a large batch, I will throw it in a pan the next day and make an egg fried rice with the leftovers, crushing the egg in with a fork as it cooks.
We’ll hold our raisins for something sweet in the weeks to come.
Recipe: Roast spatchcocked chicken with Greek style bulgur wheat salad
Recipe: Kedgeree
