Legendary American chef Alice Waters once said there is no such thing as cheap food, you either pay now or pay later! What she meant was that cheap processed food is bad for your health and a diet of it may eventually come back and bite you.
This doesn’t mean additive-free food is necessarily expensive. This is especially true if you eat seasonal produce, as it is usually cheap. I spend money where it counts. For example like making sure I have good New Zealand olive oil to use. (Olive oil isn’t like wine, the fresher it is the better, it doesn’t get better with age, it often goes rancid. So oil from this part of the world is generally fresh.)
I like to start from the idea of only eating real food. I like food that is of the best quality I can afford but at the same time I like to be as thrifty as possible. Cuts of meat that need little preparation are usually expensive, such as steak— in fact all meat is relatively expensive, so, just as good nutritionists tell us, watch your portion sizes and fill it out with lots of vegetables and grains.
If you don’t have time to give a dish the time it needs, make something else, or don’t cook at all. I would rather eat a great piece of cheese with some good bread, followed by fruit and all accompanied by a few glasses of wine than eat a second-rate dish that was rushed. Don’t sacrifice quality for convenience.
If you lack confidence in the kitchen, don’t worry, just cook, starting with easy recipes that can become a repertoire you can repeat.
The following dishes may look complicated but they are just simple components put together. There is nothing tricky or complicated about any of them. They use good ingredients that may need a little preparation but they are easy to cook.
Good cooking is also all about thinking ahead and being organised.
I can’t cook anything until I understand what I am doing so I read the recipe until I understand what has to happen. Reading the recipe cannot be overemphasized. That said, never forget cooking can be very enjoyable and food is to be enjoyed, however simple the dish may be.
Turkish potato and chickpeas
This is a Turkish-style vegetarian dish which is like a thick stew and is filling and delicious.
Serves 4
4 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 onions, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 Tbsp toasted cumin seeds
Large pinch chilli flakes
½ tsp ground turmeric
600g small potatoes, well-scrubbed, larger ones halved, boiled in salted water until tender but not collapsing, well-drained
400g can chickpeas, well-drained
400g can chopped tomatoes
1 cup frozen peas, thawed
200g feta, crumbled
½ tsp dried mint or a small handful fresh mint leaves
Warmed small pita bread, for serving
- Heat the oil in a deep frying pan over moderate heat. Add the onions, garlic, cumin seeds and chilli flakes and fry gently without browning for 10 minutes or until the onion is soft.
- Add the turmeric, potatoes, chickpeas and tomatoes and mix gently but well. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer 10 minutes or until thick.
- Add the peas, mix and simmer 3 minutes.
- Taste and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Place in a warm serving dish, sprinkle the feta and mint on top and serve with warm pita bread.
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Pork and peanut larp
A Thai larp is basically very quickly cooked minced meat with a hot sour dressing and onions added, served in lettuce leaves, a bit like a hot salad. A bowl of rice on the side will pad out the meal. Traditionally, lime juice would be used instead of lemon but limes can be expensive here so lemon juice will taste slightly different but still do a good job as the souring agent in the dish. This dish is the perfect example of the need to be organised. Apart from the rice, which almost cooks itself, especially if you have a rice cooker, the cooking for the larp takes 2 minutes so you need everything ready to serve when the pork is cooked.
Serves 4
Leaves from 1 iceberg lettuce
½ cucumber, peeled and sliced thinly
150g very fresh mung bean sprouts, well rinsed in cold water
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 red onion, halved and the halves thinly sliced
5 Tbsp lemon juice
5 Tbsp fish sauce
Large pinch chilli flakes
1 tsp sugar
3 Tbsp vegetable oil
500g pork mince
¾ cup roasted unsalted peanuts, crushed or chopped coarsely
50g cellophane (also called lungkow) noodles, soaked in a bowl of cold water for 15 minutes, drained and cut into 5cm lengths (just do it with kitchen scissors when they are soft)
A handful coriander and or mint, coarsely chopped or ripped up in the case of the mint
Sweet Thai chilli sauce, for serving
Steamed long grain white rice, for serving
- Put the lettuce leaves, cucumber and mung sprouts on a serving platter.
- Put the garlic, onion, lemon juice, fish sauce, chilli and sugar into a bowl and mix well.
- Put the oil and mince in a bowl and mix well.
- Heat a wok or large heavy frying pan over very high heat. Add the mince and stir fry for about 2 minutes or until the lumps are broken up and the mince is cooked. Remove from the heat.
- Add the lemon juice mixture, peanuts, well-drained noodles and the coriander and or mint and mix well.
- Serve the mince in a bowl with the vegetables and rice on the side. The mince mixture, cucumber and sprouts are wrapped in lettuce leaves and eaten like spring rolls with chilli sauce and with the rice in small bowls on the side.
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Spaghetti with mussels, carrots and cream
New Zealand green-lipped mussels must be one of the best examples of marketing success when it comes to good, easily available, additive-free, cheap, and I would think organic, food. If you take the trouble not to overcook them and to carefully pull out the brown tongue and its white root from each mussel after they are cooked, the mussels will be very tender. Don’t use any mussels that refuse to close when given a sharp tap on the shell as these ones are dead. When cooking pasta, add enough salt to the water so that it tastes like sea water; this is how pasta is seasoned. Italians never waste their expensive olive oil by putting it in the pasta cooking water in the mistaken belief that it stops the pasta sticking together. You stop it sticking by stirring until it comes back to the boil. Italians rarely add cheese to seafood pasta.
Serves 4
24 live mussels, well scrubbed
3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 medium sized carrots, peeled and finely diced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
Zest of 1 lemon
300ml cream
Small handful parsley, chopped
350g spaghetti, boiled in plenty of well salted water until al dente, drained ready in a warmed serving bowl when the mussel sauce is ready
- Put the mussels into a large saucepan and add 250ml water. Bring to the boil and remove the mussels as the shells open and the mussels have just come away from the shells. Don't overcook.
- Place the mussels in a bowl and strain and reserve the cooking liquid. Shell the mussels and pull the beard, the brown tongue and its white root carefully from each mussel. Slice the mussels in half lengthways. Reserve.
- Heat the oil in a frying pan over moderate heat and add the onion, carrots, garlic and zest. Fry gently for 10 minutes without browning or until the onion is soft.
- Add the reserved mussel cooking liquid and cream and boil 3 minutes. Add the reserved mussels and simmer for 2 minutes. Taste and season with salt if necessary (be careful, the mussels are salty) and freshly ground black pepper.
- Stir in the parsley, toss with the hot spaghetti and serve.
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More recipes
See our quick and easy for students collection for affordable meals for novice cooks.
