Squashy Bubble

Even people who aren’t squash fans love this velvety sauce from Italy; combine its richness with the humble Bubble from England and you have a divine mixture of the earthy and the luxurious (as in refined, not expensive).  If you enjoy this sauce, it goes just as well with its authentic  partners, gnocchi and pasta.  And for bubble fans, this is bubble lover’s paradise.  Serves 4.

Ingredients

For the Bubble and Squeak

500g cooked old potatoes, mashed with 55g margarine then cooled

1 large onion, chopped

good grinding of black pepper

500g spring greens, sliced and steamed until tender

1 tsp Dijon mustard

25g margarine

2 cloves garlic

2 tbs soya milk

1 heaped tbs flour

1tbs oil

For the Butternut Squash Sauce

butternut squash

1 clove garlic

25g vegan margarine

1 30g packet cut fresh thyme; save 3 for decoration, then run your forefinger and thumb along the remaining stalks to remove the leaves

1 150ml carton soya cream

Method

1. Melt 25g vegan margarine, then fry the onion until transparent. Add the garlic and fry briefly, until the garlic is tender; as always, avoid burning the garlic.
2. In a big bowl, combine the mashed potato, spring greens, cooked onion, garlic and Dijon mustard.
3. Whip in the soya milk.
4. Shape into patties with clean hands, then roll each patty in the flour to coat.  Set aside while you make the sauce:
5. Steam or boil the butternut squash until tender (about 10-15 minutes).
6. Fry the garlic in a 25g margarine until softened, then tip the butternut squash, thyme leaves and garlic  in the food processor and blitz until smooth.
7. Heat the oil in a large frying pan, then fry the patties on both sides until brown.
8. In the meantime, gently heat the butternut squash puree in a saucepan.  When it starts to bubble, turn the heat right down, then add the soya cream. Stir in and heat briefly – for a minute at most.
9. Put a pool of sauce on a large plate, top with the bubble patties and garnish with sprigs of thyme.

If you buy the thyme, butternut squash, flour and mustard from Aldi, and the rest from ASDA, you can make this for £6.77, excluding the oil, salt and pepper.  I have factored in the margarine.

Pepper and Chickpea Cutlets with Sweet and Sour Sauce

This classic Chinese sauce often graces food from other parts of the world and there is an infinitesimal number of recipes for it out there – we’ve all made it our own!  It certainly elevates these appetising but humble cutlets by combining the earthy with the unexpected to maximise both budget and flavour.  This uses a bag of 3 assorted peppers. Please note that this recipe uses cooked potatoes.  You may wish to get this done before you start on the sauce if you haven’t any leftover tatties.

 

Sweet and Sour Sauce

Make this first, then you can simply reheat it when the cutlets are ready.

Ingredients

1 onion, chopped finely

1 red or orange pepper, chopped roughly

1 425g can of pineapple in juice; you need the juice and the fruit (chopped if you can’t find pineapple pieces)

2 green chilli, bought loosely

one 3 cm square of ginger root, chopped finely

2 tbs soy sauce

I tbs granulated sugar

2 tbs tomato puree

Juice of one lemon (but zest it first for the cutlets)

Method

1. Water fry the onion until translucent, then add the pepper, chilli, garlic and ginger and fry for another two minutes.
2. Add the soy sauce, chopped tinned pineapple with its juice, lemon juice, brown sugar and tomato paste.  Mix thoroughly.
3. Blend all the ingredients together by pulsing the food processor until you have a thick sauce with some pieces intact.

Chickpea Cutlets

Ingredients

1 x 240g can chickpeas (drained weight)

1 onion, finely chopped

1 green pepper, chopped

1 red pepper, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped very finely

30g butter or vegan margarine

500g – 600g cooked organic potatoes

2 tbs soy sauce

zest of a lemon

black pepper

flour to coat, if wished

small amount of oil for frying

Method

1. Mash the chickpeas together with the butter/marg and potatoes.  Grind in some pepper.
2. Beat in the onion, peppers, garlic, soy sauce and zest of a lemon.  Allow to cool.
3. With lightly floured clean hands, shape the mixture into rough cutlet shapes.
4. Put the sauce on to heat through gently, then lightly fry the cutlets in oil (use a nonstick pan if possible) until golden brown on both sides.  
5. You may wish to serve the sauce separately so that diners can decide how much they wish to pour over.

If you buy the potatoes, ginger root, lemon, bag of 3 peppers, soy sauce and tomato puree at Aldi, and the tin of pineapple, sugar, a loose onion, a couple of loose chillies and a tin of chickpeas at ASDA, with a bit of luck you’ll be able to get this on the table for just over a fiver (£5.07, if my calculations are correct, based upon today’s prices). This does assume you have oil in the house.