Frugal Friends

Entertaining friends can be expensive, by the time you’ve bought a couple of bottles of good wine and some tasty ingredients you wonder whether it would be less hassle to go out for a meal – at least you wouldn’t have to do the washing up! But of course, a meal with friends is more than the sum of its parts. There is something truly life-affirming about sharing a convivial evening in the company of people with similar views and interests as you, and just chewing over the news of the day or sharing your thoughts, memories and plans for the future.

In winter, we are the only English in our village, whereas in summer the part-timers and holiday home owners make up twenty-five per cent of the population. After Christmas, people start to return and open up their houses and gites. Our American friends have been the first to return this year and as usual I like to start the renewal of our friendship with a meal. As I’m experimenting with Frugal February I had to devise a meal that would be both tasty and economical, and one thing came immediately to mind – curry! A chance to use some of the 5kg of potatoes and experiment with the deep fat fryer I bought last month with our SuperU points.

I’ve already extolled the virtues of the humble potato as a versatile and economical ingredient. Now it’s the turn of lentils, an ingredient that will be forever associated with vegetarians, hippies and the 1960s. Many people are cautious about using lentils because of concerns about the need to soak them before use, or not = not. Lentils don’t need to be soaked before use, so this is optional but many believe that it can reduce some of their gaseous after-effects (!). However, lentils should be rinsed in cold water before use, and I usually try to leave them for fifteen minutes or so steeping in cold water whilst I get all the other ingredients together.

Lentils are legumes, a variety of plants that originate in Asia and North Africa; in fact, they are one the oldest food sources in the world. There are five types of lentils: green, brown, Puy, red split lentils and yellow split lentils (often called split peas). As the mainstay of my vegan food fest dinner I used red lentils, or lentilles corail as they are known here, to make a huge pot of dhal. In fact, for less than one euro I made a quantity large enough to freeze a full one litre box to give to a friend the following the week.

We started the meal with some samosas and deep fried cauliflower, served with a cumin dip. Samosas have been in my Indian repertoire for a while now and I usually bake them, but deep frying takes them to a whole new level. Following on from last week’s post about frozen vegetables, I used frozen cauliflower florets. No need to thaw, just dip in a very light tempura batter and deep fry. No waste, no chopping. The dip is simply a mix of plain soya yoghourt, soya cream, lemon juice, cumin, a pinch of coriander and a pinch of salt.

Tarka dhal was the centrepiece of the main course, accompanied with Bombay potatoes (another outing for the deep fryer) and a bowl of Root Manoeuvre curry, which I had made a few weeks previously and doubled-up for the freezer. With all these dishes there was really no need for rice as there are plenty of carbs in the potatoes, but if you were catering for more than four people a bowl of rice would bulk out the meal. Overall, the ingredients for this meal cost less than five euros, so enough centimes left to buy a few bottles of good organic beer.

Tarka Dhal

 

Ingredients

One tbsp sesame oil

One or two finely chopped shallots

Two cloves of garlic

One green or red chilli

One cup of red lentils

Two cups of water

One tsp ground cumin

One tsp ground coriander

One tsp cardamom

One tsp turmeric

Half tsp cinnamon

Half tsp cayenne

One tsp salt

Two tbsp tomato puree
 

Method

• Fry onion, garlic and chilli until soft
• Add lentils, spices, salt and water
• Bring to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes or until all water absorbed
• Stir in tomato puree and warm through