What are your favourite luxury meals - which are budget friendly!

Fire_Fox

Kleftiko, coq au vin or pan-fried trout: I cook with wine quite often as I am an old soak! :beer:

Edited to add: I adore beef wellington - I have to say I have no idea how much the beef would cost, I don't even know which cut!! You only need a small piece of beef tho, then chicken liver pate and shortcrust pastry are both very cheap to make yourself if you have the skills.

Heath84

I made a red thai curry the other day - buy a jar of red thai curry paste coconut milk, chicken, red onion and a couple of peppers. I made it following the jar and used 500g ish of chicken and that has been enough for 4 portions. Im the only one that eats meat in my house so I froze the other portions, not as nice once you've done that but still good. serve with rice and a bottle of wine of course!

Burp_2

Xaviera wrote: »

What about some ribs?

£2.99 in the chiller section at Aldi at the mo ... in sauce ... big rack of them too

Burp x

Bethankim

slow cooked pork, ive done it with loin steaks unless i get a loin of pork joint. cooked slowly in tomato and cider gravy.

the gravy is a fantastic sauce goes great with nut roast.
to make

1LB very ripe tomatoes - brill if you pick them up cheap
1 onion
1 small red pepper
tomato puree
1/4 pint vegetable stock (i use a good cube)
3/4 pint of cider - depending on how dry or sweet you use will give you a different taste, i use decent cider - so i get to drink the rest

fry off the onions and pepper until soft but not browned. add in the chopped toms, and cook til very soft. add liquid and puree, season to taste. once the alcohol has been cooked off - cool and liquidize.

seal the pork loin, and place in an over proof dish, pour over the sauce so it covers the pork. cover with foil. (if you have a slow cooker this works brilliantly) cook on a low heat for at least an hour.

serve with crisp vegetable and mash or what ever spud you like. is a cheap dish but is fab

Butterfly_Brain

Prawns with Garlic, Ginger and lemon juice marinade served with rice or Prawns or with sweet chilli sauce.
(I buy a big bag of uncooked prawns from farmfoods for £4.95 and it goes a long way)
Followed by a white chocolate and raspberry cheese cake HEAVEN!

CCP

Bethankim - that pork dish sounds lovely - I'll be trying that later in the year (it sounds like an autumn sort of meal to me!). Thanks for the recipe!

Stephen_Leak

Scallops in garlic and herb butter with fettuccine. Sounds good? Yes. Sounds expensive? Yes. Is it good? Yes. Is it expensive? No. Not if your partner isn't likely to know or be able to tell the difference, because you use frozen scallops and Iceland do the above for £3. My only tip would be to defrost and dry off the scallops first. Despite it saying that you can cook then from frozen, you get a lot of water, which just dilutes the sauce.

As it's a dairy-based sauce, an Italian would use egg pasta (tagliatelle or fettuccine), not a plain pasta (spaghetti, linguine). I prefer fetuccine as it's finer ribbons, and not every one has heard of it, so it sounds posher. It's about the same price as other long thin pasta, though. 100g per person.

Get the pasta water boiling, put it in, then get the scallops going. When it's "al dente", drain the pasta. Put the drained pasta in the sauce, and mix gently but thoroughly. Serve immediately and equalise the number of scallops on each plate. Ground black pepper to taste.

Sometimes, less is more.

For some reason, rose wines go particularly well with scallops. ASDA do a beautiful Stowells "White Zinfandel" rose, which tastes of strawberries and goes with this perfectly.

As you like salmon, you can also use the remaining fettuccine with another cheap simple but luxurious Italian favourite of mine, smoked salmon in cream sauce.

SMOKED SALMON & CREAM PASTA

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS

125g pack of smoked salmon pieces
2 cloves of garlic
1 onion
At least 300ml of water
¼ of a teaspoon of salt
200g of egg pasta
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 tablespoon of flour
150ml carton of single cream
1 teaspoon of mixed herbs
Ground pepper to taste

METHOD

Cut the smoked salmon into 2cm (1 inch) pieces. Peel the garlic and chop it into tiny pieces. Peel the onion and chop it into tiny pieces.

Put the water and salt into a saucepan on a medium heat. Bring to the boil. Add the pasta. Stir it to stop it sticking to the bottom of the pan. Bring back to the boil and continue to cook. Stir frequently to stop it sticking.

Put the oil into a frying pan on a medium heat. Add the onion and garlic. Cook for a couple of minutes until the onion has gone soft. Stir frequently to stop it sticking. Add the flour and stir until it has absorbed the oil and juices in the pan. Add the cream, herbs and smoked salmon. Stir and cook for about a minute until it has made a smooth sauce.

Begin testing the pasta about 2 minutes before the packet instructions say it should be done. The best way to judge if pasta is cooked is to bite it. This is tricky, because if you fish out a bit and stick in your mouth you may burn your mouth on the boiling water. Wait a bit and blow on it, then bite it. If it is hard it needs longer. If it is chewy (or ‘al dente’, Italian for ‘to the teeth’) it is ready. If it is soft it is overcooked.

Drain the pasta in a sieve or colander.

Always ‘take the pasta to the sauce’. Put the pasta in the pan with the sauce and stir together until thoroughly coated.

Season with the pepper.

ADDITIONS & ALTERATIONS

As the sauce is dairy-based, use egg pasta, like tagliatelle or fettuccine. The cream and green mixed tagliatelle (called ‘paglia e fieno’, or ‘straw and hay’) looks really good with this sauce.

Use crème fraîche instead of the cream.

TIPS

If you use enough water, add the pasta when the water is boiling, stir the pasta frequently and don’t wander off (‘Gli spaghetti amano la compagnia’, or ‘spaghetti loves company’) and don’t overcook it, adding olive oil to the water to stop it sticking is totally unnecessary.

Claire_Bear

Homemade Spaghetti carbonara, cheap and delicious. Or gammon steaks with a fried egg and homemade chips. yummy

louisewh123

My luxury is to have a home made prawn curry. I dont need anything else to be satisfied, no rice, no bread, no sides. Just curry.

and a spoon.

Pee

Have to say lasagne, cooked from scratch is one of my very favourites.

I like to poach salmon in mainly water but some white wine and some black pepper, I read somewhere it should "shudder" for about three mins and that seems so accurate of when the heat is just right, and then serve with Aldi cheap nice veggies - sweetcorn, asparagus, mangetout - and new potatoes from the garden. The alternative is to poach in coconut milk and follow with a curry the next night.

Also, when raw prawns are on sale, you can get them half price and then just fry in garlic butter and serve with nice bread and salad leaves, looks and tastes great but so easy to do. (I ruined this one by teaching bf how to do it!)