Frugal Friday

An ideal Friday night in most houses is a takeaway, maybe a bottle of wine or two, and perhaps a tub of Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Yum! Lovely, but with about a £25 price tag attached, it has to take "special treat" status here....I figured that there was no reason to feel deprived though, so set to to come up with a frugal alternative!  Potatoes cut into chunky chip/wedge shapes and cooked "roast potato style" as per Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's suggestion in the River Cottage Veg book seemed a good start. I par-boiled the potatoes first and fluffed them up a bit in the pan before dropping into hot fat and shoving in the oven (heated to nuclear level, obviously). Those taken care of, I turned my attention to the fish. 

I had the end of a loaf that I had left out to stale - blitzed in

 the processor that made perfect breadcrumbs. The fish was the excellent and cheap Sainsburys "White fish fillets" - £2 a bag, and actually Pollack as it turns out. I used three pieces of fish between the two of us. The fish was dusted with flour, dunked in beaten egg and then coated in the crumbs which I patted down well all over it to help them stick. They were then fried off in a pan with just a little oil - no need to use much - they won't cook any differently, you'll just waste a lot of oil!

So there you go - home made fish & chips. While our local "chippy" probably doesn't have to worry about the competition quite yet, it made a really enjoyable meal with a dollop of tartare sauce from Lidl (49p a jar) and I reckon the cost was about  80p for the fish, and 20p on potatoes. Fish and chips for 50p each - can't be bad eh? We had ours with a couple of bottles of beer and followed it with Carte D'or ice cream bought for £1.44 a tub thanks to Sainsbury's selling at half price, and us having some vouchers. Bargain! Frugal friday indeed!

Robyn