Karen Wright: Rustling up tastiest version of a ‘fakeaway’
I have noticed a tendency for people to refer to ordering a takeaway meal as a treat. In days of old I used to think that was the case too, and no Friday night was complete without a takeaway delivered to the door.
These days if I do succumb to temptation, I invariably feel disappointed with the quality and how much I have spent.
That is not to say there are no great takeaways, we did have a superb one from the Bengal Palace in Wakefield when we moved house, but so often I do think that I could have made something just as good, if not better, at a fraction of the cost.
That is where ‘fakeaways’ come into their own.
A dish you can make at home instead of ordering something to be delivered.
Last week I had half a tin of pineapple rings that were left over from another recipe I had made, and I decided to use them in a sweet
and sour!
I had the other ingredients in too, so this is what I did: I defrosted a couple of chicken breasts and sliced them up.
I dried them with kitchen paper and then put them into a bowl and coated them in cornflour.
In a frying pan I warmed some cooking oil and cooked a sliced onion, some carrot batons, some mushrooms and peppers, and then added the chicken to the pan.
I stir fried this for a few minutes and then added a tablespoon of tomato purée, some Chinese 5 spice, a little vinegar, a bit of honey and then the pineapple with the juice.
This bubbled together and did smell great; I remembered then to add soy sauce and a tiny dollop of sweet chilli sauce.
The only thing left to do was to season with salt and thicken the sauce with a mixture of cornflour and water.
I served my portion with plain boiled rice, but of course my husband had a portion of chips with his.
I must admit to enjoying a few chips with mine too, perhaps I should have done ‘half and half’ like you sometimes see on the blackboards of a pub menu!
There as so many variations of fakeaways you can make – Indian, Mexican, Italian, you name the cuisine – there are easy versions that you can make in your very own kitchen!