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Festival Recipes: Budget meals from Hardeep Singh Kohli

Him off the telly, Hardeep Singh Kohli, is cooking things up at the Fringe this year, so we asked him to suggest a day worth of meals for those Fringe-goers or performers operating on a tight budget. You may have read breakfast and lunch in the print edition of ThreeWeeks. Well, here's the full day's worth of recipes.

BREAKFAST: Indian Omelette
So. Boil some potatoes, whole in their skins; this keeps the moisture out and will give you firmer potatoes later. While they cook away, de-seed and dice a couple of tomatoes, chop a green chilli, dice an onion and roughly chop a good handful of coriander leaves, stalks and all. In a skillet (which is a fancy American word for a frying pan) heat some oil. Beat half a dozen eggs to within an inch of their eggy lives. Now. This is the science bit. Fry the onions and chilli for a few minutes. Add a crushed garlic clove and fry for thirty seven seconds, stirring with your left hand while listening to Bob Dylan (earlier work preferred but even the recent “Together Through Life” album would do, at a push).

Now toss the tomatoes in and fry for a few minutes. Add the beaten egg to form an omelette similar in shape to Malta but without the disused harbour in the east. Scatter the coriander on top so that it sets within the egg as it cooks. Finish the omelette under a hot grill, crisping and cooking the top. Enjoy with some hot buttered toast or a friend (but not in a cannibalistic way).

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LUNCH: Cock a Leekie Soup
I’m going to try and be very clever here and offer a lunch that will, through the gift of metamorphosis and spinach become a delicious evening meal at very little extra effort. And expense. Let’s not forget the expense. Which there won’t be much more of. So we don’t need to concern ourselves with that. OK? Good.

So. In a big soup pot heat a couple or three tablespoons of oil into which you should be hurling a couple of bay leaves and a half dozen peppercorns. (Elbow or Doves is perfect music for this dish; avoid dance/pop stuff like Steps and anything from the first Girls Aloud album. Equally Radio 4 would work a treat, especially Claire Balding and her ramblings). Into this pot throw a few (as many or as few as you like) chicken wings. These are the cheapest cut of chicken and they are here for flavour rather than for their meat themselves. If you’re feeling flush, chicken thighs work an absolute treat in this dish.

Fry the chicken off, colouring the skin a little. While this is occurring, clean and slice three decent sized leeks; a nice thick slice is a good idea, discs of leek about a centimetre thick. Now add some freshly boiled water, enough to cover the chicken and then some. Hold some of the leeks back for later. Oh yes. Later.

Now bring the soup to the boil and turn down to simmer. Once the chicken is cooked and the leeks are tender soft the soup is ready. About ten minutes before this, throw the remaining leeks in. This will give you a different leek flavour and consistency; the cooked leeks will be soft and melty and the more recently added leeks will have a bite, a more oniony flavour. I suggest that you guzzle this soup with a nice big French-style baguette.

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DINNER: Cock in Leekie Sauce
The more perceptive of you will have noticed that cock in leekie sauce is very similar, in name at least, to cock a leekie soup. And you would be right. But this is where it gets very interesting.

Remove the chicken and as many of the leeks as you can from the half-guzzled lunchtime soup. Boil the liquor adding a glass of wine and reduce the whole thing by a third. Throw in a good couple of hands of fresh spinach, allowing it to wilt in the residual heat of the liquor. Now turn the heat down and add a small carton of double cream, mixing in well.

Strip the chicken off the bone, discard the skin, and return the stripped chicken and the leeks back to the pot. Add a good handful of freshly chopped herbs; tarragon, flat leaf parsley, chervil or a combination of all three. You now have a Cock in leekie sauce.

I would serve this with a simple green salad, lightly dressed with olive oil and lemon juice and maybe some boiled new potatoes. A cold Riesling or Gurversdt... Gervarstr... Gevhurtz... or another crisp German white would be the perfect accompaniment. Enjoy.

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Hardeep Singh Kohli - The Nearly Naked Chef, Gilded Balloon Teviot, 5 - 31 Aug, 7.00pm (8.00pm), prices vary, fpp56

published: Aug-2009

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