Cook with Us #29: Budget Meal or How To Live on a $1.40/Meal

This has got to be the most challenging week of all. It explains my delay in posting this week. What can we eat with $1.16 - this is the change rate for 1SBD in Australian Dollar. My initial thought was not much. Prior to this challenge I’ve been to the supermarkets a number of times and my first reaction was that prices are on the rise again. So it was not until I read and re-read the terms and conditions of this week’s challenge that I decided to enter a plate. And I was nicely surprised by what we can do with 1SBD.

To be honest if we were stuck to the 1SBD and not be able to use food sourced from our garden and or use normal ingredients like salt, flour, corn meal flour or oil, then it would have been impossible for me to produce anything. As I mentioned it was a real challenge. Throughout the preparation phase I had my pocket calculator out trying to ascertain that what I was picking would actually fit the bill. Every time there is a disaster in some unfortunate part of the world there are scores of association that would raise money to help them. One of the argument put forward is how much things can be bought for $1 in these countries. Transpose this to Australia and you are unlikely to have much for that amount.

So I did some researching on the internet and interesting enough came by this article from BuzzFeed who identified 23 countries and what you can purchase for $1. The interesting part of this article is that the list is quite variable based on the part of the world you are in! The list goes something along those lines: A full breakfast including coffee in the Netherlands; a whole bottle of wine in Hungary; a frozen coke in any size in New Zealand; one box of Kraft dinner in Canada; 2 servings of nasi lemak in Malaysia; 2 kilos of bananas in Mexico; 3 ice-creams from MacDonald in the United Arabs Emirates; and 2 whole meals at a dhaba in India.

 

Whilst reading about this particular subject, I also got to understand that the definition of a ‘meal’ varies a lot depending on the country you are in. Food eaten and quantity of food eaten being different, each dollar spent is subsequently able to accomplish more when these different types of meals are prepared. On Sunday, I went to the butcher to look for something. I came about a really good deal. Chicken drumsticks were on special for $2.99/kg. As I also needed to do my shopping for the week I got a little over 5.5kg for my family. However I only needed 4 drumsticks which amounted to 467grams or $1.40. And that was it with my shopping as I had all the other ingredients I needed at home.

 

I started by looking at my spices cupboard and just thought that some of them would be ideal to marinate the chicken. I also had rosemary, lemons, spring onions, lettuce and parsley. I could use some of them for a salad whilst the rest could be used to make my polenta chips. And all of the them required some cuttings and I had just the required tool for that. Earlier in the week I received my prize from the Cook With Us Knife challenge straight from @Docsmith from Croatia. The precious kitchen tool arrived in the best conditions. It was so light and sharp that I couldn’t resist using it for this challenge. Hopefully I’ve down justice to it with this recipe.

I hope you enjoy it.

Bon appétit!

And good luck to everyone.

 

INGREDIENTS

• 4 chicken drumsticks
• Mixed spices (onions, paprika, garlic)
• 2 litres water
• 2 tsp Sea Salt from pantry
• 1 3/4 cups Polenta (cornmeal) from pantry.
• 1 tbsp fresh rosemary chopped roughly from the garden
• 1 tbsp dried chilli flakes from the garden
• 1 tbsp finely grated lemon rind from tree
• 3 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil from pantry
• Spring onions and parsley from the garden
• Few lettuce leaves from the garden

 

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Start by picking the relevant ingredients you may need from your garden.
           
2. In a bowl, place the 4 chicken drumsticks and add the mixed spices and marinate overnight.
   
3. Line a baking tray with baking paper and set aside. Heat water in a medium sized pot, and add the 2tsp of salt. Bring to a rolling boil, and then add the polenta, pouring it in a continuous stream into the boiling water. Stir it constantly and reduce the heat to low. Mix for 5-6 minutes, or until the polenta thickens and you can leave dents in the mixture.
     
4. Remove from the heat, add 1 tbsp of the Olive Oil, rosemary, chilli and the lemon rind. Stir to combine, gently, and don't over-mix.
     
5. Pour the polenta into the baking tray, and set aside to cool and set.
   
6. Tip the polenta out onto a cutting board. Slice the polenta into chips (or triangles) and place onto clean baking tray. Then deep fry until ready.
         
7. Remove the marinated from the fridge and bake in the oven for 1hr at 180˚C.
     
8. Serve immediately after with some garden salad, using the lettuce and spring onions.