Side Dishes
Air Fried Baby Potatoes
2023-10-15 12:46
I've written in the past about how good air-fried chips are, but they're not the only potato dish that benefits from an air-fryer.
Air-fried baby potatoes develop a nice crispy outer whilst remaining soft inside, because they can be seasoned in a ton of ways they go well as a side to a lot of other dishes.
Potato Dauphinoise
2021-07-07 09:34
Known as dolphin potatoes in our house, these are rich, creamy and filling.
Korean Cucumber Salad (Oi Muchim)
2020-07-06 11:41
A Korean cucumber salad, essentially cucumber and carrot in a lightly spiced vinaigrrete.
The spring onion can be replaced with chopped spinach to reduce the punch a little. Either way, works very well served alongside Beef Bulgogi
McDonalds Hash Brown
2020-04-06 09:51
McDonalds closed all of it's restaurants as part of the Coronavirus response. However, they've shared a recipe card with The Mirror so that we can make their Sausage and Egg McMuffin at home - as an added "bonus" they included instructions to make a hash brown to go on the side.
Depending on the size of your potato, this will make several
Cinnamon Soda Bread
2020-03-22 14:11
Soda bread can be a bit heavy and flavourless, so I figured I'd try and sweeten it up and give it a little bit of flavour. Ginger takes some of that edge back off.
You can use all Plain or all Self-raising if you don't have one or the other.
Best served hot with a thick glob of butter - even better if you make an open-face sandwich with bacon and steak on top
Turkey Samosas
2020-01-31 08:53
I was in the mood to make something a little different, so I had a go at creating Samosas.
The cooking aspect of them is simple enough, but I clearly wasn't designed to fold filo pastry - it takes a bit of care, and I was convinced that the triangles were going to split in the oven. It turns out though, it doesn't need quite as much care as I assumed.
These samosas use turkey but it should work fine with pretty much any mince - just need to make sure it's lean mince (or that you drain it) otherwise the pastry is likely to get a bit soggy.
A low fat cooking spray is required, not for health reasons so much as because you use it as a sort of glue. Brushing oil instead should work fine, but takes a bit longer.
Can be served as a main, side or snack.
Lazy Dirty Fries
2019-06-26 12:57
Dirty fries are awesome.
If you're doing it properly then really you want to be slicing potatoes, lightly frying them into chips and then using those, but that takes more time and effort than I'd normally have spare on a weekday evening. But, for 10 minutes prep you can quite easily make them using some frozen chips.
In the picture, I've used low-fat cheese, but be aware it doesn't melt as nicely as the proper stuff (it doesn't turn into a runny gloop). Tastes fine, but isn't quite the same.
Oven Fried Onions
2019-06-05 17:20
Frying onions in a pan isn't that much hassle, but there are still days when it's still too much hassle
Instead, you can cook them in the oven - perfect if you're making hotdogs as you can just oven-cook the sausages too
Peppercorn Sauce
2019-05-17 07:41
I love peppercorn sauce, and will eat it on pretty much anything.
It's actually quite quick and simple to make from scratch too, and tastes a lot better than packet stuff
To make this recipe lighter, instead of using cream you can use a small amount of water instead to adjust the consistency
Homemade Chicken Nuggets
2019-05-09 16:36
Not as nearly as quick to make as taking some frozen ones out of a bag, but you can guarantee the quality of the meat rather than wondering if they contain MRM. Can be frozen for use later too