While Vienna's gastronomical offerings are plentiful, ranging from the rich to the absurdly rich, a nightly diet of schnitzel and beer will drain your wallet almost as fast as it expands your waist. Consequently, the frugal gourmet must restrict his or her restaurant excursions to the bare minimum. During our first week in Vienna, John (my roommate) and I took a relatively spartan approach to dining in. A man can only live on leftover pasta and frankfurters (sans bun) for so long. One fateful evening on my way home from class, I stopped into the grocery store to try to scrounge up a dinner that might veer a little outside the (pasta) box. The fruits of the experiment paid off over the weekend. Our new spirit of culinary adventure has inspired me to start a new regular feature: "Haute Cuisine When Your Wallet Is Lean". This food-oriented sub-blog (or Flog as John suggested) will document my favorite new discoveries during my adventures in budget-conscious cooking. Each week, I'll provide a new recipe, along with a rough estimate of costs, and an assessment of the relative success or failure of the dish. Without further ado, the first recipe:
Potato Chip and Pepper Encrusted Tuna
As 4 out of 5 dentists agree, no tuna sandwich is complete without a healthy portion of potato chips. And not on the side-no no, on the sandwich, cushioned gently between the tuna and the bread. The extra crunchiness and salty kick really put the sandwich over the top. As I was munching on the crummy remains of our .79 eurocent chips, it occurred to me that the magic that results from mixing canned albacore with potato chips might just carry over to tuna steaks. A few night earlier, I had purchased a couple of frozen tuna steaks for 2.50, while attempting to diversify our meat intake (up until this point all of the meat we had consumed was stuffed into tubes of intestines and plastic). So after a little improvisation (and a helluva a lot of blind luck) we ended up with a great meal. The fish had a wonderful golden shell, with a mild bite from the pepper and dijon mustard. I would heartily recommend the dish to anyone, even you only have novice kitchen skills (I for one can barely claim such a feat).
Ingredients:
2 Tuna Steaks, thawed
4 handfuls of plain potato chips
Dijon mustard
Olive oil
Garlic, one clove minced
Crushed black pepper
Instructions:
1) Crush the potato chips in a shallow bowl. Ideally, the flakes should be the size of coarse sand, not a powder. The bottom of a glass can function as a pestle just fine.
2) Sprinkle on a healthy amount of crushed black pepper. Mix until evenly distributed throughout.
3) Coat the tuna steaks (including the sides) with a thin layer of dijon mustard.
4) Dip the tuna steaks in the potato crumbs, ensuring an even coat covers the entire surface of the steak.
5) In a medium sized frying pan, heat up the olive oil and minced garlic over medium heat
6) Gently place the steaks in the pan and sauté them, flipping once after 5-7 minutes. Overall, no more than 14 minutes.
Voila! For under 2 euro per person, you can eat a meal that would go for at least $15 at most restaurants.
Stay tuned for more adventures in the weeks to come.
Ingredients:
2 Tuna Steaks, thawed
4 handfuls of plain potato chips
Dijon mustard
Olive oil
Garlic, one clove minced
Crushed black pepper
Instructions:
1) Crush the potato chips in a shallow bowl. Ideally, the flakes should be the size of coarse sand, not a powder. The bottom of a glass can function as a pestle just fine.
2) Sprinkle on a healthy amount of crushed black pepper. Mix until evenly distributed throughout.
3) Coat the tuna steaks (including the sides) with a thin layer of dijon mustard.
4) Dip the tuna steaks in the potato crumbs, ensuring an even coat covers the entire surface of the steak.
5) In a medium sized frying pan, heat up the olive oil and minced garlic over medium heat
6) Gently place the steaks in the pan and sauté them, flipping once after 5-7 minutes. Overall, no more than 14 minutes.
Voila! For under 2 euro per person, you can eat a meal that would go for at least $15 at most restaurants.
Stay tuned for more adventures in the weeks to come.
3 comments:
This is inspirational Matt. Not only would Tony Bourdain be impressed but the rest of the food blog community would give you a round of applause for your first effort(or would it be a collection of exclamations since its a virtual world?). I look forward to future adventures! Also you should do some local cheap-eat food reviews, would love to see some pictures of hot viennese franks...i mean..
Matt,
1. I love the totally IKEA kitchen.
2. My cooking experiments have also been limited to the pasta box, but I may have to try this recipe. I'm glad to see you're so creative!
now have you experimented with different flavoured crisps? perhaps from bolognaise? And i agree with steph, what kind of pan did you use anyway? a BAVARA or the more popular HYXUGGERSVIA ?
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