Know how to find the cheaper cuts
THE woman before me in the queue is paying for her free range chicken breasts. That’s €5, thank you very much. I have an entire free range chicken. At €6.50, I’m spending more but I’ll joint it into portions: breast, thigh, wing, leg to make three meals. I can feed four comfortably with the breasts supplemented, maybe with some rice and beans. Thighs, wings and legs, roasted with olive oil, herbs and garlic, yield succulent, flavoursome meat, delicious hot or cold. Furthermore, I’ll simmer that carcass for a few hours creating an exquisite, nutritious ‘Jewish penicillin’ soup or an incomparable stock.
Food writer Michael Pollan’s maxim, ‘Eat food, mostly plants, not too much,’ is an excellent basis for a healthy and inexpensive diet as we don’t really require red meat more than once or twice a week and with some judicious shopping, including chicken and fish, you could be feeding nutritious ‘meat’ meals to a family of four for as little as €15 euro a week. But first, leave your comfort zone — the supermarket.
