Miscellany

This page contains simple extra recipes and advice on some of the ingredients that you may not know.
See here for advice on abbreviations and measurements.

Shortcrust Pastry

Put the flour in a bowl with ½ tsp. salt. Add the margarine and rub the margarine into the flour with your fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the water and mix. Press the mixture together to form a dough.

Hot Chocolate Sauce

This sauce is delicious on such things as ice-cream, tinned pears or chocolate cake.

In a jug, mix the dry ingredients together and add enough soya milk to dissolve them. Heat the rest of the soya milk in a pan until just boiling. Pour the hot milk into the jug, stir well and return to the pan. Heat, stirring, until the sauce thickens.

Salad Dressing

Mix 1 tbsp. olive oil, 1 tbsp. lemon juice, 1 tsp. soy sauce and a large pinch of raw cane sugar. Put in a jar and shake well. Pour over the salad and stir.

TVP Mince

TVP stands for textured vegetable protein - a product based on soya which is used as a meat substitute. You should be able to find it in any health food shop - it may be sold as "soya mince", "TVP mince" etc. It can be bought dried (either flavoured or unflavoured), which is very cheap, or there are frozen varieties which are fairly expensive but very tasty. Unflavoured, dried mince can be improved by soaking it in vegetable stock for half and hour before use.

Sausage Mix

Sausage mix is similar to TVP mince but with flavouring and vegetable fat added so that it can be mixed with water to form sausages that can then be fried. It is usually found in health food shops. Here in the UK is is generally sold under a brand name such as 'Sosmix'.

Mange Tout

Mange tout are unripened pea pods. You can usually get these from decent vegetable shops.