Jack Monroe: Why we should cook more with tinned food
Food writer and anti-poverty campaigner Jack Monroe’s new book, Tin Can Cook, is filled with recipes made from tinned ingredients that can be bought from corner shops and supermarkets.
An outspoken voice on poverty in the UK – her mission is to help people eat delicious food on a tight budget.
She outlined why we should get over our preconceptions about tinned food and cook with it more for ±«Óãtv Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour.
Tinned food can be a money saver
“Tinned food can be cheaper than buying fresh stuff. Things like tinned carrots, tinned potatoes, mushy peas make a good base for a soup.
“Keep an eye out for tinned fruit and tinned vegetables because they store well and they are full of nutrients.”
Tinned food makes cooking both surprising and entertaining
“I think the thing about cooking from tins for me that I really enjoyed was...the convenience of it, the slight entertainment side of it. Just the surprise of being able to crack open a couple of tins, pour them into a pan, and 15 minutes later you’ve got a fantastic dinner on the table. We’d all like that once or twice a week wouldn’t we?”
Cooking with tinned food can help you get over your preconceptions
“For me, writing this book, I had my own preconceptions that I needed to get over. Things like stewed steak, canned chicken, they are all perfectly good to use in recipes.
“If you consider each individual tin as just the building block for a larger recipe, it doesn’t really make much difference whether it comes from a tin, or whether it’s fresh because it’s just being used in a lot of other things.”
Tinned food can make classic recipes easier
“The Cannellini Beurre Blanc is one of my absolutely favourite recipes [in the book] because a beurre blanc is a classic French recipe, and for me (I’m from a working-class background) I thought that beurre blanc was the kind of thing that wasn’t for people like me.
“It took me six years as a food writer to ever attempt to tackle it, and then when I’d mastered it, I was like, ‘I can stick this in my tin can cookbook if I stick some tinned beans in it because I want to live in a world where everyone, regardless of background or ability, can put a beurre blanc on the table without hesitation.”
The tin cans you should always have in your cupboard, according to Jack Monroe
- “Tinned tomatoes. You can pretty much make anything with a base of tinned tomatoes. If I don’t have tinned tomatoes in my cupboard, I start to panic - it’s a genuine thing.”
- “Tinned fish. It’s so full of nutrients and you can combine it with those tinned tomatoes to make a Puttanesca or a sardine, tomato pasta, or a soup with a really deep, umami base to it.
- “Some kind of sweet pudding you can eat cold out of a can because everyone likes to do that. Or maybe I just like to do that. Custard.”
Cannellini Beurre Blanc
From Jack Monroe’s book Tin Can Cook: 75 Simple Store-cupboard Recipes
SERVES 2
FOR THE BEANS AND PASTA
1 x 400g tin of cannellini beans or haricot beans, drained and rinsed
800ml vegetable or chicken stock
120g small pasta shapes
pepper
FOR THE BEURRE BLANC
4 tbsp white wine or cider
4 tbsp white wine vinegar or cider vinegar
1 tbsp garlic paste or 2 fat cloves of garlic, finely chopped
25g butter
"Pop the beans into a large saucepan that will easily hold three times their volume; for you will be adding pasta to this later. Cover with the stock, and bring to the boil. Reduce to a simmer for 20 minutes; the longer the cooking time, the softer and creamier the beans will be.
"While the beans are cooking, make the beurre blanc in a separate small pan. Combine all of the ingredients and cook on a low– medium heat, for 15 minutes, to reduce the volume and combine the fat and acid together. You will need to keep an eye on this and stir it fairly continuously, as I have burned and lost many a beurre blanc sauce through a moment’s distraction. Turn off the heat and allow the beurre blanc to settle.
"When the beans have cooked for 20 minutes, add the pasta. Cook the pasta for 10 minutes (pasta cooked in sauce always takes a little longer than the packet instructions specify). When the pasta is soft, combine with the beurre blanc sauce. Season generously with pepper, and enjoy."
You can listen to Jack Monroe’s full interview on the Woman’s Hour Cook The Perfect podcast.
