The Fakeaway

When lockdown first began and we really started to cook from scratch daily I was really happy that we were eating lots of new and tasty meals but I did miss the occasional takeaway.  Takeaways for us are a little treat, something to celebrate making it to the weekend.

It took me until a few months in to realise we could still have takeaway meals - just cooked at home, a fakeaway.  We started having a fakeaway on Saturdays and all quickly got into it, excitedly picking a new cuisine and deciding what to cook.  We cooked our way through most of them and have made and experimented a lot since then.

Juicy Lucy

Singapore noodle

My favourite takeaway is a Chinese, I love the food, it’s full of flavour, tasty and I usually have dishes I would not normally make at home.  Whenever I have a Chinese takeaway I ALWAYS, always have sweet and sour king prawn balls. Other dishes vary but this does not. Ever. I absolutely love them and always have a sneaky one as I’m getting out the plates and setting out the various containers of food for everybody to dive in.  It is my little treat for ordering, getting and setting everything out, I mean there has to be some perks.

I can’t tell you how much I look forward to that first prawn ball from the moment we decide to order until the moment I bite into it.  It’s the simple things in life that are often the things that make you smile the most and for me one of those things are prawn balls.  

I think I have now the very best crispy Chinese ball and sweet and sour recipes, after much testing and tasting (tough job).  We have tested with not only prawns but also vegetarian “prawns” and chicken breast and they are really, really fabulous.  The crispy Chinese balls were to me as close to perfect as I could get them.  I knew they were really good when we all were fighting over the last few.

Sweet and sour prawn balls

Fish, chips, mushy peas and tartar sauce

The vegetarian ‘fish’ is actually banana blossom which you marinate in caper juice which is vinegary and salty and really, really makes you know you are eating fish and chips.  You buy banana blossom in tins and I picked mine up at Sainsbury’s.

We have been experimenting with vegetarian/vegan recipes for this blog post and I was amazed and pleased at how well the alternatives are - especially the ‘fish’ and chips

Vegetarian / Vegan ‘fish’

Remember with almost all recipes, if there is something in there you don’t like, just take it out, for instance if you don’t want the cheese in the Juicy Lucy burger, just remove the cheese and have a burger. 

What is your favourite?  Here are some of my favourite recipes:

American: KFC, Juicy Lucy

Chinese  Singapore noodles, sweet and sour Chinese balls

English: Fish and chips with a vegetarian/vegan option

Indian: Butter chicken or quorn, Lamb or cauliflower biryani, naan, onion bhajis, lamb or vegetarian samosas

Italian: Pizza

Nando’s: peri peri sauce, fino Pitta

Thai: meat curry or vegetarian curry, satay king prawn or pad Thai

Kellys’ fino pitta