Pork, caramelised onion, and halloumi sandwich

In my first year of uni, I would come back to my dingy little flat after a night out and stuff my face. Lots of students prefer to pop by 'maccy-Ds' or Munchies or that cheap greasy chippy round the corner, but after watching one too many intoxicated folks bring up the entire contents of their stomach, I tended to avoid those.

So instead I'd go home and consume toast. Not just one slice, or two slices, or even three. I would have six slices. SIX. 6. S-I-X. That's like half loaf.

Yea, and then I wondered how I gained 15 pounds...

I'm not proud of it, but thinking about it, I find it odd though that so much bread never managed to make me feel full. Whereas, if you have a sandwich for lunch, it's enough.

In fact, more than enough. These pork, onion and halloumi sandwiches don't look massive, but we barely managed to finish these. But we did, of course, because they're amazing.

Another reason I stopped buying food on the way home was because it was expensive. Now a whole pizza for £5 is actually a very good deal, but that half-loaf of bread would've cost me 50p. #studentlife

These pork, onion and halloumi sandwiches are the perfect student budget meal. 

• 4 slices of bread ~ 40p (loaf for £1)
• 1 onion ~ 33p (3 onions for £1)
• 1/4 cucumber ~ 15p (whole cucumber for 60p)
• 1 pork shoulder steak ~ 70p (4 steaks for £3)
• 4 slices of halloumi ~ £1.20 (pack for £2.35)
• TOTAL = 2.78 for two sandwiches = £1.39 per sandwich

£1.39 would probably get you half a ham and cheese sandwich at the student union. Not that there's anything wrong with a ham and cheese sandwich, but c'mon these are so much better!

I just grilled the pork shoulder steak in a very hot pan with a drop of oil (shoulder steaks have some fat in them already), 5 minutes or so on each side or whatever the packet says. Then I left it on a plate to rest while I fried my sliced onion in the pork juices left in the pan. I like my onions very soft and caramelised, so I used a lower heat and a longer time, but it's up to you. Then I dished up the onions too.

You have to wipe your pan clean now. Otherwise all the pork juices and leftover caramelised onions will burn your plan. Then with some more oil on a medium heat, I pan-fried the halloumi slices. They take a few minutes to brown, then you can flip them and do the other side as well.

While waiting for my halloumi, I slid my bread into the toaster, and sliced up by pork. Slice the steak on an angle to get bigger, thinner pieces. Then divide them between two pieces of toast (buttered if you want), top with two pieces of halloumi each, a pile of delicious caramelised onions, and then complete the sandwich with the other two pieces of toast. Slice up some cucumber on the side to make it look healthy. Not that it needs it, it's pretty healthy anyway. I think.

Pork, caramelised onion, and halloumi sandwich.

Go ahead and dig in.

Chinese Dumplings with Pork and Cabbage - Jiaozi - 餃子

Some days at university are long - a drawn-out day of lectures and seminars and practicals splattered about the place, during which you still need to go to the library to get that book you requested, and to the student office to drop off some silly form or other, then topped off with some club or society activity afterwards. When you finally get home, you realise that you've volunteered to create a revision handout for your study group, and you've still got that extra reading to do for tomorrow's class!

The last thing you can afford to do is to spend an hour trying to cook up something... (usually with the non-existent ingredients in your kitchen, because you've also forgotten to buy food for the week!)

My usual quick fix meals contain NO meat: pasta and pasta sauce, instant noodles, spaghetti on toast, canned soup... okay this is depressing. There are two main reasons for this: First, meat doesn't keep for long, so it's usually the first thing I run out of. Frozen meat at times like this is about as useful as a medical student without their Oxford Handbook (translation: useless!) because at these times - I want food, and I want it now! And secondly, meat isn't easy to make. You can't really eat it raw, or just chuck it into some salted boiling water for 10 minutes (well, you could... if you really wanted to...), so a lot of the time, when I want a quick meal, I go meatless. 

But I'm putting an end to those days! Move over pasta and jarred pasta sauce, because I've found my new saviour: Dumplings. 

These little dumplings are the perfect thing for those busy (or just lazy) nights. Just make some (i.e. as much as your freezer will hold) when you've got some free time on a weekend, and freeze them all for later.

This combination of pork, cabbage and carrot is my favourite, but you can put anything into dumplings: any meat, any veg.

I marinated the pork mince overnight, just using light soya sauce, sugar and cornstarch, to the make dumplings extra tasty, and also to improve the texture of the meat.

Now for the vegetables: peel some leaves off the cabbage. My cabbage was a decent size, so I only used about half of one. Then, cut thin strips of carrot. I use a peeler for this as you get very thin slices and its quick!

The vegetables need to be briefly cooked, because they're quite hard raw, which makes it difficult to fill into a dumpling. The cabbage needs to be boiled for 10 minutes until softened (but not mushy!) and if your carrots are super thin like this, you just need to put it in boiling water for 30 seconds or so.

Now that they are nicely softened, they need to be thinly chopped up. This doesn't have to be neat at all, just aim for smaller pieces which will easier to mix in with the mince. 

Time to mix all the filling ingredients together! Put the mince, cabbage and carrots into a bowl and mix it good. Add an egg and a tablespoon of oil to help it stick together. If you're willing to get down and dirty, use your hands!

Dumpling pastry / skin / wrappers come in different shapes and sizes. In terms of shape, we want the round ones for jiaozi. While the diameter of these dumpling wrappers are roughly the same, they all have a different thickness. The ones I chose are slightly on the thicker side, as I love the chewiness that they maintain. In contrast, thinner dumpling wrappers are lighter and airier, but they can be harder to wrap as they tear more easily, and are less suitable for frying for the same reason.

With clean, dry hands, pick up a dumpling wrapper and place it in one hand. With the other hand, use a tablespoon to scoop up some filling, and put it in the middle of your dumpling wrapper.

Now, the more filling you use, the more plump and delicious your dumpling will look, but bear in mind that you need to be able to seal the edges tightly, and you don't want any spilling out, or to make any tears in the wrapper.

Dip a finger of your free hand into a bowl of water to and draw a semicircle around the edges of your dumpling wrapper. Make sure your hand is dry again and then grab the top and bottom edges of the wrapper and pinch together.

Keep on pinching all the way around. If the filling starts to ooze out, push it back in with your finger. If it doesn't seem to work, then take a bit of the filling out. (You've been too greedy!)

You should then end up with a perfectly sealed dumpling. I know that most dumplings from Chinese places have a pretty border, but this is the easy way (hehe) and they taste just as good!

Keep on filling your dumplings. I made about 60 with this recipe, but it really depends on how much you fit into each one!

These dumplings are now ready to cook! It's easiest just to boil them: simply boil a pot of water, and lower them in one by one. They're done when the pastry becomes more translucent, and the dumpling floats to the surface of the water, which should only take about 5 minutes.

For dumplings you're not planning on eating now, dust a tray / plate with some flour, and place the dumplings so they don't overlap or touch each other. Place the tray into your freezer, and when they are frozen, you can pop them into a box or ziplock bag to save some space. When you want to eat them, just take out however many you want, and put them into a pot of boiling water for about 10 minutes to cook from frozen.