As the UK is berated with record-high levels of inflation and a brutal cost of living crisis with no end in sight, we're all looking for ways of reducing expenditure and making our money stretch that little bit further.
For many, one of the first things to be booted out of their weekly or monthly routine is dining out - as the pleasurable experience of enjoying a dish at your favourite restaurant can become somewhat costly.
But just because you can't afford to spend money on takeaways and fancy food outings, doesn't mean that you can't have the same quality food, cooked from scratch at home.
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Iceland have recently released the ingredients and recipe for a 'Nando's-style Fakeaway' on the daily dish portion of their website - so I thought I would save some money and brush up on my cooking skills by trying to replicate some of the tasty treats found at the Portuguese staple.
Here's how it went down...
For a Nando's-style chicken itself, I found that you'll only need two ingredients - chicken and special marinade sauce. Iceland advise using chicken thighs and chicken wings, so that's what I went for.
I opted for fresh chicken rather than the frozen bulk-bags that the Food Warehouse sell, simply as I didn't want to wait 16 hours to defrost the meat. The thighs cost me £3.85 for a 500g pack, while the skin-on wings were £2.65 for 900g.
A pouch of the Nando's-branded coat-and-cook marinade also set me back just £1. I chose medium heat for this as I'm a self-admitted softy when it comes to spice. Iceland also suggests a number of side orders to accompany your dish, so I picked some of my favourite sides I would buy when eating out in the form of garlic bread slices (£1.25), skin on fries (£2) mini corn on the cob (£1) and Uncle Ben's spicy Mexican rice (£1.35).
I also picked up some Nando's peri peri salt for the fries which were an extra £1.50, as well as some medium heat Nando's sauce for £3.50. Altogether the shop cost me £18.10 - but the recipe states that four can be fed for this, meaning in hindsight it would cost £4.52 per head if four were dining.
Plus, things like garlic bread, fries and corn on the cob were left over for another meal - as it would be silly to cook the lot.
With all of the ingredients in hand, I headed home to cook up a storm. Although Iceland's recipe says that the cooking time for the feast advertised is in the region of 45 minutes, this doesn't include preparation time for the marinated chicken. Although they advise that you complete this process overnight, I opted to marinade the thighs and wings, wrap them and chill them for around two hours.
Then I stuck them in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius to cook for 45 minutes in total (with the wings being added after 15 minutes as they only take 30 minutes to cook). The fries were doused with peri peri salt and lobbed in the oven with 20 minutes left to go, and the garlic bread was subsequently grilled for nine minutes.
The corn on the cob can be cooked right out of the bag in the microwave, so I zapped them for five minutes before putting the Uncle Ben's in for two minutes respectively. I then plated the meal up and drizzled a splash of the Nando's sauce on the thighs, and on the face of things, you wouldn't tell the difference between what was sat in front of me and your favourite Portuguese chain's treats.
To my amazement, the chicken is actually remarkably similar - with the marinade cutting through from start to finish. Of course, the out-of-the-bottle sauce helped on the thighs' part, but the wings, which I avoided putting any extra sauce on at all, were absolutely seamless.
The typical Nando's flavouring and heat were both in abundance, and if I were blindfolded, the only way I would maybe tell the difference would be through texture. Of course, this is on my part as my capabilities as a chef aren't exemplary - hence why I'm a journalist.
Iceland's meat is fantastic quality, with little sinew to trim off during preparation, and when cooked it's incredibly succulent and juicy. Everything you want and more from a chicken-based dish. The garlic bread was unsurprisingly similar both in terms of taste, texture and appearance - albeit my version was a little less charred than how Nando's cook it - but overall, practically the same.
And it's the exact same story for the spicy rice and corn-on-the-cob - which lets face the facts, aren't going to be overtly different anywhere you consume them. The one let down that I will say in terms of the 'fakeaway' in comparison to the real McCoy is that of the peri-dusted fries.
I'm not entirely sure how this is the case, but there was just something a little off about my cook-at-home version. They didn't have the crisp and the crunch of a Nando's fry, and the peri-salt seemed a little weakened in comparison. But for the reduction in price, I can't really be grumbled.
Overall, I would definitely advise anyone who can't afford to dine at Nando's at the moment to try out this recipe, as the chicken will definitely not disappoint, and you'll save a small fortune if you're cooking for friends or family too. By my calculations, the same meal at Nando's would set you back £33 - with the full breakdown below:
Nando's pricing:
4 Boneless chicken thighs - £8.50
10 chicken wings - £11.50
Peri salted chips - £3.25
Garlic bread - £3.25
Corn on the cob - £3.25
Spicy rice - £3.25
Total - £33
Iceland pricing:
500g Boneless chicken thighs - £3.85
900g skin-on chicken wings - £2.65
1.2kg skin-on fries - £2
Garlic bread slices - £1.25
Corn on the cob - £1
Uncle Ben's spicy Mexican rice - £1.35
Peri-peri salt - £1.50
Nando's medium coat and cook - £1
Nando's medium sauce - £3.50
Total - £18.10
Savings by cooking at home - £14.90
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