Ken Hom on saving money in the kitchen

Ken Hom has been preparing for the cost-of-living crisis all his life.

“I grew up with a single parent, my mum, because my father died when I was eight months old, and we were quite poor,” the 73-year-old remembers. “But we managed to eat well.”

Growing up in America with his Cantonese mother, Hom picked up the tricks and tips for saving money in the kitchen. Now, he adds with a good-natured laugh: “I’m basically very cheap.”

According to Hom, there are plenty of things home cooks can do to save a bit of cash. “Use the things people don’t think about,” he advises. “For instance, I do stir-fry cucumber, and cucumber’s inexpensive. You don’t think about stir-frying it, you think about it in a salad.

“You’d be astonished by how it tastes. I cooked it in Aberdeen this weekend for some charities – I cooked for people who are vegetarians, just cucumber. They couldn’t believe it, they said, ‘Is it some kind of mushroom or something like that?’ It’s the technique of salting the cucumbers then rinsing them, then squeezing all the water out and then stir-frying it, and using Lee Kum Kee Sichuan sauce, which really adds some pep to it. It’s inexpensive, delicious, nutritious and healthy – what more can you ask for, right?”

Plus, the technique of stir-frying might help keep your energy bills down. “One of the reasons the wok was invented was because China was resource-poor, and because of that people had to cook things really fast,” Hom explains. “It’s perfect for these times – that means you don’t have your gas or electricity on for a long time. It’s not like cooking in the oven, where it takes hours – you’re flash cooking, it’s good, it’s fast.

“And there’s another upside to all this – the great thing about cooking in the wok, you get this additional flavour of grilled smokiness. We call it in Chinese ‘wok hei’, which means the breath of the wok. It flavours the food so quickly and is economical – how wonderful.”

And to make your food go further, Hom is all about reducing food waste – a problem he calls “scandalous”. To do so, he recommends a bit of common sense: “Use the nose nature gave you. Even though something is past the sell-by date, smell it. You were born with this nose – use that nose. Obviously if something is mouldy, then you have to throw it away. But for instance, if you have a tip of a cucumber that is a little bit softer, just cut it off – save the rest of it.”

Hom leans closer and says: “You know what I do, my secret? Leftovers go into my mysterious bolognese sauce. And sometimes, it’s so bloody good – I forget what I put in it.”

Frugality isn’t the only thing that inspires Hom’s cooking, which is also informed by Chinese philosophy. “You have to remember, we have a background of 5,000 years, and we’re still around, so we’re doing something right,” he says. “I think the Chinese have learned through their philosophy about yin and yang.”

This balanced approach applies to food, Hom explains: “I remember my mother used to say, don’t eat too much fried food, because it’s too hot. And she’s right. What she meant is, it wouldn’t fuel my body, maybe I’d get sick because of too much oil. So that’s the philosophy behind this kind of food, and I grew up with it.”

He is credited with bringing Chinese food into the mainstream in the UK, with his groundbreaking TV series Ken Hom’s Chinese Cookery airing on the BBC in 1984. For Hom, his success was down to showing people in real-time how to make the dishes of his youth – plus, there was the allure of cooking with a wok.

“It’s sexy,” Hom says, laughing. “A lot of men love cooking [with a wok], they want to show off as a kind of macho thing. It’s like BBQ – it’s fast. Unfortunately, we men have a very low attention span. We don’t have the patience of women – because of that, I’m a militant feminist.”

The Wok from Hom recipe series: ‘Ken’s Kee to authentic Chinese flavours for less’ has been inspired by Chinese Wisdom in partnership with Lee Kum Kee, to help create healthier, more affordable alternatives to takeaways. For more info just visit: LKK.com