I’m always banging on about Eazy fried onions in a can, one of the most useful things to have in the store cupboard. They save 20 minutes on any dish that requires chopped onions fried in olive oil.

It’s useful, indeed, to have a 400g can providing the equivalent of three Spanish onions cooked almost to melting point.

The other night when I craved curry and the only useful fresh ingredient in the fridge was a pack of cooked prawns, the Eazys meant that I was able to whip up a deliciously fragrant and subtle prawn curry within 15 minutes, slightly less time than it took to cook the rice to go with it.

I often use a small amount of curry powder as a flavour enhancer for onions, then take the seasoning in a completely different direction.

This time I added tamarind, another useful cupboard ingredient. Tamarind, crucial in southeast Asian cooking as a souring agent, adds a lemony tang that complements tomatoes and prawns. The finale to my surprisingly complex quick dish is a handful of tender young spinach, which melts almost instantaneously.

Another good ruse for half a can of Eazy onions is tartiflette, that horrendously hi-carb but gorgeous potato gratin that is the mainstay of the chalet restaurants that pepper the ski slopes of the Alps in the Savoie.

The onions are cooked up with scraps of bacon while the potatoes are boiling, then everything is mixed into crème fraîche.

If that were not rich enough, the gratin is covered with thick slices of mild, creamy cheese, which melts into the potatoes as it’s browned in the oven.

Tamarind prawns with spinach and tomato

Serves: 2-3 (generously)
Prep: 10min
Cook: 15min
200g can Eazy fried onions
2tsp curry powder
1tbsp tamarind paste (Bart Spices)
400g can chopped tomatoes
150g young leaf spinach or shredded regular spinach
200g North Atlantic cooked peeled prawns

METHOD Heat the onions in a heavy-bottomed pan and cook, stirring occasionally, for five minutes. Stir in the curry powder and stir-fry for two minutes. Stir in the tamarind paste, stirring constantly for about 30 seconds as it cooks. Add the tomatoes, establish a steady simmer and cook five minutes. Add the spinach, stirring for a minute or so until wilted. Add the prawns, heat through and it’s ready to serve. The dish reheats perfectly but the spinach will dull in colour.

Times Recommends

• Champagne cocktail
• Food that's good for body and soul
• Joe McCanta’s never-fail hangover-relief shake