Jamie Oliver's 30 Minute Meals - Tapas Feast

The lack of update to the blog this weekend can be explained by what I chose to do with my weekend off – fit a new bathroom suite. All went well (other than my missing tiles, damn you B&Q!) but unfortunately this left me with little time for cooking.

Luckily, I took Monday and Tuesday off work to recuperate, and decided that, on Tuesday, I would be cooking an adventurous meal of Tapas. This coincided with the broadcast of the Tapas Feast episode of Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals on Channel 4, so I was able to settle down and watch Jamie cook before attempting the feast myself.

The feast comprises of a Spanish Tortilla, Glazed Chorizo, Rolled Anchovies, Stuffed Peppers, and Manchego Cheese with Cooked Meats. I was a bit more worried about this one; I think it was because of the large number of dishes. We took a trip into York, mainly to get the meat. Unfortunately, Henshelwood’s were not able to help, stocking… I can’t remember what it was exactly, but it was £4.95 for 100g. Looked great, but no thanks! We went to the Hairy Fig next where we settled on Serrano Ham. I also bought a few French soft drinks. I’ve developed a real taste for French style traditional soft drinks lately. Taste test to come at some point when I can get a tasting partner (the Mrs won’t drink fizzies!).

So when we got home, I turned the telly on to see how Jamie did it. Looked dead easy to be honest! All I had to do was half the ingredients as I was cooking for two… I know, lets do the pomegranate drink from another menu as well!

I then read the recipe book, and it instantly hit me that some things in the TV show were missing from the written recipe. In the TV show, Jamie puts oil in the pepper stuffing mixture; this is not mentioned in the book. Jamie also made a point of using the flower heads from the thyme; no mention of this in the book.

Nevermind, time to get started. The recipe specifies baby new potatoes for the Tortilla, but I used large new potatoes. They were much better value and I couldn’t see the taste difference being massive once chopped up and fried. I chopped the potato and added to the hot oil, tossing the potatoes just like Jamie did… man, I should be on TV! Onion was added, followed by fennel seeds five minutes later when I realised I had forgot to add them… A sign of things to come?

Then I moved onto the Chorizo. I was using the wok, as I wanted to use our small frying pan for the tortilla, as it was serving two. Straight in, keep tossing the Chorizo with the potatoes. I was surprised by how little oil came off the sausage, but this didn’t seem to present any problems.

On to the Stuffed Peppers. It was the first time I had cooked with chargrilled jarred peppers. Apart from being difficult to get out of the jar they were pretty easy to cook with. I also managed to tear one of them. The stuffing was pretty difficult to knock up with my hand blender to be honest. I think I should have added the ingredients gradually. Anyway, with a lot of shaking and tipping upside down the stuffing was finally made, although the motor of the blender was very hot by the time I was done! I opted to follow TV Jamie and add oil to the stuffing. The peppers were stuffed full like banker’s pockets, drizzled with olive oil and whacked under the grill.

Time to do the cheese board. This one was dead easy to be honest, and makes an easy target for people saying that half Jamie’s dishes are not real cooking. However, while watching TV Jamie prepare the dish, I was struck by the techniques that Jamie was trying to pass on – the laying of the meat for preparation, and the use of honey and coffee with the cheese (this worked really well by the way!).

Cheese done, and garlic added to the chorizo, and to the tortilla along with seasoning and rosemary. Then I added honey and red wine vinegar to the chorizo. The smell was divine – the sausage was really starting to look great. Until disaster struck.

Feeling confident, I was starting to coast a little. And royally cocked up by cracking an egg into the chorizo pan rather than the Tortilla! NOOOOOO!!! I rescued the situation by spooning the sausage away and letting the egg cook slightly to let it take shape. The sausage was then transferred out of the wok into a griddle pan, but I fear that a lot of the glaze was lost to the egg.

This also really threw my timing out, so I started cracking eggs into the Tortilla pan to get that cooking. Unbelivably, the peppers were not quite cooked! The Tortilla stayed on the hob until the peppers were finally ready to come out, and the Tortilla got put under the grill. OK, so the cheese and peppers were now finished. The Chorizo was about down, and was put in a dish and then put to one side. The Mrs took control of the pomegranate drink. All I had to do was give the fruit a good squeeze to make sure we got all the juice.

While the Tortilla was cooking, I started on the Anchovies. I didn’t have any cocktail sticks so served the anchovies out with tomatoes (this was only the second time I had tasted Anchovies, the first being the previous Sunday in a supermarket restaurant. I did fear them, I’m now a great fan!). I had been forced to pre-grate the lemon as the Mrs needed half of it for the pomegranate. It was very difficult to spread over the fish, and ended up, not so much lemon zest but a few dollops of yellow. Any subtle lemon flavouring was undoubtedly lost. Anyway, the anchovy fillets were garnished with Parsley, and put to one side. Another dish done!

Finally, all I had to do was wait for the Tortilla to take a full colour under the grill. This done, I added half a packet of rocket, squeezed lemon over the top… and served!

So, how was it? Well, first things first – this was not a 30 minute meal. I ended on 42 minutes. This can partly be explained the Chorizo vs egg incident, but there are still some extra minutes on there. I just don’t think our grill gives a decent performance.

And the taste? Mistakes on my part aside, pretty good! I was very proud of cooking so many items, for the first time. The Chorizo in particular was excellent, and this is something that I will be doing again. I wouldn’t say the same about the Tortilla. The Mrs said it was great but I wasn’t so bothered. It just seemed a bit… bland.

Another success for 30 minute meals… 2 out of 3 ain’t bad! 

Jamie Oliver's 30 Minute Meals @ Amazon.co.uk

Jamie Oliver's Tapas Feast recipes @ Jamieoliver.com

The Hairy Fig

Delia Smith’s Stir-fried Chicken with Lime and Coconut with Onion Pilau, Gordon Ramsay's Griddled Pineapple with Mint

Cooking Jamie’s 30 minute meal options lately has got me in the mood for quick, decent food, and after recently writing about Delia’s Pad Thai I noticed the Stir-Fried Chicken recipe from the same book, with hardly any text instructions, and the blurb “its hard to credit that a recipe as simple and as quick as this could taste so good, but I can assure you it’s an absolute winner”. The recipe can be found here, at Delia Online, and as I've decided to single-handedly prove that Delia Smith is cool and her recipes kick arse, it was a simple choice! When I casually asked a friend round for dinner, I knew this would be a good option. Its fresh and simple, but I hoped the lime and chilli would give a tangy, exciting taste. I had been pleasantly surprised by the modified pilau rice I served up with the weekends lamb kebabs, and decided that the two would marry well. The rice is also simple to present well, which I hoped would impress. The stir-fry looked kind of white so I hoped the rice would give some colour.

To serve with, I decided on Gordon Ramsay’s Griddled Pineapple with Mint and Coconut.Gordon has something to prove in our house. He fell out of favour when the other half was making his White Chocolate Mousse, and it split on her. She was quite heavily pregnant and the time, and it led to... not exactly a breakdown but certainly an episode (luckily Nigella came to the recipe with her Mousse recipe using Marshmallows). The pineapple looked vibrant, with charred stripes across the bright yellow flesh, and I hoped the fresh flavours would fit in well with the main course. I also served the dessert with Häagen Dazs Pralines and Cream Ice Cream, which is unarguably the greatest ice cream of all time. The pineapple could be prepared in advance and left in the fridge which was extremely convenient. So, slice the pineapple into wedges, char, remove the skin, pour mint infused syrup over the pineapple, and leave in the fridge. When ready to serve, sprinkle with toasted desiccated coconut.

So, how did it go? Well, the first job was to marinate the chicken in lime zest and juice, which was easy enough. After an hour, the chicken is added to a hot wok, and stir-fried. In my typical gung-ho fashion I chucked the contents of the bowl in the wok, juice included. Unfortunately, after a short while I realised the chicken was more poaching in lime juice and its own liquid. I strained and added back to the wok, but I fear the damage was done as when I served the meat it was overcooked. Anyhow, after the meat is golden, add finely chopped green chilli, stir fry again, then add Nam Pla, chopped coriander and shredded spring onions.

In the meantime, I did the rice. I’ve decided that the onion pilau rice recipe is now mine! I have used the M&S as a guide. And unfortunately, I overcooked this as well, after worrying about the chicken! Aaaargh!

The main course was tasty enough, quite light and not too filling (no one wants to feel stuffed on a school night). Our guests were too polite to say, but both the rice and the chicken were definitely overcooked. Need to be a bit more confident next time. I think the frozen food issue has knocked my confidence slightly.

The dessert went well too, but was maybe a bit too simple. It was again fresh, although I don’t think there was enough of it (although to be fair, I had made smaller pieces and gave some pineapple slices to the boy-let. I can’t tell if he was impressed or not!). I was sceptical of how the mint syrup would work, but it was brilliant, a real gentle flavour of mint that did not overpower the pineapple. Sadly, I am an idiot, and for my final act, I forgot to sprinkle the coconut over.

Conclusion – I’ll cook both of these again, but probably just for the Mrs and I. It just wasn’t exciting enough.

Delia Smith's How to Cook Book 2 @ Amazon.co.uk

Gordon Ramsay's Fast Food @ Amazon.co.uk

Lamb Kofte Kebabs, Potatoes with Spiced Spinach and Onion Pilau Rice

This weekend I decided that I wanted to make use of the spice mixes that my brother bought me for Christmas. There were various ones from a company based in London’s Borough Market called Spice Mountain, and the one that I really wanted to try was the Lamb Kofte Kebabs. To go with, spiced spinach potatoes from the Indian Cooking School book, published by M&S. 

We made a trip into Pocklington town centre to visit the Deli (as per previous posts, Atkinson’s of Pocklington), and the butchers (again, as per previous posts W.F. Burtons) to get the ingredients – although the mince came in at an eye-watering £3.41 for half a kilo! I also wanted to take a trip to the fishmongers to get some mussels, to do Mussels in Coconut Sauce as a starter. Unfortunately I found that the shop closed at 13.00 on a Saturday. I was a bit surprised, especially as I had heard that the fishmonger was spearheading a local campaign to generate footfall in Pocklington’s shops. Nevermind, rather than the Mussel starter we would be having rice and Naan Bread.

I followed the directions to mix the lamb with 2 tbsp of the Kofte spice mix, a small slice of bread’s worth of breadcrumbs, and a finely chopped small onion, and left in the fridge to marinate for a few hours (do dry ingredients marinate?). I made a miniature finger of kebab meat for Junior, who, over the last week, has been eating his first solid foods after skipping purees under the baby-led weaning school of baby food. I have to admit, I did add a tiny dab of the spice mixture and felt a real stab of pride as I realised I was making my boy’s first curry! This also meant I got a practise in on the spinach, and served it up to my guinea pig like a child cautiously offering his first project to the woodwork teacher. He did seem to prefer the kebab to the spinach – a chip off the old block!

We put Jr. to bed and I got on with cooking for us. I had formed the mince into Kebab’s around some BBQ sticks we had in the cupboard. The Kebab’s were simply grilled while everything else was cooking. First things first, boil new potatoes. After this, the spinach was a case of frying garlic and ginger purees with half a chilli, adding spices, adding tomatoes, adding spinach and then potatoes and finally cream, all in a frying pan. Dead easy – didn’t stop me messing up though, as I forgot to add the cream. D’oh!

The rice was started as Kitchri, a recipe from the same book, but I realised that it called for lentils which I didn’t have. I decided to go onto pilau rice, but had already sliced an onion up… ah well, onion pilau it is! I shallow-fried the onion, added a tiny bit turmeric to give the rice colour. When the onion was done, I added the rice, along with water, salt pepper and a bit of Saffron, which  I realised I had never cooked with before! The lid went on and the rice was left to its own devices.

I had made a bit of a conscious decision to try and improve the presentation of my meals. I feel this really lets me down and am conscious of just slapping food on a plate and serving. A bit of an effort with garnish was in order.

So, how was it? Well, the kebabs were a touch dry, but tasted delicious. The spice mix really does offer great value for money, I think I have enough for at least 4 more servings of the same recipe, but I think I will do meatballs next time. The rice was also good, although I am not convinced the saffron added anything. After discussing the better half, we realised that she had had it since we had met, and it would be fair to say it had probably lost its taste! I think I will buy some more and use on Wednesday when friends come round. The Spinach and Potatoes were good, possibly fried for a bit too long, and sadly lacking the cream, but I cannot blame the recipe for that!

In fact, the only let down would be the Peshwari Naan that I served with the meal. In an effort to get some more authentic bread I had bought a pack from Rafi’s Spice Box but found them to be very thin and a bit tasteless. The Mrs was very polite, but is a bit of a Peshwari monster, and I knew that she agreed with me about the bread when I didn’t have to fight her for the last bit!

Indian Cooking School @ Marks & Spencer

Rafi's Spice Box

Spice Mountain

Jamie Oliver's 30 Minute Meals - Pregnant Jools's Pasta

The first time I had had consciously had chicory was in the salad in Jamie Oliver's 'Killer Jerk Chicken' menu. Unfortunately Waitrose (get me!) only sold them in packs of two, so we decided to do something else to use the second one up. As the Mrs would be cooking, we went for something quite simple looking, as she has the Boy-let to keep an eye on during the day, when I would be at work, and we both fancied something quick.

I was eventually called through to the kitchen to find that it looked like a bomb had gone off in the kitchen. I remembered the other half had acted as an assistant while I prepared the chicken - it really looks like these recipes are lot easier if there are two of you on hand. The Mrs finished 'Pregnant Jools's Pasta, Crunchy Chicory & Watercress Salad & Little Frangipane Tarts in about 40 minutes. I wrote a haiku to describe our feelings toward the menu:

Pregnant Jools's pasta

Massive let down

Jamie write alone next time

The best way to decribe the menu would be: A too-spicy (as in, the pasta was WAY too spicy) sweet and sour pasta. With sausage meat. Sweet and Sour should be served with rice. Not pasta, or sausagemeat. My better half seems to think it might be related to our cheap balsamic, but I think there is more to the faults of the dish than this. The salad was also disappointing. I had really enjoyed the chicory with the chicken, but it just didn't work here. I think its because the leaves were left whole, and were too bitter in large chunks, but it might have been the dressing. The Frangipane tarts were the highlight of the meal, but were nothing special - like a large jam tart.

I am quite a big fan of Jamie Oliver, and desperately wanted to like this, but it was just...crap. 

Jamie's 30 minute Meals @ Amazon

Jamie Oliver's 30 Minute Meals - Killer Jerk Chicken

Inspired by Comfort Bite’s recent blog post regarding Jamie Oliver’s “30 Minute Meals” book, I decided that this weekend would be spent testing out one of Jamie’s meals from the book. I made the effort to read the book’s introduction – quite a rarity for me, but after the feedback something which I felt would be necessary in order to give the recipe a fair test – and was interested in Jamie’s second excuse, or reason that he thinks people use to explain why they don’t cook. Jamie makes the point that its cheaper to cook his recipes than it is to go out to eat, or to get a takeaway, or even to get a ready meal. Is this really true? M&S’ “Dine in for £10” offer includes a main, desert and side, plus wine for £10. I think Tesco and Sainsbury do the same offer but try to undercut M&S. I wouldn’t know about Asda, as they are owned by the devil and I really don’t like shopping there. This is only for 2, whereas Jamie’s menus are for 4 – but I spent over £5 just on two chicken breasts (I appreciate this is particularly expensive chicken, but the recipe does require skin on chicken and Jamie tells us to use higher-welfare). If it was for 4, there’s £10 already.

I realise this does sound negative so I’ve got to point out that I do generally like Jamie’s books, and recipes – and TV shows. I have been really looking forward to giving these a go, but as per my blog introduction I am on a limited budget so cost is an issue that is close to my heart. And I’m from Yorkshire. Its what we do.

Reading the introduction also showed that we may be slightly limited in some respects with our choice of meals, because we do not own a food processor, and I refuse to buy one on the strength of one book. However, we do have a small hand-blender that does sauces etc. We just can’t do any of his chopped recipes.

Therefore, we decided on the menu “Killer Jerk Chicken – Rice & Beans – Refreshing Chopped Salad – Chargrilled Corn”. I have to confess that when leafing through the book I have not really found many of the menu's all that inspiring, but this one seemed to jump out. We had the chicken in already, the Mrs is partial to Corn on the Cob, and I remember seeing the chicken on Jamie’s TV show and fancying it then. So, this part of the job was easy!

So, we had decided which menu to test. What to test again? This was quite easy:

- How long does it take to cook?

- How much did it cost?

- How does it taste?

- Was it worth it?

I am going to come clean and confess that I did not stick to the recipes exactly: I didn’t want to buy a bottle of Golden Rum for 125 ml when I have White Rum in the cupboard, so I substituted that. I did not buy ground allspice – I assumed it was the same as five spice. It isn’t. Substituted allspice for ground cloves, ground ginger and ground cinnamon after a quick google. Finally, I was unable to get Scotch Bonnets, and just used double measurements of a regular red chilli instead. I’m also going to admit that the other half was with me to perform photography duties, and helped with keeping the kitchen in order. She also helped out when I started stressing a bit!

So, ingredients ready, pans on the hob… and we’re off! Firstly I made the cut into the chicken breasts. I wasn’t exactly clear what was required of the cut as per the books instructions but I recalled Jamie cooking the chicken and made the correct incision. This allowed the chicken to cook evenly.

On to the corn, that’s easy enough – put corn in pan of hot water. Mistake one – I didn’t have a pan of hot water ready. Her indoors came to the rescue and sorted this will I moved onto step 3 – the Jerk Sauce. I did have the ingredients for this ready, blended, and done. The chicken then went into the oven with the sauce. The rice and beans next – and again, I had no hot water for the stock. Again, sweetness came to my rescue! Dead easy – Spring Onion and Cinnamon stick lightly fried, then rice and stock added, then forget about it for 12 minutes!

The Yoghurt was again dead easy – mix yoghurt with oil, lime juice and lime zest. I think Lime might be my favourite ingredient right now, except maybe for Chorizo. Such a sweet, refreshing taste.

On to the corn, put them in the pan that the chicken was fried in… and why are those beans out?! Aaaargh, I forgot to put the beans in the rice and beans! Panicked, I chucked them in but was confident it would be fine as the beans were ready cooked. The corn finally went in the pan and started charring. On to the salad – basically, chop everything then add oil and lime.

And that’s it! We plated up, rather than leaving things in pots and pans as there were only two of us, and ate. So, how was it? I thought it was excellent! The chicken was maybe ever so slightly dry, but the rice and beans were just fantastic, and complimented the Jerk Chicken absolutely perfectly – in fact I ate the Rice and Beans again the next night as we only used half of the carton of beans. Salads are usually plain, but this one had good texture, a variety of flavours, and was dressed well. It was missing something though – an onion, which I forgot to add as I was in a rush. The yoghurt toned things down slightly when needed. Charring the corn was great and added flavour to something that I usually find a touch bland. The other half agreed, although maybe thought the chicken was a touch too hot.

And the cooking time? Well, I have to point out that I was not alone – I had a beautiful assistant tidying up behind me, helping out with any mistakes, and doing the washing up – which wasn’t as bad as I expected but still took a fair while to do afterwards. It also took me 5-10 minutes to get ingredients, pots and pans ready. All this aside, I completed the meal in – 32 minutes and 33 seconds, which I was pleased with. The time was right, the taste was great and I will be doing it again, although I did learn a lesson – next time, I will always make sure there is a kettle of boiling water available!

So why has 30 Minute Meals been criticised so? I'm not sure. I mean, it kind of does what it says on the tin - A meal in 30 minutes. I think the problem is - who is it aimed at? What market does it cater for? Jamie usually aims his books at families. Gordon Ramsey aims at Men and the younger market. Nigella Lawson's books are usually indulgent. As Jamie is pushing a new method of cooking, 30 Minute Meals is impossible to pigeonhole into the recognised categories. Its aimed at anyone - it can't please everyone.

Jamie Oliver's 30 Minute Meals @ Amazon.co.uk

Delia Smith's Pad Thai, and the second lot of Christmas Presents

The problem with cooking in our house is that my live-in supermodel, with whom I have had a child, loves cooking equally as much as I do. No, I’m not Jamie Cullum, just trying to be cheesy and romantic.

Because we both love cooking so much, I am being forced to cheat for the first part of today’s post and let the Mrs do the cooking. I asked if we could have something from a book that was something other than a Rachel Allen or Nigella Lawson book, and was blessed with Delia Smith. Now, Delia doesn’t seem to be in fashion nowadays, and Delia’s Cheat book, an attempt to rival Jamie Oliver’s current crusade, was roundly ridiculed. However, Delia has been writing about food for over 40 years, and is the UK’s most-sold cookery writer having sold an impressive 21 million books. Wikipedia tells me that the cake on the cover of “Let it Bleed” was baked by Delia Smith. This means that Delia Smith is unarguably Rock and fucking Roll. Who would have thought?

We settled on “Pad Thai Noodles with Shrimps” from “How to Cook” and made a stop at an oriental supermarket in the centre of York, where we picked up a packet of dried shrimp, a big packet of shelled and de-skinned peanuts, and rice noodles. I noticed that they had small tins of coconut milk – perfect for us, as we only ever use half a tin anyway. Anyway, I digress. We were surprised later that day when the Mother-in-Law, a coeliac, dropped in and asked if she could stay the night, on the way home from Leeds to Birmingham. By happy coincidence the Pad Thai is gluten-free, and the Mrs got on with dinner. Unfortunately, the Mother-in-Law is not as rock and roll as Delia, and isn’t keen on hot food. The recommended 2 chillis were reduced to a half.

Despite this, all was good. At first, I couldn’t place the shrimp, but they gave a definite fishy taste. I did miss the chilli – it really would have leant some flavour, but it was still a really tasty, tangy dish. I was pleasantly surprised with Delia’s recipe, and have decided that later in the week I will test-drive the “Stir-Fried Chicken with Lime and Coconut” from the same book.

For my part, I managed to cook more than half the recipes in a book this week! Unfortunately, the book isn’t exactly a masterpiece like “How to Cook” – its more of a pamphlet, that I got with one of my Christmas presents – a Jamie Oliver Flavour Shaker! I decided that I wanted one after struggling with Fennel seeds in a pestle and mortar for too long, and it has lived up to my expectations. I made the “Rustic French rub” for Lamb steaks, and served them alongside the “Basil, balsamic vinegar and pinenut” dressed salad. The general instructions is to shake with the dry ingredients in first, and then add herbs or garlic etc, and then finally add any liquids such as oil or vinegar. I’m not great at cooking steaks, but rubbed the lamb with the French rub, and left while I made the dressing. I tried to fry on quite a high heat, and managed to get the steaks done not quite rare enough, with just a small line of pink right in the middle. Verdict – the rub was maybe a little too peppery, but was otherwise tasty, while the dressing was great. I will mainly be using the shaker to grind spices but look forward to trying out other recipes in it – any recommendations?

My final foodie Christmas present was a selection of spice blends from a company called Spice Mountain, based at Borough Market. My brother kindly bought me a pack containing Moroccan Tagine spice, Ethiopian Berbere, Goan Curry, Jerk Seasoning and Kofte Kebab flavouring, along with a little pot of something called Sumac, described as a lemony spice. My brother and I must be on the same wavelength, as I bought him a leftovers kit from Rafi’s Spicebox! I am really looking forward to the Kofte Kebab – there is a recipe for spicy tomato chutney on the back of the pack, but I think I will serve with Bombay Potatoes from the Indian Cooking School book.

Delia Smith's "How to Cook" @ Amazon (this is the copy we have, although there are many variations)

Spice Mountain

Jamie Oliver Flavour Shaker

Rafi's Leftover Kit

Let it Bleed @ Amazon