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