Maureen: Tonight we are having roast pork and Irish champ, which is just another version of mashed potatoes.
Nicholas (8): You mean strange mashed potatoes.
Maureen: They’re not strange! I think they’re delicious.
Andrew (12): The roast pork is nice. It tastes like sausages.
Maureen: Well, it should, since sausages are made out of pork.
Continue reading ““Superb Pork Loin” with “King of Mash: Irish Champ” from “Jamie’s Great Britain””
Kirstin: It’s been an interesting month.
Anna: I hate this book. In fact it was worse than Faffolenghi in some ways. Let me tell you why.
Kirstin: Tell me why Anna.
Tom: Tell us Anna, we want to know!
Time taken: 34 minutes 30 seconds
Miles: Mummy, can I give you a kiss?
Kirstin: Yes. Of course you can. What a lovely kiss! Thank you.
Miles: That’s because it was a slow-motion kiss.
Kirstin: You are sweet, lovely boy. Now Miles, how many of us liked the food?
Miles: Three! And Oscar. I call him Osky-Tosky.
Time taken: 30:38
Anna: We did it! The penultimate recipe of the month and we finally did it! I haven’t of course mentioned the 15 minutes it took up front to get everything prepared.
Peter: Yes. I think this recipe benefited from the food processer. And given it was a stirfry it was always going to create a lot of mess. So the Jamie approach in this case wasn’t as disruptive as other recipes.
Anna: You say that, but I can make a Thai curry in 20 minutes, with a lot less mess. So in fact this took longer than usual, even if we did hit 30 minutes….
Peter: Aha! But would you also have prepared a cucumber salad and a papaya platter within the same time frame?
Anna: Well no. But did you think those two additional dishes made the meal?
Peter: They weren’t bad. But they also weren’t essential.
Anna: Another brilliant extraneous Jamie dish. Cut a couple of items of fruit in half lengthwise and put them on a plate with some mint leaves and some yoghurt with lime zest. Honestly. I had to get you to chop it up and turn it into a fruit salad in order to eat it.
Peter: Did you notice how he gets you to take every component of the meal to the table in a separate bowl? Is this a ruse to raise sales of the Jamie Oliver (TM) crockery range? You’d need a table like an airfield to fit everything on it.
Anna: Did you enjoy it though?
Peter: I thought it tasted very authentic. It was nice to have a curry made with fresh curry paste. Very tasty.
Anna: And the salad? And the platter?
Peter: The salad was a bit wasted really. And you de-plattered your platter. I know what a papaya tastes like. I don’t need Jamie to present it to me in a different way. I prefer my bananas in other directions than lengthways.
Anna: What about the prawn crackers, which I lovingly poured from the packet into a bowl?
Peter: Presentation was first class. I wouldn’t have noticed if they weren’t there.
Anna: So it was broadly a success, but not worth the mess. I’d be lying if I said I’d make it again.
Time taken: 30 minutes 31 seconds
Kirstin: What did you think of this pizza then, kiddies?
Miles: (stomping foot) GOOD!
Tom: Did you really like it, Miles?
Miles: Yes. But now I want to do a level of “Lego Indiana Jones” with Daddy so we can get that last treasure chest.
Ella: I liked the pizza, but it was too puffy, which took away some of the taste. I prefer the normal kind. I thought the tomato was too thick in places, but that’s because I don’t like tomato.
Time taken: 38 minutes
Anna: And that was with three people cooking!
Tom: All I was doing was reading the recipe out. And that was after you’d laid everything out first. But I did spend half an hour going to Sainsbury’s looking for pastry cases.
Anna: And Peter went to M&S. And nobody could find any. Where did Jamie get them?
Tom: Surely they have to have them at Sainsbury’s, if he does their advertising?
Time Taken: 40′ 11″
If you’d like to see if you can beat my time, a copy of the recipe is on the Daily Mail site. Click here.
Maureen: Tonight’s menu is chosen by Andrew! What do you think?
Andrew: It’s good.
Maureen: What do you like about it?
Andrew: The fact that it’s basic.
Maureen: It’s not that basic. It took 40 minutes.
Tim: Look at that. The cucumbers, which required no cooking at all, were the first to go.
Time Taken: 44′ 21″
You can find this recipe on the Channel 4 website (click here).
Also, Jamie Oliver has a video on how to assemble the pie under “How To’s” on his website here.
Andrew (11): What’s for dessert?
Maureen: There is no dessert tonight. I am rebelling against the dessert dictatorship of Jamie Oliver.
Nicholas (7): Oh no!
Maureen: You’ll survive. We don’t usually have dessert on weeknights anyway. What do you think?
Andrew: I like it.
Nicholas: Me too!
Andrew: I liked the pie best, because I helped you make it.
Time taken: 49′ 03″
You can find the recipe for this meal on the Channel 4 website (click here).
Tim: Another Not-In-30-Minutes Meal.
Maureen: Nope.
Tim: That’s not a huge surprise, is it? We haven’t hit the 30 minute mark yet.
Maureen: Anything you’ve never made before is going to slow you down. This book should have a disclosure that says these are 30 minute meals, once you’ve done them three or four times.
Tim: It’s true. The fastest recipes are the ones that you know by heart. You don’t get slowed down by having to read the method.
Time to table just over 34 minutes.
And there’s no conversation for this post, as it’s just me preparing, cooking, eating, tidying up and blogging away tonight.
But first, Jamie, if you’re reading this, my one small request about the next edition of this book would be for you to list the equipment needed for each recipe, especially if every minute needs to be accounted for. A small gripe, I know, but it’s difficult to keep with the flow when having to get more kit out all the time while trying to work to a deadline.
A cookbook a month 