30min meal

I purchased Jamie Oliver's 30min meals book for my b-friend. I hoped it would spur him on into the kitchen and then I would get to enjoy lovely food. However, I neglected to remember one thing ... I am the Kitchen Despot. The kitchen is my kingdom and I do not tolerate any uppity subjects trying to get above their station by doing things like cook. It should be noted that I feel like this even when it's not my kitchen.

After waiting for 3 weeks I cracked under the pressure of having an unused cook book around the place and decided to whip up the Jerk Chicken. At the outset I would like to make some things clear. I like Jamie Oliver's cook books - I have 3 or 4 of them myself - sometimes I even cook from them. However, I do not really use cookbooks any more, I read them for inspiration and then heavily modify the recipes to suit myself. This time however I was making it mostly exactly as it was written (I omitted a few ingredients and added a bit more/less where it seemed appropriate). It did not take me 30minutes. It took me 49 (yes the bfriend timed me!). I think 30minutes is a very optimistic timing as it does not take into account any reading of the recipe as you go along or that most of us are not as competent / confident in the kitchen as a professional chef.

I'm a pretty decent cook and I think I would struggle to do this in 30minutes. There are a lot of different parts to it, the chicken, the sauce, the sweet corn, the rice dish and the salad. The sauce was very fiddly to make and charring the sweet corn fumigated the kitchen. It also produced an ungodly amount of mess. Having said that it was a delicious meal - the rice and beans dish was especially good and I will be making that again with other dishes.

I'll be trying some of the other recipes in the book, for sure, but tonight I will be whipping up a fish pie (of my own creation) and it won't take me any more time.