In a hurry? Grab a sandwich. Running late? Order pizza. Entertaining guests at short notice? You could try Jamie's 30 minute meals...if you're up to it.
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The saintly chef is at it again, only this time he's on a mission to get us cooking even the most complex dishes in next to no time...
Roast beef and Yorkshire puds with all the trimmings, mushroom risotto followed by lemon cheesecake - tasty, but not straightforward dishes, some of them consisting of three courses and all apparently achievable in under half an hour. Is this realistic? We thought we'd put it to the test. We found four brave souls willing to test their culinary skills and their nerves, two of them in a professional kitchen and two in their own kitchens at home. Each was provided with recipes from the new series - they have all the tools and ingredients required to make the dishes. We didn't tell them what it was all about - all they knew was that they need to follow the recipe as quickly as they could.
Lee and Sarah worked in a professional cookery school kitchen, with Lee making chicken pie, French-style peas, sweet carrot mash, berries, shortbread and Chantilly cream and Sarah whipping up a spinach and feta filo pie, cucumber salad, tomatoes salad and coated ice cream desert.
Meanwhile, in their kitchens at home, Melissa was making roast beef, baby Yorkshire puds, little carrots, crispy potatoes, super quick gravy, and Beverley got cracking on an oozy mushroom risotto, spinach salad and a quick lemon and raspberry cheesecake.
At the end of their toiling, the times taken to cook Jamie's 30 minute meals were:
Lee: 1hr 50mins
Sarah: 1hr 54mins
Melissa: 58mins
Beverley: 1hr 6mins
We found that although the 30 minute meals tasted great, they actually took a lot longer to cook than half an hour. Our only question now is... who's going to do all the washing up?
Jamie's company said:
"All of Jamie's recipes are tested rigorously and the recipes in 30 Minute Meals even more so. They were tested five times by both trained cooks and ordinary home cooks, all of whom managed to complete them in around 30 minutes.
"While it sometimes takes a few attempts to get into the swing of the 30 Minute Meals way of cooking, it's easy once you get the hang of it."
"To simply give people ingredients and tell them to cook the meal "as
quickly as they can" is to ignore the point of the book completely."
Watchdog viewers cook up a storm...
In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit BBC Webwise for full instructions. If you're reading via RSS, you'll need to visit the blog to access this content.
The saintly chef is at it again, only this time he's on a mission to get us cooking even the most complex dishes in next to no time...
Roast beef and Yorkshire puds with all the trimmings, mushroom risotto followed by lemon cheesecake - tasty, but not straightforward dishes, some of them consisting of three courses and all apparently achievable in under half an hour. Is this realistic? We thought we'd put it to the test. We found four brave souls willing to test their culinary skills and their nerves, two of them in a professional kitchen and two in their own kitchens at home. Each was provided with recipes from the new series - they have all the tools and ingredients required to make the dishes. We didn't tell them what it was all about - all they knew was that they need to follow the recipe as quickly as they could.
Lee and Sarah worked in a professional cookery school kitchen, with Lee making chicken pie, French-style peas, sweet carrot mash, berries, shortbread and Chantilly cream and Sarah whipping up a spinach and feta filo pie, cucumber salad, tomatoes salad and coated ice cream desert.
Meanwhile, in their kitchens at home, Melissa was making roast beef, baby Yorkshire puds, little carrots, crispy potatoes, super quick gravy, and Beverley got cracking on an oozy mushroom risotto, spinach salad and a quick lemon and raspberry cheesecake.
At the end of their toiling, the times taken to cook Jamie's 30 minute meals were:
Lee: 1hr 50mins
Sarah: 1hr 54mins
Melissa: 58mins
Beverley: 1hr 6mins
We found that although the 30 minute meals tasted great, they actually took a lot longer to cook than half an hour. Our only question now is... who's going to do all the washing up?
Jamie's company said:
"All of Jamie's recipes are tested rigorously and the recipes in 30 Minute Meals even more so. They were tested five times by both trained cooks and ordinary home cooks, all of whom managed to complete them in around 30 minutes.
"While it sometimes takes a few attempts to get into the swing of the 30 Minute Meals way of cooking, it's easy once you get the hang of it."
"To simply give people ingredients and tell them to cook the meal "as
quickly as they can" is to ignore the point of the book completely."
Watchdog viewers cook up a storm...