Testing times with Jamie Oliver

Cookbooks don't usually inspire ire (except perhaps the ones featuring recipes for foie gras soup) but this Christmas, one publication got cooks all over the UK all fired up. Jamie's 30-Minute Meals topped non-fiction bestseller lists in December and found its way under many a Christmas tree, including my family's.

Authored by British TV chef Jamie Oliver, the book aims — like most of his tomes — to get people to put down the ready meal, get off the couch and into the kitchen. The difference with this one is that Oliver expects the buying public to whip up a two-course meal — with side dishes — in, as the title suggests, 30 short minutes.

While I consider myself a competent, organised and quick cook, I flipped through the book on Christmas Day with more than a pinch of scepticism. As I sat in my family's kitchen that day — for many people in the UK, the biggest cooking day of the year, where lunch starts to be cooked shortly after the first cup of tea is drunk in the morning and is served around 3pm — I found myself scoffing at the possibility of attempting to cook so many things so quickly. It appears many of those who bought the book felt the same way, taking to Twitter this month to complain that most of the menus cannot be completed in an edible manner in an hour, let alone half the time.

Like any good cookbook, it's beautifully photographed and the dishes, as can be expected from Oliver, are fairly simple, rustic recipes inspired by Italian and Asian cuisine. They're attractive and the sales pitch that it can be done in the time it takes to get a pizza delivered is a seductive one — after all, preparing more home-cooked meals and eating less takeout is a popular resolution at this time of year.

Double the trial

But can it actually be done? We decided to put Oliver's claims to the test — twice. Firstly, I asked my younger brother David — the recipient of the book and, as chance has it, a professional chef with five years' experience in frenetic kitchens — to pick a menu and see if he could beat the clock. I also took on the same menu — peri-peri chicken, dressed potatoes, rocket salad and quick Portuguese tarts — to see how an unqualified home cook would manage.

David, who, with his professional knives can finely dice his way through a bag of onions in less time than it takes to say "Magimix" — went first, and was somewhat unsettled to admit to me over the phone later that it took him 50 minutes from start to finish. That was quickly followed by "but it was delicious" and him holding up the phone so I could hear the chorus of delighted voices confirming the same from around the table at home. "I thought everything that was there a really good choice, all the flavours worked well together. I could do it in the right time if I had a go now but I was trying to do everything accurately so I had to keep going back to the recipe," he said. "As a concept I like the idea of it — it plans out your whole meal."

My experience was not far off from his, I'm pleased to admit, as I clocked in at 70 minutes (that's not including time spent cheering for joy in the kitchen before I sat down to eat).

Oliver advises in the book "that with a bit of preparation, the right equipment and some organisation, hearty, delicious, quick meals are less than half an hour away".

The preparation

Thus advised, I prepared myself — that is, I washed all the vegetables necessary, laid out the ingredients on the counter and set the clock. The recipes are written step by step, jumping from one dish to another, so in the first I was seasoning and browning the chicken thighs, and in the next I was sprinkling cinnamon over the squares of puff pastry I had defrosted for the tarts. Already, though, I was deviating from the recipe, as the two supermarkets I visited had run out of ready-rolled pastry, and I had to buy the little squares, which meant I couldn't sprinkle the sheet with the spice, roll it up, slice it then pound each slice flat and place it into the holes of a muffin tin, as Oliver instructed. Instead, I had to knead the cinnamon into each small piece, then squish it into the muffin tin. Try doing that in less than five minutes, in either case.

I decided to leave the peeling of vegetables to be done during the recipe time, as I think doing this ahead of time is cheating. But that meant I had to wrestle with a sweet potato before microwaving it along with some regular potatoes and half a lemon, for 15 minutes. (The vegetables were soft, which surprised me, as I've never used the microwave for cooking, only for reheating food and making popcorn. But there was a slight overcooked toughness around the edges, whereas I'm pretty sure I could have boiled them on the stove with a better result in as much time. My brother said he mentally wrestled with Oliver's unclear instruction, and decided to leave the skins on, which saved time and flavour.)

I used a mini food processor to make the delicious peri-peri sauce — one thing Oliver certainly is good at is packing in flavour, with onion, garlic, basil, bird's-eye chillies, paprika, lemon zest (time consuming!), vinegar and Worcestershire sauce among the ingredients that are poured over browned chicken and sliced bell peppers before being baked. I was cautious about the chicken being underdone, though — an issue raised by other cooks online — so decided to give it an extra five minutes on the end.

Making caramel

Then came the caramel. I've never made caramel in my life, but Oliver thinks it's possible to do it within the 30 minutes without burning yourself. Thankfully I didn't, and it was fun pouring it over the now-custard-filled tarts, but executing these recipes in the time allowed, in my opinion, is a dangerous activity. More than once I found myself racing around the kitchen, knife in hand or grating lemon zest frantically, my knuckles threatening at any moment to become the next ingredient.

Meanwhile, my normally organised kitchen was becoming a mess, with coriander leaves and crumbled feta (the yummy potato topping) on the floor and washing piling up. I like to clean as I go along but this time frame left little room for that, which in the book Oliver admits is a possibility. "If at first you run a little overtime and your kitchen is a bit messy, please don't worry — it's all part of the process and you will radically improve the more you make these meals." For some, obviously, that won't be a concern: "I'm a messy cook anyway," my brother said, "and I had someone helping me tidy up." Cheat.

The verdict

The food got the thumbs up, although I think letting the chicken cook longer in the peri-peri sauce would have endowed it with more flavour. The tarts — filled with an orange-scented créme fraiche, egg and sugar custard whipped up in a bowl — were lovely but the pastry didn't fully cook in the time allowed, so they found few fans. I would cook the dish again, this time allowing myself some extra minutes to clear up, have a conversation as I go along and, most of all, enjoy the process. If that means dinner gets on the table by 8pm instead of 7.30, so be it. 

The fine-dining brigade

Jamie Oliver will be opening the first location of his Italian chain outside the UK early in February, tabloid! on Saturday can reveal. The restaurant, at the Marina Pavillion dining hub at Dubai Festival City, will seat 300 and serve dishes from his rustic Italian menu that's already found popularity in the UK, with 14 restaurants open there. The menu will be "80 per cent" of the UK menu, avoiding British menu items that are not halal with the remaining 20 per cent of the dishes focusing on local seafood.

Although Oliver will not be cooking here — the head chef is a formerly UK-based Indian, who has trained with Oliver — the menu, we are told, has been created by the cheeky chef himself, including the local changes. The interior — which features a mezzanine level and a state-of-the-art sound system has been designed in pale wood by a Swedish designer and the first level is flush with DFC's canal. Also in the Marina Pavillion are Chi'Zen, an upscale Chinese eatery that is already open, French outlet Entrecote de Paris, Karam Beirut and the forthcoming Hard Rock Café which, as of now, does not have an opening date.