Hello Fresh (and goodbye)

I was introduced to a new food buying concept called  Hello Fresh from a colleague. I really love the whole idea and what they are trying to do: claims of fun and delicious cooking each week, fresh and high quality ingredients, a cute little welcome pack that makes promises of community and contact directly to all those named on the box- all delivered to your doorstep on a weekly basis.

An introductory offer was on a Groupon-type site just as my colleague was talking about it, so I thought "let's give it a go!". The offer asks you to sign up on the very welcoming and fresh-looking website on an ongoing basis- boooo, and you are not pressured to stay signed up if you cancel between certain hours before the deadline of 7pm on Tuesday evening. Delivery is to your doorstep between the hours of 9am and 4pm on any Tuesday or Thursday of your choosing. You can sneak a peak at the menu of the week and if it doesn't suit, then you have a no hassle post-pone option until you see something that you prefer. Your options are a three or five menu box: meat or vegetarian. Simple, right?!

So, I pick a Tuesday where the  weather will be cool enough for the ingredients to sit on the porch and not spoil until Craig or I comes home from work. A welcoming looking box has appeared and opening it the message and ingredients look good- they have positioned two big, juicy, pungent leeks on the top. Pungent leeks to mask the smell of the defrosting fish- which was open and juicing in the box as I later found out. So far so good-ish.

The offer was 15£ for three meals, normally three meals are 39£. Let's see what we have and if it was worth it:

Get the ingredients out! Impressive fresh herbs and leeks. The veggies looked good, although a bit sparse. The meat looked of good quality, but small. Big worry number 1: three chicken thighs for two people? Craig usually eats three chicken thighs on his own. The two cod fillets supplied were of nice quality, but again what I normally have myself. On the up-side: the pork steaks were about right. On the cute side: there was a little brown paper sack with the little ingredients in little sachets and plastic bottles: truffle oil, rice wine vinegar, fish sauce, oregano... nice (insert cute little smile and upward shoulder shrug here).

Most importantly, what does the food taste like? First up: Chicken Yakitori with Crispy Red Onions and Sweet and Sour Noodles. The head chef Patrick has created pictorial menu cards complete with caloric content, timing, and a little story of how the recipe came to be. 

When I placed the ingredients, my big worry number 1 was confirmed: A spring onion, two nests of noodles, three small chicken thighs, and a handful of beans. I would assume that the portion sizing for the meat is ok, but one onion and a handful of green beans is really only two servings of your five-a-day, so the meal is only supplying one of your five a day for dinner. Good job I have my booster pack of veg!

 Ingredients Out

All chopped up

 Booster ingredients with some colour

The instructions are easy to follow- 8 steps in total with little Top Tip- rolling the lime will make it easier to juice. I also cooked my chicken in a way I never had before- under the oven grill. I was sceptical about this, but it worked well! The food was tasty- not bursting with flavour, but a descent mid-week meal. The booster veg and chicken was definitely needed, unless you are portion sizing or on a diet.

Meal number two was Thick Cut Pork Chops with Sage Butter and New Potatoes. Another enticing looking instruction card and a story about purple sprouting broccoli, and how over cooked pork chops have the texture of a Bedouin's flip-flop. I didn't think they wore flip-flops?!

I have more positive expectations for this one: look at all the spuds on the plate! I'm still disappointed with the handful of long-stemmed broccoli, no stems in this house! 

An interesting instruction on this menu card: chop the garlic in half and rub firmly all over the pork chops. Rub garlic? Interesting. I rubbed it, then crushed it, then mixed the crushed garlic with the olive oil and rubbed it again. Also what was interesting, but really tasty and had a fantastically appetising aroma: instruction number 7: butter and oil frothing in the frying pan with sage, water, lemon juice, salt and pepper... only critique is that another clove of garden would have been divine.

And how did it taste- good flavours, definitely enough spuds, and with an extra bunch of broccoli, the plate was tasty. The (oven-grill cooked) pork was tender and flavoursome.

Dinner number 3 of 3- I haven't tried. It's the cod dish and I will more than likely wait until Edge is away fishing overnight. I re-packed the leaking steaks safely into the freezer and the accompanying potatoes can wait another week- they sent three massive spuds and two titchy fish steaks and the some-of-your-one-of-your-five-a-day were the gigantic leeks. I like leeks, but not as the sole green vegetable on the plate. hmph!

But, would I do it again? No, £39 for three mid-week meals is far too expensive. Yes the fresh ingredients come from London, but there is no need for London rates. The value of the box was probably only about 15£, so at least it was worth what I paid. The two biggest downsides to the service are 1) the delivery times- you need to be home during the day and I feel like this defeats the purpose. If I was home during the day, I would spend at least half of the day either searching for fantastic ingredients at the butcher, the green grocer, the market, etc. unless you run a day-care, then I can see how this would work.

The second thing that could do with improving is the menu selection: Edge doesn't eat fish and fish is always on the menu. A pick-list selection where you can sub-in something of equal value to your taste would improve the service. However, in regards to this, Hello Fresh is very open and prompt in receiving feedback. This being a new service, I believe it will evolve, and I will let my colleague let me know how it gets better.

What worked: the ingredients were packed on ice and fresh, the menu cards are trendy and easy to use, customer service was friendly and prompt, and the food was tasty enough. If you haven't tried it, I prompt you to do so to find out for yourself... it's easy enough if you are scared of cooking and most dishes cooked with fresh ingredients are going to turn out satisfactorily.

Wrap it up- Duck Ballotine, Beetroot Puree, and Fondant Potato

The weather has been particularly uncharacteristic for Birmingham the past two weeks, and this weekend Mother Nature has decided to dump almost 30cm of snow. Snow in England means stay inside. Stay inside makes Kristyn go crazy, so what to do? Get busy in the kitchen.

This weekend's challenge is brought to you by MasterChef Everyday. This book is sponsored by John Torode and Gregg Wallace and is a combination of past winner recipes and "everyday" takes on some quite complex techniques. I've tried some recipes in this book already- some successful (and will repost), others disastrous (naming and shaming the Malaysian Beef and Potato Curry by Linda Lusardi). 

I'm not enamoured by the content of the book and will more than likely pull what the recipes that work and pass the book along.Gregg and John have described the content as "great food, delivered with love from great contestants- here for you to create yourselves at home." and "fantastic flavours, wonderful textures, creating really beautiful plates of food... that takes practice.". A lot of the techniques take practice (like wrapping ballotines). To create some of the more beautiful plates, you need to plan in advance to search for ingredients that are not common stock. And speaking of stock- what a wasteful exercise for a handful of meals. The edits on the show hide this tremendously well; one risotto recipe that I tried gave you a veggie stock recipe to make, but you threw away all of the stock veg at the end of it. I know it's mainly just root veg and some celery, but I hate throwing food away, nor did I have the time to Google "what to do with leftover stock veg" after sssslllllooooowwwllly basting a risotto. In any case... this post is about an attempt at a Duck Ballotine Wrapped in Pancetta with a shot of Beetroot Puree: so Ingredients Out!

Duck breasts, pancetta (I've used smoked bacon), olive oil, butter, salt and pepper, parsley, garlic, onion/ shallot, duck breast trimmings, beetroot, more butter, and double cream. The title of this recipe says it was submitted by James Perry MasterChef 2011 final 5= high hopes for good flavours. Downside is that for this to be a "final" dish, then it is more than likely a fine-ish dining dish and I'm going to need to plump it up to be an actual dinner sized portion. Cue the fondant potato:  potatoes, more butter, more garlic, and for effect... whatever leftover fresh herbs that I have. Looks pretty!

So, how does this come together? Firstly trim the thin end of the duck and keep to the side. With a bit of exercise: taking an Jamie-style 15 Minute Meal approach, beat out the skinned and trimmed duck breast to 5mm thick with a rolling pin. Aaaaahh! Duck breast isn't cheap and I'm smashing the heck out of it. It needs to be thin for the ballotine, but I don't want to to be too thin to make it into duck leather.

In the meantime, get Kenny out and make the stuffing from the onions, herbs, garlic, and trimmings from the duck breast. There is a "simplify for EVERYday" tip telling you to use reconstituted stuffing and jazz it up with the parsley and garlic. I'm not really sure how much faster that is vs. putting some herbs and veg in the food processor. Nice try, though.

Next up, layer up: cling film + bacon layer + beaten breast + stuffing. Use the cling film to help roll up the ballotine tightly. This has brought flashbacks to sushi rolling parties I've had in the past, or any type of food that is rolled- burritos, enchilladas, etc and my inability to keep it neat and tidy. I fully recognise that this is a weakness of mine. Oh well, let's see how it ends up.

 So far so good... looks as it should.

The assembled ballotine is then poached in boiling water for 15 minutes, left to rest (for an nondescript amount  of time) while the beetroot puree is prepared. The beetroot is "freshly cooked" in the ingredient line, so I have had it on the boil while I prepared the duck. The beetroot is chopped into small chunks, and pureed until smooth with some melted butter and double cream. The recipe specifies food processor, but after blitzing until steady, the puree is a bit choppy. I tried to "puree" it in the blender, but it still didn't budge. The instructions also say to pass through a conical sieve (and to serve the juice in a shot glass). I've decided instead that the bits are small and the flavour is nice, so I will serve as a minced beetroot bed to add some fibre to the plate.

Back to the ballotines and it's the moment of truth: have these set as one continuous sausage-looking mass or have they turned into a bacon wrapped taco? Wa wa: bacon wrapped taco, just like seaweed wrapped taco for my sushi. Oh well, nothing a bit of string can't fix. Into the pan for browning off in delicious butter.

Looks good from the top.

A bit open from the bottom.

Fondant potatoes have been on the go this whole time. I poached this recipe (and the spuds) from a few pages down from the duck and these barrelled buttered beauties are winners. This was also a new thing for me to try, and the only correction would be to use a different (smaller) pan (or pot). Potatoes on the butter and the pan filled with water until the tops are exposed, the concoction is simmered for an hour.

The potatoes are then "left to warm" whatever that means. In the case of my potatoes vs. fondant potatoes I have ordered from a restaurant, mine needed a bit of frying off. I elected to scoop the butter and herbs off of the top of the concoction in the pan and get the supds in the oven while I finished off the ballotine.

So, how was it? Tasty! Great flavours as promised by John and Gregg, but the textures were amiss. How cooked is cooked beetroot? How firm should a fondant potato be? This, I am sure, must come from the practice-element. Although, the descriptions are vague at times which I believe is a reason why the textures do go wrong. This is the challenge of getting "fine dining" into an everyday-type book. Everyday cooking shouldn't span more than a page and the shortcuts are noticed in the dish. Everyday cooking should be tasty, and this dish distinctly delivers.

15 Minute Meals- Part 4: Greek Chicken

15 Minute Meal #4: Gorgeous Greek Chicken

More gloating from Jamie in the title, but... did it deliver?! Oh god, now I am starting to sound like a food reality TV commentator. I would suspect so with all of the Great British Menu and MasterChef that I watch. Rather that, though then Shameless or Trailer Park Boys. Anyways, into the kitchen and Ingredients Out (9-ish minutes later), and what a colourful array of ingredients as to be expected from such a colourful culture.

One of the tips and tricks in this book, in addition to introducing you to all of the attachments of your food processor, is to bang the heck out of your meat in between some parchment paper to thin it out and cook it faster. I'm in two minds about this because I love a juicy thick piece of meat, but do realise to meet the 15 minutes, thin is to win. Pfaffing about with the parchment paper, grating the lemon, and sprinkling the herbs, etc has eaten into one-fourth of my time. Time to crack on with the tzatziki...

Grated cucumber + salt and pepper into a bowl and get stuck in to scrunch out the water. Mix the dried cucumber with yoghurt, lemon juice, and mint and question to myself why that took 6-minutes to do. Looks like I need to get faster at grating or else be less hesitant with getting my hands wet in squidgy materials.

Meanwhile, my chicken and herbs are frying and almost 11 minutes in, I'm thinking that this is actually a 20-Minute meal again. Probably should have taken some anger to my meat at the start.

Time to put Kenny to use again and 12-minutes in, I have roughly chopped my peppers, tomatoes, and green onions. The veg gets a quick blitz and these obligatory Greek ingredients (and part of your five-a-day) are poured on the platter. I keep reading and realise that these veggies will be cold= Fail (for the Mr). Yes, fresh veg are part of Greek cuisine, but unfortunately not part of Edge cuisine in the winter...

Blitzed veg from the platter to the pan and let's get those frozen beans (rather than peas for the Mrs.) cooking, because we technically only have a minute and a half. Eeek! There is still a whole paragraph to get through in this time.

Tear olives, squeeze juice, drizzle olive oil, fluff couscous, mix with (now lightly sauteed) peppers, beans, and tomatoes. The chicken needed an extra 5 minutes, and by the time I get everything to "the pass" a.k.a the prep counter in my kitchen, I have a 23-Minute Meal.

But, how did this one go down? Quite well. These are flavours that are not new nor is it a dish that I haven't cooked before (in my own way). Again, a good mid-week meal within an hour (prep and cooking). It goes far, fills you up, is tasty, and is good for guests. Is it Gorgeous? Well, maybe with some garlic and a slow cooked, then grilled piece of chicken we would reach the brief of Gorgeous... and there I go again with my commentator speak.

What is missing is an absolute staple of Greek food: garlic! Doing this again, I would add it to the chicken and the tzatziki... but more than likely at the expense of a few extra minutes to get that pesky garlic skin off. The absolute winner of this dish is the tzatziki... I have failed to find such a simple and tasty recipe in the past and this one met both. In closing and for your benefit, the tzatziki recipe:

1/2 a cucumber

250g fat-free natural yoghurt (or not fat free for extra creaminess)

1/2 a lemon

1/2 a bunch of fresh mint

(1 finely chopped clove of garlic)

salt and pepper to sprinkle

"Using a box grater, coarsely grate the cucumber- Sprinkle it with a pinch of salt, then squeeze and scrunch with clean hands o get rid of the excess salty water- Pop in a bowl with the yoghurt, juice of 1/2 a lemon and a pinch of pepper (and your garlic, if you choose), finely chop and add the top leafy half of the mint, then mix together."

No Horsing Around Lasagne- Passing it on (again).

In the wake of the "horse meat scandal" gripping Britain and the EU at the moment, I thought I'd re-post (or re-pass it on) a blog from last year. I was kind of hoping that I had posted another recipe rather than Jamie's Lasagne from the Ministry of Food book, but Sod's Law, I had. This time, though... pictures of this real favourite of mine. Slow and steady it takes to cook, but it goes far and is truly delish; especially when using fresh herbs and smoked bacon :) Our mate Rich was in the garden when I was frying off the herbs- he said that the smell was amazing coming out from the extractor fan into the garden! And the best thing about it? most (I was going to put all... but know better) of the ingredients are traceable. The tinned tomatoes are a bit dodge from the local super cheap-o supermarket, but they look, smell, and taste like tomatoes. I know that my local butcher knows where his meat is from and what he's actually mincing, so there's certainly no horsing around with this recipe.

In any case- don't set your timer, but ingredients out:

You make the bolognese yourself: 2 rashers of smoked streaky bacon, 2 medium onions, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 carrot , 2 sticks of celery, olive oil, 2 heaped tsp dried oregano, 500g minced beef, 2x 400g tins of chopped tomatoes, sea salt, black pepper, bunch of fresh basil. I know I can't fool you with the shrooms, green pepper, and spinach- these are little extras that give the bolognese a bit extra rather than carrot, carrot, and celery.

 Oh, and I forgot to mention a magic ingredient in the bolognese... wine! Only 1/2 a can, though... leaves more to drink afterwards.

Make your sauce- this takes time (it says 1 hour and 30 minutes... and actually takes that long, unlike the promises in the 15 Minute Meals), but is entirely worth every minute!

Finely slice the bacon- Peel and finely chop the onions, garlic, carrots and celery- place a large pot/ frying pan/ casserole dish on med to high heat- Add 2 lugs of olive oil, sliced bacon, oregano and cook and stir until the bacon is lightly golden (this is the smell I have been going on and on and on about).

Add the veg to the pan and stir every 30 seconds until softened and coloured (about 7 minutes)

Stir in minced meat and chopped tomatoes- Fill one tin with water and stir in with the mixture- Stir in a good pinch of salt and pepper- Pick the basil leaves off of the stalks, and put them in the fridge for later. Chop the stalks and stir into the pan.

Bring to a boil- Turn the heat down and simmer with a lid slightly askew for 1 hour stirring every now and again- Take off the lid and cook for another 30 minutes, stirring occasionally- Keep an eye on the sauce as it cooks, and if you think it's starting to dry out, ad a splash of water (or wine).... now I shortened this to 45 minutes with the lid and 15 minutes without and it worked fine.

Remove the bolognese from the heat- Tear and stir in the larger basil leaves- Taste the sauce and season with a little more salt and pepper if it needs it. This makes a considerable amount of sauce, so it is good to freeze and use again or just make a monster lasagne!

Preheat your oven to 375F/190C

Next, for the lasagne:

250g dried egg lasagne sheets (I bought the pre-cooked ones that don't need re-cooking), 100g Parmesan cheese, 1x 600mL tub of creme fraiche (or sour cream), 1 large ripe tomato, (3/4 cup wilted spinach- my addition)

Grate your Parmesan and mix it to your creme fraiche.

Spoon a third of your bolognese sauce into the bottom of an earthenware ovenproof dish (approx 25cm x 35 cm)- Follow with a layer of lasagne sheets and another third of sauce. Layer with spinach leaves (sneaky way to get in some more veg!).

Dollop a third of your creme fraiche mix- Sprinkle with a good pinch of salt and pepper and top with another layer of lasagne sheets.

 Only Sgt Pepper will do.

Spoon over the rest of the bolognese sauce and another third of the creme fraiche- Finish with a final layer of lasagne sheets and top with the rest of the creme fraiche- Scatter over some extra Parmesan- Top with some slices of tomato and fresh basil leaves- Cover with foil and bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes- Remove the foil and cook for another 20 minutes until the lasagne is bubbling and golden- Serve with fresh green salad.

Try it out and pass it on!