Memoirs of an Amateur Cook

Saturday night and I decided to make Mr MAC and I a nice meal using a new recipe.  I am a quite a Jamie Oliver fan (in fact I have just booked to go to his Italian in Cambridge next week….review to follow!) and my Mother had bought me Jamie Oliver’s ’30 minute meals’ a while back and I have tried one or two recipes but not a menu in its entirety so I decided to give his ‘Killer Jerk Chicken’ menu a whirl.

I think that the aim behind this cookbook is to get people to cook from fresh during the week with Jamie claiming that the wonderful dishes featured in the cookbook will take you a reasonable thirty minutes.  I completely agree with Jamie Oliver that people should cook from scratch using fresh ingredients and that this should happen most days of the week – I cook every day and always find time to do this despite having a fairly busy life!  However, I would not choose to make one of Jamie’s recipes from this book as a mid-week meal.  A lot of the ingredients are a little bit more expensive than I would like for a slap up dinner plus, all of the menus feature a lot of food and more than one course – something which I try not to have every night!!  I will also say that the meal will take you more than 30 minutes.  I like to think of myself as a fairly competent cook and although I made the jerk sauce in advance, the meal did take me a bit more than 30 minutes especially as it was the first time I was trying the recipe.

I used a combination of chicken quarters and chicken breasts (I never buy chicken quarters, I don’t know why I decided to on this occasion!!) which differs to the recipe and I will say that Jamie was right, I should have used chicken breasts!!  Saying that though, the jerk chicken was really very tasty.  Mr MAC said he was expecting something different (a bit more like barbecued chicken) so was a little disappointed but I think this is because he didn’t really know what jerk chicken is rather than the recipe not being good enough!!  The rice accompaniment, in my opinion, lacked a bit of flavour and the salad wasnt anything to write home about.  All in all, I wouldn’t rave about the menu as a whole but I did enjoy the chicken and it may be something I will again in the future.

All in all, I don’t think this Jamie’s best cookbook but that doesn’t mean I wont try a few more recipes from it in the week(ends!) to come!

P.S – Can you tell I feel a bit guilty for not posting much this week?!  Two posts in a day!!

Related Recipes:

Jamie Oliver’s Sticky Chicken Chinese Noodles

Jamie Oliver’s Quick and Creamy Chocolate Mousse

Jamie Oliver’s Broad Bean Salad

Jamie Oliver’s Slow Roast Pork