Quick meals

rascal

rascal

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im really good at throwing a meal together in 20 mins and serving up something nice. Last night my wife gave me 4 lamb shoulder chops and said cook me something nice. The chops were in a mint marinade so I decided to take the bones out. We had some kumara chips in the freezer. ( sweet potato here) it's been warm here 24 deg c so I went to the wife's garden and picked a lettuce radishes and spring onions. I made a salad with eggs and tomatoes. I cooked the lamb to just cooked and made a sauce with the pan juices, added butter and cream and served in wee mini jugs. My wife said it wa amazing and only 20 mins. Do you guys have great imaginations at throwing together a quick meal. I have to say I really did well. It was beautiful.

Russ
 
Sounds great Russ. The nearest I get to this is when I cook sous vide in a water bath - meat dishes can sit in there anything between 12 - 72 hours, then pulled out and finished off in minutes. Makes for quick and easy evening meals.
 
When I think of quick, it is a pasta dish where the sauce is cooked in the time it takes to cook the dry pasta. Usually grape tomatoes, olive oil, onion, garlic, fresh basil, salt and pepper. Might throw in some capers and/or anchovies. Grated cheese to add on the plate.
 
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20 minutes would be pushing it. 30 is more like it for quick meals here.

About the quickest meals are simply grilled meats (burgers, boneless skinless chicken, hot dogs, shrimp skewers, etc) cooked outside on the grill alongside some onions and mushrooms while french fries are baked in the toaster oven inside.

Another quickie is calamari or shrimp marinara with pasta. The sauce takes about 20 minutes to cook down, then the fish is added to cook for just a few minutes more while the pasta is boiled.
If you don't cook down the sauce to fairly thick, it thins out too much from the liquids released from the fish. It'll become more of a zuppa than a marinara.

The absolute fastest is chicken Tikka or Rogan Josh over rice. The chicken is cubed, seared in oil until just cooked through, then a jar of heretofore mentioned sauce added and everything is sauteed for 5 minutes or so while either minute rice or prepared microwave rice is made. That only takes about 15 minutes, but it's cheating, really.
 
Jamie Oliver has a two TV series - one is Jamie's 30-Minute Meals, Jamie's 15-Minute Meals (also there is the Jamie's15 Minute Meals book).

And the latest (which I haven't yet seen) Jamie's Quick & Easy Food

There are some great ideas in the first two series, but I notice he uses a food processor a lot and creates a fair amount of washing up. I don't think clearing up and washing up is included in the time frame. If you click on the above links you can see a list of the dishes he makes.
 
Oh, geez, I thought the next progression was "Jamie jams food in your mouth in 10 seconds..."
Lol, just kidding. I like Mr Oliver, to a degree. I've adapted a few of his simple techniques to my local and familiar ingredients with success.
 
morning glory said:
Jamie Oliver has a two TV series - one is Jamie's 30-Minute Meals, Jamie's 15-Minute Meals (also there is the Jamie's15 Minute Meals book).

And the latest (which I haven't yet seen) Jamie's Quick & Easy Food

There are some great ideas in the first two series, but I notice he uses a food processor a lot and creates a fair amount of washing up. I don't think clearing up and washing up is included in the time frame. If you click on the above links you can see a list of the dishes he makes.
Click to expand...

I do make a mess, I freely admit that,lol. I have an engineering background so I start eith the longest job first. I hate watching cooking competitions were the people don't turn their oven on first. I just don't get that.

Russ
 
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