Jamie's Chicken Skewers with Satay Sauce and Fiery Noodle Salad

By Helen
Main Ingredients:

• Chicken breasts
• Noodles
• Peanut butter and cashew nuts
• Little Gem lettuces
• Coriander, lime, chilli, soy sauce, ginger

They say you shouldn't go shopping when you're hungry. 

This week I had little choice, dinner being delayed by some super-manly exercise on Chris and Laurence's part. But I'm fairly confident that the overwhelmingly positive response to this week's meal wasn't solely down to how late it was by the time we started eating.

First I made the satay sauce (hello again, my blender friend) - coriander, chilli, garlic, soy, ginger, lime juice and peanut butter. Half of this was slathered over skewered chicken breasts which were then pan-fried (rather than grilled as suggested) with a drizzle of honey.

The blender was then pressed back into service - combining red onion, chilli, lime, coriander, fish sauce and oil to dress the noodles, as well as some cashew nuts which were chopped, toasted and turned in some more honey.

You could eat this as a conventional bowlful but I loved the reverse-sandwich effect: taking one of the scoop-shaped lettuce leaves and filling with a piece of sticky chicken, a couple of noodles and a dollop of creamy satay sauce, then eating in one greedy mouthful.

In fact I loved I loved this full-stop. Yes, there are a lot of ingredients, and a fair few things to keep your eye on at once - it would be very easy to burn the nuts or the chicken - but I didn't care.

In just 35 minutes I'd made a huge pile of tasty food which everyone piled into and was more satisfying than even a generous takeaway. And at £2.68 a head it was vastly cheaper!


Best for... Distracting your guests from a remote-control helicopter...for a little while anyway
Taken from... Jamie Oliver - 30 Minute Meals
Chris says... Believe the hype, this really was that tasty! My local takeaway just lost a customer.

Jamie's Spinach and Feta Filo Pie

By Helen
Main Ingredients:

• Ready-made pastry
• Spinach
• Feta cheese
• Cherry tomatoes and cucumber
• Mint and basil

This week's New Food Monday starts (as is becoming traditional) with me blaming our local supermarket for not having a key ingredient. 

This week it was filo pastry, and I have to admit I had but low expectations for the puff pastry we substituted, after rejecting Plan A (throw tomatoes at staff).

Three eggs were mixed with crumbled feta and grated cheddar, toasted pine nuts, oregano, lemon zest, nutmeg and a big bag of spinach which had been wilted in a little butter and oil. While the frying pan was still hot it was lined with half the thinly-rolled pastry and the eggy mixture poured back in, before the other half of the pastry was artfully arranged on the top.

I considered tackling this recipe during Veggie Lent and I'm very glad I came back to it now. The pie was much prettier than I expected, the spinach was soft and sweet and the cheese not too overpowering. Admittedly this meal was made special by the salads - tomatoes with basil and garlic, and cucumber with olives, chili and mint.

The mix of herby flavours and fresh veggies made the whole thing feel just a little bit luxurious (or at least like one of my favourite Whitecross Street lunchboxes) - and for once it didn't require every pan and worksurface in the kitchen.

For a veggie recipe, it wasn't cheap - coming in at £3.12 a head - but it was surprisingly filling, relatively uncomplicated and gave the illusion of being fantastically healthy!

Best for... Dining on the terrazzo, or with a mix of veggie and carnivorous friends
Taken from... Jamie Oliver - 30 Minute Meals
Chris says... Tasty, summery and surprisingly filling, even sworn meat lovers will be happy!

Hugh's Herby Barbecued Chicken

By Chris
Main ingredients:

• 1.2kg Chicken legs
• Tarragon, thyme and parsley
• Oil, lemon juice and black pepper
• Garlic and English mustard

With barbecue season in full swing at last, I turned back to Hugh for inspiration and once again he did not disappoint. Having had great success with his lamb and beef burgers, the chicken was a bit more of a gamble, given the likelihood of it ending up worryingly undercooked on the inside and carbonised on the outside.

My brave adventure of salmonella avoidance began with a mound of fresh herbs. Hugh called for four herbs - tarragon, thyme, parsley and chive, but my local Tesco was out of chives and it was three for two on herbs, so it fell by the wayside. Three tablespoons of the herby pile was added to a large bowl and mixed with four tablespoons of oil, lemon zest, lemon juice, black pepper, garlic and half a teaspoon of Coleman's mustard. The whole she-bang made a nice zingy marinade for the chicken.

After two or three hours letting the chicken drink up the juices, we sparked up the barbie and whacked on the meat. The problem with cooking chicken, or indeed any sizeable chunk of meat on the BBQ, is balancing inner cooked-ness with outer blackness, and this wasn't helped by the amount of oil used and the woody thyme sprigs, which resulted in a flamy start. After the flames died down, we moved the now slightly crispy chicken to the side of the barbie and let them sizzle for 25 minutes.

Served with a mustard, egg and caper potato salad, these went down a treat, with the skin blackened in places, but not burnt so much that the flavour didn't survive. If I were to do this again, I'd give it more time to marinate (possibly overnight), but it was well worth the risk: so far no-one has died and this would have happily made dinner for four people for just £1.95 a head.

Best for... Something a little adventurous for the barbecue if you're bored of burgers and sausages and aren't in too much of a hurry.

Taken from... Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall - River Cottage Every Day (full recipe)

Helen says... Our guests approached the chicken cautiously at first but were all pretty pleased with the result!

Jamie's Steak Indian Style with Paneer and Spinach Salad

By Chris
Main Ingredients:

• 900g Rump steak
• 200g Baby spinach
• 200g Paneer Cheese
• Curry paste, yoghurt, coriander and grated carrot

This recipe was something of a throwback, harking to our first ever New Food Monday, as a Jamie recipe that did clever things with steak. Like the Rib Eye Steak and Dan Dan Noodles, this recipe was full of flavour and exciting sides. Unlike the previous recipe, it massively overestimated the amount of steak you would need. I had to check and double check the amount - 900g of steak between four? Really?! 

Incredulity aside, I ploughed on with what turned out to be a very straightforward recipe. The steak was marinated quickly in oil, the juice of half a lemon and a quarter of a jar of curry paste, for an Indian kick. After a quick soak, they were fried in a pan for six minutes, turned regularly, then left to rest on a board.

Eschewing the traditional accompaniment of rice, two shop-bought naan breads were baked to fulfil the role of carbs, while a herby selection of sides was knocked together as part of Jamie's classic spread of dishes that you could assemble according to your tastes.

On one hand, there was Greek yoghurt, mixed with the other half of the lemon, shredded mint leaves and oil. At the other end of the scale, there was another quarter jar of curry paste, simmered with coconut milk. To top it off, we had a light salad of baby spinach, shredded carrot, coriander and cress, with Paneer cheese fried with sesame seeds.

Overall, this made for a very satisfying, simple and quick meal, which more than lived up to the 30-minute meal manifesto. However, my one reservation is the overcatering in terms of meat, which could have been easily scaled back and brought the price per head below the slightly eye watering £4.25.

Best for... A light low-carb treat on a Friday night in with a movie.

Taken from... Jamie Oliver - 30 Minute Meals

Helen says... Delicious, messy, rich, herby - we polished our plates with the last of the naan!

Jamie's Summer Veggie Lasagne

By Helen

Main Ingredients:

• Asparagus
• Frozen peas and broad beans
• Fresh lasagne sheet
• Cottage cheese
• Tomatoes

After last week's 'challenging' effort, the theme of living dangerously continued as I attempted a summery veggie lasagne for none other than Chris' parents.

Once again the sheer quantity of food (a kilo and a half of green veg alone) threatened to overwhelm me and the kitchen, but thankfully nothing was too fiddly. Spring onions and asparagus were chopped and fried, quickly joined by a large volume of frozen beans and peas. With lemon, mint, cream, cottage cheese and a little stock this made the basis of the lasagne - refreshingly different from the more standard tomato/courgette/aubergine version.

This was then layered up in a large dish (or two) with lasagne sheets and parmesan, and topped with cottage cheese and thyme. Under the grill it went for long enough to melt the cheese - and that was pretty much it. The Tuscan salad of tomatoes, jarred sweet peppers, basil and capers added some welcome sharpness and colour, even though I managed to create my very own mushroom cloud by incinerating the first batch of croutons under the grill.

Overall I was pleasantly surprised by this one - broad beans are one of my least-favourite ingredients but they were perfectly palatable (and could easily have been left out in favour of more peas and asparagus). Plus if I hadn't felt under pressure to make the 30-minute mark I might have planned ahead a little better and avoided some of the mess in the kitchen which Chris is valiantly battling now. Per head cost: £2.61 - but easily could be made a lot more cheaply by reducing the amount of asparagus.

Best for... A tasty supper when you've been sent an allotment food parcel
Taken from... Jamie Oliver - 30 Minute Meals
Chris says... Not really my cup of tea, if I'm honest, but much preferable to the aubergine/courgette version

Delia's Three-Cheese Semolina Gnocchi with Herby Salad

We have the first flop of the year...

By Chris

• Semolina
• Gorgonzola, Parmesan and Ricotta
• Eggs, Milk and Nutmeg
• Rocket salad

I think it's fair to say that this week my ambition caught up with me at last. Having only ever eaten gnocchi in restaurants I was curious to see how it was made. Delia's recipe substituted potatoes for coarse semolina. Not knowing the difference and not exactly blessed with a range of semolinas to choose from in my local Tesco, I went for fine semolina. A small, but critical, mistake.

The recipe required preparing the night before, which was a bit of a faff, but worth a go I thought. The semolina was simmered for a few minutes with milk, water, nutmeg, salt and pepper until it was 'thick enough to stand a spoon up in'. Then two eggs and a tonne of parmesan were added to thick it up further. The resultant mix was left overnight in the fridge to toughen up.

The cookie cutter wasn't really up to the job...

The next day I was meant to turn out the firm mixture onto a board and chop it up into rounds with a cookie cutter. However, the gloop that plopped out was incredibly
disappointing. I couldn't cut it at all, so I just threw it in the oven for 30 minutes and hoped for the best. I decided not to chuck the ricotta and gorgonzola on top of it, instead saving that for my emergency back-up, which was a simple three-cheese pasta.

Jamie's Herby Salad from the Wonky Summer Pasta 30-Minute Meal made for a tasty diversion, but the 'gnocchi' resembled a slightly charred yellow cowpat and tasted fairly dull. Not a recipe to be repeated by any means. 

Cheap? At £1.27 per head, yes. Worthwhile? Not at all.

Best with... A back-up plan in the wings!

Taken from... Delia Smith - How To Cook: Book Two

Helen says... So near but yet so far. One mess out of 15 isn't bad though!

Delia's Cheese and Herb Fritters with Sweet Pepper Marmalade

By Helen

Mmm cheese doughnuts...

Main Ingredients

• Feta, Gruyere and Cheddar cheeses
• Basil, thyme and parsley
• Red peppers
• Onions
• Cider and cider vinegar

"If you want to serve a meal without meat or fish, this is just the thing," Delia claimed, so it seemed rude not to try it.

A batter of egg, flour and cayenne was combined with a frankly staggering amount of grated cheese (who knew you could grate feta?) and lots of chopped herbs, then formed into patties. I wasn't sure what to expect here as the nearest things I could compare them to were fishcakes - except without any fish or mashed potato. Thankfully the cayenne and herbiness stopped them from becoming overwhelmingly rich, even when deep-fried.

The pepper marmalade was pretty tasty too - red onion and red peppers, garlic, brown sugar, cider and cider vinegar were simmered quietly until the liquid evaporated and the vegetables were soft and sweet. This time we didn't have any leftovers but I would happily have combined a fritter and some of this marmalade in a bun as a veggie burger substitute.

That didn't seem quite enough on its own so we had a green salad with onions roasted in balsamic vinegar too (possibly unnecessarily). For habitual meat eaters like myself who are used to treating vegetables as extras, it's difficult to decide just what is the central feature of a veggie meal and how many sides you actually need!

Overall, creamy, tangy and probably incredibly bad for you but not half bad. At £2.94 a head it was expensive for a veggie meal but reasonable in the grand scheme of things. Plus with the addition of some boiled potatoes it would have gone a lot further - or a half batch would have made a very impressive starter.

Best for... A more creative take on the veggie burger
Taken from... Delia Smith - How to Cook: Book Two
Chris says... Eating deep-fried cheese never felt so healthy!

Jamie's Cauliflower and Squash Rogan Josh

By Helen

Main Ingredients:

• Butternut squash
• Chickpeas
• Cauliflower
• Curry paste
• Spinach
• Chapattis, rice, yogurt

Week two of Veggie Lent and one of the less exciting-looking recipes. No crazy ingredients - in fact nothing I hadn't already added to a meat curry before. I wasn't convinced that this would be particularly memorable.

I started by chopping an alarmingly large pile of vegetables - two onions, garlic, most of a squash and a whole cauliflower. They clearly weren't going to fit into the saucepan I had optimistically pre-heated so once I'd juggled the whole lot into two pans I could add the Patak's paste, chickpeas and coriander.

With that bubbling away vigorously I could turn my attention to the rice (microwaved since there weren't any pans left), sprinkling the chapattis with turmeric and keeping warm in the oven, and dressing the grated carrot with ginger, lemon juice, flaked almonds and more coriander. 

Thankfully by this point the veggies were looking less raw and taking up a little less space so I could chuck in some spinach and make the ten-second lemon pickle with mustard seeds, chilli and turmeric. This was a real hit with Chris - much more fragrant and less astringent than the jars of Lime Pickle we've had before.

So, lots to do - even though the yogurt and chapattis were pretty much ready-made and one of the sides is 'BEER'. Overall it was definitely worth it - the cauliflower quickly broke down to make a surprisingly creamy sauce and the chickpeas had lost all their chalkiness, even in the relatively short cooking time. 

And the vital stats? 38 minutes and a bargainous £1.40 a head.

Best for... Feeding (and impressing) a crowd that has descended on the flat to watch a sporting event 

Taken from... Jamie Oliver - 30 Minute Meals

Chris says... The carrot salad was the perfect example of something I wouldn't have even tried before we started this project, but I loved it!

Hugh's North-African Spiced Lamb Burgers

By Chris
Main Ingredients:

• 1kg lamb mince
• Cumin, coriander and fennel seeds, cayenne and garlic
• 200g Greek yoghurt
• Green salad

After pointing out that I've done a Jamie Oliver 30 Minute Meals recipe every week so far, Helen insisted that I try another chef and I'm glad I did. Hugh's approach is much slower and more measured, and while it isn't really best suited to midweek cooking, it does yield pretty decent results.

This recipe is not dissimilar to Hugh's Chorizo meatballs, a personal favourite - mix a broad range of spices (cumin, cinnamon, cayenne, garlic, salt and pepper) with some meat and leave for an hour for the flavours to infuse. 

The main difference with this was he also suggested toasting some fennel and coriander seeds as well as some black peppercorns on the hob first, before grinding them up with a pestle and mortar. I'm not sure how much of a difference it made to the end result, but it certainly made the kitchen smell amazing. The burgers were fried and gave off quite a lot of fat, but after resting on some kitchen paper for a few minutes, they were succulent and juicy.

These creations were served with jewelled cous cous and a jazzed up Greek yoghurt with mint, salt, cumin and some more toasted seeds - coriander and sesame this time. The final flourish was some homemade flatbreads, which required kneading, and were pretty tricky to cook. After a genius intervention from Helen, who decided to cook them directly on the ceramic hob, these turned out to a serious upgrade on a bun or wrap.

Overall, quite a classy, yet thrifty meal at just over £2 per head, and one I will definitely be replicating come barbecue season.

Best for... A super snazzy summer barbecue, when you're not pushed for time.

Taken from... Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall - River Cottage Every Day

Helen says... A big improvement on some ready-made lamb burgers, fragrant and not greasy. Plus I felt pretty good flipping flatbreads on two hobs like a pro!