My dinner tonight comes directly from Jamie Oliver’s Mealsin Minutes cookbook.
Meals in Minutes is a TV series of Jamie’s that I reallyenjoyed watching, so for Christmas, Mark found the book with all thestep-by-step instructions; check out the recipe to see what I mean...it’s abrilliant approach.
I’ve made some of Jamie’s meals - not in the 30 minutes he miraculouslymanages, but it is a pretty straight forward process.
You can even watch the episode I'm going to recreate, right here:
Ingredients:
Rice
1 ½ cups basmati rice
A small bunch of scallions (green onions here in Canada!)
3 eggs
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil
½ lemon
A small bunch of fresh cilantro
Sweet red chili sauce
Greens
4 baby bok choy
7 oz broccolini
1 bunch asparagus
½ lime
Scallops
1 pound fresh seascallops
1 lemon
Chinese five-spice
Sesame oil
½ fresh chile
1 clove garlic
Honey
2 pats of butter
A small bunch of cilantro
Seasonings
Olive oil
extra virgin olive oil
sea salt and black pepper
Brownies
8 oz dark chocolate
1 cup + 1 tbsp unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup superfine sugar
1/3 cup unweetened cocoa powder
A handful of crystallized ginger
4 eggs
A handful of pecans
A handful of sour dried cherries
1 clementine
To start:
Get all your ingredients and equipment ready. Fill and boilthe kettle. Turn the oven on to 375 and put a shallow Dutch oven-type pan on amedium heat. Put the standard blade attachment onto the food processor.
Rice:
Put the rice into the shallow pan with 2 pinches of salt.Cover with 3 cups of boiled water. Pop a lid on and leave to cook for 7minutes. Fill and reboil the kettle.
Brownies:
Smash the chocolate and chop the butter into large chunks,then put both into the food processor and add 1 cup of superfine sugar, 1/3 cupcocoa powder, scant ½ cup of self-rising flour, a pinch of salt, and the crystallizedginger. Whiz together. While the processor is running, crack in the eggs.Scrunch up a large piece of parchment paper under a tap. Flatten it , lay it ona sheet pan, and drizzle it with olive oil, then rub in. Use a spatula to spoonand spread the brownie mixture evenly onto the pan, about 1 inch thick. Sprinkleover the pecans and sour cherries and press them down. Finely grate over thezest of the Clementine. Put the pan in the oven on the top shelf and cook for12-14 minutes.
Scallops:
Lay the scallops on a piece of parchment paper. Scorecrisscrosses on top, only going halfway through. Srizzle over some olive oil,season with salt and pepper, finely grate over some lemon zest and dust with Chinesefive-spice. Drizzle with sesame oil and toss together to coat in the flavours.
Rice:
Trim and thinly slice the scallions and put into a mixingbowl. Crack in eggs, and ad 1 tablespoon each of soy sauce and sesame oil, and adrizzle of olive oil, then whisk. Take the lid off the rice and use a fork tofluff it up. Pour the egg mixture all over. Squeeze in the juice of ½ a lemonand a pinch of pepper. Put the lid back on and turn down to the lowest heat foranother 4-5 minutes.
Scallops:
Get a large frying pan on the highest heat.
Greens:
Half fill a large saucepan with the boiled water and put ona medium heat. Half each bok choy lengthways, trim the broccolini andasparagus, then put it in a colander and cover tightly with aluminum foil. Put overthe saucepan of water to steam for a few minutes until tender, then take offheat.
Rice:
Thinly slice the leaves and stalks of a small bunch ofcilantro and sprinkle over the rice. Drizzle a good lug of sweet red chilisauce on top, then put the lid on and take to the table.
Scallops:
Put a good lug of olive oil into the fry pan. Quickly addthe scallops, scored side down. Finely chop the fresh chile, you can jiggle thepan but don’t turn the scallops until they’ve had 2-3 minutes, or are goldenunderneath. Quickly turn them over and cook for 30 seconds, then crush over 1unpeeled clove of garlic and sprinkle over the chile. Squeeze in the juice of ½of a lemon and add a tiny drizzle of honey and 2 small pats of butter. Take offthe heat, and when melted and sticky, put on a plate and sprinkle over the leaves from a small bunch of cilantro.
Greens:
Once tender, tip onto a platter. Drizzle with soy sauce andextra virgin olive oil. Squeeze the juice of ½ of a lime. Taste, adjust ifneeded.
To serve:
Take the rice, scallops, and greens to the table. Divideeverything between bowls and tuck in! Remove the brownies from the oven to coolwhile you eat. When ready, serve the warm brownies with a wedge of clementine anda dollop of crème fraiche.
