Forget microwave meals and takeaways. In his new book, “Jamie’s 15 Minute Meals” celebrity chef Jamie Oliver tells us how to cook a proper meal from scratch in record time.
You keep reducing the time of your recipe books. Why? Why 15 minutes? Why not 10? Some of the recipes are a bit fancy. I can’t picture students cooking griddled tuna. Who’s the book aimed at?
Everyone. From a culinary point of view, the world is a much smaller place. People are much more traveled and more read than they were 15 years ago and the stuff available in supermarkets is more robust. And they still want it fast. Microwave meals are a pretty quick solution too… You’re really adamant about not doing time again. Why is that? So what now? I tried one of your recipes the other night. The ricotta fritters. I’m a disaster in the kitchen. It ended up looking like a cheese omelet. But it tasted good. A lovely home cooked family roast dinner with all the trimmings made by my mum. I tried to flip them over…and made a mess. What are the biggest mistakes people make in the kitchen? After a long and exhausting day at work, do you sometimes think, ‘f**k this- I’m going to McDonalds?’ Would you ever eat at McDonalds? What did you eat? If I offered you a Big Mac right now, would you eat it? You have one minute to make a meal, what do you do? Five minutes?
People are so time poor. But I promise I won’t be doing time again.
If you want a proper meal- fast– 15 minutes is the minimum you can do. It’s the hardest book I’ve ever written because I wanted it to be an everyday cookbook that was healthy, nutritious and fast.
Microwave food has became synonymous with shit food. But there’s also a lot of high quality stuff. It’s just never going to be amazing.
Time is a small element of many different emotions to cooking. You can do five minutes work and something can cook for four hours. You haven’t done four hours and five minutes work- you’ve done five minutes work then disappeared and gotten on with other things.
One hundred percent vegetarian — making massive heroes out of the things that we don’t eat enough of. The craft of making vegetables utterly delicious is one that’s just not known about enough. At least 65% of my recipes are meat-free, the index is covered in V’s, but the feedback I get from vegetarians is, “yeah, cool- but we’d like our own book please.” I’ve ignored it for years but the amount of meat we consume in a week is just too much.
You ended up with an omelet when you were supposed to do fritters. What the hell did you do?
The fritters take about one minute to make and six minutes to cook. I don’t know what went wrong…do what the recipes says and it will work. 15 MM is so highly strung. If it says put the kettle on- put it on. I wish I could have seen it.I put money on the fact you used the wrong sized pan and put them too close together.
You don’t need 100 knives, just three of the right ones- a chopper, paring and a bread knife. The book isn’t trying to be your best friend. It’s like, ‘You want tasty fast food? Here’s the fucking rules. Do what you’re told.
I don’t normally get caught out. Although I’m famous for hating junk food, I’m not anti any kind of food. I’ve got nothing against a hot dog, a burger or a pizza. It’s more about real food. I do the most amazing free-range pig hot dogs with kick-ass slaw, home made ketchup and buns that’s bloody delicious. But if ever you’re in London and want a kebab, there’s a place called Kebab Kid on New Kings Road that’s delicious.
I haven’t eaten a McDonalds in 10 years.
A Big Mac.
I would. McDonald’s are probably the best big fast food operator in Britain. They’ve done a lot of good work on their beef, their 100% organic milk and free-range eggs. You can’t just beat people up all the time and not pat them on the back for the good stuff they’ve done.
Grab a bit of bread and some lovely ham or cheese.
Some fettuccine. Use boiling water and it cooks in three minutes. Then add a few simple ingredients to that.
Jamie Oliver dishes on how to cook a 15-minute meal
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