Gousto & Jamie Oliver, done by an idiot

Pistachio chicken goujons (Gousto recipe link)

What a delightful dinner! Paprika yoghurt is a superb idea and one I shall use again. I’ve always been a big fan of sweet potatoes, and they worked really well here. And the chicken was excellent.

I should say, though, that this is a very big meal – the plate of mine you see above is pretty big by itself, and that was half of it – and secondly that there is nowhere near enough of the extra parts provided. I ran out of the honey and mustard mixture half way through and had to make up some more of my own (but I always have honey and mustard, so that’s OK), and the last quarter of the chicken goujons weren’t coated in the breadcrumb and pistachio mixture either because that ran out too. Perhaps I was meant to cut larger bits of chicken or something. But this was great as it is, and is dinner for tomorrow too.

Pro tip, by the way: since nobody has a pestle and mortar unless they’re a pro chef or a refugee from 1940, don’t listen to the Gousto suggestion of chopping the pistachios with a knife. Instead, you know how they come in a little plastic dealer bag? Leave them in the bag, and hit the bag repeatedly with a rolling pin until the pistachios are crushed. It’s a brilliant way to crush them, it doesn’t need a mortar or a pestle (which one’s the bowl and which one’s the stick?) and as long-time readers of this cooking blog will know, I find lamping a thing with a rolling pin to be superbly cathartic. Maybe paint someone’s face on the outside of the bag.

Baked Chicken Tikka (Gousto recipe link)

That was… hm. Not as impressive as you might have thought it would be. The chicken was perfectly nice, although there’s quite some faffing about with spices, but the rice was stodgy and bland, and mixing stuff into it didn’t help all that much. Also, the recipe calls for a cucumber raita, but that’s the least tasteful thing ever in the history of the whole of humanity, so I added mint as well to turn it into either a cucumber raita with mint in or mint yoghurt with cucumber in. Still didn’t help. There’s nothing wrong with this dinner, it’s just inoffensive, like a Tory rosette-wearer in a shopping centre eight weeks before the election.

Spiced Beef Lettuce Boats (Gousto recipe link)

Well, that was delightful. Home-made hummus, excellent beef, and I really like the idea of individually ladling it into the lettuce leaves and eating it. Nice idea.

Technically, I didn’t follow the recipe exactly; I threw the onion, parsley, ginger, and garlic in the food processor and chopped it all small, then cooked all that. Then I put more garlic in the hummus, which is where it was supposed to go in the first place, oops. And tons of lemon juice in the hummus, too.

That was excellent. I don’t know what half the stuff in the recipe is (tahini? baharat?), and I think that the beef mince would be even more delicious if you scattered some raisins through it, but I shall do this one again.

Also, is OK for one, this, as long as it’s a hungry one, which I was.

Chicken & Parsnip Risotto (Gousto recipe link)

Another rather bland dinner. Insanely filling, mind; this one’s definitely absolutely for two people!

The recipe specifically says to cook the balsamic-marinaded chicken in a hot pan without oil. (Well, it doesn’t say to put oil in the pan, and it always does otherwise.) So, that’s what I did. And you know what? The balsamic burns instantly on the pan. Nightmare. I am not at all sure that that was right.

Also, I don’t have a griddle pan. Which might have had something to do with it.

This one, basically, didn’t taste of much. Risotto’s nice enough, I suppose, but nothing very exciting, and balsamic isn’t a particularly interesting flavour to me because I put it in everything.

Cumin is not as impressive as other people think it is.

Chorizo & Giant Couscous (Gousto recipe link)

That was… hm. Not as impressively nice as I was anticipating.

I was really looking forward to this while cooking. Chorizo smells lovely. And the olive oil was a lovely tan orange colour from the frying chorizo, and it was all good. But after actually putting this together and eating, it’s not as pleasant as I thought it would be. Giant couscous is a bit weird (and it sticks to the bottom of your pan like the clappers, too: be told) and that combined with lentils means that there’s a pretty good quantity of relatlvely unflavoured stodge in this dinner. It’s like the sensation of having eaten a ten-pin-bowling ball. Putting yoghurt on the top doesn’t help.

Actually, the yoghurt does help cut down the intensity a bit. It’s all not very strongly flavoured, but it is quite oppressive to eat, and the yoghurt cuts through that somewhat; however, yoghurt’s natural acid sort of edge to the taste means that this is a weird combination.

Admittedly I chopped the coriander with the onions (yay, food processor!) rather than garnishing the dinner with it, but if that’s the thing that made the difference then I’m Pope Francis.

One not to try again, I feel.

Mexican Pork Tacos (Gousto recipe link)

The recipe here was pretty nice. Good pork mince and it made a tasty, although slightly stodgy by virtue of the rice, dinner. I also mixed the salsa in with the pork and rice, rather than putting it on top as the recipe suggested, and I think that was massively the right decision.

Obvious flaw: the box comes with only four smallish tortillas. There is no way on earth that you can get a quarter of the made quantity into one of these tortillas. You could just ladle that much on, of course, but at that point it’s not a taco: it’s a plate of pork mince with a tortilla underlay, which would be rather like describing the Taj Mahal as a brick taco because there are foundations underneath it. So you end up with a pretty reasonable bowlful of the mince/rice/salsa mixture after you’ve used all your tortillas. On the other hand, if nobody can see you then it’s perfectly fine to just eat it with a spoon. I imagine.

Makes two pretty filling dinners, this.

Obvious flaw number 2: tacos are stupid. Does anyone alive know how to eat one without all the fillings just falling out of the end? You could, of course, fold the end up like a wrap, but at that point you can only put about half as much filling in and so you’ll need about sixteen tortillas, which you haven’t got.

All tasted OK, though.

Rosemary & King Prawn Linguine (Gousto recipe link)

This is delightful, although stodgy. The sauce is a faff to do: cooking the onions and garlic and oil down takes longer than you’d expect, crushing anchovies until they become a paste is harder than it looks, cooking with the king prawns in takes way longer than the two minutes that the recipe specifies, and for all that it’s worth it because what you get at the end is lovely.

One of the great mysteries of the world is how anchovies, which are basically fish made entirely out of salt, go really well into sauces which at the end taste of anchovy hardly at all. They’re a catalyst. A foundation on which greater things are built. Take advantage of this.

This is very much definitely a meal for two people. Myself and darling daughter split it and were both well satisfied at the end of it. You wouldn’t eat this one on your own, unless it took you two days to do it.

Surprisingly simple recipe, too; I mean, it’s basically pasta with a garlic and rosemary sauce on. Sticks to your ribs, my grandma would say. It’s not the most flavoursome meal; if you’re looking for something which will wow your guests with its blend of exotic flavours, then look elsewhere. But it’s a perfectly servicable, filling, and tasty dinner.

Sticky hoisin pork (Gousto recipe link)

That was delightful. And delicious. And de-love-er-ly.

I note from the picture that you’re supposed to peel the cucumber first, which I didn’t because the recipe doesn’t mention it and I didn’t look at the picture closely enough. But, oh well. No problem. I’m not sure that the cucumber was hugely pickled – there are a lot of half-moon pieces in half a cucumber and not a lot of rice vinegar in the little pot – but it was nonetheless great. Potatoes were not too bad either, and the pork was excellent. Tip: when it says a medium heat, it means it; the pork steaks were fantastically tender and delightful precisely because they were cooked slowly. Low and slow, as our American barbecue friends tell us. However, this does mean that the recipe’s guidance of 3-4 minutes per side bears about as much resemblance to the truth as do an NSA director’s protestations of innocence. You’ll probably have to double that figure; I did.

Also, who puts the sauce in a little jug? Pour it on the pork, you know you want to.

Presentation still needs work, although this dinner is more suited to the Egyptian Pharaoh “just put everything in a pile” technique than others are.

Go easy on the chilli. A little goes a long way, here.

Also, the cucumber might be even better if you do this with it.

Parmesan crusted pork (Gousto recipe link)

The Gousto people appear to have supplied me with about fifteen times as much of this black kale stuff as I actually need. On the other hand, it’s pretty nice when cooked. The recipe suggests that you should put 200ml of water in the pan and cook it that way, but I just wilted it in the frying pan directly with no water at all and it comes out pretty nicely. Good quality pork, too, and I am now a big fan of parsnip and mustard mash. Mash is way easier if you chop up the mashable thing into little 1 inch cubes before you boil it, and if you have a food processor, and I did both. Very nice idea. I’m not too sure about the parmesan crust, mind; it didn’t really come across much in the final article. However, I think I might have had the oil too hot; the outside cooked pretty well before the inside of the pork was done.

Also, must work on presentation.

Also also, observe that you have to tear a hole in your recipe to put it in the little Gousto folder. No, I don’t have a hole punch, because I’m not at school. Sort it out, Gousto.

Chermoula Chicken (Gousto recipe link)

That was excellent. Nice one, Gousto. It’s easy to prepare and nice when you cook it. Lots of lemon in it, which always cheers me up – I love lemon. It’s got a little spicy edge, but only a little; don’t fear any heat from this dinner, but it does have a strong flavour. The mint yoghurt cuts it rather nicely, though, and the coriander adds decent flavour to the rice. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten lentils before, and they work rather nicely with the coriander rice. A toothsome flavoursome dinner. One to repeat, I think!

Also: you can eat all this in one go. But it’s a pretty heavy dinner if you do. Oof.