Curry But Not in a Hurry

Cyndi has plans for me later, she organised a date for me with Jamie Oliver. Well, one of his cook books anyway. Now, I don't mind Jamie Oliver, some people can't stand him, but I find him quite entertaining and I can usually produce a passable imitation of the dish that's shown in the book. He's a bit slack in the quantity measuring department but after a few beers, a lug of this or a handful of that makes perfect sense. I also like his somewhat fluid approach to ingredient choice. Chucking in some of "this" because I don't have any of "that" is perfect for the slightly inebriated home chef who can't pop out to the shops for more supplies.

I've been given the job of producing a
fish pie. I've cooked it before, it's easy, you just follow the recipe. It's one of those old-fashioned cookbooks, fry this for two minutes, boil that for ten, you know the sort of thing, and this is where I take issue. Old Jamie, that cheeky chappie who'd slide down the bannister of his spiral staircase before zooming around London on his scooter, produced a cookbook even I could follow and the results looked and tasted wonderful. New Jamie, master chef before Masterchef, king of the chopping board, now writes cookbooks without these seemingly simple instructions. Shocking, absolutely scandalous, I hear you cry. I'll forgive that comment of "he's started early" and explain...

Cyndi has a copy of Jamie's 30- Minute Meals and one day, while looking through it I foolishly had the idea of cooking rogan josh, fluffy rice, carrot salad, poppadoms and flatbread. I'm not sure why I picked this particular recipe out of all of those in the book, but suspect the word beer in two-inch print at the bottom of the page might have been a strong contributing factor. Cyndi left to go to the gym, expecting a lovely Indian meal on her return.

Now I, unsuspecting fool that I am, didn't realise that Jamie's book had a new format. Instead of the already mentioned "fry this for two minutes" type of instructions I know and love, I found myself reading something more akin to a story. Peel and slice the onions. OK, so far. Add this to that, chuck some of that in. Yep, no worries. Now, bring that to the boil and it'll be done by the time the rice is cooked. Hang on a minute sunshine, it takes me ages to get the rice ready, you know what you're doing, it only takes you two seconds. What do you mean, now that's the rice on, we'll make the carrot salad? It's not on, it's not even close to being on, it's still in the packet in the cupboard, the curry's already half cooked and I'm running out of bench space as I didn't have time to clean up after slicing the sodding onions . No Jamie, it's not all cushty and I have no interest in banging out a pukkah lemon pickle, the only thing I want to bang out is your lights with this stupid cookbook. Your 30 minute meal's already blown out to an hour and a half, the curry's glued to the bottom of the pan, I've used every pot, pan, utensil and flat space we own and I desperately need a wee but just can't spare the time...aggghhhh!!

As I say though, the fish pie recipe is from an earlier time, a happier time when all was right between Jamie and I, before the publication of this evil book. My culinary trauma counsellor says I'll be able to go back into the kitchen with my head held high, though as I do so I see that Cyndi has another Jamie Oliver cookbook on the shelf...what the..no,it's not possible, he can't do this to me.... Jamie's 15-minute Meals...aggghhhh!!