S: This week we’re jumping to another Jamie Oliver cookbook: Jamie Oliver’s Comfort Food. We’re sticking to dinner foods, as we’re craving some din din. We also decided to test his theory on how long it would take to make this recipe, as nobody that we know, believes it’ll take only one hour and forty minutes. They expected much longer, and they were most definitely correct.

[Serves 2]

Ingredients:

Dough * 2 large eggs * 1 3/4 cups sour cream * 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting * 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Filling * 1/4 of a green cabbage (8oz) * 2 tbsp white wine vinegar * 1 lb yukon gold potatoes * 2 tsp caraway seeds * 2 onions * olive oil * unsalted butter * 4 oz sharp cheddar cheese * white pepper

To Serve * 1 bunch of fresh chives (1oz) * 1 lemon

Required/Suggested tools:

• pasta maker

Time the cookbook says it’ll take: 1 hour 40 minutes Actual time it took to cook: 4ish hours

Verdict: I really liked this recipe. As the cookbook says, this recipe isn’t your typical pierogi you’re thinking of: filled with cheese and potatoes. This recipe dates back to the 13th century… so it has to be good, right? The thing I don’t like about it? How long it took. I mean I know I’ve heard horror stories of how long it should take, but this recipe had me hoping it would take less time. That part made me sad, but the end result was yummy nonetheless.

The Step-by-Step:

Step 1: Making the Dough

-

Step 2: Pesto

• peel the garlic
• pound the basil in a mortar and pestle
• add the garlic and sea salt
• add the pine nuts
• work into a paste
• squeeze in 1/2 the lemon’s worth of juice (around 0.5 tbsp)
• grate in, or add grated parmesan
• add 1 tbsp oil
• mix together

Step 3: Breading the fish

• cover the fish pieces in the pesto (this will be messy)
• bread the fish in the breadcrumbs (pesto is the binder)
• remove the pan from the oven, add any leftover breadcrumbs to the pan with the tomatoes
• add lemon wedges to the pan, to roast
• place fish on pan
• roast in the oven for 15 minutes, or until fish is cooked through and breading is golden brown

Step 4: Vegetables – potatoes

• clean the baby potatoes if needed
• half any larger potatoes, small ones can remain whole-grained
• add to boiling water on the stove, will be cooking for 15 minutes, but in parallel with steaming the other veggies

Step 5: Vegetables – greens

• clean and trim green beans
• halve the broccolini
• after the potatoes have been cooking for 10 minutes, place the beans and broccolini in the colander to steam
• after 13 minutes, add the spinach to the colander

You’ll notice we happen to not have a pot with a matching colander. So that was our solution in the image above, we used a drying rack over top of the pan, and put the lid over that [S: Not going to lie, was quite proud of thinking of it at that very moment.].

Step 6: Dressing vegetables

• add balsamic vinegar and 1 tbsp oil to a bowl large enough to toss the vegetables in (a medium sized mixing bowl)
• drain potatoes
• toss vegetables in the dressing
• serve, with the roasted lemon wedges, and a drizzle of balsamic

That’s it! With some streamlining of the process, and a little bit of practise with prepping everything, it’s legitimately a few minutes of prep and around 25 of cook time. Easy peasy, just need to.. uhh.. thread your prep steps so you’re not wasting any time while things are cooking.