Taking On Jamie - Dish 1 - Mushroom Fafalle

So I thought my winter blog project this year would be is to take Jamie on with his 15 minute meals.

My friend JT tried with her friends Rose and Frank and they reckoned took 30 minutes. 

My daughter in law Helen has given some of the recipes a go and mmmm she put out a challenge. Can anybody do this?

I can do this... I thought.

I have both series on my ipad

So the plan was to get mis en place and then cook along with the video 

I bought the stopwatch app for my phone

and off I started

By the way it was delicious. We both loved it

So for the first one I made Mushroom Fafalle

I got my mis en place, by the way this was getting together all of he ingredients not any actual cooking or chopping.
BUT I don't have a garlic crusher, as I don't like them and I did peel the garlic, Chopping it took quite a bit of time

Getting all the stuff together took about 7-8 minutes

So I didn't count that I only timed the actual cooking

He does that

Jamie doesn't really give you quantities so I guessed

That's not too hard though

I made a couple of changes to the recipe. 

I don't want this to be an expensive challenge

So if I haven't got an ingredient at the time I would substitute

I didn't have any baby spinach. 

So I cut some cabbage into small triangles and blanched it in salted water and drained it.

Set aside to cool 
He used the spinach straight frpm the bag so he had a heads up on that.
Didn't feel that was cheating

It was delicious, so sweet... also Jamie had hazel nuts, I substituted cashews

I am going to make this salad again. It is delicious. 

Blanching the cabbage, as Marco says, is 'Genius'

I had to pause a couple of times as didn't have everything ready 
Like I forgot to sort the mortar and pestle
and I hadn't got the food processor ready

Funnily enough, I thought I had everything

Must be more diligent next time

So I set up the iPad and my timer

Here are the ingredients 

This made enough for 4 people, I froze the leftovers for a dinner in the future

Good slurp Olive oil 

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

250 gms Mushrooms

25 gms Dried mushrooms

Boiling water

3 cloves garlic peeled and finely chopped

Salt and pepper

Thyme leaves

1 tsp Chili flakes

About 100 gms Sour cream

Zest of 1 Lemon

Handful of chopped parsley

Fafalle Pasta 100 gms per person

Salad for 2 people cant keep that

Blanched cabbage

Cashews

1/2 Grated apple

50 gms Blue cheese

French Dressing

You need all you pans on the stove over med heat and a jug of boiling water to hasten things up

First cover the dried mushrooms in boiling water to soften and get a stock

Place pasta into well salted boiling water 

Cook about 8-9 minutes

Add olive oil to a frying pan to start off.

Add mushrooms

Just break them up no need to finely chop

It's a rustic dish

Add garlic, S & P and chili flakes and thyme leaves

Toss around and cook about 2 minutes

Meanwhile add nuts to a small pan just to toast lightly to get the maximum flavour

Add soaked dried mushrooms and their stock to the pan
Cook them down

Start to prepare the salad
Take nuts out of pan and crush them not too small in a mortar and pestle
Put your greens (in my case blanched cabbage)
onto a platter
Grate apple over the top
Put little knobs of blue cheese on top and
sprinkle with crushed nuts
Set aside

Back to mushrooms
Place in food processor and give them a whiz till reasonably smooth
Back into pan
Thin down with a little of the pasta water
keep a bit more of the pasta water if needed, to thin down the sauce

Pasta should be ready
Drain and add to pan

Add sour cream
Toss to mix

Zest lemon
Chop parsley
Mix together
Put 1/2 of this into the pasta
Toss well

Pile onto platter
Garnish with remainder of parsley and lemon

Pour some french dressing over salad
Below Jamie's version

Serve

So I paused a couple of times. as I said, I'd forgotten to set out some bits and pieces

So I think it took me about 20 minutes plus the mis en  place

5-6 minutes

So this was an easy dish 

Couldn't do it in 15 minutes though

Keen to see whatt happens next time