I've just been reading in the Saturday paper that Jamie O sold 78K copies of his book last week along. The week before I think it was 48K. At £10 a skull that's over a £1.2M in revenue in the last 2 weeks. The second book in the best sellers list was less than half this quantity. Jamie can do no wrong.
So as you know I did buy the book and tonight I cooked my third meal from it. The lasagne is quoted as a summer dish so I had to change the asparagus to broccoli. The accompanying salad should be a variety of season tomatoes, I just used cherry toms.
The recipes are written to be done in the 30 minutes which the TV programme format dictates. This is on the pretense of delivering meals for a busy family of 4. The approach is fair enough and its reminiscent of Delia Smith's last series on using acceptable "cheats". If you remember the critics response was mixed and I would like to compare her book sales with the above.
The quantity of frozen beans and peas looked enormous and I reduced it. In the cooking I would pay for that decision later. The bulk of the lasagne filling was beans, peas and the stalks of the broccoli chopped up. The cheese sauce is provided by cream and cottage cheese. Half the cheese is used in the initial mix. Mint and lemon rind is added for additional flavour.
All was going well until I had to build the lasagne layers. I had a reasonable size tin for the two of us on a flame to take the finished lasagne. Fresh pasta is used for its short cooking time. I put a layer of filling on the bottom of the tin and put 3 slices of lasagne over it ready for the next layer. As I went for the Parmesan cheese to cover the lasagnes started to curl up into a cup shape --- Jamie's did not do that! Managed to get it flattened out with the next layer of filling.
It was then that my quantity of filling looked a bit thin, The tin was slightly too big for the meal. The next layer was just about covered. The final topping was the rest of the cottage cheese, Parmesan cheese and the florets of the broccolli. This was all done while the tin was on the hob. The top layer is cooked under the grill. The edges of the last layer of lasagne were not covered in liquid so I thought that it would come out solid as a rock!
Next the salad. This turned out to be the best of the meal. Grilled chunks of ciabbata bread coated in red wine vinegar, anchovies, capers, Olive oil, red peppers, lemon juice and tomatoes. The bread soaks up the juices. We found the bread filling when eaten with the lasagne. But a great combination of you were real hungry.
The full meal was too much for us in one sitting. I would make it in a smaller tin and ensure the layers were well stocked. The chunks of cottage cheese did not look great but the taste was fine.
If the 30 mins deal is not an issue I would try a proper cheese sauce.
Overall a nice meal and we still have some left over.
