For TV Chefs week I decided to take a different angle… those celebrity chefs who I like and admire, well, I already make quite a bit of their food. So I decided to take a closer look at a chef who I don’t really get why she is so popular: Nigella Lawson. I have watched her cooking shows and looked at her cookbooks and always thought, “meh”. But I wondered, am I being too hasty in my judgement? The best way to test this theory out was to cook some of her recipes. So I did.
Recipe 1: One Pan Sage and Onion Chicken and Sausage
Link: http://www.lifestylefood.com.au/recipes/1641/one-pan-sage-and-onion-chicken-and-sausage
This looked quite yucky. And the cooking time for the recipe (1hour and 15 mins at 220C) had me worried that it would dry the chicken out quite considerably. I was right. And that was after I lowered the temperature to 180C and cooked for an hour.
I wasn’t sure this would stand up on its own as a meal – and quite frankly I don’t count onion in my vegetable quota for the day – so I served it with roasted potato and carrot (coasted in mustard, yum!) and peas and corn.
It was OK. An average kind of meal. But I wouldn’t make it again.
Recipe 2: Chicken alla cacciatora
Link: http://www.lifestylefood.com.au/recipes/2828/chicken-alla-cacciatora
Ben was really excited for this one. He loved the chicken cacciatore risotto I made a while back and thought that this recipe would be of a similar nature. The recipe actually turned out really watery for me. I am not sure why because I followed it exactly! Again, it was average. It tasted OK, but didn’t have that lovely, rich tomato flavour that you expect with a cacciatore recipe.
Conclusion? I think Nigella offers up really basic recipes that are designed to be simple and for the family to make on a mid-week meal. And that is fine. I just wouldn’t buy a cookbook for that when I could just buy a food magazine for $3 and get the same suggestions.
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