… Pan-fried Aubergine & Cumin Crunch
This is the fourth of five meals I plan to do this weekend. Ok, so two were breakfasts but nevertheless it’s quite a bit of cooking over just two days.
I have my friend Peter from church over for lunch today. As is often the case it’s a last minute invite … I probably ought to be more organised.
This is another one of the meals that looks great and colourful and one I have been looking forward to cooking.
The cooking goes pretty smoothly. In general the methods are pretty standard and common to many of the 15 Minute Meals. There is couscous, easy and quick to do; it’s just pouring two mugs of water over one mug of couscous a bit of seasoning – the rest it does itself. There is meat, flattened a bit and seasoned with spice. There are tomatoes cooked with spring onions, a preserved lemon, some chilli and saffron, all pretty standard fair for a 15 Minute Meal. As I’ve got familiar with the style of cooking and the means of working with the ingredients, the cooking process has got better. Or smoother. Tidier is probably the best description. I don’t really think I’m cooking the meals much quicker, but its now pretty rare that my kitchen looks like a scene of devastation after the event, a common occurrence at the start of this project. I now do quite a bit of tidying as I go. Today was one of those meals.
The surprising part of the meal was how the aubergine is cooked. You microwave it! I should say at this point that the recipe called for two small aubergines. I couldn’t get small ones so I had just one large one. I upped the cooking time in the microwave a little. However I was still dubious that this cooking method would work. It did work though. The aubergine was soft and basically cooked when it came out the microwave. It is then finished in the frying pan alongside the lamb.
This was a very tasty meal. As it’s a meal for four, that I cooked for just two of us, I have a nice lunch for tomorrow.
Just ten meals left to go now.
Who with: Peter
How Long: Fifteen Minutes and Thirty Seconds
