NEW RECIPES SHOULD TAKE JUST 10 MINUTES. WE PUT THEM TO THE TEST
CHEF KWOKLYN WAN’S SPEEDY
IT’S that time of year when New Year’s resolutions start slipping.
Maybe you wanted to eat more healthily or do more home cooking – but as we race through the month of January, a takeawayvmight be looking increasingly enticing.
That’s why Kwoklyn Wan’s latest cookbook, 10-Minute Chinese Takeaway, couldn’t have come at a better time. If you are tempted to order dinner via an app, whipping up one of these meals will only take 10 minutes, and it will most likely be a healthier than ordering in.
But do the recipes really only take 10 minutes to make?
We tried three recipes from the new book to find out...
LISA SALMON TESTED: Eight treasure tofu
The problem with this easy, veggiepacked stir-fry was I couldn’t find one of the essential ingredients: the fermented chilli bean paste, or doubanjiang. But I did a little internet searching and tried my best to make my own version.
Never having tasted real doubanjiang, I can’t tell you how far my attempt was from the authentic paste, but it contained beans (although not fermented ones), chillies and salt, so it must at least have borne some similarity. I hope.
To be honest, making the paste was the only hard-ish part – the rest was just chopping carrots, mushrooms and onions, opening cans of bamboo shoots and water chestnuts, and packets of peanuts, and throwing them all in the wok with the tofu and sauce.
The end result was tasty, and I loved the peanuts with the tofu. If I’d been able to buy the fermented chilli bean paste, the recipe would have only taken me about 10 minutes – it’s definitely very quick. But making my own added a little more time, though probably only about five minutes.
NOREEN BARR TESTED: Beef and onion with mixed peppers
As I was making a double portion to feed four people rather than two, I expected to go over the fourminute designated prep time, but it took me a good 20 minutes to thinly slice the (expensive) beef fillet, peppers and onions, puree the garlic and ginger and s o r t the simple sauce.
Knowing the recipe better, a sharper blade and much improved knife skills would bring that time down, and the stir-frying part was fast and trouble-free.
My finished dish looked pretty close to the target, with generous amounts of meat and colourful peppers, but the beef should probably have been more charred.
As promised, the sauce was tasty and aromatic, and the background heat from the ground black pepper went down well. Most importantly, this dish passed the ultimate test – everyone loved it and it was eaten almost faster than I made it.
PRUDENCE WADE TESTED: Yellow bean flat rice noodles with green beans
I have trust issues when it comes to speedy meals claiming to take an impossibly short amount of time – but I can’t help trying them, because who doesn’t want a delicious dinner in 10 minutes?
Full disclosure: my attempt at Wan’s yellow bean flat rice noodles with green beans didn’t take 10 minutes, but well over 20.
Even if it wasn’t quite as speedy
as advertised, that’s still a quick dish – and it was definitely worth it. The salty, umami taste of the sauce with yellow bean paste, Shaoxing wine and dark soy sauce was rich and moreish, with the noodles soaking up flavour like a sponge.
It was incredibly easy to prepare – and you’re rewarded with an impressively flavoursome stir-fry.
■ 10-Minute Chinese Takeaway by Kwoklyn Wan is published by Quadrille, priced £16. Available now.