EAT IN TO HELP OUT
Staying in might not be the new going out, but the pandemic has transformed the way we eat at home. Top restaurants have pivoted to delivering meal kits for assembly in your kitchen, combining the ease of a takeaway with the quality of the chef’s pass. We
Top restaurants are now providing DIY meal kits for your kitchen. We pick the best for delicious nutrition
01 Pizza Pilgrims
Margherita Frying Pan Pizza Kit
GOOD FOR A carb-based refuel or crowd-pleasing Friday dinner
OUR TESTER Scarlett Wrench, features editor
Great pizza dough is an art
form: get your ratios wrong and it can easily come out too stiff, or too tough. With this meal kit, Pizza Pilgrims pans the guesswork. Each box contains two pizzas’ worth of double-fermented sourdough, made with flour from the esteemed Caputo Mill in Naples. Quick tip: we found it helpful to stretch the dough once, then leave it to rest for 10 minutes before re-stretching and cooking.
Toppings include fior di latte mozzarella, proper Italian tomato sauce and fresh basil leaves, though you could add whatever is in your fridge if you wanted to bulk it up a bit. The result was pretty faultless: a soft, chewy crust, subtly sweet sauce and bubbling cheese topping. A single pizza works out at roughly 1,000kcal, too – so, if you’ve been working or training hard today, you can afford not to share.
Best order two boxes. Nationwide from £15 pizzainthepost.co.uk
02 Smokestak
Four- Pounder Feasting Box
GOOD FOR A week’s worth of show-stopping muscle fuel
FROM PACKAGE TO PLATE 30min
OUR TESTER Vici Cave, photography director
There’s not much you
can do to hurry the onset of summer, but you can pick up the UK’s best barbecue at the tap of a screen. Smokestak founder David Carter perfected his charred meat and buns on the festival scene (remember those?), long before pulled pork was ubiquitous. Now, it’s prepared in a vast, wood-fired smoker at his Shoreditch venue, over kiln-dried English oak. The meat is vacuum-packed at the point of perfection and shipped overnight. This kit dishes up 2lb of Smokestak’s 15-hour beef brisket, along with the same-sized portion of pork shoulder, plus house barbecue, mustard, pickled cucumbers and pickled chillies. Reheat in the oven and serve with your desired accompaniments. (Tip: we advise soft buns and crunchy coleslaw. Each kit contains six to eight portions, so you can feed your bubble – or feast all week.) Nationwide £65 smokestakshop.co.uk
03 Honest Burger
Home Tribute DIY Kit
GOOD FOR Making a meal out of cheat day
FROM PACKAGE TO PLATE 20min
OUR TESTER Ted Lane, commissioning editor
Most of us have turned
our hand to home-grilled burgers and found the results somewhat lacking compared to the greaseproof-paperwrapped delicacies supplied by the professionals. This box will elevate your efforts to expert standard. The patties are a perfect blend of meat and fat (Honest uses minced rib cap), so you don’t need any oil. We fried the patties and the bacon together, then flipped the patties, popped the bacon and cheese on top, added a splash of water and steamed them under a metal mixing bowl. While the patties rested, we browned the buns in the juices. The result was so good that it went down in five bites. You will have to supply garnishes such as lettuce, as well as make your own chips. Boxing up a couple of perfect chipping spuds might have been a nice touch, but a King Edward more than sufficed. Nationwide £16 plus £6 shipping honestburgers.co.uk
04 Shoryu Ramen
Vegan White Ramen
GOOD FOR A lunch-hour upgrade, or easy, after-work nutrition FROM PACKAGE TO PLATE 15min OUR TESTER David Morton, deputy editor
Not all takeaways are inherently indulgent.
If you’re minding your macros, or looking to grow your plant-based repertoire, this kit is worth forking out for. Its USP is the 12-hour tonyu superfood stock, made with soya milk, miso, konbu kelp and shiitake mushrooms, developed by chef Kanji
Furukawa. It’s the sort of thing you could make at home but, realistically, won’t. The noodles are of the thin and springy “hosomen” variety favoured by Japanese ramen masters. Boil, simmer, then assemble as per instructions with tofu, spring onion, menma bamboo shoots and kikurage mushrooms. It’s simple enough to throw together post-work/workout, and won’t test your culinary prowess. If you’re after something meatier, there’s also a traditional ganso kit with char siu (barbecued pork belly). But the vegan option certainly isn’t lacking. Nationwide £24 japancentre.com
05 Dishoom
Bacon Naan Roll Kit GOOD FOR A welcome break from avo on toast
FROM PACKAGE TO PLATE 25min
OUR TESTER Joy Ejaria, content manager
The smoked eel sandwich at Quo Vadis, the mince on dripping toast at the Quality Chop House – these are what are known as “hype dishes”, menu mainstays that define a restaurant’s reputation. Dishoom’s bacon naan roll is one such dish, renowned above all else on the Bombay street-food chain’s menu– and now you don’t have to leave your kitchen to savour its glory.
The kit includes streaky bacon (smoked over apple and beechwood chips), coriander, cream cheese, three naan dough balls and Dishoom’s hot-and-sweet tomato-chilli jam. On top of that, you can enjoy chef Naved Nasir’s masala chai tea, using loose-leaf Darjeeling, spices and ginger. Kitchen amateurs needn’t worry: a cook-along video on the website talks you through the steps, so there’s no getting it wrong. Believe me, for a special treat, it sure beats a butty. Nationwide from £16 store.dishoom.com
06 Berenjak Bazaar
The Ostad Kabab Kit
GOOD FOR Hitting your protein targets – and then some FROM PACKAGE TO PLATE An hour or so OUR TESTER Ed Cooper, deputy digital editor There’s far more to a kebab than the post-pub scran that has given the dish its dicey reputation – a fact that Berenjak’s Ostad (“master” in Persian) kit exemplifies. Inspired by the food sold in Tehran’s backstreet kababis, the lamb and chicken come pre-marinated, the mast-o musir dip mixed, and the lavash bread ready to be grilled, so your meal requires minimal prep time or culinary know-how. The kit even comes with a mini mangal barbecue and holm oak charcoal – a slick touch, but it means that it’s better deployed as a weekend treat than as an after-work dinner, as it can take 40 minutes to reach peak temperature.
Once ready, however, the flames take to the meat quickly. For those without outdoor space, there’s an oven-friendly take on the kit. It’s a world away from your 2am indulgence, but perhaps still best enjoyed after a beer… Nationwide (England and Wales) £65 berenjakbazaar.com