Damn, you think to yourself. The neighbours are coming over for dinner this week and you have neither the energy nor inclination to design a dinner for your suave new friends from down the block. Lo, there is a knight in a brown paper bag, a mere few clicks away, whom comes quicker than you can say, “balls! I forgot the truffle paste”! Well, not quite but swift enough and with more ease than having to pop down to your local Waitrose. Marley Spoon is a fab alternative to recipe hunting and trolling through the aisles of the supermarche for recipe ingredients. This can be a right pain especially when you realise you have to buy a 5 quid tub of some far-eastern tapenade-like goo, which you know you will NEVER use again.
Marley Spoon designs the recipes, portions the ingredients, packages and then plops them off at your doorstep via courier. All you have to do is pick the meals that tickle your taste buds and click. I ordered the rainbow trout and the whole poussin and have documented my efforts below.
I started with the trout which came with a miso and teriyaki marinade, parsnip mash cooked in coconut milk and radicchio flavoured with orange and honey. The fish was fantastic and the marinade provided the winning Eastern combination of salty and sweet, suiting the robust and surprisingly meaty trout. The mash was scrummy too. It was perhaps a little gluttonous to cook the veg in high fat coconut milk, but it is a tasty treat.
I started with the trout which came with a miso and teriyaki marinade, parsnip mash cooked in coconut milk and radicchio flavoured with orange and honey. The fish was fantastic and the marinade provided the winning Eastern combination of salty and sweet, suiting the robust and surprisingly meaty trout. The mash was scrummy too. It was perhaps a little gluttonous to cook the veg in high fat coconut milk, but it is a tasty treat.
One thing I would say if you choose this option, drain a little of the coconut milk off before blending into your puree. Mine came out a little too runny, but this didn’t detract from the flavour. The radicchio was a bit too bitter for me. I feel like I wronged this vegetable and not the other way round, but no matter how much sugar I added to it I couldn’t combat its bitterness. To sum it up- a really satisfying dish and one I would definitely have again, perhaps with a bit of adjustment on the veg.
My second experience was the whole poussin with roast potatoes, fennel and tomatoes. This was a wham bam thank ya mam moment. Everything was chucked into the oven with some minor potato chopping in the middle and came out 35 minutes later looking like a posh Sunday roast. The mini chicken was tender and succulent and the roasted potatoes with fennel tasty to the extreme, flavoured with garlic, thyme and olive oil. The tomatoes I think offered more colour rather than anything else – I’ll do anything to avoid eating my veg it would seem.
My second experience was the whole poussin with roast potatoes, fennel and tomatoes. This was a wham bam thank ya mam moment. Everything was chucked into the oven with some minor potato chopping in the middle and came out 35 minutes later looking like a posh Sunday roast. The mini chicken was tender and succulent and the roasted potatoes with fennel tasty to the extreme, flavoured with garlic, thyme and olive oil. The tomatoes I think offered more colour rather than anything else – I’ll do anything to avoid eating my veg it would seem.
|
|
In conclusion it’s a thumbs up. The recipes were fool proof, quick and tasty. I would be pretty hard pushed to go down to the shops and buy the quality of food I had for the price of Marley Spoon’s portions: £11 or £9 for Food Club members. Marley Spoon’s recipes gave my midweek dinner a sense of occasion and certainly brought more imagination to the plate than I could muster up after a long day at work. I would highly recommend Marley Spoon….but’s let’s keep it between you and me when I’m using it to impress the Jones’s from down the street.
www.marleyspoon.co.uk
P.S. Marley Spoon have teamed up with Ben Tish, Chef Director of the Salt Yard Group to create a special recipe for Mother’s Day! Yoghurt marinated lamb chops with roasted aubergine and charred broccoli. Scrummy.
