Grilled Steak, Ratatouille and Saffron Rice

Meal 23 - March 9th - Grilled Steak, Ratatouille and Saffron Rice

Being Mother's Day tomorrow I spotted an excellent opportunity to kill two birds with one stone and so, after packing up almost the entire kitchen bar the kitchen sink (and the food processor, which was not required for this dish) we set off towards the West Sussex countryside, with my parents being the latest benefactors of my 15 minute meal challenge.

My parents are currently embarking on a 3-year-and-counting house-sitting tour of Britain and to be honest I have no idea exactly where we ended up (it was dark and we had Sat Nav) but I found myself in one of the most impressive kitchens I have ever been in which had all manner of 15 Minute Meal friendly equipment.

Other than my mother's well-intended but actually rather infuariating attempts to offer advice and assistance, there were two crucial problems with cooking in unfamiliar surroundings. One was the presence of a rather frisky sheep dog. The other was the lack of a conventional stove. For those unfamilar with Agas (as I was prior to Saturday), the stove is basically one big hot plate, half of which is actually hot (a boiling plate) and half of which is less hot (a simmering plate). I assume they would be great, for slow cooking, baking, roasting etc, but when you are looking to fry quickly, at high temperatures, and have three large pans cooking simultaneously, it is far from ideal. We did also find an electric rice cooker, which, despite my initial dubiousness, cooked the rice perfectly and meant I only had to squeeze the griddle pan and casserole pan on the stove.

So in the end, despite taking considerably longer than 15 minutes to cook, the only ill-effect of the Aga saga was slightly over cooked steak (as a result of overcompensating for lack of heat and cooking for too long). The meal was enjoyed by all (even the dog who enthusiastically licked up a few stray spoonfuls of ratatouille). Lolz gave the dish 10/10 - was particularly enthused by the leftoverability (although unfortunately for her I got to it before she did ;)! Difficulty rating 5/10 - would have been much easier but for the Aga.