Tried and tested: Urban Stove

For busy urbanites out there, Urban Stove (the clue is in the name) provides a service where they shop for, portion and deliver a box of ingredients for three meals to you, complete with cooking instructions. The promise: These meals are simple enough to be cooked and served within 30 minutes. We got a box delivered to the office, containing three recipes all nicely packed and labelled: an intimidating sounding ikan pepes (Balinese baked fish), chicken piccata and spiced lamb wrap. Here’s how we fared.

Dish one: Ikan pepes
Following the instructions for ikan pepes, I chopped the greens, arranged them with the sea bass and pepes paste in a dish, covered everything with aluminium foil, and baked it in the oven for 15 minutes at 170C. I had a great sense of achievement by this stage. Fifteen minutes later, the fish was lukewarm due to insufficient defrosting. I went way over time by changing tack and using a wok. Points for thick slabs of fresh sea bass and flavourful paste.

Dish two: Lamb patties with mint raita wrap
After especially bad Friday traffic, I got home with barely enough time to make lamb patties with mint raita wrap before heading out. However, I managed to chop and mix the greens with yoghurt, shape and grill little lamb patties from the spiced lamb mix, and assemble them into wraps, well within the promised 30-minute-timeline. There’s a certain satisfaction that comes with having healthy lamb wraps while my friends have fast food.

Dish three: Chicken piccata
I finally got around to cooking dish number three on the last day of the recommended week. Instructions called for two eggs, which were not included in the box. That aside, everything else I needed for this easy dish were there. After coating the chicken breast in the egg-parmesan- coriander mixture, frying them up was pretty straightforward. The resulting dish is almost as good as what you’d get in a cafe.

VERDICT
Urban Stove delivers on its promise of providing the basics for fuss-free dinners with easy-to-follow instructions. Our suggestion? Up your game with extra ingredients.

Order now at www.urbanstove.com.