Meals worthy of restaurants cooked yourself, at home, for not very expensive:it's a dream! Especially when you are a real quiche in the kitchen…like me. This week, I tried Cookin' The World, a weekly basket. Inside:good ingredients and recipes to prepare 4 original, simple and balanced meals.
What did I like about the concept? This basket is made up of fresh seasonal products 80% of French origin, beautiful pieces of vacuum-packed meat and wild fish caught off the French coast the day before delivery!
Enough to make your mouth water…especially the recipes that accompany these ingredients seem very simple and quick:30 minutes on average. Even better:they are made by Céline, a real chef. Here we go, here I go!
First step:order the basket on the website www.cookintheworld.fr. Two subscription formulas are then offered:the weekly basket for 2 people (€59) and the weekly basket for 4 people (€89). It may seem expensive at first, but if we divide into meals per person, it makes 7.3 € per meal on average for the basket for 2 people (which is still suitable if it's 4 times a week) and 5.5 € the meal on average for the basket 4 people.
Hop, I order the basket for two! I see in passing that there is a gift card, to offer to a loved one so that he can test the concept with a basket. A good idea!
One Monday evening, someone knocked at my door. It is there that I discover in the arms of the delivery man a cardboard box so big that I have the impression that I could hide in it (for what? That is the question).
Excited like a Christmas morning, I tear off the tape, the cardboard flaps, I pull, I open and I discover colors in all directions, magnificent fresh vegetables (never seen such beautiful carrots before, no kidding! ), which seem to say to my taste buds, "Tonight you're (literally) going to taste it, honey." Olala.
Among the carrots, parsnips and shallots, I discover a weird green thing, which I probably would NEVER have bought on my own. It is said to be called "chayote" or even "christophine in the West Indies" (in honor of Christopher Columbus!), that it "can be eaten both raw and cooked", "that it is part of the squash" and that "cooked, like zucchini, it can be cooked in many ways:in gratin, in broth, in soup but also in sweet form in cakes and jam! (we learn stuff in this booklet!).
Here is the beast:
Small inventory of the contents of my box 2 people, for 4 meals:
Side vegetables
• 1 Chayote (origin Martinique)
• 3 carrots (origin France)
• 1 yellow onion from Auxonne (origin France)
• 1 garlic (origin France)
• 1 round shallot (origin France)
• 1 lime (origin Mexico)
• 2 parsnips (origin France)
• 3 potatoes (origin France)
• 3 pack cabbage choy (origin France)
• 1 ginger (origin China)
• 1 red pepper (origin France)
• 1 shallot "chicken leg" (origin France)
• 1 cream mushroom (origin Netherlands)
Meat and fish side
• Wild fish caught in the North East Atlantic region
• Heart of rump steak (beef born, raised and slaughtered in Ireland)
• Turkey crépinettes (origin France)
Grocery/creamery side
• 1 packet of organic wok noodles
• 1 packet of organic white penne pasta
The 4 recipes offered?
Grilled fish with dog sauce (Caribbean recipe, without "dog" inside, huh, that's an expression)
A rump steak with mashed parsnips,
A wok of fried noodles with cabbage and ginger cabbage pack
Turkey crépinettes with shallots and mushrooms, penne.
I'm salivating!
I grabbed my little booklet, clear and full of advice, and decided to try the recipe for grilled fish with dog sauce, 1/ because the name "dog sauce" intrigued me, 2/ because there has the famous "chayote" in it and I can't wait to know what it tastes like.
Besides, I discover that it is not a peel pie, the chayote! But I'm having fun. I have never cooked anything exotic, so it reassures me to have all the ingredients in front of me and a simple recipe in front of me (which tells me 35 mins / 40 mins to prepare). Besides, I finished on time!
It's time to taste...
It's beautiful, it's exotic and it's good! The fish is tender and the chayote succulent. Everything tastes great, fills my stomach and mouth with flavors. I'm delighted!
This basket allowed me to taste products that I might never have cooked, to have fun and to gain confidence in my abilities as a cook! And yes, I too can cook like in a restaurant.
"TADAM!" »
> Website:www.cookintheworld.fr
