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Weeknight Wonders: 30-Minute Meals
February 26
Our family kitchen thrives on organisation and an arsenal of quick cooking meals. I often lament the days when I could make dinner on a whim for just my wife Sofie and myself but with the addition of our two boys in recent years dinner time comes with a little more pressure. Plans need to be made in order to get it to the table before complete meltdowns take place, the children of course, not me! Meal prep is great but dinners that can be whipped up in the 30 minute window are also incredibly helpful to have to hand and this week I have three that come together in that fraught window of arriving home and dinner time.
Hot Smoked Salmon & Potato Salad with Lemon Creme Fraiche Dressing
The first although seemingly sophisticated sounding is a simple and elegant assembly job supper.. Hot Smoked Salmon & Potato Salad with Lemon Creme Fraiche Dressing – Boil some potatoes, flake the hot smoked salmon (Try Connemara Smokehouse’s selection) and you have the building blocks for a filling meal. Pile up with easy additions like salty capers from a jar, freshly snipped chives, a tumble of watercress, thinly sliced red onion or keep it more simple for younger eaters with soft boiled eggs split to expose their oozing interiors.
Get the recipe here.
Honey & Thyme Pan Fried Chicken with Shaved Fennel & Parmesan Salad
The next offering is Honey & Thyme Pan Fried Chicken with Shaved Fennel & Parmesan Salad – More often than not, the simple recipes are the ones we make time and time again. This very easy recipe is precisely one of those. It takes its inspiration from Maura O’Connell Foley’s roast chicken version from her timeless cookbook, My Wild Atlantic Kitchen, which creates a honey & thyme jus with Noilly Prat to serve over the roasted bird- a dreamy Sunday dinner dish. In this simplified pan fried version the honey and thyme along with white wine vinegar is used to create a sweet and sticky sauce for pan fried chicken breasts. Serve it with a salad of dressed leaves or this crunchy fennel slaw or veggie crudites for the kiddos.
Get the recipe here.
Five Spice Pork Fried Rice
Lastly a quick take on fried rice, my Five Spice Pork Fried Rice a particularly handy one for using up leftovers. Even during the colder months I still love to use my BBQ – grilled pork chops or any meat with a little fat will be the ideal flavourful addition to the rice. It is worth noting that the very best fried rice is made with cold rice as it doesn’t clump together and overcook like freshly cooked rice does.
Get the recipe here.
