Jamie Oliver’s ‘Ministry of Food’ Cookbook

In addition to the fantastic news about my 15 minutes of fame, one other surprise awaited me the moment I got back home from Amsterdam and Antwerp: my copy of ‘Ministry of Food: Anyone Can Learn To Cook In 24 Hours’ cookbook by the one and only Jamie Oliver.

I ordered it all the way from Amazon UK the week before my trip so I wasn’t really expecting it to arrive so soon. But arrive it did and in pristine condition.

So why am I so excited about it? Because the recipes are simple and can be prepared in a jiffy. And more importantly, they don’t require any fancy schmancy ingredients — just simple, everyday stuff that you most probably already have in your fridge and pantry.

This one, for instance, is a recipe for Simple Pan-Fried Trout. It doesn’t have to be trout, of course, but the recipe gives you an idea of what you can do with a simple slice of fish. The presentation just makes the dish look so mouth-watering, almost like haute cuisine.

I don’t know about you but I always have this problem of wanting to try a new recipe…then finding out I don’t have the fancy ingredients (fancy being: stuff I don’t normally buy), so I end up not cooking it at all. So this recipe book is just perfect for me.

Then there’s this Basic Stew recipe…

That you can embellish and serve in four different ways!

How cool is that?! Suddenly a simple stew can look like something from a restaurant!

Jamie also teaches you how to make a humble cucumber salad…then jazz it up.

He does the same thing with a tomato salad…

The book is loaded with photos and step-by-step instructions that are easy to follow. Perfect for the beginner cook, for lazy cooks, for busy career women who’d rather spend the rest of her day relaxing rather than slaving at the kitchen, and for anyone who just needs a little bit of inspiration in the kitchen.

This cookbook’s gonna be a keeper for sure!

P.S. And in case you’re wondering why I bought it all the way from Amazon UK, for some reason, it’s cheaper to buy it from there. Even with the freight included, the book still costs RM30 less than it does in Malaysia (USD1:RM3.5). What can I say? I just can’t resist a good bargain :)