10-minutes Mains

Sunday dinners as tantalizing as the sunset.

While I luxuriate in the kitchen preparing Saturdays' dinners, the family vegges out on Sunday evenings. And that means my mains are prepared, cooked and consumed super fast - so that we can spend the evening finding out what happens next in "Torchwood - Miracle Day" on dvd.

While Italian spiced sausages (bought from Cold Storage) may grace the dinner table on such occasions, it's the occasional occasion that I resort to grilling them. Often I still prepare and cook my mains: I just make sure that the meat will be ready within 10 minutes.

Off my head, I can mention three meat dishes that I can successfully dish out within the time limit I set myself: roasted lamb cutlets dressed with a honey mustard sauce, sauteed salmon fillet that's served with wedges of caramerlised lemons and pan fried pork belly that's drenched in a sauteed orange marmalade sauce. Yes, all three takes just ten minutes. But that doesn't mean that I've compromised on flavour. Oh no, I still stand by my motto that "the test is still in the taste". And my hubby swears that these dishes are on par with recipes I slave for hours on end on Saturdays.

So the moral of today's blog entry is this: the complexity of preparing and cooking a dish is by no means a sure fire means of enhancing flavour. No, the actual trick is in using ingredients that harmonize and create that perfect balance in contrast. And that can even be achieved with just a few ingredients.

My pork dish, for example, is complimented with only salt, pepper, bay leaves and a generous splash of marmalade. The crux that takes this meat dish to the next level is in investing in a good quality jam. The best I've tried is a Duchy's, with Hediard's coming in a close second. Anything else makes this dish a complete waste of time.