Wow well yesterday was quite the ride! But the show must go on. Here's a simple one I made last week

This was a "quick find something you can prep quickly" dish. Shopping, prep, photoshoot, cook, plate photo in about an hour. That's good value! Stir-fries often are, unless you need to marinate overnight or tenderise the protein (both good ideas honestly).

This was simple, to the point, small number of ingredients, unmissable. Looks like the real thing, tastes like the real thing.

Difficulty: 1/10

Family rating: 8.5/10

Dinner by Nagi Maehashi, y'all get the book, it's so worth it

Dishes: 73 and 74 of 178.

Likes from Nagi: 3 (I nearly forgot to update this)

*So I knew this was going to happen and it happened: I stuffed up on the total count. I've updated it from 175 to 178. I think there might still be some edits along the way. Not too fussed, I'm cooking everything either way.

Ok y'all, huge news, HUGE NEWS!

a user who by all accounts appears to be Nagi has joined the sub and has officially liked 3x of my posts on Reddit!

To say that I am star-struck is a massive understatement. Our favorite mod has reached out to verify if it is in fact Nagi, but hopefully this could the start of something awesome :)

Guys and gals, the counter has moved from 0 to 3. We are officially COOKING!

FYI the posts were:

• The Burritos
• The Chinese Noodle Soup
• The Forever Chocolate Cake

This has made my day, my week, my month!

I cooked this on Saturday. My daughter had some friends over and I asked her to pick a dish to cook. Burritos it was.

Looked easy enough. Until I read the fine print.

The fine print: Burrito Recipe (p210) needs shredded beef right? Yeah that's another recipe on page 208. It also needs some kind of cooked rice. That's the Mexican red-rice recipe on page 223. Oh and you need some sort of a sauce to serve it with right? Lime Crema on page 219.

So I'd set out to tick one recipe, I actually had to do 4. A 4-for-1. I can do that. And I did.

Difficulty: 4/10 - Adding 1 for shredding what felt like a metric-ton of beef. Good thing I've been hitting the gym lately. Adding another difficulty point for the actual assembly and rolling of the burritos. I let my wife sub in for this one after I tore two of them. Adding a 3rd and final difficulty point for the fact that this is an all-afternooner dish. One does not "just" decide at 6pm that they'll make burritos for dinner.

Family rating: 9/10 - This was actually an 8.5 on the night but turned into a 9.5 the next day (yes I made enough for like 14x burritos). Main difference was that we incorporate the lime crema (fabulous 10/10 dish on its own) into the burritos instead of as a dipping sauce.

Dinner by Nagi Maehashi

Dishes: 69, 70, 71 and 72 of 175.

Likes from Nagi: 0 (still)

This was really really good.

I'd made a beef ragu for the lasagne some time back and it was soooooooo tasty so was eager to do this dish. It didn't disappoint. The only gripe I had was it seemed to just be unending! Making the sauce is a bunch of steps, then the chicken is slow-cooked.. then needs to be shredded which takes longer than it sounds, then mixed with sauce and finished, then you finally get to the pasta.. Needed close to a half day for this one! Then again I'm not a speedy cook.

But it was all worth it in the end. Glad I made tons because the leftovers were also absolutely sublime.

Difficulty: 3.5/10

Family rating: 9.5/10

Dinner by Nagi Maehashi

Dishes: 64 of 175.

Likes from Nagi: 0 (still)

Failures were made, Lessons were learned.

So I had planned this dish for Friday night and marinated the chicken on Thursday (smart guy I know).

Friday rolls around and all hell breaks loose at work and I get to cooking dinner much much later than planned. I know the chicken needed about 30 minutes in the oven, dressing easy to make and coconut rice I had the usual Nagi fare of 14 minutes in my head.

Get the chicken in the oven and go to the rice recipe... rinse 4x times.. yeah ok I can do that. Rest for 1 hour. REST FOR ONE HOUR??? Figure I'm already running way behind I'll rest it for 45 mins then a quick cook and good to go. Do that, find out half way through the chicken actually needs like 50 minutes, which to be honest works in my favour here. Finish the chicken as I'm finishing resting the rice and getting ready for a 14 minute cook.. but no... this bad boy cooks in the oven for FORTY WHOLE MINUTES!

Long story short, the coconut rice, while very good, did not make the photo shoot. I threw in a bonus focaccia to cover.

Moral of the story: Read the ENTIRE recipe before committing to anything.

Difficulty: 2 / 10 - This was all easy
Family rating: 9 / 10 - Chicken hit the spot
Time management: 0 / 10
Reading skills: 1 / 10

oh also my wife was out on a work dinner so I did plating and photography (it shows). Dinner by Nagi

Dishes: 55 of 175.
Likes from Nagi: 0 (still).

Edit: I said I'd add rough cost. I had some staples already at home (rice, oil, garlic, soy sauce, salt etc). So I bought a red chilli, chicken, coconut milk, lime leaves, lemongrass, coriander and the mixed salad from Woolies. Total cost $30.55 which made "5-6" portions according to the recipe but closer to 4 big ones if you ask me. Biggest item was the 1.5kg of chicken which put me back $11.79. As you know chicken is the most affordable protein so this I'd rank this as great value. Better than pub food by a country mile.

Who doesn't love focaccia?

I've made this recipe maybe a half dozen times and it really is dead simple. I've always done them on a shallow baking tray and they've come out a bit flat (but delicious). And I've been jealous of these towering loafs I see in the kitchens of Gran Torino. I'd noticed they use deep pans for theirs ...

So I thought stuff it I'm gong to make one in a deep baking dish. Some quick high-school maths later and I'm making a shade under 2kg of dough!!

Recipe: https://www.recipetineats.com/focaccia-recipe/

Went a bit off script with the topping prep: I confied my garlic cloves in the oven while it was rising.

Difficulty: 2/10 - I mean it is baking so things can go wrong I guess

Cost: 1/10 - This is one of the cheapest recipes you can make (most bread is). It's a bit heavy on olive oil but that's it.

Family rating: 11/10 - This one is a crowd favorite. None of my focaccia's have lived long enough to celebrate their one-day birthday

What I would change next time: Absolutely nothing.

Back to the book next.

This one is mostly prep. Had the cutlets in the fridge, tried to find something to do with them (there aren't a ton of side recipes in Dinner). Did the fritters plus a couple of sauces to go with them.

Super simple to make. Meal was great but I'll be honest, I felt a bit underwhelmed. Unsure why. I think it was the fritters. I'm not sold on the rice in the fritters, it might be an Asian cuisine thing that I simply haven't been exposed to enough. They weren't bad by any means, but nothing I'd personally write home about. The pink sauce? Nice, and a cool party trick, you're literally just mixing sour cream and sriracha and you're done. The tzatziki? Did this one before and that was an absolute WIN. So good. The cutlets? Yeah, you can't really go wrong with lamb cutlets can you? Marinade was nice even if a tad over the top I think: honestly a cutlet off the bbq with a pinch of salt and I'm a happy man :)

So yeah, all in all a mixed bag emotionally. Still delicious, everyone finished everything but maybe I had set my expectations too high?

Difficulty: 2 / 10 - only hard thing was wringing the hell out of the cucumbers for the tzatziki

Family Rating: 7 / 10

Dinner by Nagi Maehashi

Dishes: 52 of 175.

Likes from Nagi: 0 (still).

Oven-braised for 5 hours in a gochujang, mirin, rice vinegar and soy sauce — from Nagi Maehashi's cookbook Dinner. Served with basmati and a quick ginger-dressed cucumber salad.

The recipe wants a full cup of mild gochujang and mine just said "HOT PEPPER", so I went 2 tbsp shy and crossed my fingers. Turns out the book says you can do exactly that, at the cost of some flavour. Came out warm rather than hot.

Four hours covered, half an hour uncovered, turn, another half hour to caramelise. About a third of the bones slid clean out as I moved them to the plate.

Ok guys be real: does this pass as Korean or not even close (I'm in Australia btw)

Woke up Sunday with zero plans. You know what that means? It means I can cook something that takes ages. So I was rifling through my Dinner cookbook looking at one thing only: cook time. Where I usually look for sub 45 mins, this time I was looking for a recipe that needed AT LEAST 3 hours. And that's when I locked eyes with these beef ribs... instant attraction.

Did the shop, ribs from the Woollies fridge, bit of a scare with the gochujang but managed to source it and then? And then pretty much do nothing: dump everything in a tray and wait 5 hours. Like seriously that was it. The result? Result was those Instagram-worthy meat sliding off the bone shots. I'm not kidding: when transferring the ribs out of the tray to the serving plate, about a third had the bone just slip right out as I was moving them!

Only scare to report: Nagi asks for "mild" gochujang, mine just said "HOT PEPPER" or something similar so I went 2 tbsp shy and crossed my fingers. Came out perfect, not blow-your-head-off spiciness. Everyone loved it.

Difficulty: 2 / 10 -> only calling this a 2 because you have to find the gochujang (South Korean spice paste) as Woollies were out of stock. Luckily discovered a small Asian grocer not too far from my place, I'm sure that will come in handy!

Family Rating: 9 / 10 (Ribs only were rated). These looked good, smelled good and tasted even better. Consistency was heavenly.

Dinner by Nagi Maehashi

Dishes: 49 of 175.

Likes from Nagi: 0 (still).

I'd done this one before (the pork). I did it on a bit of a whim tonight as I wasn't on cooking duties but had an hour to spare and thought why not?

I've burnt or generally failed at rice all my life but since Nagi I feel it's un-failable. This was no exception. Just follow the steps and you're gold.

The pork should probably be banned by the TGA for being too addictive a substance (yay for sugar).

Difficulty: 2 / 10 - there is literally nothing hard in these two recipes

Family Rating: 8.9 / 10 - the meat is crazy good but it is well cooked to get that nice colour, and the rice is just rice. The whole thing was missing some kind of a sauce to really tie it together.

Vietnamese Caramel Pork Mince (p113) and Jasmine Rice (p336), from Dinner by Nagi Maehashi.

Dishes: 45 of 175.

Likes from Nagi: 0 (still).

So this "cooking every dish in Dinner" journey has been a learning experience. And this dish was certainly that: a learning experience.

What did I learn?

I learnt that I have no idea how to cook fish. To be fair I kinda knew that already but this definitely confirmed it. I had fillets of different sizes and was a bit loose with my interpretation of cooking times.

End result: the fish was outrageously overcooked (at least mine was, kids had better cooked fillets). So I'll need to try this again.

Highlight of the dish: those mushrooms. OMG those mushrooms, basting in garlic butter... so tasty. Absolute winner. Even my daughter who "does not like mushrooms" liked them! My harsh prison guard of a wife (when it comes to rating food) gave them a 9.5 / 10!

Difficulty: 2 / 10. (yes I still managed to stuff it up)

Family Rating: 8.75 / 10. Fish score was propped up by the mushrooms

Cardiovascular Health score: -900 (probably)

Pan-Fried Fish Fillets (p139), Garlic Roasted Mushrooms (p143) and Lemon Butter Sauce (p328). From Dinner by Nagi Maehashi — the whole book's worth cooking, go buy it.

Dishes: 43 of 175.

Likes from Nagi: 0 (still).

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that the word "simple" in the recipe title was either sarcasm or a joke.

Simple strawberries and cream for the simple man I am = strawberries + cream.

It does not include a strawberry reduction. It certainly does not include caramelizing almonds. I'm fairly certain it does not require a piping bag with a six pointed star adapter. It surely does not require picking micro leaves of mint with a magnifying glass like you might see on some glossy IG cooking pages. And at no point should it require a ruler to ensure your strawberries are the same height.

And yet...

... and yet here we are.

After all of this I think I produced the most OUTSTANDING strawberries and cream known to man. At least for the humble home cook that I am.

Honestly nothing I can write can aptly describe this. Just get the book and do it. If only for that one recipe.

Difficulty: 4 / 10. Note that I may be biased as I have burnt approx. 600 caramels in the past so had some experience coming into this one. Family Rating: 10s all round. Insta-10s. No contest.

Simple Strawberries & Cream (p315). From Dinner by Nagi Maehashi — the whole book's worth cooking, go buy it.

Dishes: 40 of 175.
Likes from Nagi: 0 (still).

I was eyeing this recipe for a while. Looked like a good wintery dish and I get a nice 2-for-1 with the muffin recipe too.

2x issues with that plan: 1) it's been feeling like 25C in Sydney and 2) The dish didn't hit.

Difficulty: 2 / 10 - Super simple. This was one of those one-pot-wonders I love from RTE.

Family Rating: 3.75 / 10 for the beans and pork, 7 / 10 for the muffins.

Why? Honestly we found it was just way way way too sweet. IF I do this again I'll be cutting down substantially on treacle, sugar, ketchup etc. Maybe it's just a Southern US thing? The muffins were sweet too so it felt like we had sugar on sugar and no real escape. To be fair we ate the leftovers the next day with some plain rice and wow that elevated the pork and beans dish instantly. So maybe I *will* do this again one day? Either way, chalking this one down in the learnings category.

Muffins landed really well and we all agreed that we could try those again with maybe some bacon or other ingredients inside them.

I guess they can't all be winners! Spoiler though: the dessert (I'll post that tomorrow) was off the charts.

Southern Pork & Beans (p70) and Cornbread Muffins (p342). From Dinner by Nagi Maehashi — the whole book's worth cooking, go buy it.

Dishes: 39 of 175.

Likes from Nagi: 0 (still).

OH IN OTHER NEWS THAT SHOULD ACTUALLY BE THE HEADLINE: JB (the French chef that works at RTE) tagged my Instagram post in one of his stories.

IT'S HAPPENING!!!! WE ARE ON THE RADAR GUYS!

This was the dessert I made the other day when I made the prawn linguine. Initially set out to make a Poire Amanadine (my wife's favorite cake) but my daughter suggested I get raspberries too and chuck some in there. Why not? I'm not adventurous like the ladies of the house but let's go.

So I made 2x tarts, a big one and a small one for my daughter. Ended up adding raspberries to both.

The crust is from JB and you can find it here: https://www.recipetineats.com/sweet-tart-crust-french-pastry-pate-sucree/

Absolute master class of a crust recipe. I think I have a photo up there but come out great every time.

Got back home pretty late (6:30) yesterday and wife suggested "should we get some take-away"? I had other ideas: "how about I cook something that will be *better* than any uber-eats AND cheaper??"

Yes I knew the smash-burgers were going to be an easy W with the family and quick to make. Tonight WAS the night. I did get assistance from the wife to prep and we made a small side-salad mainly to tick off another recipe (the Asian dressing). Despite having to run to the shops and doing all burgers sequentially, we were eating at 7:30.

Difficulty: 5.5 / 10 I'm giving this one a 5.5 because I cooked 4x of these and I can only do them one at a time (can only fit two large patties in my cast iron pan). And there are a number of steps to do in very short time:

- smash patties

- season patties

- toast bun in oven

- do not burn bun in oven

- flip patties and add cheese

- remove slightly burnt buns from oven

- butter buns

- assemble burger

- remove patties from pan and finish build

That's a 3-min window end to end. And then straight onto the next while figuring out a way to not get the first burgers to cool down. I dunno maybe I'm over dramatizing it but it felt like one of those live kitchen shows

Family rating: son gave it a solid 9. Daughter said she felt it was a 9, but couldn't justify what *could* make it a 10, so adjusted her rating to a 10. Wife gave it an 8 (she is French so that's worth about an 11 by any other standard) and admitted that the seasoning was bang on and that the raw onion, an ingredient she usually avoids, worked especially well with the rest of the ingredients on this dish. Overall: let's say 9.5. Oh yeah I demolished this thing.

Asian dressing and salad were super nice too btw.

So much more satisfying than uber-eats...

3-Minute Double Smash Burgers (p84) and Asian Sesame Dressing (p333). From Dinner by Nagi — the whole book's worth cooking, go buy it.

Dishes done: 37 of 175.

Likes from Nagi: 0 (still).

Crispy garlic chicken thighs.

Yeah so this is another recipe I would never have done. I'm just not a huge fan of chicken. I eat it, I enjoy it but I won't go out of my way for it or order some in a restaurant.

But you can't cook all the recipes in the book if you don't cook them all can you?

Difficulty: 1 / 10 - Not going to get much simpler than this

Family rating: 7 / 10 - that's just my rating. And honestly this was a lot better than I was expecting. The crust was crusty and crisp, and the sauce makes the dish: garlic pan juices. I doubled the recipe's garlic so that might have helped too!

Crispy Garlic Chicken Thighs (p133). From Dinner by Nagi — the whole book's worth cooking, go buy it.

Dishes: 35 of 175.

Likes from Nagi: 0 (still).

So I'd flagged this dish down because when I made the wonton soup on Saturday I ended up with tons of prawn heads and shells, a note in the book said use these to make the prawn stock for the linguine. Anyway ended up binning the shells (they don't keep) but now I knew what my next dish was!

And yeah you have to make a prawn stock... like proper reduction of prawn HEADS... how cool right?

Onto the dish itself: ABSOLUTE BANGER. I made it for my wife's birthday and she was stunned. Restaurant quality she said. And I have to admit: the flavours are just a notch above. That's what you get when you finish the pasta in the prawn stock. Super powerful flavours.

Kids demolished this one too. I'm giving this a 9.5 / 10 only because my biggest gripe is that it's impossible to get good tomatoes in aussie supermarkets.

Difficulty: 6/10 nothing too difficult in and of itself but a lot of prep, shelling, deveining, reducing, frying, boiling. Lots going on

Family Rating: 9.5/10 (see above)

Restaurant-worthy Easy Prawn Linguine (p173). From Dinner by Nagi Maehashi — the whole book's worth cooking, go buy it.

Dishes: 34 of 175.

Likes from Nagi: 0 (still).

Wonton soup.

My daughter requested this dish because I'd made the Chinese broth before and it's delicious. But wontons? Lol yeah nah.

I'd never made a wonton in my life before this. Turns out it's not *that* hard but making 60x takes ages. Good thing said daughter became a wonton making expert with me!

Worth every minute though. Prawn and pork, greens, noodles, broth. Awesome.

Difficulty: 5 / 10 Nothing here is hard. The folding is just long.

Family rating: 9 / 10 Empty bowls.

Wonton Soup (p246). From Dinner by Nagi Maehashi — the whole book's worth cooking, go buy it.

Dishes: 33 of 175.

Likes from Nagi: 0 (still).

Easy crusty artisan bread.

Who doesn't love home made bread? This is so simple to make, you literally just have to wait twice (once for the rise and once for the cook). Then you're done. And you look like a superstar! I'll contact Nagi and tell her this one needs to be renamed "Incredibly easy crusty artisan bread"

Difficulty: 0.5 / 10 This thing basically cooks itself. Family rating: 9 / 10 - making bread has always been pretty alpha in my book (despite it being dead simple)

Easy Crusty Artisan Bread (p341). From Dinner by Nagi — the whole book's worth cooking, go buy it.

Dishes: 32 of 175.

Likes from Nagi: 0 (still).

Steak, basted in butter with garlic and rosemary. Garlic roast potatoes and a béarnaise on the side.

My doctor is going to HATE me for this one. I turned a blind eye to the gargantuan amounts of butter that went into the steak baste and the bearnaise. But with that amount of butter, god damn was this dish going to be good and it was. Note though I did go all out and paid a small house deposit for some top end steaks from a top end butcher. It was worth it.

Difficulty: [2/10] - sauce is literally 2 mins on a pot and a blitz. Oh we had to clarify butter too, that was fun (and easy). Potatoes just had to be peeled and cut, that was basically it. Steaks only really had to be basted in butter, just like you see on all those Instagram reels. Simple as.

Family rating: [9/10] - instant classic. Daughter commented "I feel like this is the kind of dish I could expect from a high-end restaurant". Unsure if that's true, but it was DELICIOUS. Points deducted for lack of fresh tarragon (only dried available) making the bearnaise a bit below what it could truly deliver. Oh and to be faire I think I could hav cooked it 30s less it would have been just that redder.

Leftovers: none.

Butter-Basted Steak (p137), Garlic Roast Potatoes (p338) and Béarnaise Sauce (p331), from Dinner by Nagi Maehashi — the whole book's worth cooking, go buy it.

Dishes: 29, 30 and 31 of 175.

Likes from Nagi: 0 (still).