Restaurants at home kits
Discussion
craigjm said:
I don’t see the point in the same way I don’t see the point in hello fresh or anything like that. Recipes are so easy to find these days for anything you want to make and the ingredients freely available.
Have you tried any of these kits?The one we had from Cote was better than anything I could cook. It cost me £56 and I could probably not have bought all the ingredients for that figure.
Mindful Chef do nice boxes for £60 or so which gives you five lots of bagged-up ingredients for meals for two, some veggie, some with meat (all ingredients included), well labelled food and easy instructions, food is mainly delicious. We'll definitely be doing some of the meals ourselves again having got in some of the more obscure ingredients like pomegranate syrup as these are the ones that seem to make the dishes special. Recipe book comes with. Good value we reckon.
We had the valentines day special from John's House yesterday.
Bread rolls and salted butter
Salmon and prawn, with oyster emulsion, dill emulsion and and a horseraddish and dill sauce. This was all cold and just needed plating up. The salmon and prawns were excellent as were the emulsions and sauce
Main was belly pork with potato cake, broccoli and aubergines with a curry sauce. The pork, potato cake and aubergines had already been sous vides, so just needed frying and resting, only took 15 minutes following simple instructions.
Dessert was chocolate parfaits with an assortment of cream and sauces.
Followed by petit fours.
£90 including a good half bottle of champagne, and we also spent extra on a flight of wines to go with it.
Very good value for money and made for a fun night in.
Bread rolls and salted butter
Salmon and prawn, with oyster emulsion, dill emulsion and and a horseraddish and dill sauce. This was all cold and just needed plating up. The salmon and prawns were excellent as were the emulsions and sauce
Main was belly pork with potato cake, broccoli and aubergines with a curry sauce. The pork, potato cake and aubergines had already been sous vides, so just needed frying and resting, only took 15 minutes following simple instructions.
Dessert was chocolate parfaits with an assortment of cream and sauces.
Followed by petit fours.
£90 including a good half bottle of champagne, and we also spent extra on a flight of wines to go with it.
Very good value for money and made for a fun night in.
Louis Balfour said:
craigjm said:
I don’t see the point in the same way I don’t see the point in hello fresh or anything like that. Recipes are so easy to find these days for anything you want to make and the ingredients freely available.
Have you tried any of these kits?The one we had from Cote was better than anything I could cook. It cost me £56 and I could probably not have bought all the ingredients for that figure.
craigjm said:
Louis Balfour said:
craigjm said:
I don’t see the point in the same way I don’t see the point in hello fresh or anything like that. Recipes are so easy to find these days for anything you want to make and the ingredients freely available.
Have you tried any of these kits?The one we had from Cote was better than anything I could cook. It cost me £56 and I could probably not have bought all the ingredients for that figure.
£3.75
Marinated Heritage Beetroot (1 x £4.95)
£4.95
Prawn Gratinée (1 x £9.50)
£9.50
Filet aux truffes (2 x £14.95)
£29.90
Creamed Spinach (1 x £3.95)
£3.95
Minted Peas (1 x £3.95)
£3.95
Louis Balfour said:
craigjm said:
Louis Balfour said:
craigjm said:
I don’t see the point in the same way I don’t see the point in hello fresh or anything like that. Recipes are so easy to find these days for anything you want to make and the ingredients freely available.
Have you tried any of these kits?The one we had from Cote was better than anything I could cook. It cost me £56 and I could probably not have bought all the ingredients for that figure.
£3.75
Marinated Heritage Beetroot (1 x £4.95)
£4.95
Prawn Gratinée (1 x £9.50)
£9.50
Filet aux truffes (2 x £14.95)
£29.90
Creamed Spinach (1 x £3.95)
£3.95
Minted Peas (1 x £3.95)
£3.95
Edited by craigjm on Sunday 14th February 15:25
21TonyK said:
With the kits are meat cuts pre-cooked, ie. sous vide?
The cote one just mentioned appears to be like M&S ready meals https://coteathome.co.uk/
From Gymkhana it was a mix as you'd probably expect Tony, being in the catering game.
Pork cheek vindaloo was pre-cooked boil in the bag - imagine they do this in the restaurant too. Kid goat keema was required to be heated through in a pan. King prawns (dinner plate size!) were raw.
Very good, albeit a bit of hassle doing everything at once.
Pork cheek vindaloo was pre-cooked boil in the bag - imagine they do this in the restaurant too. Kid goat keema was required to be heated through in a pan. King prawns (dinner plate size!) were raw.
Very good, albeit a bit of hassle doing everything at once.
craigjm said:
21TonyK said:
With the kits are meat cuts pre-cooked, ie. sous vide?
The cote one just mentioned appears to be like M&S ready meals https://coteathome.co.uk/
Most of these kits seem like they still require a reasonable amount of effort with chances of it all going wrong at some point.
Like the bream dish, that relies on cooking skills quite a few might struggle with. I assume these all come with real step-by-step guides?
I quite like the look of the cote offering but its the sort of thing I cook every day anyway. The only one I have seen that I was interested in was my local M* place but thats £75 a head and I can emulate 99% of what he does, albeit not quite the same standard!
craigjm said:
with Hello Fresh and the like you actually learn to cook
Why the blazes would I want to do that?In all seriousness, I do cook quite regularly. But to cook one-off meals requires a lot of expense for items (seasoning for example) that will never be used again.
The Cote stuff was just like a M&S ready meal and came out tasting just like the same dish at a Cote restaurant. Which makes me think that the restaurants receive some of their dishes (if not most) as ready meals and they heat them up.
The Northcote meal was pretty foolproof, it took little more skill than an M&S dine in for £10. Getting the servings to your plate at regular intervals took a but of forward planning (I wrote a timescale) but nothing beyond the wit of man.
I think they're perfectly positioned at the home chef.
I've got the pizza oven, steam oven, sous vide machine etc so I obviously like a go, but at the same time I'd turn my nose up at the aforementioned M&S dine in for £10-I can do better than that!
But I do occasionally love going out to a really good chef's place-not because they can do stuff that's impossible to me but because they come up with interesting things I wouldn't have thought of. Or to try a particular dish I wouldn't have made for maybe four of us but which I really fancied.
Despite not liking last night's, rather than put me off it's actually encouraged me to try more. I loved the whole experience of doing it and we both enjoyed getting dressed up for a secret night out while the kids were tucked up in bed
I think they're perfectly positioned at the home chef.
I've got the pizza oven, steam oven, sous vide machine etc so I obviously like a go, but at the same time I'd turn my nose up at the aforementioned M&S dine in for £10-I can do better than that!
But I do occasionally love going out to a really good chef's place-not because they can do stuff that's impossible to me but because they come up with interesting things I wouldn't have thought of. Or to try a particular dish I wouldn't have made for maybe four of us but which I really fancied.
Despite not liking last night's, rather than put me off it's actually encouraged me to try more. I loved the whole experience of doing it and we both enjoyed getting dressed up for a secret night out while the kids were tucked up in bed
Louis Balfour said:
craigjm said:
with Hello Fresh and the like you actually learn to cook
Why the blazes would I want to do that? 
Louis Balfour said:
The Cote stuff was just like a M&S ready meal and came out tasting just like the same dish at a Cote restaurant. Which makes me think that the restaurants receive some of their dishes (if not most) as ready meals and they heat them up.
Oh yeah absolutely. Most of the chains are doing exactly that and to be able to turn out an "at home" service like that as quick as cote did just shows you that. Anywhere that has more than a handful of starters, mains and desserts on its menu is doing exactly that too generally or cooking from a base like most indian and chinese restaurants.Louis Balfour said:
craigjm said:
Louis Balfour said:
craigjm said:
I don’t see the point in the same way I don’t see the point in hello fresh or anything like that. Recipes are so easy to find these days for anything you want to make and the ingredients freely available.
Have you tried any of these kits?The one we had from Cote was better than anything I could cook. It cost me £56 and I could probably not have bought all the ingredients for that figure.
£3.75
Marinated Heritage Beetroot (1 x £4.95)
£4.95
Prawn Gratinée (1 x £9.50)
£9.50
Filet aux truffes (2 x £14.95)
£29.90
Creamed Spinach (1 x £3.95)
£3.95
Minted Peas (1 x £3.95)
£3.95
I could cook that twice over and have enough change left over for wine!
craigjm said:
21TonyK said:
With the kits are meat cuts pre-cooked, ie. sous vide?
The cote one just mentioned appears to be like M&S ready meals https://coteathome.co.uk/
The portions, this says its serves 2. Do you get 2x this, and its just one portion shown? (There's another plate hiding i think?)
johnboy1975 said:
craigjm said:
21TonyK said:
With the kits are meat cuts pre-cooked, ie. sous vide?
The cote one just mentioned appears to be like M&S ready meals https://coteathome.co.uk/
The portions, this says its serves 2. Do you get 2x this, and its just one portion shown? (There's another plate hiding i think?)
By coincidence, there's a BBC article today which part covers the kits - Lisa Goodwin-Allen does say she got the idea from the last Great British Menu, where they adapted their courses for home finishing - can't remember which, but one of the other chefs was already producing these meals and had set up an industrial unit for that purpose which they used.
21TonyK said:
Thats per head so £15 for what you see. Taking into account the packaging and delivery costs its probably not that profitable unless you get into mutliples, sides and desserts.
But it says "serves 2"?Found some lamb rump from my local butcher (£7.50/500g) which is better value )and less confusing.)
I'll broadly follow this, unless anyone comes up with better?
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/roasted-lamb-r...
(Which takes us off topic)
johnboy1975 said:
21TonyK said:
Thats per head so £15 for what you see. Taking into account the packaging and delivery costs its probably not that profitable unless you get into mutliples, sides and desserts.
But it says "serves 2"?Found some lamb rump from my local butcher (£7.50/500g) which is better value )and less confusing.)
I'll broadly follow this, unless anyone comes up with better?
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/roasted-lamb-r...
(Which takes us off topic)
It is also possible to cook at home for less than going to a restaurant.
It isn't really the point, is it.
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