Gourmet cooking made simple- My experience with iChef

Come 2015 and I have a lot of things I wish to achieve this year- get back on track with my career, travel, be able to start saving up big time and of course expand my foodie journey (not my size) by eating different kinds of food and learning how to cook few of my favourite dishes.

Over time I have realized that Asian/ Oriental food and Biryanis make me really happy- yes I can literally have Biryani day in and day out (it should be tasty of course); and most of the times when I go out I am looking to try some or other Asian dish or just satisfy my craving with a good green thai curry, or some sushi, pad thai noodles or khow suey. So of course, going by what satisfies my taste buds, these are the dishes that I want to be able to master in cooking. One of my last posts in the year 2014 was a Green Thai Curry recipe (you can read about it here).  This year when I read about iChef on Zenia Irani’s blog Branded Bawi, I was more than excited to try out something myself.

iChef offers you gourmet meals recipe kits (read:  a variety of recipes to choose from on their website; delivery at your doorstep- including same day delivery;  pre-measured and labelled ingredients;  and a step by step recipe card with pictures). An excellent concept for those who do not get cooking a gourmet meal because:

1. no time to pick up ingredients
2. most gourmet recipes call for ingredients that we would use once and not for a while leading to wastage of ingredients and money
3. just don’t know how to cook such dishes but are willing to try
4. too damn lazy to go out and shop and have happily given in to online shopping for most basic essentials.

So yes, looking to cook a lovely gourmet meal for yourself, or for your parents/spouse/friends or kids but do not have the time to pick up the ingredients because of traffic, unreasonable working hours, etc, etc? iChef is here to the rescue.

The ingredients are delivered in this cute cloth bag!

How does one exactly go about getting this super cool iChef experience?

• Visit the website and go through the menu for that week. They change their menu every two weeks and each set includes 3 vegetarian and 3 non-vegetarian dishes including  Italian, Mexican, Asian cuisines. They even do salads.
• Order the recipe kit for the meal that you want to cook by placing an order online giving them basic details about yourself. You can choose the time slot within which you would like your iChef kit to be delivered
• Wait for the delivery.
• Once delivered, just follow the instructions given in the recipe card.
• Present this dish to whoever you made it for/ gobble it yourself.

Yes. It’s that simple!

I was extremely delighted to find a Khow Suey, a Burmese soup- dish meal prepared with coconut milk and gram flour with the addition of various vegetables and meat of choice, recipe kit on their menu last week- and this is how, thanks to iChef,  I finally prepared Khow Suey for the first time!

Pre-measured and labelled ingredients

Step 1. The recipe called for prepping the ingredients which basically included washing and cutting the vegetables that would go in the Khow Suey.

Carrot, Red Bell Pepper, Green Capsicum, Kaffir Lime leaves, Green Chilies

Step 2. Boiling the rice noodles in a pan and putting them aside to cool.

Step 3. Saute the vegetables. Add the curry paste and gram flour.

Step 4. Add the water mixed with the coconut powder and stock powder and then bring it to boil.

Step 5. Once the curry comes to a boil, strain the noodles and add them to the curry. After cooking for another two minutes add the basil and peanuts.

Step 6: Transfer the dish to two bowls. Sprinkle the coriander and garnish provided. Dig in!

Observations:

1. At a short notice I had requested the delivery to be done at a particular time within the allotted time slot and the iChef people were extremely courteous and obliged to my request. 
2. The ingredients were fresh, of top quality and were well packed. No leakage or spillage.
3. The recipe card has pictures and was easy to follow. Even a beginner can cook up a fine gourmet meal with such simple and well explained instructions.
4. The recipe kit serves 2 but the outcome was more than enough for my friend and me. I had some left overs for my mid night hunger pangs!
5. At Rs. 250 totally VFM.
6. With things made so simple, you can expect gourmet home cooked meals from the men in your life! A good idea for the upcoming Valentine's day? ;)

While this process makes cooking simpler, chopping vegetables can still be a hassle for some who really do not have the time after coming back home from a hectic office schedule. It would be great if iChef could introduce chopped and prepped veggies at a minimal additional amount. Further, introduction of some Indian dishes and half baked chapatis would do wonders!

Other than that, I was extremely satisfied with my iChef experience and I know I will be ordering from them quite regularly. 

You can visit the iChef website and check out the gourmet meal that you wish to cook next :)

(The author ordered from the website anonymously and paid for her own meal.)