Yes, haybox cooking is more like slow-cooker cooking than anything else. As a rough guide, you need to triple the cooking time from a standard recipe, so her "three hours in the oven" would be 9 hours in the haybox, and I think it would need more insulation than a dressing gown in a box.
Slopalong: Cooking with Jack Monroe
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BIB: thread title nomination!!
I have a fan oven that I normally reduce the temperature and time when cooking however as no mention is made of this (and usually in cookbooks it does talk about this) I gave it the full 45 mins. After the time was up I took it out, and it was still liquid so I put it back in for another 12 mins, however that was enough for it to sink. It then got taken out of the oven and left to cool. I then girded my loins and did like Jack did and cut a slice.
The inside was wet and soggy, there is no way that would every dry out and become a cake, and no Jack that isn't fudgy, it is just soggy
I then tasted it. It tasted of water with a bitter disgusting aftertaste. No chocolate, very little lime, and not in the slightest bit sweet. This recipe has never been made by her as it simply wouldn't work. There is no way that anyone would willingly eat this. This actually makes me really angry as if you were hard up that would be money wasted as not way could this be eaten, and if you weren't a baker you would think you had done something wrong. I suggest zooming in on the cut slice photo to see the true horror.
If in being kind I would give it a 1
The inside was wet and soggy, there is no way that would every dry out and become a cake, and no Jack that isn't fudgy, it is just soggy
I then tasted it. It tasted of water with a bitter disgusting aftertaste. No chocolate, very little lime, and not in the slightest bit sweet. This recipe has never been made by her as it simply wouldn't work. There is no way that anyone would willingly eat this. This actually makes me really angry as if you were hard up that would be money wasted as not way could this be eaten, and if you weren't a baker you would think you had done something wrong. I suggest zooming in on the cut slice photo to see the true horror.
If in being kind I would give it a 1
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Goulash
First, a note about the name: goulash is a flexible and adaptable dish and there are hundreds of variants, so I'm not going to complain too much about the name. However, there's no caraway and not much paprika flavour - this is primarily a tomato-based dish, and is yet another variant on Reconstructed Baked Beans.
Ingredients
I already had everything apart from the baked beans - so 50p for those, everything else was free.
I used a tsp of bouillon powder rather than a stock cube, and forgot to get the sugar out for this photo but did remember to use it at the right time.
Method
Results
Taste: 2
Tomato blandness. I added a pinch of salt (none listed in the ingredients or method), and it brought out much more of the tomato taste, as well as what little remained of the paprika warmth. Unfortunately, it also brought out the burnt taste - so it was probably better without.
Texture: 1
Too watery. Too oily. The sliced onions were odd - slicing is good for onions if you're going to be caramelising them, but here they were just slimy; they should have been diced.
Look: 2
Mashed up beans, onion rings, and splotches of oil.
Process: 1
She hasn't tested this properly. The paprika is added too early, which means it tastes burnt rather than giving a sweet warmth. 4 tbsp of oil is excessive - half that would have been enough, and it should have been the first thing into the pan. The instructions about stirring are inconsistent. There's too much liquid (and there'd be even more with value tinned tomatoes rather than the fancy brand I used), and not enough time for it to reduce down. The beans should be treated more gently and heated for half the time. It needed seasoning.
And most importantly, there's no need to have rinsed the baked beans. Adding them whole would have avoided the need for the half-can of water and the tsp of sugar, and would have made a thicker, more appealing sauce.
Nutrition: 1
I reckon this is about 1,060 kcals, with about 38g of protein when you account for the rinsing.
She says this serves 4, so that's 265 kcals and 9.5g of protein per portion - about 13% of the calories and 20% of the protein needed in a day.
...but 45% of the calories come from the oil, so this terribly balanced.
Overall rating: 1 - Dire
I actually gave this a 2 initially, but reading it back I've changed my mind: it can't possibly be a 2 when every single bit of the method is wrong.
If this had been tested and the worst errors fixed, it could have been a 3. To get higher than that, I'd want to see:
It's clear that it hasn't been tested. A confident cook is likely to avoid most of the problems by ignoring her instructions, but for anyone else this recipe is going to lead to waste and disappointment.
First, a note about the name: goulash is a flexible and adaptable dish and there are hundreds of variants, so I'm not going to complain too much about the name. However, there's no caraway and not much paprika flavour - this is primarily a tomato-based dish, and is yet another variant on Reconstructed Baked Beans.
Ingredients
I already had everything apart from the baked beans - so 50p for those, everything else was free.
I used a tsp of bouillon powder rather than a stock cube, and forgot to get the sugar out for this photo but did remember to use it at the right time.
Method
First, I finely sliced the onions and garlic. She doesn't explain why you should do this rather than say, chop the onions and crush the garlic as I would normally do, but I wanted to follow the instructions as closely as possible.
Next, I added them to a cold pan along with the paprika and 4 tbsp of oil. As you can see, I tried to recreate my Tattle avatar but my artistic skills leave something to be desired:
I switched the heat on, and left them to fry gently. At this point, I have to admit that I deviated from the instructions as written by stirring occasionally. I simply didn't realise that she told readers to stir at every other point in the recipe but not here. Sorry! I hope I haven't ruined it.
After about two minutes, the paprika started to turn a dark brown colour and began to smell a little burnt. The smell got stronger over the next 7 or 8 minutes until the onions and garlic had softened.
Paprika has a high sugar content, and is therefore quite delicate. It would be more usual to wait until the onions had softened and then turn the heat down. The paprika could then be stirred in immediately before the tomatoes were added - this would allow the flavour to infuse into the oil without letting it burn.
As it was, I added the tomatoes, bouillon powder, sugar, and half a can of water, stirred it together, and brought it to a low simmer. Meanwhile, it was time to rinse the beans:
She tells us to do this by blasting them with cold water. The water pressure in my flat turns out to be high enough to mush up some of the beans, so I assume that this was sufficiently blast-like.
After fifteen minutes had passed, the sauce was still fairly liquid:
I was tempted to give it more time to reduce down but decided to stick to the instructions, so went ahead and added the beans. I stirred well, and simmered the mixture for a further ten minutes.
If the intention was to simply heat the beans, this turns out to have been too long - the beans were beginning to fall apart. At the same time, the sauce was still quite liquid:
Next, I added them to a cold pan along with the paprika and 4 tbsp of oil. As you can see, I tried to recreate my Tattle avatar but my artistic skills leave something to be desired:
I switched the heat on, and left them to fry gently. At this point, I have to admit that I deviated from the instructions as written by stirring occasionally. I simply didn't realise that she told readers to stir at every other point in the recipe but not here. Sorry! I hope I haven't ruined it.
After about two minutes, the paprika started to turn a dark brown colour and began to smell a little burnt. The smell got stronger over the next 7 or 8 minutes until the onions and garlic had softened.
Paprika has a high sugar content, and is therefore quite delicate. It would be more usual to wait until the onions had softened and then turn the heat down. The paprika could then be stirred in immediately before the tomatoes were added - this would allow the flavour to infuse into the oil without letting it burn.
As it was, I added the tomatoes, bouillon powder, sugar, and half a can of water, stirred it together, and brought it to a low simmer. Meanwhile, it was time to rinse the beans:
She tells us to do this by blasting them with cold water. The water pressure in my flat turns out to be high enough to mush up some of the beans, so I assume that this was sufficiently blast-like.
After fifteen minutes had passed, the sauce was still fairly liquid:
I was tempted to give it more time to reduce down but decided to stick to the instructions, so went ahead and added the beans. I stirred well, and simmered the mixture for a further ten minutes.
If the intention was to simply heat the beans, this turns out to have been too long - the beans were beginning to fall apart. At the same time, the sauce was still quite liquid:
Results
Taste: 2
Tomato blandness. I added a pinch of salt (none listed in the ingredients or method), and it brought out much more of the tomato taste, as well as what little remained of the paprika warmth. Unfortunately, it also brought out the burnt taste - so it was probably better without.
Texture: 1
Too watery. Too oily. The sliced onions were odd - slicing is good for onions if you're going to be caramelising them, but here they were just slimy; they should have been diced.
Look: 2
Mashed up beans, onion rings, and splotches of oil.
Process: 1
She hasn't tested this properly. The paprika is added too early, which means it tastes burnt rather than giving a sweet warmth. 4 tbsp of oil is excessive - half that would have been enough, and it should have been the first thing into the pan. The instructions about stirring are inconsistent. There's too much liquid (and there'd be even more with value tinned tomatoes rather than the fancy brand I used), and not enough time for it to reduce down. The beans should be treated more gently and heated for half the time. It needed seasoning.
And most importantly, there's no need to have rinsed the baked beans. Adding them whole would have avoided the need for the half-can of water and the tsp of sugar, and would have made a thicker, more appealing sauce.
Nutrition: 1
I reckon this is about 1,060 kcals, with about 38g of protein when you account for the rinsing.
She says this serves 4, so that's 265 kcals and 9.5g of protein per portion - about 13% of the calories and 20% of the protein needed in a day.
...but 45% of the calories come from the oil, so this terribly balanced.
Overall rating: 1 - Dire
I actually gave this a 2 initially, but reading it back I've changed my mind: it can't possibly be a 2 when every single bit of the method is wrong.
If this had been tested and the worst errors fixed, it could have been a 3. To get higher than that, I'd want to see:
- not rinsing the baked beans,
- giving some affordances for the trickier elements (trying to keep the beans intact for instance, or mentioning that a tsp of vinegar would help the taste if the paprika was burnt),
- fixing the nutrition - perhaps by adding a baked potato and maybe some cheese, or serving with bread or rice, or frying up some cooking bacon before adding the onions.
It's clear that it hasn't been tested. A confident cook is likely to avoid most of the problems by ignoring her instructions, but for anyone else this recipe is going to lead to waste and disappointment.
Again, she has never, ever done this. There is something called a Wonderbag, which resurfaces every so often. A towel and a box would not be enough, you need a thick duvet or two for the food to carry on cooking. She is despicable.This has been such a wonderful day, canal. Thankyou for each and every sterling effort and DIRE result.
Holy hell, @Hollaaa
Talking of unusual cooking methods, is anyone game for trying her "cassoulet". With the sincerest of apologies to anyone remotely French, French-adjacent or even in possession of a beret:
Jack Monroe’s energy-saving cassoulet – recipe
Slow-cooked dishes don’t need to sit on the hob or in the oven for hours. After a short blast of heat, they can be tightly wrapped in a towel and left to carry on cooking at no costwww.theguardian.com
Cook the pork in a dressing gown. PUT IT IN MY VEINS
Also, what is her blooming obsession with vinegar or lemon juice in EVERYTHING??
God. I think this is the worst one yet.
Shall we add this to the list of recipes she's seen somewhere, fiddled with (without testing) and appropriated ? She's such a lying, grifting charlatan.
Ha, I tried this! I didn't take pictures of my hands as my fingertips still have the remaining sharpie stains on them....
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I’m starting to think Jack doesn’t know the difference between slicing, dicing and chopping. Or she does but thinks the words are herbily interchangeable.
I thank you!
Despite having drunk a pint of squash I can still taste it, and I literally had about a1cm cube
That picture of the cut slice is incredible. How can she be getting away with this?!
Can I also add that I bake an awful lot, and even write the odd recipe, and I am pretty good at it but that is the most rank thing I've ever ever made
No idea, it's not fair is it when there are loads of really good cookery writers struggling to get published
You're a better Frau than me. A pint of vodka wouldn't have been enough.
(Could you wrap your actual tea in a tea towel, place it softly, gently in your fudge-manger and come back in a few hours? x)
I’m more confident now than I’ve ever been, that the recipe books are utterly unused in almost every household they’re in.
The recipes are a performative way for people to support her and no way intended to be cooked.
Neither Jack nor the team of editors, publishers or recipe testers have tested these and this thread should be shared as a warning to anyone who considers spending their hard earned money on her books.
if proof were needed that the target audience is not poor people, living from food bank parcel to food bank parcel, this thread is it.
Nobody who is money and time poor is going to risk the little they have making this stuff.
The recipes are a performative way for people to support her and no way intended to be cooked.
Neither Jack nor the team of editors, publishers or recipe testers have tested these and this thread should be shared as a warning to anyone who considers spending their hard earned money on her books.
if proof were needed that the target audience is not poor people, living from food bank parcel to food bank parcel, this thread is it.
Nobody who is money and time poor is going to risk the little they have making this stuff.
I will try this for science. I have some chicken thighs that were deliveredThis has been such a wonderful day, canal. Thankyou for each and every sterling effort and DIRE result.
Holy hell, @Hollaaa
Talking of unusual cooking methods, is anyone game for trying her "cassoulet". With the sincerest of apologies to anyone remotely French, French-adjacent or even in possession of a beret:
Jack Monroe’s energy-saving cassoulet – recipe
Slow-cooked dishes don’t need to sit on the hob or in the oven for hours. After a short blast of heat, they can be tightly wrapped in a towel and left to carry on cooking at no cost
Cook the pork in a dressing gown. PUT IT IN MY VEINS
I’ll need to wait til my Old Harold is at work because I have no idea how the duck I would explain this. I’ll do it next weekend so I can get it chucked for bin collection day on Monday
EXACTLY THIS. This entire post needs to be pinned to the first page of each subsequent thread and added to the Wiki. I wish I could like it more than once. Plus, as this review shows, it totally fucks over its alleged target audience.
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She has another courgette cake recipe that might work better as she grates and then squeezes the water out of them, but this would never work as there is nothing to bind the ingredients together, and there is far too much liquid in it from the veggies. There is a reason than vegan cakes generally use specific things to replace the egg, marmalade just won't do it.
So I would imagine she had thought I need another recipe, hell let's just blend everything together, that will do
Phase 3. Out of the airing cupboard and into an oven at 150C (fan), which seems quite low for bread, but what do I know, Jack has made LOADS OF LOAVES. there's no instruction from Jack about what to do in terms of covering the loaf for the second rise (despite her kneadlessly pedantic instructions for kneading) so I asked Mr Beacon what he thought - so we ended up covering it with cling film again. Possibly an error as I think it has stopped it rising. Or possibly a blessing in disguise in case it was going to achieve sentience in the airing cupboard. Anyway. We bake this bugger for an HOUR now.
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