After entire school years spent grilling minute steaks at fast food joints, nights tearing mozzarella onto delivered pizzas and summers putting hideous salads together at country clubs, I was about to make hoisin chicken with pear salad. And I was terrified.
Why? Because I'm a kitchen klutz. It wasn't a question of whether I could actually finish the meal, but rather, whether I would turn that hoisin chicken into poison chicken. Don't get me wrong. I like my Michelin restaurants as much as any foodie. But with mum demanding that everyone get out of the kitchen while she whipped up the United Nations of food with ease, there was never the opportunity to learn.
Then there was Hong Kong. And, as many know here, time vanished. While I have the desire to impress with my budding culinary skills, too many late nights out mean that Jamie Oliver is not going to invite me to co-host on his shows anytime soon. As for my kitchen, Martha Stewart might have a heart attack.
Fortunately, help is at hand. Secret Ingredient and Fresh To Go now offer the kind of pre-prepped meals that can turn weary would-be chefs into the next Joel Robuchon.
At Secret Ingredient, which specialises in international dishes with touches of local flavour, three expats came up with the concept after learning about a similar themed venue in Berlin called Kochhaus. 'It's so hard to source different products in Hong Kong,' says company director Brian Campbell, a former investment banker who has years of private cooking experience both in New York and Hong Kong. 'And we really do want to show people how easy it can be to cook a great meal.'
In order to perfect their idea of creating pre-prepped meals, the trio spent months testing recipes. 'Someone would come in and say 'We had this awesome restaurant meal last night, can't we do this?' No, you can't,' laughs Campbell.
