Cooking, like a gamer

I play a lot of games, probably more than anyone else in the office. One could say playing games is one of my biggest hobbies, and another would be cooking. Not the kind of cooking you see on TV when they make the perfect steak, or some advanced 50 stage piece of duck. No, I like “Experimental Cooking”, the kind of cooking where you try new things, play around with crazy combinations and explore how different tastes go together. One could probably learn all that I have discovered in a book, by no means am I the first to find these crazy combinations or weird techniques, but discovering them for myself gives me a sense of satisfaction. (I once discovered that Tabasco flavoured popcorn is probably the greatest thing in the world, only to find out that it was actually a thing, sort of.).

But time is tight and it’s often hard to find time for a proper meal if you want to get a few hours of gaming in during your evening. Therefore I have developed a few special recipes for proper food, done the easy way. And I will share one of them below.

Total time: ~1h

Time of that spent in the kitchen: 10 min.

What you will need:

• 1 fillet of chicken. This recipe uses frozen, but thawed could easily be used as well, just skip to step 3.
• Approx. 300g frozen vegetables. I use a cheap wok-mix.
• Some frozen French Fries. (Or Freedom Fries if you live in USA)
• Oil, vinegar(optional), chinese soy(optional)
• Seasoning.
• Non euclidean oven-safe container ( I use THIS from IKEA, larger on the inside than on the outside, and very easy to handle)

Step 1: ~2 min.

1. Put the oven to over and under heat, 255C.
2. Pour some oil into the oven-safe container.
3. Add the frozen filet of chicken.
4. Put it in the middle of the oven.

Step 2: 10-15 min.

Wait, it’s in the oven. Play a few rounds of Showdown, or whatever you fancy.

Step 3: ~5 min.

1. Take the oven-safe container out of the oven.
2. Cut lines into the meat. It’s ok if it hasn’t thawed completely, just cut it up.
3. Add the frozen vegetables around the meat.
4. Add some liquid to the vegetables. I personally like to add some vinegar and Chinese soy to them. If you don’t like that, just season with what you like and add a spoonful of water.
5. Season the chicken. I usually use a BBQ-spice, some black pepper and sometimes I get creative. Here I used BBQ-spice and a weird Kebab spice I bought at the local import store.
6. Add the french fries on the side. Either use another oven-safe container or a baking tray.
7. Put it all into the middle of the oven.

Step 4: 35 min.

Wait again. Run a dungeon in WoW, start a match of Civilization 5, or whatever. (It is probably a good idea to set a timer.)

Step 5: ~3 min.

1. Take it all out of the oven.
2. Put it (or arrange, if you want it fancier) on a plate.