No more just waiting around for the new season of MasterChef — you can be a master chef at home, too, as Gordon Ramsay would say. Grab those white aprons, there’s no elimination round here, fortunately.
With all the hours spent indoors at home, you should be doing more than working from your laptop and pacing back and forth in your living room. Now’s the time for those infamous lockdown hobbies. The time for all those things you always said you would do if you could just find the time. Baking bread? Perfecting coffee art? Crocheting your own cushion cases? The best thing about these prolonged weeks at home is you get to try everything out until you stumble upon your heart’s fancy.
And that fancy might turn out to be cooking. Should a carefully prepared home-cooked meal be just what your lockdown days are asking for, here are some meal kits, courtesy of the city’s top restaurants, for you to whip up in your own kitchen. Just starting out? Can’t tell your spatula from your spoon? Both non-issues. Most of these kits just involve re-heatable sachets anyway. Shh.
Yan Can Cook, So Can You. The best meal kits to try at home:
Posso Pasta Kit
Sure, making pasta is an easy task — if you had all the time in the world. With a midday one-hour time crunch for lunch, you need something fast. Easy. Posso’s Pasta Meal Kits are made exactly for moment like those. Instead of another microwave ready meal, have a bowl of saucy handmade pasta whipped up to restaurant quality instead — it’ll taste so much better. Posso prepares all the ingredients you need into well-measured portions, and all you have to do is reheat per the attached instructions. Choose from a choice of five: Smoke Guanciale Fettucine, Bucatini alle Vongole, Lamb Shoulder Cavatelli, Smoked Prawn Tagliolini and Pesto Spaghetti.
Order via WhatsApp +852 9870 0898. Minimum 4 packs per order.
La Rambla Paella at Home
Maybe you’ve always promised to make your own paella but never found the time. Well, there are no excuses now. La Rambla has put together Paella at Home for the most ambitious of amateur home-cooks. Packaged with a selection of seafood including carabineros, squid and clams, your version of Spanish paella will likely be very similar to that of chef Rafa Gil if you take the time to follow this step-by-step video. Everything is portioned for your convenience, so no need to worry about ingredients left to waste or hard-to-find specifics. You don’t even need to worry about the cookware, a paella pan is available to purchase along with the kit.
Order here.
Nhậu Pulled Pork and Grilled Sweet and Pepper Wings Set
Now with extended periods at home day-dreaming of your next meal, you likely are craving something different. Something beyond the three recipes you’ve gotten very good at making — fried egg doesn’t count. Try chef Que Vinh Dang’s, of modern Vietnamese eatery Nhậu, recipes of cleverly reinvented classics that reference his fine-dining training as well as his Vietnamese heritage. The ready-to-make kit offers to two serves from the buzzy canteen’s unfussy yet creatively refined street food-style menu: a flavourful bowl of pulled pork and grilled sweet, sticky and peppery chicken wings.
Order here.
Steak King Wagyu Beef Wellington
For all the failed attempts at the classic beef Wellington — they’re hard to make! — here is one that guarantees success. Steak King’s chef Brandon prepares all the cutting and trimming and laying the delicate lattice piece perfectly over the pastry-wrapped wagyu log so that when it goes into the oven, it comes out beautifully golden with pink-in-the-middle slices. No soggy bottoms! You do have to do some of the leg work though, it’s only fair: the job of the creamy potatoes and red wine jus is left to you. Just follow this video. And yes, take a swig of the accompanying Parker Coonawarra Estate Cabernet Sauvignon in between if you must; you’re the chef here, after all.
Order here.
Morton’s The Steakhouse Steak Kit
It’s a classic steak dinner at home, except you don’t need to be doing the shopping an hour beforehand because Morton’s The Steakhouse will do it for you. And this way, you always know you’re going to get a quality cut of beautifully marbled steak with tip-top premium ingredients. Depending on the set you choose, the kit comes with either 6oz centre filet mignon, 16oz centre-cut prime ribeye or 10oz prime New York strip. But that’s not all. A home-cooked meal that doesn’t skimp on extravagance, Morton’s meal kit also comes with a 5oz lobster tail for a surf-and-turf menu, a medley of sides and dessert. A full three-course meal right at your dinner-table.
Order here.
Also keep an eye out for:
Simon Rogan At Home
The award-winning Simon Rogan At Home needs no introduction. Widely beloved since its debut, the at-home meal kits are praised for good value and premium ingredients that extend enduring Roganic favourites into your own kitchen. The three-course meal, available every Friday to Sunday, makes things extra simple with well-measured sachets and a step-by-step guided video so you can follow the exact method the Roganic chefs use to prepare it — down to the exquisite precision of plating. Menu is set to change weekly but continues to embrace the same comfort-first cooking the one-Michelin-star restaurant is admired for.
More details here.
Test Kitchen TK Box Home Edition
You’re should already be familiar with Test Kitchen; the concept behind a series of culinary pop-ups featuring exclusive menus by talented chefs across the city. TK Box is their at-home version of the pop up menu with rotating meal kits prepared by talented chefs of various cuisines for you to recreate in your kitchen. On the current rota is chef Jimmy Wai Tak, previously of Aberdeen Street Social and two-Michelin-star Arbor, who kicked off the inaugural Home Edition series with the likes of a lobster bisque and foie gras ravioli packaged in pre-assembled, re-heatable pouches that only needs a quick dip in boiling water before they’re ready. Keep an eye out for Test Kitchen’s selection set to change weekly.
Orders can be placed on WhatsApp at +852 9032 7628.
More details here.
Motorino Virtual Pizza Making Class
Motorino’s Pizza-Making Party has always been a popular favourite. With endless days at home, the pizzeria makes dinnertimes so much more interesting by taking their crash-course on pizza making online. Current sessions has just ended but there’s a good chance they’ll be bringing it back. And in case they do, here’s what you need to know: Motorino’s chef Luca will be guiding at-home pizzaiolos on how to recreate the restaurant’s classic 12-inch Margherita or Soppressata Piccante. Ingredients will be sent directly to your door, including an already proofed-dough. Just tune into the Instagram live session and in 40 speedy minutes, there’s a searing hot pie on the table. Don’t forget the mozz.
More details here.
Hero image courtesy of Test Kitchen
Lorria Sahmet
Editor
After two years writing in luxury retail, Lorria now covers food and drink happenings in Hong Kong. When not taste-testing for the best fries in the city (shoestring, always!), find her at home obsessing over tableware and attempting a fruit garden on her tiny bay window. She is happiest by the ocean with a giant fishbowl-glass of Aperol Spritz.
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