Friday evening has reached that dangerous point.

Nobody particularly wants to cook.

Somebody has said, “Shall we just get an Indian?”

And five minutes later you're staring at an online basket wondering how dinner became quite so expensive.

Chicken tikka masala.

Pilau rice.

Naan.

Perhaps an extra side because apparently ordering Indian food while hungry destroys all financial restraint.

Then come the delivery and service charges.

What started as “let's just get something easy” is rapidly heading towards £40.

Which gave us an idea.

Could we make the sort of dinner we'd normally order at home for considerably less?

And, crucially, would we actually want to eat it?

That's where Laura comes in.

Laura, we've got a Friday-night problem

Laura is the woman behind Thermomix with Laura, and we're bringing her into Taste Trail to help with the cooking questions that occur in real kitchens.

Not “How do I create a seven-course tasting menu?”

More:

“It's 6.30pm. What are we eating?”

Laura cooks with a Thermomix and knows how to use it to take some of the work out of making food from scratch.

But we're much more interested in what she knows about food, recipes and getting dinner on the table.

So we're setting her a challenge.

The Fakeaway Test

Can Laura make us:

Chicken tikka masala
Pilau rice
Naan

...for less than we'd spend ordering the equivalent from a takeaway?

And there's an important second part to that question.

Would we choose hers?

Because saving £15 and spending the entire meal thinking about the curry you nearly ordered isn't much of a triumph.

It has to survive the Friday-night test

We're imposing some rules.

This can't be one of those recipes described as “quick and easy” before casually asking you to marinate something for six hours.

Nor do we want 29 ingredients, three obscure spices bought specifically for one teaspoon, or a kitchen that looks as though somebody has emptied every cupboard onto the worktop.

This is Friday-night cooking.

The takeaway app is only a few taps away.

Laura's version has to be good enough to stop us reaching for it.

So why chicken tikka masala?

Because this isn't supposed to be an easy win.

Chicken tikka masala has everything working against the home cook.

You want properly flavoured chicken.

You want plenty of sauce.

You want rice that doesn't arrive as one enormous lump.

And if we're promising naan, there had better be something worth tearing apart and dragging through the last of the sauce.

Nobody wants a worthy homemade alternative.

We want Friday-night food.

The sort of dinner that gets put in the middle of the table and disappears.

This is where Laura earns her place at the table

Rather than simply giving us a finished plate, we're asking Laura to show us how she'd tackle the whole thing.

Where can time be saved?

Which bits are worth making yourself?

What can be prepared together?

Which ingredients actually matter?

And which parts do people make unnecessarily complicated?

Laura will use her Thermomix because that's how she cooks.

If it chops onions without tears, handles the sauce while something else is happening or saves standing over a pan, we want to know.

But this isn't a Thermomix instruction manual.

The star of the evening still has to be the curry.

Nobody has ever sat down on Friday night and said:

“Mmm. Excellent appliance usage.”

Then we're checking the bill

This part could become painful for the takeaway.

Once Laura gives us her recipe, we're going to cost the ingredients and compare them with ordering a similar meal locally.

And we'll do it fairly.

If you have to buy a whole jar of spice to use one teaspoon, we won't pretend the teaspoon was free.

We'll look at what the shop actually costs, how many people the recipe feeds and whether there's anything left for tomorrow.

Because that's where homemade food can become interesting.

A £40 takeaway that feeds two people tonight is one calculation.

A £20–£25 shop that feeds four perhaps with lunch left over is another.

But we're not deciding the winner until we've seen Laura's numbers.

Taste beats spreadsheets

There is, however, a flaw in all this careful financial analysis.

If Laura's version costs £18 but everyone would still rather have ordered the £40 takeaway, the takeaway wins.

Sorry, Laura.

This is Taste Trail.

Dinner has to taste good.

We want the sauce you'd mop up with the last bit of naan.

The rice people go back for.

And ideally that slightly smug moment when somebody says:

“Actually, I'd rather have this.”

That's the real Fakeaway Test.

And we're not stopping at curry

If Laura survives round one, we've got plans.

Pizza night.

Chinese-style favourites.

Burgers and loaded fries.

Restaurant-style desserts.

Dinner for four on a £20 budget.

A Sunday lunch that doesn't require sacrificing the entire Sunday.

And the particularly frightening challenge of opening somebody's fridge and working out what on earth they can make from what's already inside.

The idea is simple.

We give Laura the everyday food problem. She gives us a way of solving it.

Sometimes the answer might involve her Thermomix.

Sometimes the most valuable bit will simply be knowing what to cook.

And occasionally the correct answer may still be:

Order the takeaway. It's Friday.

We can live with that too.

So, Laura you're up

Chicken tikka masala.

Pilau rice.

Naan.

The takeaway is hovering around £40 and the Order button is looking increasingly attractive.

Show us what you've got.

What should Laura tackle next?

If she beats the Indian takeaway, what should we put in front of her next?

Pizza? Chinese-style takeaway? Burgers? A restaurant dessert?

Tell us what you'd normally order and we'll give Laura another challenge.