all those receipes assume you know how to cook in general - people not cooking on a regular basis will always take longer that 15 minutes to prep meals.
my tip: cook a small amount once even if it takes a while; if you are fine with the result, cook a larger amount that you can freeze or store for future meals, reducing your total cooking time far below those 15 minutes. dont just do large amount first - you will profit from having done the receipe before and achieve a better tasting meal the second time.
No, they’re just straight up lying. I’ve been cooking for 30 years, I can eat at a restaurant once go home and make you the exact thing or very similar from most places and this is still a problem for me. The prep times and cook times are often just plain lies. Prep time can be trimmed down to some degree with training/practice and I’m a lot faster at this than your average beginner but when something tells you to cook something that will still be completely raw by the end of the cook time given there’s no skill curve there, it’s just how long things take to cook.
Onions won’t be soft in 2 minutes, they won’t be caramelized in 5, veggies will still be raw in 5 minutes of cook time, expect to double or triple anything that uses potatoes that aren’t boiled. It’s just lying so you visit their site.
If you ignore getting a knife, a cutting board, throwing away the trash you are making, putting the cut stuff into bowls where they can wait for their mission aaaand you are also pretty skilled in cutting vegetables. And I need to admit that while I am living alone for more than 15 years and cooking at least 3 times a week I am just not that fast. Also except for the potatoes.
Leave the stuff on the cutting board, put the waste in the compost or broth bags, your knives and cutting board are stored where you cut so prep is like 16 seconds.
Getting individual bowls to store every prepped ingredient is just for youtube.
Are you chopping multiple items together where possible? Using a slicing motion?
The list of vegetables I need to cut was purely fictional as was the time I estimated. I just wanted to make the point that recipes often do not include the time you need to prepare the ingredients, but just the cooking time. I am not the fastest chopper but I am happy with the velocity I am reaching.
I really appreciate your advices on how to improve my technique though, so thanks for that!
np, I’ve had similar experiences with teaching others to cook, where it takes them an hour to do a recipe I can usually whip up in 15 minutes, because I’m used to chopping a shitton of veggies from work and optimize the process.
A stirfry for me is “1. Heat a pot of frying oil while chopping veggies+ginger and garlic, set veggies aside, reduce oil heat once at frying temp, chop meat (usually chicken), putting everything in rows on the edge of the cutting board, usually using 2 boards depending on number of ingredients” 2. Get oil back to frying temp, throw each ingredient into the oil in time to pre-cook. 3. use a colander to strain all ingredients from the oil into your stirfry wok or pan, set colander aside, pour hot oil into your oil frying jar. 4. Add some more oil to your wok, add garlic and ginger and maybe some fermented bean paste. 5. Crank heat to max, add all ingredients, add sugar, stir, make cornstarch slurry. 6 Deglaze with wine, then soy sauce, then add cornstarch slurry. 7 Serve quickly."
A stirfry for my ex was 1. chop veggies, putting each in its own bowl. 2. Wash cutting board. 3. Cut meat. 4. Wash cutting board 5. heat oil. 6. Add veggie, cook 30 seconds, strain, add second veggie, cook 45 seconds, etc. 7. Put ingredients in their own clean bowls. 8. Wash dirty bowls because you ran out of space somehow. etc. It took her over an hour and exhausted her enough she cooked very rarely.
all those receipes assume you know how to cook in general - people not cooking on a regular basis will always take longer that 15 minutes to prep meals.
my tip: cook a small amount once even if it takes a while; if you are fine with the result, cook a larger amount that you can freeze or store for future meals, reducing your total cooking time far below those 15 minutes. dont just do large amount first - you will profit from having done the receipe before and achieve a better tasting meal the second time.
No, they’re just straight up lying. I’ve been cooking for 30 years, I can eat at a restaurant once go home and make you the exact thing or very similar from most places and this is still a problem for me. The prep times and cook times are often just plain lies. Prep time can be trimmed down to some degree with training/practice and I’m a lot faster at this than your average beginner but when something tells you to cook something that will still be completely raw by the end of the cook time given there’s no skill curve there, it’s just how long things take to cook.
Onions won’t be soft in 2 minutes, they won’t be caramelized in 5, veggies will still be raw in 5 minutes of cook time, expect to double or triple anything that uses potatoes that aren’t boiled. It’s just lying so you visit their site.
They also assume I have already chopped 5 carrots and 2 peppers, peeled 10 potatoes and crushed 100 g of almonds before I start cooking the recipe
Except for the potatoes, thats less than 5 minutes of work. I’ve heard you can peel potatoes fast by blanching them, but I’ve never tried.
If you ignore getting a knife, a cutting board, throwing away the trash you are making, putting the cut stuff into bowls where they can wait for their mission aaaand you are also pretty skilled in cutting vegetables. And I need to admit that while I am living alone for more than 15 years and cooking at least 3 times a week I am just not that fast. Also except for the potatoes.
Leave the stuff on the cutting board, put the waste in the compost or broth bags, your knives and cutting board are stored where you cut so prep is like 16 seconds.
Getting individual bowls to store every prepped ingredient is just for youtube.
Are you chopping multiple items together where possible? Using a slicing motion?
The list of vegetables I need to cut was purely fictional as was the time I estimated. I just wanted to make the point that recipes often do not include the time you need to prepare the ingredients, but just the cooking time. I am not the fastest chopper but I am happy with the velocity I am reaching.
I really appreciate your advices on how to improve my technique though, so thanks for that!
np, I’ve had similar experiences with teaching others to cook, where it takes them an hour to do a recipe I can usually whip up in 15 minutes, because I’m used to chopping a shitton of veggies from work and optimize the process.
A stirfry for me is “1. Heat a pot of frying oil while chopping veggies+ginger and garlic, set veggies aside, reduce oil heat once at frying temp, chop meat (usually chicken), putting everything in rows on the edge of the cutting board, usually using 2 boards depending on number of ingredients” 2. Get oil back to frying temp, throw each ingredient into the oil in time to pre-cook. 3. use a colander to strain all ingredients from the oil into your stirfry wok or pan, set colander aside, pour hot oil into your oil frying jar. 4. Add some more oil to your wok, add garlic and ginger and maybe some fermented bean paste. 5. Crank heat to max, add all ingredients, add sugar, stir, make cornstarch slurry. 6 Deglaze with wine, then soy sauce, then add cornstarch slurry. 7 Serve quickly."
A stirfry for my ex was 1. chop veggies, putting each in its own bowl. 2. Wash cutting board. 3. Cut meat. 4. Wash cutting board 5. heat oil. 6. Add veggie, cook 30 seconds, strain, add second veggie, cook 45 seconds, etc. 7. Put ingredients in their own clean bowls. 8. Wash dirty bowls because you ran out of space somehow. etc. It took her over an hour and exhausted her enough she cooked very rarely.
My advice : buy canned soups in bulk. That’s how I roll
Or make broth/stock with leftovers. A pressure cooker makes this much easier.
An electric pressure cooker makes it a mindless activity. Load it, turn it on, come back when it beeps, or tomorrow… Who cares, it’s sterile in there.
Then to reduce: turn it on, come back when it beeps. Dial in the times and electric pressure cookers make recipes ridiculously repeatable.
My only criticism is their food is fairly homogenous so I add some crunch on the side just for some heterogeneity. Insane effort to value ratio.