Depends on if you’re comfortable and planned ahead with the prep and steps of cooking.
Sometimes it’s all done at once and there’s no time to spare or risk burning, cooling or delaying one of the items.
On some meals I cook regularly, cleaning as I go is fine. But other times when I’m trying something new or just super tired after work, all I have time for is to throw it in the pot just in time prepping and then go sit while it cooks or eat right away if it’s fast.
I’ve had thoughts of making detailed recipes with cleaning steps, and also a streamlined design for ingredients and when and where they’re needed that I use on recipe cards. Sort of similar to the cooking for engineers cookbook, but for more visually oriented peeps.
To a certain extent it depends on the recipe, but it also depends on how you approach things.
The best way to do most recipes is “mise en place”. Preparing everything and putting everything in its place and ready before any heat is turned on. That approach gives you the most down time to clean up while something is frying, or while water is boiling, or whatever. It also reduces the stress of the cooking because everything is ready to go. The down side is that it takes longer from start to finish, but it’s quicker to get finished once you turn on the heat. That’s why it’s used in restaurants. They spend a lot of the day chopping and getting sauces ready, and then when the guests arrive it’s much quicker to turn on the heat and actually do the cooking.
When I’m in a rush, I’ve done things like: start the rice (and literally put it on the back burner), then start chopping onions, throw the onions in the pan and start chopping carrots, toss them in, etc. If you know a recipe well you might know that you can chop a couple of carrots up in 2 minutes, and that’s how long you want the onions in before you add the carrots. It’s a streamlined way to cook fast, but it leaves a huge mess. It also tends to require more space because you don’t have time to put things away between steps.
Depends on if you’re comfortable and planned ahead with the prep and steps of cooking.
Sometimes it’s all done at once and there’s no time to spare or risk burning, cooling or delaying one of the items.
On some meals I cook regularly, cleaning as I go is fine. But other times when I’m trying something new or just super tired after work, all I have time for is to throw it in the pot just in time prepping and then go sit while it cooks or eat right away if it’s fast.
I’ve had thoughts of making detailed recipes with cleaning steps, and also a streamlined design for ingredients and when and where they’re needed that I use on recipe cards. Sort of similar to the cooking for engineers cookbook, but for more visually oriented peeps.
To a certain extent it depends on the recipe, but it also depends on how you approach things.
The best way to do most recipes is “mise en place”. Preparing everything and putting everything in its place and ready before any heat is turned on. That approach gives you the most down time to clean up while something is frying, or while water is boiling, or whatever. It also reduces the stress of the cooking because everything is ready to go. The down side is that it takes longer from start to finish, but it’s quicker to get finished once you turn on the heat. That’s why it’s used in restaurants. They spend a lot of the day chopping and getting sauces ready, and then when the guests arrive it’s much quicker to turn on the heat and actually do the cooking.
When I’m in a rush, I’ve done things like: start the rice (and literally put it on the back burner), then start chopping onions, throw the onions in the pan and start chopping carrots, toss them in, etc. If you know a recipe well you might know that you can chop a couple of carrots up in 2 minutes, and that’s how long you want the onions in before you add the carrots. It’s a streamlined way to cook fast, but it leaves a huge mess. It also tends to require more space because you don’t have time to put things away between steps.
Yeah, you second approach of what I was calling what just-in-time cooking.