Kitchen Mathmatics

This blog assumes that you’re wanting to deviate away from microwavable dinners, quick heat packages, and canned sludge. It assumes that you’ve lost your taste for fast food and don’t really want to spend your hard-earned cash on eating out. If we are to proceed into this new world of culinary nirvana, we must be armed with new math.

You see, the laws of instant gratification that operate at the drive-thru do not work in the kitchen. Sacrifices of time and energy must be made if you are to make a meal that is good, and good is the key word here. The reason we’re steering clear of microwavables and take-out in the first place is because we want to have something that tastes better than microwaveables and take-out. If tasteless TV dinners suddenly sound more appealing to you than giving up your precious time, this would be a good opportunity to leave. For those who remain undaunted, here are the formulas you need to consider:

• Time-consuming preparation + quick but intensive cook time = Good food

• Quick but intensive preparation + time-consuming cook time = Good food

And no, there is no formula for quick preparation and quick cooking that equals good food. The only people who will tell you otherwise are companies that sell processed box dinners or useless kitchen gadgets. And the cost for dealing with any of them will be your hard-earned cash, something I consider self-defeating since one of the purposes of cooking at home is to save you some money. Now, there are plenty of dishes out in the world that have times between 20-30 minutes from start to finish, but typically you'll still see them getting lumped into either of these categories. And of course there are hybrid formulas involving medium preparation and medium cooking, but we’ll get to those another time.

The first formula considers dishes like stir fry, fajitas and burgers, where the brunt of your time is spent getting everything ready. Cook time for such dishes can happen in a matter of minutes, but they also require our constant attention. To abandon our post in favor of a little TV time can be the difference between a well cooked dish and something that’s been burnt to a crisp.

The second formula covers things like soups, stews, and roasts among other things. Cooking the dish can take up to several hours, but it’ll be pretty easy going. You can go catch up on some TV or read a few chapters of a book without having to do much to your dish. And there’s less of a likelihood that you will burn or damage your dish with this method. Of course, the catch is, you’re going to have to wait for the end result, and if you’re starving, then waiting several hours for dinner might not be in the cards. The other catch is while the preperation work isn’t difficult, it’s imperative to get everything right. This means having everything cut, portioned and set to our liking. Once all your ingredients go into the stew, there’s not going to be any chances for second thoughts.

Sounds complicated? It’s not. We just need to understand that creating a quality meal will take time. And it’s oftentimes more time than the fluffy cooks on Food Network are willing to acknowledge (they’ve got a whole team of prep cooks off camera, of course they’re going to say it’s quick and easy.) But it is time well spent, as long as you’re willing to dedicate a little effort and patience to the process.