4 ms·

The bigger treacheries in my book are the overly optimistic prep times, especially when it comes to chopping and dicing ingredients. Perhaps I’m just very slow,

The bigger treacheries in my book are the overly optimistic prep times, especially when it comes to chopping and dicing ingredients. Perhaps I’m just very slow, but it almost always takes me twice as long as listed on the recipe to prep ingredients.

lucb1e 6y ago
Twice as long sounds about right. Optimistic even in some cases like when it calls for a sweet potato since that's irregularly shaped and needs to be pealed and chopped and is quite hard. Maybe we need a "banana for scale" equivalent in cooking, where chopping time is defined as N times pealing a banana / chopping an onion. Or we just keep doubling the prep time of everything written in cook books, recipe websites, etc...
kevinmchugh 6y ago
Your knives may be due for sharpening, and you might benefit from a different grip. Youtube is pretty good for knife skills. Here's my favorite video on the internet: https://youtu.be/1y5h1pDHhzs https://youtu.be/1y5h1pDHhzs
jasonpeacock 6y ago
Heck, they don't even include the prep times in their estimates. "Dinner in 30 minutes!" ...assuming you already have all the veggies cleaned & chopped, and the oven pre-heated.
SAI_Peregrinus 6y ago
Prep time doesn't include chopping or measuring ingredients. You need to have the ingredients ready before the prep time starts. This is stupid, but people are used to it and like faster recipes so more and more of what should be prep gets hidden in the ingredient descriptions. So if a recipe says "1/4tsp salt", the time to measure out that salt isn't part of the prep. If it says "10 carrots, peeled and diced", that's not part of the prep. But if in its ingredients it says "10 carrots" and in the steps says "peel and dice the carrots" then that time is part of the prep.
etrautmann 6y ago
while that is ridiculous, I suppose the differences in prep methods (hand chop vs. food processor) could lead to large variance in prep times, though anything is better than assuming no time for the preprocessing.
Spinnaker_ 6y ago
You can always buy a large bag of onions, watch some youtube videos, and spend the afternoon improving your knife skills. I've learned to keep my mouth shut while watching others prep food. Compared to someone who has worked in a kitchen the average person is shockingly slow and inefficient. It's like when you watch someone using a computer that doesn't know about ctrl+c ctrl+v, or two finger types in https://www.google.com https://www.google.com to start their search.
mattmanser 6y ago
Here in the UK one of our TV chefs is Jamie Oliver. He took a bit of a hit and ridicule in the papers when he brought out a TV/book series called '30 minute meals' and when people tried it most recipes took an hour.

lucb1e 6y ago

Twice as long sounds about right. Optimistic even in some cases like when it calls for a sweet potato since that's irregularly shaped and needs to be pealed and chopped and is quite hard. Maybe we need a "banana for scale" equivalent in cooking, where chopping time is defined as N times pealing a banana / chopping an onion. Or we just keep doubling the prep time of everything written in cook books, recipe websites, etc...

kevinmchugh 6y ago

Your knives may be due for sharpening, and you might benefit from a different grip. Youtube is pretty good for knife skills. Here's my favorite video on the internet: https://youtu.be/1y5h1pDHhzs https://youtu.be/1y5h1pDHhzs

jasonpeacock 6y ago

Heck, they don't even include the prep times in their estimates. "Dinner in 30 minutes!" ...assuming you already have all the veggies cleaned & chopped, and the oven pre-heated.

SAI_Peregrinus 6y ago

Prep time doesn't include chopping or measuring ingredients. You need to have the ingredients ready before the prep time starts. This is stupid, but people are used to it and like faster recipes so more and more of what should be prep gets hidden in the ingredient descriptions. So if a recipe says "1/4tsp salt", the time to measure out that salt isn't part of the prep. If it says "10 carrots, peeled and diced", that's not part of the prep. But if in its ingredients it says "10 carrots" and in the steps says "peel and dice the carrots" then that time is part of the prep.

etrautmann 6y ago

while that is ridiculous, I suppose the differences in prep methods (hand chop vs. food processor) could lead to large variance in prep times, though anything is better than assuming no time for the preprocessing.

Spinnaker_ 6y ago

You can always buy a large bag of onions, watch some youtube videos, and spend the afternoon improving your knife skills. I've learned to keep my mouth shut while watching others prep food. Compared to someone who has worked in a kitchen the average person is shockingly slow and inefficient. It's like when you watch someone using a computer that doesn't know about ctrl+c ctrl+v, or two finger types in https://www.google.com https://www.google.com to start their search.

mattmanser 6y ago

Here in the UK one of our TV chefs is Jamie Oliver. He took a bit of a hit and ridicule in the papers when he brought out a TV/book series called '30 minute meals' and when people tried it most recipes took an hour.