Quick & Easy

Everything here is on the table in about half an hour, which is less a style of cooking than a set of constraints: few ingredients, one pan where possible, nothing that has to marinate or rest.

Speed comes from sequencing more than from knife skills. Put the water on and the oven on before you read the rest of the recipe. Read the whole thing once, start with whatever takes longest — the grain, the roasting tray — and prep the rest while it runs. Most of the ten minutes people lose is spent standing at the board while an empty pan waits.

Heat is the other lever. High heat cooks fast, so the pan should be hot before food touches it, and the food should go in dry and in a single layer. Thin cuts, small dice and anything butterflied cook in a fraction of the time the same ingredient takes whole.

Some shortcuts are worth taking. Tinned beans and tomatoes, frozen peas, pre-cooked grains and decent stock all belong here. The shortcut that is not worth taking is under-seasoning to save a step: salt as you go, and finish with acid, which does in one squeeze what a long simmer does in an hour.