Define easy
First of all let me say up front that I am not having a go at my husband here. However, after last night's dinner - Chicken Caesar Salad which he prepared for us - it being a pretty hot day - I realised that there is a distinct difference between my definition of easy and his - and doubtless countless other reluctant cooks out there. Not that the resulting meal was anything but delicious. But I did have to help out here and there.
We have had this meal a couple of times before and it is one of his favourites. And it really is pretty simple. Well the actual recipe asks you to cook the chicken yourself, but we cheated and bought a half roast chicken from the supermarket, so all you had to do was take off the skin and tear the chicken into chunks, discarding the bones as you went. But here's the thing - he even worried about this. Which made me feel really guilty. Have I taken over so much that he is truly overwhelmed by the thought of what to do with the chicken bits? Where to put them? He had no container ready for this.
We also left out the anchovies in the sauce, which he doesn't like and the hard-boiled egg - ditto. So all that was required really was to fry the croutons and bacon (you're supposed to bake them in the oven but it was too hot to have the oven on). And this he managed to do very well. Then you just had to make the dressing and assemble.
The dressing was pretty simple but it was little things, like not really knowing what a tablespoon was, and did it matter anyway, and then, how to get the dressing on to the salad.
And you know most of the problem was because he really just did not want to read the recipe - just a few lines long - and also because he did not read the recipe he had not planned out the order to do things in or what equipment he needed and so was trying to make the dressing at the same time as cooking the croutons and bacon, and didn't know where to put the chicken.
It was a bit of an eye opener for me. I have always thought that if you have a simple recipe and you can read, then anyone can cook. But there are so many little things that defeat this supposition.
First of all not all recipes are equal. Some are much better written than others. Some are long and detailed and tell you absolutely everything of how and why and when. The downside of this approach is that they are daunting. Just looking at the length of the recipe will put you off. Step by step with pictures is good and today you have videos too.
Then there is the very short but not very clear. Recipes that make assumptions. Here is Elizabeth David's now famous recipe for Italian tomato soup.
"Melt 1 1/2 lb of chopped and skinned tomatoes in olive oil; add a clove of garlic and some fresh parsley or basil or marjoram. Cook for 5 minutes, then add a pint of meat or chicken stock, salt and pepper, and a pinch of sugar. Cook for 5 minutes only."
It's sort of famous because Julian Barnes wrote a very funny essay on this particular recipe - alas I cannot find it online although I'm sure it's there. Beginning with that exhortation to 'melt' the tomatoes and pointing out all sorts of vague and imprecise directions he makes you realise how much Elizabeth David has assumed of her reader here. How do you skin tomatoes? What size pieces do you chop them into? Do you do something to the garlic before putting it in? If so, what? Which of those herbs is the best and how much is 'some'? But you'd have to say it's short and doesn't really involve anything complicated if you can read between the lines.
I do think recipes are good but I do think you need to be careful. Here are a few thoughts I have about them if you are looking for something easy (not necessarily quick) to make.
Don't choose a recipe with a lot of ingredients. The fewer the ingredients the simpler it should be. Not always true of course - think puff pastry - it's basically just flour and butter but even many chefs do not make their own. Also a long list of spices that you simply chuck into a grinder, or even more simply, mix together, is not that difficult. Still - some of those spice mixes can be bought in a packet if you want to cheat.
Don't choose a recipe with long instructions. Now this really is important - if there are a lot of steps to the dish then it's probably at least time-consuming and probably complicated.
Read the recipe first all the way through, carefully. If there's something you don't understand then don't do it or at least seek advice.
Prepare and line up all of your ingredients before you begin. I was amazed to hear that American lady in the video on Hello Fresh saying what a good idea it was to prepare the ingredients before starting and that she would be doing this in future. And she was a seasoned cook!
Get out all the equipment you will need before you begin.
Turn on the oven if you need to so that it's ready when you need it.
Check the recipe all the way through again before you start cooking.
Maybe the most important thing here is to read the recipe. For example. I looked for a simple recipe online and found this one from Jamie Oliver - Meltin' mustardy beef.
The recipe meets the criteria for brevity - very few ingredients, and not many steps. But it does not have the steps in the right order. He tells you to heat up the pan before he tells you to cut up the meat, carrots and onions. I realise this is why I like those recipes that tell you, next to the ingredient in the list, what to do with it. He also suddenly throws in some boiling water - if you had read the recipe through you would have had it ready, if not then you would have to pause. No real big deal, but not ideal.
It's also an example of an easy - very easy - recipe but not a quick one. It takes 4 hours to cook. If you hadn't read the recipe through and started it half an hour before dinner then you would be stuffed wouldn't you?
However, what do you do when you have someone like my husband who really doesn't want to read the recipe? Or maybe you might be so worried about the whole thing that you don't read the recipe properly.
If you are an experienced cook then not using a recipe is not a problem. You check what you have in the fridge, choose your basic ingredients - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall reckons this usually comes down to three key ingredients - Jamie goes for five - and extemporise on that. But behind that simple approach are a whole lot of complicated ideas - what goes with what being the first one. As Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall says:
"Cheese, chocolate and curry powder might be an experiment too far, while bread, pasta and potatoes would of course be way too bland and samey."
Then there's the knowledge of how long it takes to cook a carrot, a steak, a tough piece of beef. How to prepare the various ingredients ... That's why I think River Cottage Easy is such a good book - it's sort of an ideas starter rather than actual recipes. But you'd have to want to read it in the first place.
The basic problem with people like my husband is that they really don't enjoy food that much. Although I'm not sure that is quite true because everyone has particular dishes that they adore - comfort food and all that. Really they just need somebody to take them in hand and show them how, but not only how, also how satisfying cooking can be. But then if they don't want to cook this too is difficult. I mean you don't want to force them to do it do you?
What it has made me realise is that I really have to be more helpful in suggesting what can be done without a recipe - tray bakes, stir fries, pasta sauces. All pretty easy to make up and accomplish. Maybe not super gourmet, but very acceptable. And the screen saver that I had on my computer when I worked was appropriate for just about everything in life. 'NEVER ASSUME' No two people are the same and nor should they be.
