Category: Quick
I look again at the food-site’s designator for Everything Bagel Salmon, but it doesn’t get any better the second time around. Quick? Quick? What kind of recipe category is “Quick”?
What part of the meal does a Quick recipe supply? What ingredients does a Quick recipe require? What craving does a Quick recipe satisfy? What cooking skills does a Quick recipe assume?
I thought of my other recipes, both the increasingly food-stained hard copies in folders in the cupboard and the eternally pristine electronic files on my laptop. The cupboard has folders named Cookies, Pies, Appetizers, Vegetables, Brunch (I know, I know, one of these things is not like the others, but there are no points for disjoint-set filing of recipes, there are only points for finding them). In addition to reams of uncategorized recipes, the laptop has folders named Salads, Desserts, Seafood, Pork, Chicken, and a new-ish one named Air Fryer, a category I find useful although for sure it introduces filing ambiguity. But nowhere–in storage hard or soft, in collections current or past–does Quick appear as a folder name. No. Where.
When I’m looking for an existing recipe in my folders, I search primarily by output type (dessert) or meal type (brunch). But what kicks off the online search for new recipes? A food type (appetizer, soup, cookie, salad), a main ingredient (chicken wings, broccoli), an ethnic origin (Mexican, Greek, Thai), or a combination of these.
When I’m looking for a new recipe online I then filter the search-result recipes by objective and subjective criteria:
- Do I have the ingredients on hand?
- If not, can I easily acquire or substitute for said ingredients within the planning horizon and/or the execution timeline?
- How does this recipe rate on my idiosyncratic Complicated Cooking Rating? Pan-frying is more complicated (messier clean-up) than oven-baking. Yeast is more complicated (Just how precise does the water temperature have to be for activation?) than baking powder/soda. Chicken breasts are more complicated (more prone to over-cooking) than chicken thighs. Making your own meatballs is more complicated than buying them (no notes needed). Turkey is more complicated than everything else.
I would have said that I appreciate a Quick recipe as much as the next person, but I would also swear under oath that I’ve never searched for “quick salmon/cookie/salad recipes” and never (almost never?) (I am under oath so I’ll be careful here) filtered for Quick (except insofar as it aligns with Easy or Not Tricky or Not Messy). So, maybe there’s a market for Quick that I’m not appreciating.
As for the Everything Bagel Salmon, which I made, was it Easy? Sure. Was it Tasty? It was fine, but too salty for me. And was it, in fact, Quick? Opinions would vary. Excluding ingredient-acquisition time, from start to ready-to-eat was about 40 minutes, if you include the smashed potatoes which, to be fair, are included in the recipe. Our great-grandmothers would have been lost in wonder, but is that Quick for you?
It would have been Quicker in the air fryer. Just sayin’.
Quick, Easy, Cheap — the three ingredients in false (?) advertising.
Barbara – Hahaha.
Oooooh, dear. Quick sounds very attractive to me these days, but having been sidelined by snow, by car trouble (due to snow), and by snow incoming “in heavy bursts and flurries” by official pronouncement, I have turned on the oven for heat. And why not throw in a batch of whole wheat, peanut butter, chocolate chip cookies as an experiment with on-hand ingredients? That worked. So maybe I will see if the yeast in the fridge tests and can raise a few loaves of bread, since Dan is here to need and knead it. (A very small, even Quick, turkey filled the bill a couple of days ago. Dan helped with the dressing. Low-fuss, I promise you!) Being forced to slow down for a few days is doubtless therapeutic, too. Quick has its consequences.
Laurna – I can sure imagine filtering by prep or cooking time once I’m down to a recipe that is actually feasible. I was just surprised to see it as a main category. Your experiments sound delightful – and help with a turkey is always appreciated, even if it’s just someone to stand beside you and agree that they can’t tell whether it’s just or not quite cooked. We get to that stage of “what can I make with what I have” as we go through cycles of leaving town for a few months.