Weeknight Dinners
The tray bake is the most underrated weeknight method
One pan, one oven, no attention. The technique has rules, and following them is the difference between roasted and steamed.
Piotr Wesely
Technique writer, Dinner Starts Here
Piotr writes about heat, timing and the physics of a good sear.
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17 articles
Kitchen Kit
The short list of kitchen equipment that earns its space
Most kitchen shops sell solutions to problems home cooks do not have. A working kitchen needs surprisingly little.
Weeknight Dinners
Fifteen minutes is a shopping decision, not a cooking speed
Nothing you do at the hob makes a thick piece of meat cook faster. The fast meal was chosen in the shop, days earlier.
Weeknight Dinners
Mise en place is not fussiness, it is the reason nothing burns
The little bowls look like theatre. What they actually buy is the ability to stop looking at the pan without losing the dish.
Weeknight Dinners
Eggs are the fastest protein in the kitchen and the least respected
Almost everything that goes wrong with eggs is a heat problem, and the fix is nearly always less heat for longer.
Kitchen Kit
Non-stick, stainless and carbon steel each do one job well
A pan is a heat-transfer device with a surface. Choosing badly is why food sticks, sauces never form and coatings die young.
Kitchen Kit
A thermometer changes what you are able to cook
It converts the most anxious parts of cooking into a number, which is why professionals use one and most home kitchens do not own…
Kitchen Kit
Measuring cups lie and scales do not
Volume measures the space something occupies, which varies with how it was packed. Weight does not vary at all.
Weeknight Dinners
Two burners beat one when the clock is the problem
Cooking two things one after another takes as long as both. Cooking them alongside each other takes as long as the slower one, and…
Weeknight Dinners
The grill is the fastest heat in the kitchen and the least used
Radiant heat from above cooks a surface far quicker than a pan cooks it from below. Most home cooks own that heat and almost never…
Weeknight Dinners
Weeknight fish is done before the table is laid
Fish cooks faster than almost anything else people put on a plate. That speed is the reason it gets overcooked, and the reason it…
Weeknight Dinners
Noodles are not fast pasta, and the water is why
They look like the same problem and they are not. Wheat noodles, rice noodles and egg noodles each want different water, different…
Weeknight Dinners
Cooking for one is a different problem, not a smaller one
Halving a recipe does not halve the effort, the washing up or the waste. Cooking for one has its own methods, and they are not the…
Weeknight Dinners
What to cook when you get in at nine and nobody is patient
Late dinners have their own rules. The goal is something hot and real in fifteen minutes, using only what is already in the kitchen.
Kitchen Kit
A mandoline is fast, and the guard is not optional
It produces even slices faster than any knife and it causes a disproportionate number of kitchen injuries. Both facts are about the…
Kitchen Kit
Containers decide whether leftovers get eaten
Food stored badly is food thrown away later. The shape, the seal and whether you can see inside determine what actually comes back…
Kitchen Kit
Pans get replaced because of washing up, not cooking
Very few pans wear out from being cooked in. They are ruined by overheating, by scouring and by being cleaned in ways the surface…