I have many kitchen creeds: recipes are ideas not just a set of instructions; if you’re going to turn the oven on, cook more than just one thing; balance of textures is just as important as balance of flavours; eat something green with every meal; woo the eater with visuals first. You get the idea.
They’re not all snappy aphorisms and maybe they don’t all work for everybody but they’re mine and you probably have your own anyhow. The one I want to focus on today though is probably the most enduring – maximum impact, minimum effort – because I naturally lean towards conserving energy; some say lazy but that feels like such a negative turn of phrase.
If I’m going to spend hours slow-braising a joint of meat, I’d like to see it do more than one meal. It takes no longer to cook four lamb shanks as it does two. The extra two might be a replica of the same dish, frozen for a month or two or they might become the jumping off point for something more tangential.
If I’m doing this all in the oven, I’ll add in some root vegetables separately to cook alongside. A whole, unpeeled sweet potato pricked lightly all over will roast up nicely, will keep in the fridge for several days and makes a welcome addition to salads or alongside aforementioned braised protein and accompanying juices.
One of my go-to shortcuts is a store-bought rotisserie chicken. It can be transformed into Vietnamese chicken salad, chicken noodle soup, an outstanding sandwich filling when mixed with mayonnaise/herbs/flaked almonds, burritos and so on and so forth. It’s not that I never roast a chicken at home but I am a big fan of taking a perfectly decent shortcut at times. One judicious purchase = many satisfying meals.
Then we come to onions and their seductive cousin, caramelised onions. If you haven’t already, please go read this 2012 treatise on how long it actually takes to turn raw onion into something sweet and seductive. Once you’re convinced, I find it hard to believe that you would spend that 30 minutes caramelising one onion when you could do half a dozen in the same time period. And if you have a mandoline, this is the perfect task to break it out for. Keep the cooked onions in the fridge and you’ll be surprised what you start adding them to. They also can be stored in the freezer in small quantities to make them a quick defrost addition as required.
A well-stocked pantry – I’m talking tinned tomatoes, tinned pulses (not lentils but yes to other varieties), tinned fish, jarred olives, elevated anchovies, quality spice mixes (in small quantities), classy crackers for cheese, wide variety of pickle options – is not only a thing of beauty, it is the path to instant entertaining and snacking delight.
Importantly, maximum impact minimum effort doesn’t mean no effort. It’s about making the most of the energy I have now to make my life easier later when I might not have much energy or time but I still want satisfying food. Does that make it akin to self-care? I think so.
Eating solo means eating however I like and that includes licking the plate. I’ve never been one for breakfast in the morning, yet I’ll happily tuck into bacon and eggs at 3 p.m. And let’s be real—who hasn’t eaten cereal for dinner?
Even after years in the food industry, I sometimes lose my mojo. What I have learned is to ditch the judgement—internal or external—and embrace food as something fluid, adaptable, and, above all, satisfying.
After years in hospitality and catering, these are my best tips for helping everything run smooth, whatever the occasion. And most importantly, be present and enjoy yourself. It’s supposed to be fun after all.