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Me_irl
(lemmy.today)
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this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2026
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me_irl
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If you ignore getting a knife, a cutting board, throwing away the trash you are making, putting the cut stuff into bowls where they can wait for their mission aaaand you are also pretty skilled in cutting vegetables. And I need to admit that while I am living alone for more than 15 years and cooking at least 3 times a week I am just not that fast. Also except for the potatoes.
Leave the stuff on the cutting board, put the waste in the compost or broth bags, your knives and cutting board are stored where you cut so prep is like 16 seconds.
Getting individual bowls to store every prepped ingredient is just for youtube.
Are you chopping multiple items together where possible? Using a slicing motion?
The list of vegetables I need to cut was purely fictional as was the time I estimated. I just wanted to make the point that recipes often do not include the time you need to prepare the ingredients, but just the cooking time. I am not the fastest chopper but I am happy with the velocity I am reaching.
I really appreciate your advices on how to improve my technique though, so thanks for that!
np, I've had similar experiences with teaching others to cook, where it takes them an hour to do a recipe I can usually whip up in 15 minutes, because I'm used to chopping a shitton of veggies from work and optimize the process.
A stirfry for me is "1. Heat a pot of frying oil while chopping veggies+ginger and garlic, set veggies aside, reduce oil heat once at frying temp, chop meat (usually chicken), putting everything in rows on the edge of the cutting board, usually using 2 boards depending on number of ingredients" 2. Get oil back to frying temp, throw each ingredient into the oil in time to pre-cook. 3. use a colander to strain all ingredients from the oil into your stirfry wok or pan, set colander aside, pour hot oil into your oil frying jar. 4. Add some more oil to your wok, add garlic and ginger and maybe some fermented bean paste. 5. Crank heat to max, add all ingredients, add sugar, stir, make cornstarch slurry. 6 Deglaze with wine, then soy sauce, then add cornstarch slurry. 7 Serve quickly."
A stirfry for my ex was 1. chop veggies, putting each in its own bowl. 2. Wash cutting board. 3. Cut meat. 4. Wash cutting board 5. heat oil. 6. Add veggie, cook 30 seconds, strain, add second veggie, cook 45 seconds, etc. 7. Put ingredients in their own clean bowls. 8. Wash dirty bowls because you ran out of space somehow. etc. It took her over an hour and exhausted her enough she cooked very rarely.