This ia a brand new recipe, so clearly I haven't tried it. But as someone who's a pretty accomplished home cook, there is NO WAY anyone is getting this recipe done in 17 minutes. C'mon Serious Eats.
You have 5 ingredients that need some serious prep and 19 different ingredients. You're telling me you're getting out 19 ingredients, shelling and deveining 1lb of shrimp, thinly slicing sausage, finely chopping garlic, and chopping up fish cakes (and don't forget making the sauce!) in 5 minutes? If so, I have some land I'd like to sell you if so.
Give people real prep times so people can more accurately get meals onto the table. We're home cooks cooking for our families, under limited time frames at times, and when people see "17 minutes" you're basically lying to them and this is what frustrates people about cooking, which should be the OPPOSITE of what you're looking to accomplish.
Get better about this stuff please.
by mikesweeney
21 Comments
I too am an accomplished cook and these numbers are unrealistic short of having everything sitting out, gathered together and doing “assembly” at a rapid pace.
My life got a lot better when I learned that cook times are… Cook times, and explicitly exclude prep time. I think Kenji said somewhere: I know how long it takes me to dice an onion, chances are it takes you a different amount of time.
Look at the ingredient list, which if decent should indicate the prep (i.e. not two carrots but two carrots, diced). You’ll have to develop an understanding of how long it takes you to do those things, and then add them to the cook time to get total time to prepare!
The Genovese recipe on SE takes at least 2-3x as long as the recipe lists
I can buy fresh de-veined shrimp at many places. If I don’t have to do that, it’s easy to meet these time goals
Let’s add washing dishes time as well while we are at it.
It usually comes out to at least 1.5x for me. Does that mean I allocate for that time? Hell no! Somehow my wife is always waiting lol
It’s the Internet. I believe Kenji has talked about this before, there’s a strong selective pressure to lie about cooking times because your piece just won’t get read if you tell the truth. Somebody out there will be willing to lie that the same dish is easier and quicker to make, so naive readers will use their recipe instead.
More specifically, you’ll note that the ingredient list calls for a bunch of things to *already be done*. The “five minutes prep” listed is just for making the sauce, as far as I can tell, because prepping the ingredients isn’t part of the *recipe*, it’s part of the *ingredient list*.
All the major meal prep / delivery companies like Blue Apron and such do the same thing. “This recipe comes together in 20 minutes. . . once someone has already spent 45 minutes rinsing, peeling, slicing, dicing, etc.”
It’s 8 shrimp…so a minute to do those, etc.
Yeah this is tight but 5m isn’t counting you getting stuff out and onto the counter. Once it’s all in front of you? I could probably do 5m if that’s my main goal.
I believe where I read that cook times don’t include the prep for ingredients as that can vary wildly. So in this case the 17 min would be active time
Cook times are not prep times. No one knows how long you take to prep ingredients.
The prep times as listed in this recipe are just the preparation as described in the steps. 5 minutes to prep the sauce, 12 minutes to stir fry everything. It doesn’t include the additional prep to get the ingredients to the level as described in the ingredient list. It’s very annoying.
> You’re telling me you’re getting out 19 ingredients, shelling and deveining 1lb of shrimp, thinly slicing sausage, finely chopping garlic, and chopping up fish cakes (and don’t forget making the sauce!) in 5 minutes?
No no no… the ingredient is peeled, cleaned, deveined shrimp. Or thinly slcied sausage. Or finely chopped garlic. Get your prep team to do that for you.
I rarely pay attention to stated times. Every recipe be like: “Melt butter and caramelize onions over medium heat for 3 minutes.” Son, that shit is still raw and barely warmed in 3 minutes.
Recipe timings don’t include the time it takes you to prepare and gather ingredients to the point that they are called for in the ingredients list! This is a standard across all reputable publications I have worked for. The reason is because it’s impossible to predict or even estimate how long someone will take to do the prep work. I slice an onion fast. You may not. That can drastically change the actual time.
Once you e got your ingredients and tools in front of you at arms’ reach, that’s when the timer starts and in those contexts the timings should be pretty spot on.
Perhaps a better way to indicate timings is to”15 minutes, after mise en place is prepared”
It’ll take me 17 minutes just to find all that stuff in my kitchen. (Joking.)
I have a few years of BOH experience, and I stopped looking at these suggested times a long time ago. There’s just too many factors on both sides. I mean, sure, I can whip out a complex recipe quickly when I know it well…
assuming you’re not peeling and deveining and starting with ready to cook shrimp, I think they have prep and cook flipped. Assuming your mise en place is ready to go and you’ve remember to preheat your pan while you were prepping, its a super fast cook.
lol I looked at the cook times and the only way that the timeline is remotely realistic is that all ingredients have been pre-measured and misse’d out for you.
Prep time in the recipe you linked is mixing the sauce and preheating the pan. Stop being so antagonistic to everyone pointing out that the ingredients list specifically states washed/chopped ingredients.
I agree. I normally 2-3x the prep time. I don’t want to rush and I find I’m more relaxed during the cook if everything is prepped and measured out before I start.
[Perfect One-Pot, Six-Pan, 10-Wok, 25-Baking Sheet Dinner](https://youtu.be/NGgpSWcaV1U?si=CJ1mHWI8_9nhsnl2)
I get you but i don’t see prepping as cooking time either. It starts when i have everything diced and sliced and ready to assemble
But yeah “15 minutes dinner recipes” need to go