Yeah, i think it's a real problem that a lot of cooking writing and education out there is pitched toward hobbyists. You certainly can enjoy cooking (i do!), but it's also fine for it to be a chore that you want to get done as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Read cooking blogs or watch cooking shows and you probably get the impression that cooking is way more time consuming and requires way more ingredients than are really required to put food on the table. But there are whole cookbooks of recipes that use just a few ingredients plus a handful of standard pantry staples.

As you cook you also learn a lot of shortcuts you can really get off with most of the time. Using lemon juice from a jar is really fine. You don't need to have that sprig of parsely. You can probably get away with using dried herbs rather than fresh for many purposes.

Absolutely agree with all of this. I think a person trying to dip their toe into cooking could easily get the impression online that it's way more precious and difficult than it really is.

I am still in this journey myself and what's really made it a lot easier is seeing it as a skill that has a lot of opportunity to be improved, with regards to speed/effeciency, ie how many net minutes per week I actually have to spend.

There are so many ways to tweak and "automate" this, much like the effeciency of software development tasks, such as finding pairs of recipes that reuse the same intermediate components, making things in batches that can be frozen and reheated, and just plain getting faster at making something from practice.

There is a lot to be said for making the same recipe many times rather than always trying new ones. Each time you make it you will get faster, and even better, more able to do it without thinking much about it, and keep thinking about something else more useful instead.

Learn how to make a dish you really like. Expand from there.

Thanks that’s probably good advice

Pineapple fried rice here I come

Man, I've been trying to make good fried rice for like thirty years. Let me know if you figure it out... supposedly needs a lava-hot wok and a gallon of oil or something.

This recipe helped me succeed finally, although I've still failed a few times https://www.seriouseats.com/easy-vegetable-fried-rice-recipe

That looks great, thanks!

While this is a comedy, the actual fried rice is excellent, including the tricks that most Westerners don't get - for example re-purposing stale rice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGBP3sG3a9Y

P.S. The owner of the shop also makes the fried rice so you can compare the two slightly different approaches.

Hahahaha, this was fantastic. And educational!

I don't associate fried rice with a lot of oil. Maybe the hot wok. Woks can be problematic on electric ranges. Cooks Illustrated actually recommends using a skillet instead.

Keep an eye on moisture of rice or ingredients too, the less moisture the better to avoid a soggy end product

This[1] is the best method/recipe I've found for making fried rice without a wok. This is the finale in a series where the host is trying to perfect the method for making fried rice, but ends showing you how to make it at home with a cast iron frying pan.

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1L5qBMtFXBs