That's why baking wins every time

There's a big difference between my post-cook mess and my partner's.

I clean as I go; not even a hassle. They leave it all to the end; monumental post-meal dread.

This is why we have mise-en-place.

If they can write a 7 paragraph story about their dying grandmas old family recipes, they can show us the mess.

When my partner bakes, there's fucking flour everywhere. And I mean everywhere. I'd rather have post meal mess.

What mess? Never heard about cleaning your station while cooking? There is more than enough time to put things away and dishes in the dishwasher while dinner is cooking. Knifes are cleaned immediately after use. No mess.

A ha ha ha ha ha hah.

When am I going to find time to clean while cooking? I'm too busy cooking!

Clean as you go... i should follow what I preach... but its hard

This is the way.

Recipes should actually be tested before being published.

Half of them I get half way through and realize that it's half backwards or uses twice as many dishes or utensils than it needs to.

Why does everyone not understand the value of clean-as-you-go? So much better.

For some things you do have to multitask and keep the plates spinning, so to speak. For example making sure something doesn't burn while you're cleaning the last mess.

And that is something that a lot of people need to acclimate to I think. If anyone reading this is one of those people then I'd suggest focusing on reducing the mess as much as possible while you're cooking, even if you aren't perfect. Then try to take care of whatever's left after you finish cooking but before you actually eat. One or two dirty implements is a lot less daunting to take care of than a sink full of stuff.

Another thing I'd suggest is trying to reduce the amount of stuff you dirty in the first place by focusing on single pot recipes or modifying a recipe to be single pot. Frying meat and onions in the bottom of a soup pot before deglazing and adding the rest of the ingredients, for example. This isn't always possible to do of course, especially if you're doing something big and fancy, but you should save those kinds of recipes for times when you have all day to dedicate to them.

I actually toyed with the idea of making a YouTube channel dedicated to recreating food from other channels and only showing the clean-up. Like "thanks for the tip Babish now I get to scrape off sticky eldritch bullshit from a ridiculously tiny whisk AGAIN" and "we're going to soak these plates for at least an hour because we fell asleep as soon as the guests left and the sauce hardened into concrete".

Any YouTube money would've gone into a dishwasher fund. I would've reviewed the dishwasher after buying it and that would've been the last video on the channel.

Isn't that the opposite? Makes it easier to get the timing right, but at the cost of dirtying loads more little bowls?
Whereas if i dice my carrots while my onions are sweating etc, I can keep the production line going and only use one pot..

I want to eat sooner

Depends on how you look at it, I guess. Assuming you have a dishwasher, you can just put the containers in there as you use ingredients and be left with a clean counter. Definitely a trade-off involved, though!

I'd watch that religiously.

By baking, I simply mean I of in the cold food of out hot eat the food, not the entire process before it.

For example, bake pork chop. Put tinfoil on the tray, put the pork chop on, add some salt, put another tinfoil to cover it. You don't even need to wash the tray.

Cook some rice with a rice cooker to go with the pork chop and you're done.

It doesn't take any extra time, it's just kerping busy in your down time. Waiting for water to boil? Wipe the counter. Waiting for your steak to sear? Clean the cutting board and throw away any bits left over. Baking anything? Well there's plenty of time before it's ready.

not always possible in small spaces and single cook

Depends on how many things you are making at the same time and the volume of mess.per item.

Cleaning as you go is the best, but sometimes you can't stop stirring or chopping or peeling to do it.

with new recipes it's not always clear because you're not sure what you need to reuse or the timing ...

I've been leaning heavily on my dishwasher in the past year. It's been such a relief.

DO THAT

A lot of it depends on the recipe. Dishes like Japanese cream stew or beef bourguignon have lots of prep but end with slow-cooking in a single pan, so you have plenty of time to clean before dinner is served.

Compared to something like, I dunno, steak with scratch-made bernaise sauce and buttered kale - it all comes together at the end very quickly, so you'll have pans and measuring jugs and ingredients on the counter right until the moment you plate-up. No time to clean as you go.

I often choose what to cook purely on the basis of how much mess there will be at the end, because I hate clean-up!

I have a small space and am usually cooking by myself, and I have no problem cleaning as I go. In fact, having a small space makes it even more critical to clean as you go so you maintain space to maneuver.

This is the kind of idea that works and actually makes your chanel relatively popular.

If something takes 30 minutes in the oven, cleaning during that time won’t slow you down.

When I cook something that goes in the oven (and many things don't), that is nearly the final step. Most of the mess is already made.

Waiting for water to boil? Chop some veg. Waiting for steak to sear? Get the plates out of the cupboard. Baking anything? Then putting it in the oven is usually the final step, and all the mess has already been made.

I'm filling the waiting time with other tasks already.

CAYG

Clean
As
You
Go

I have a very small kitchen and cook by myself, still have no issues cleaning as I go

Yup. Or just fill the sink with soapy water and toss stuff in to rinse off after you eat (or if you forgot you needed it for a later step).

Sounds like you need to improve your mise en place.

Do all your prep first.

Bowls are the easiest thing to clean.

I completely agree. I'm a clean-as-you-go type guy, but sometimes you still end up with a mess, especially if the meal has multiple components that come together at end.

One of the things I consider when choosing a new recipe is how many different pots and bowls are involved, and how many things have to come together at the end; I like to minimize them to keep the amount of work and cleaning low. My wife has a knack for choosing ones that maximize those things, and there's always so much more to do. I love a one-pot meal.

last video on the channel

Why kill a perfectly good cash cow?

...and that's the exact moment I need the sink to pour out my noodle water or fill my water filter.

The Onion has you covered

Not trying to argue so please please dont take it that way, just wanted to add anecdotally that my wife says the same thing, yet more often than not when I pass the kitchen the waiting time thats allegedly being used for other cooking related tasks and cannot be reallocated to cleaning as she goes is actually being used to surf Insta, Pinterest, or Etsi lol

And also to be extra clear, I could care less what she does when she's cooking dinner up to and until the point that the deal is that she cooks and I clean. Since I genuinely do clean as I go when im cooking and she's cleaning, I feel like she's violating the terms of our agreement when her cleaning up behind me always only takes her 10 minutes yet whenever im cleaning up behind her Im dealing with so many pots and pans that the water heater gets tapped out halfway through and im still standing in front of the sink over an hour after I started cleaning up the unholy tragedy that is often left behind in her wake.

When two people are cooking the same basic meal and the cleanup time is orders of magnitude higher depending on who is cooking the meal, thats a conversation worth having in my book lol

Even just taking the time to run some hot water over the dishes youre throwing in the sink as youre throwing them in the sink will help. You dont need to wash them, just get the concrete sauce off the plate while its still wet before its had 3 hours to turn into superglue that requires one to get a putty knife from the garage to remove lol

Lol. I think for regular cooking, post-meal cleanup needs to be done by whoever cooked, for this reason. Because even though I don't think cleaning as you go is always feasible or making a big difference, it certainly can be done or not, by the choice of the cook, and that is unfair.

My partner and I take this approach and are very happy with it. Actually we take it further by having a whole week each of cooking, and so many associated tasks like wiping down kitchen surfaces, shopping, etc, alternate also on that cycle.

Depends on if you’re comfortable and planned ahead with the prep and steps of cooking.

Sometimes it’s all done at once and there’s no time to spare or risk burning, cooling or delaying one of the items.

On some meals I cook regularly, cleaning as I go is fine. But other times when I’m trying something new or just super tired after work, all I have time for is to throw it in the pot just in time prepping and then go sit while it cooks or eat right away if it’s fast.

I’ve had thoughts of making detailed recipes with cleaning steps, and also a streamlined design for ingredients and when and where they’re needed that I use on recipe cards. Sort of similar to the cooking for engineers cookbook, but for more visually oriented peeps.

I will always do the cold prep first, then wash and tidy away everything I can before starting to cook.

But having organised prep before you start cooking isn't necessarily going to lead to zero mess after.

The recipe I chose as an example was specifically because it's one which makes life difficult. The bernaise sauce in particular wants to be served when it's freshly made and hot. So you'd cook the steak, and while the steak is resting you cook the sauce.

The sauce requires combining eggs and hot melted butter in a blender and blasting it until emulsified, and then after that adding the fresh tarragon you prepped earlier. Then you serve immediately.

So no matter how much mise-en-place you did, at the end you've still got at least a dirty steak pan, butter pan, kale pan, blender, dish for the tarragon, measuring jug, and various utensils...

And oh - the measuring jug was not used for measuring, but rather to transfer the hot butter from the pan to the blender.

If you found a way to avoid all that then great, you're doing very well indeed.

Single sinks are a bummer...

I mean, there's only so many ways to do dishes in an entertaining fashion lol

This is why the one who does the cooking should do the dishes.

When I am done cooking?

The only dishes are the plates we eat off of, and the utensils.

It is not difficult to clean as you go .

My wife somehow uses every single pot, pan, cutting board, and cooking utensil we own. Like good damn it was just a grilled cheese. What happened

I'm sure you can figure something out. One can always take the Casually Explained release cycle for videos.