At the top of every recipe post you will find a rating for the time and effort that goes into the recipe, scored out of a maximum of 5 out of 5. This rating system quite coarse and largely subjective, although in the interest of keeping myself consistent across my posts I have written this guide to benchmark my scores.
Notice that I made no mention of reward. This is perhaps a glaring omission – the ideal recipe, after all, would be a combination of low-effort, low-time and high-reward. But how much enjoyment one might potentially derive from a recipe is subject to individual preferences, and I decided to leave this judgement to the reader.
Time
Time is scored by taking into account the approximate total amount of time it takes to buy, wash, prepare, cut, cook and clean up for a particular recipe. Examples of recipes at each rating score are as follows:
0: Unwrapping a bar of chocolate and digging in.
1: Rinsing and blanching some spinach or okra.
2: Mis en place and execution for a stir fry like Stir Fry Supreme.
3: At about the one-hour mark. Most rice bowls such as Beef Gyudon and Pork Bulgogi are in this range.
4: Takes more than an hour. Things like Beef and Lentil Chili, or Ragu Bolognese which take time to stew and simmer.
5: Takes the better part of a day. I do not currently have a recipe up here that warrants a 5/5 rating for time, but if I were to write up that time I made tonkotsu ramen entirely from scratch over the course of two days (noodles, broth, chashu and all) then that would be it.
Effort
Effort is scored by gauging the amount of energy that goes into cooking a meal. This usually, but not always, correlates with Time. A stir fry requires close monitoring and fast-paced action, while a stew might take a long time to simmer without much active effort. Examples of recipes at each score are as follows:
0: Microwaving a pop tart straight out of the freezer.
1: Halving cherry tomatoes, then dressing them with olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper.
2: Making a sugar syrup and coating walnuts in it, or roasting things in the oven like Yogurt Mint Chicken or Miso Glazed Salmon.
3: Most stir fries, like Leeks and Beef or Pork and Peppers.
4: Something that requires a lot of cleanup like Korean Fried Chicken, or a multi-course meal.
5: Again, I do not have a true 5/5 effort recipe here, but two-day tonkotsu ramen from scratch would definitely be here.
Heat Map Breakdown
Naturally, how much time and effort you’re willing and able to expend on any given day varies. Since I rate both individually, as opposed to lumping them together in a unified difficulty score, we can create a synthesis of both ratings and generate a ‘heat map’ to visualise what a particular recipe entails:
Blue Zone: Down With the Flu
Maybe it’s a real low-energy day and I don’t feel like doing much. Even some Ginger Lemon Honey Tea, which might make me feel better, is a bit of a stretch (ever tried peeling ginger while down with a cold?). The focus is on surviving, and for that to happen I need to get food into my food-hole. I’ll move on to making the fancier stuff when I’m feeling better.
Green Zone: Easy Weeknight Territory
Recipes in this range are manageable enough that I feel like I can come back on a weeknight and bang out a 6 to 8 portion meal prep even after a long day at work. Most of my posts are in this area, and you can check my recipes in the Weeknight category out here.
Yellow Zone: Weekend Warrior
There are recipes that are worth the effort and the wait, but it’s just plain impractical to come home hungry and wait for hours for dinner to be ready, you know? Like maybe you need to spend the time to truss and slow-cook a piece of pork shoulder to turn it into succulent, tender pork chashu, but once that’s out of the way you’re golden. Plan for these recipes several days in advance, defrost on Friday night, and action.
Purple Zone: Rainy Saturday Vibes
You know how sometimes you just stay in and be cozy on a weekend? If it were up to me that would be every weekend. Still, man’s gotta eat, so this is a good time to bring out some of the more involved recipes that take a bit more effort like stir fries. Or, take the time to make a big pot of stew, pasta sauce or chili that can simmer on the stove while you enjoy a book or a movie, and stir it every once in a while. The leftovers, of course, can go a long way into meal prepping for the week ahead. My recipes in Weekend territory are here.
Dark Green Zone: Long Term Project
These are the sort of recipes that take multiple days, but not necessarily need much active effort or attention once they’re set up. Things like lacto-fermenting some pickles, or making kimchi from scratch (which is easier than you think). Maintaining a sourdough starter, or keeping live culture for home-made yogurt also fall into this category.
Orange Zone: Cooking to Impress
Recipes in this area aren’t just for keeping you fed, they’re for when you’re pulling out all the stops to make someone (although that could be yourself) say “wow!”. Things like serving pear sweet soup inside a hollowed out pear for a stunning dessert, or making fresh pasta from scratch. I hope your date is hot enough that it’s worth the effort.
Red Zone: Full Metal Masochist
At this point you’re not cooking for enjoyment anymore, more just to prove that you can do something. Like that nightmare two-day tonkotsu ramen project. I mean, I’ve done it once so I can say I have, but since then I’ve been very happy to just pay for ramen from a shop because there’s no way I’m ever going to try doing that ever again.
In Closing
I’ve written this to crystalise the way I think about the non-monetary costs of my recipes. While I will strive to be consistent, I can’t make any absolute promises. There are, after all, much better things to worry about than whether a batch of Pork Bulgogi Bowls really takes more effort to make than a batch of Pad Krapao Moo with rice. But hopefully you’ll find recipes that are more in line with your resources and abilities more easily with this rating system.
Have a look around! I hope you find something useful.