Recipe for successipe
Good recipe copy is my absolute joy; bad recipe copy makes me feel like the chef is trying to ruin and humiliate me personally. And while you may never in your life have to write a cookbook, let alone a recipe, there's a lesson to be learned here about the value of preparation.
This is a Jamie Oliver recipe from his cookbook 'Jamie's 15-minute meals'*. Now, Jamie is famous for his relaxed, unstuffy style of cooking. He's always telling you to kiss the pan with olive oil (smoochy smoochy) or chuck on a good whack of pepper (whacky whacky, it's fun to cook). His easy, breezy style of cooking was a breath of fresh air back in the late '90s/early '00s and he's made a career of being the pied piper of everyday home cooks.
On the other foot, you have Yotam Ottolenghi, a chef whose famous cookbook ‘Simple’ is often, and fairly, accused of being complicated. Ottolenghi recipes frequently feature 400 ingredients, many of which you can only get from being swallowed by the Cave of Wonders in Aladdin.
This example is a romano pepper schnitzel dish with a creamy Marie Rose sauce, you can find the full recipe here. Look at that list, ingredients for days. Not a weeknight dinner by any stretch, surely.
I ran a poll on my Instagram stories last week that asked how easy you find Jamie's recipes versus Ottolenghi's recipes. Not surprisingly, y'all said Jamie was easier. Controversial opinion: I find Ottolenghi recipes much, much easier than Jamie's.
I've been trying to figure out why this is because it should not be true. I believe the secret is in the on-ramp. Jamie’s ingredient list is less precise (how much is in a good pinch, how small is small?) whereas Ottolenghi's very precise ingredient list shows the quantity and the volume of peppers, the prep for the kaffir leaves, and what the sunflower oil will be used for because, jinkies, that sure seems like a lot of oil. He anticipates the queries and mistakes the user will make and works to correct them ahead of time.
In cooking, this technique is called mise en place and asks the cook to get everything ready (sliced, grated, crushed, etc) beforehand so you can move more effortlessly through the recipe. It's similar to the front page of a set of IKEA instructions that shows you a picture of all the annoying bolts and bitties you should have so you don't get halfway through building your Skördargs and realise you're missing something vital.
Why does it matter? Good preparation optimises people's brains and allows them to cook Ottolenghi recipes on weeknights. It means you don't always have to aim for the most simple, pared-back version and, with a little preparation, you can take someone confidently through a complicated set of instructions.
*I have never made anything in this book in under 45 minutes. Have you? Or is it an urban myth?
TL;DR? Prepping makes instructions run smoother, allowing you to introduce more complexity.