A quick cook breaks her own speed record

Twenty years ago, a dinner that could be prepared in an hour was considered quick; at The New York Times, Craig Claiborne's "60-Minute Gourmet" was a triumph of modern efficiency. These days, an hour in the kitchen is a luxury: in her 1-2-3 books (Little Brown), Rozanne Goldhas dreamed up dishes with just three ingredients, and other cookbooks carry titles with words like "instant" and "minutes" in them. Recognizing just how precious time has become in the past two decades and taking advantage of the huge growth in good-quality condiments, I've developed four recipes that break the speed barrier but, I'm proud to say, sacrifice nothing in terms of flavor.

Published September 1998