Growing up, my beautiful, perfectionist, slightly obsessive, but excellent cook of a mother loved to plate up our dinner banquet style. The rice, the curry, the salad, whatever it might be, it was laid out in coordinated serving dishes and placed proudly on the dinner table for each person to serve themselves. The unsightly cooking pots were relegated to the sink or the draining board, being unfit for the purpose of food presentation.

As my sister and I got old enough to help in the kitchen as part of our regular chores, we came to appreciate that this was unusual. And frustrating. One day, my mother was a little tired and asked ‘Is it ok if the pot goes on the table?’ and we responded with a resounding ‘YES!’. So, for the first time, the food was served in the pot it was cooked in.

Whenever we could, we encouraged my mother to avoid using her myriad serving platters. What was the point, really, in creating another dish? We called this Unnecessary Transfer. The phrase caught on and my whole family still use it to this day. (And we still have to convince my mother not to do it.)

Once I had my own home, I promptly found ways to avoid all Unnecessary Transfer. I am a huge fan of tray bakes and one pot meals, and I have begun accumulating a host of stove-to-oven cookware. It’s not just the serving platters I avoid, it’s all Unnecessary Dishwashing.

My husband would call this hypocritical (or just find it hilarious) as he is truly Against Unnecessary Dishwashing. Being the manager of an electrical appliances store, his faith in whitegoods is such that he believes my Le Creuset enamelled cast iron and Wüsthof German-made knives should go in the dishwasher. Needless to say, whenever I cook with these items (which is all the time) I’m in charge of washing them.

But I don’t enjoy washing dirty dishes. I work hard not to create them in the first place.

A couple of years ago I found myself reading the introduction of Yotam Ottolenghi’s latest cookbook, Simple. He pointed out that ‘Ottolenghi’ and ‘Simple’ together was an oxymoron, but went on to explain all the ways in which he had worked to make the recipes in this book decidedly simple. One thing he mentioned was taking into account the amount of equipment used and dirty dishes created. Something that he had heretofore never considered.

Never considered.

NEVER CONSIDERED.

I can appreciate that many cookbooks are produced by renowned restaurateurs, sharing recipes from their high end, well-staffed kitchens. Clearly, these are not heavily tailored for home cooks. And no one expects them to be.

And there are plenty of cookbooks all about the one pot meal, fast midweek dinners, and oven-to-table cooking. These books are very clearly targeted to those who want to get in and out with minimal fuss, minimal mess, and minimal clean up.

But what about everything else in between? Outside the niche of the one pot/one pan category it’s like dirty dishes don’t exist. Which — if you learnt everything you know about cooking from MasterChef — you could be forgiven for believing they don’t.

If you’re a cookbook author targeting home cooks (which most of them are), whether it be to inspire them with foreign cuisines, explore new ways with vegetables, or simply create food they can delight in… surely you can’t do that while also making them cry into their sinks?

Recipes are often tagged with little chef’s hats showing one to three hats to indicate a level of difficulty or skill required. The approximate cooking and prep time is given. These days it’s common for recipes to share nutritional information too. So why for the love of God does no one think about the dishes?

I hereby propose a Dish Rating. The scale is as such:

Dish Rating 1

This rating is for recipes that truly only require one pot. For example, tray bakes — but specifically tray bakes with ingredients that require no prep. Your sausages, your cherry tomatoes, your frozen peas and the like. Tip everything into your oven tray and BAM! the work is done.

May also apply to one pot stove-cooked dishes where all ingredients are added progressively, like many soups, risottos, and some pasta dishes. None of this ‘in batches’ and ‘set aside’ nonsense.

Dish Rating 2

This is where the batches nonsense is permitted. A dish rating of 2 commonly employs only one pot, but requires doing things by turns and frequently ‘setting aside’ so you will eventually be standing around your hot wok surrounded by little plates and prep bowls of seared beef strips in one, rice noodles in another, stir fry sauce in yet another, and uncooked veg on your chopping board awaiting their turn.

Dish Rating 3

This is our midline. Ingredients require prepping, usually using straightforward tools such as chopping board and knife, and you will likely have up to three cooking vessels working simultaneously. Meat sauce in a pot, bechamel in a saucepan, casserole dish to finish.

The beauty of the 3 rating is that it rounds out nicely with the ability to clean and clear most dirty dishes while the cooking finishes off in the oven or at a low simmer all by its lonesome. You are satisfyingly left with a clean kitchen by the time dinner is done, with only one pot left to wash after abating your hanger.

Dish Rating 4

A 4 rating is where we start to bring appliances or single-purpose gadgets into the mix. Your food processors, sandwich grills, blenders, potato ricers, the abomination that is the spiraliser, etc etc. It also applies where a dish or meal is composed of many disparate elements, all of which employ a different cooking method — roasting, boiling, charring, burying underground with hot coals and waiting two days, steaming, pickling, chilling…

Dish Rating 5

Here you will need every appliance, gadget, stand mixer attachment, and oven function created since the industrial revolution. Every bowl you own will be on the counter with ingredients prepped and confused. You will need several different discs for your food processor. The beater, whisk and dough hook for your stand mixer. Plus the juicer, the mincer, the blender, the spice grinder, the pasta roller. Something will need to be roasted in the oven before you switch it to grill for the next element, and add steam to finish. Every plate on your stove will be occupied. Elements will need time to cool on the counter and set in fridge. And a quick snap in the freezer. Don’t forget your toaster.

Ottolenghi feels right at home here at Dish Rating 5.