1. I never even think about food till I'm already hungry, so any meal which takes a long time to cook is out. (I'm meal prepping a bit more often these days, which helps.)
2. I just _cannot_ cook two things and have them ready at the same time. So at least one of the things needs to be something that can hold once cooked. Pasta tends to work well.
* Garbage bowl: allocate a mixing bowl on the counter to collect garbage and drop cuttings and other refuse in there. Saves you from having to go to the trash bin every time.
* Preheat watery vegetables in the microwave. Things like onions, mushrooms, etc. are mostly water, and you can avoid having to wait for them to reduce in a pan by nuking them for 2 minutes in the microwave first.
* When boiling water or cooking almost anything in a pot, cover it with the lid! It will trap the heat inside the pot and boil/cook faster. So many people don’t use the lid just to save themselves from having to wash it. The only time not to use the lid is if you need to reduce the liquid or allow volatiles to escape.
* Cooking bigger batches of food takes essentially the same amount of time as smaller batches. Make portions big enough that you can get at least two or three more meals from it.
* Learn to use your oven! Too many people get enamored with single use gadgets when the oven already does so many things. People complain that it takes too long to heat up but it really doesn’t.
* Keep your knives sharp: Do NOT use an electric sharpener, just a simple drag over a stone every few months is probably all you need. A sharp knife is SAFER than a dull one.
* Throw away all cutting boards not made of wood or plastic (dump the plastic too if you’re concerned about it). Any cutting board made of glass, marble, metal, or any other hard material is destroying your knives.
How about just put the garbage near your workspace while you're working so you can more easily dump stuff into it? I just generally put a bag on the floor near the sink
There's actually a lot of stuff you can halfway-heat in the microwave.
Air frying frozen <anything>? Nuke it for 2 min and air-fry for 3 min, instead of air-frying for 12 min.
Ice cream rock solid? Nuke a pint for 15 seconds. It won't melt, just soften.
Cold ketchup in a dipping bowl? Nuke for 5 seconds to bring it to room temperature, so you're not putting cold ketchup on warm food.
But the best? You know how tomatoes get a mealy texture when kept in the fridge, which is why everybody says not to keep in them in the fridge, even though they last so much longer that way? That's only as long as they're chilled. Nuke for 10 seconds to bring back to room temperature. The texture returns 100% to normal.
Use 50% power and check in 10 second increments:
* ATK: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/FZCgQp8D2Xw
If you think ahead, put it in the refrigerator 30 minutes before you need it.
Everyone laughed at me.
I'm still pissed off about it.
I always microwave my ice-cream.
People freak out when I tell them I do this.
Another thing people freak out about is when I tell them I sprinkle instant coffee on supermarket bought vanilla ice cream. The (too) sweet ice cream balances with the bitter coffee and it adds a textural element.
Another great thing to sprinkle is a thin layer of cocoa powder on chocolate ice cream -- it's similarly bitter, but it's a blast of extra chocolate rather than coffee. Learned that one in Italy.
I do a lot of cooking and own quite a few kitchen knives, most of which have bitten me at some point. I understand the idea around sharp knives being safer...but I don't agree.
If a razor sharp 210mm Japanese carbon steel knife touches your finger, it's split open and might need stitches or glue. A less-sharp knife would need more weight behind it to cut effectively which can lead to you completely severing a finger, but simple slices are a much more likely scenario than your finger being completely under the knife to the point where it's effectively a digit-guillotine.
If your knife is sharp enough you will eventually cut the shit out of yourself because it slices so easily. You’re essentially waving around an 8 inch razor blade.
If your knife is dull enough you will eventually cut the shit out of yourself because it takes so much effort to cut that a slip becomes a stab. The amount of effort you have to put in to do basic stuff like cut carrots can be high enough that give up some control of the blade.
A knife at a good level of sharpness will cut with reasonable effort but not be a giant razor blade. I think for most people this is likely the safest level of sharpness.
There was a long thread here where people were arguing about this topic.
My take is that people saying sharp knives are safer don’t understand how average people are using knives.
Totally different than in restaurant setting or ‘self proclaimed chef’ setting where you are going to chop loads of stuff fast or you get angry customers or you take pride in your chopping and slicing skills.
Worst offenders were sharpening knives for other people and then they were surprised that those people would cut themselves with sharp knives… none of the story included a person who was perfectly happy with their dull knife cutting themselves with that dull knife.
Just using a claw grip will significantly reduce your chance of injury.
I have seen more injuries from dull knives slipping on vegtable skin than too sharp knives.
That said, the mirror shine finish some enthusiasts go for is indeed over the top.
This is also one of the central ideas around making computers go really fast.
> Throw away all cutting boards not made of wood or plastic
https://www.johnboos.com/collections/cutting-boards
> Garbage bowl
I have one of those rubbermaid tall/thin trash cans where my kitchen island used to be. Sometimes I will pull my fridge into the middle a little bit so it's easier to get at. That's the kitchen optimization advice that I would offer - The kitchen island is often a productivity & convenience scam. It took me a long time to learn this. From a simple geometric & topological perspective, being able to walk directly between everything without having to always pick a direction around some obstruction will reduce your cortisol levels by a scientifically-quantifiable amount.
Plastic cutting boards will contaminate whatever you are cutting on it with a load of micro and, in many cases macroplastics.
Seriously, give your plastic board some action without food on it and then carefully collect the shavings.
Not using it for anything else though.
Blows my mind when I see people boiling water (huge pots of water!) with no lid on. In many cases, they were waiting around 30 minutes for the water to boil. It surprises them to learn that a lid will speed it up.
I never see anyone trying to bake with the oven door open, but somehow boiling water without a lid is okay?
If you compost, your in-kitchen compost tote works really well to move near where you're trimming veggies.
Or throw away blunt knives and purchase new ones every once in a while. Many people can't be bothered with sharpening their knives, so it's better for them to just get new ones. Or send them to professional sharpeners.
Why?
Mechanically, it's just high-abrasive motorized spinning discs at preset angles. So rather than getting a good edge by taking a few microns of material off by doing it manually, you get an OK edge by taking 0.2mm off at a time. (If 0.2mm doesn't sound like a lot, think about how many mm wide your knife is.)
---
I'm personally 50-50 on this advice: most people don't sharpen their knives at all, and I think people are better off getting 10 OK years out of a knife than 50 terrible years out of it.
I'm also not willing to learn how to use a whetstone, so I landed in the middle on this: https://worksharptools.com/products/precision-adjust-knife-s...
(I say that, but I'm still using knives that mostly range from 25-50 years old, but some didn't get sharpened enough when they belonged to our parents and grandparents.)
I've never understood this. Those things are/were just used to prevent counter-top damage here in the UK (hot pans, things that would stain etc).
We never considered them chopping boards.
Did the USA not get the memo?
Demonstrably false:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/114968917182
Perhaps do a basic internet search before speaking for an entire nation.
In general small cleaning tasks are great filler for any wait in dish-making
I got a bunch of time-saving (or at least time-sync-effort-having) from just air-fryer option to run 2 programs at time (basically set different times and it will take care of starting them in such way they both finish at once).
Put carbs like potatoes in one chamber, meat in other, set and start it, make some salad/tea/whatever else in mean time, 15 minutes and done.
> Especially because getting the water boiling is so often a limiting factor, it's worth considering this sort of optimization. I probably spent extra hours per year cooking before I changed how I boil water. There are many common tasks like this in the kitchen; it's worth thinking carefully about them.
Prepare stuff while it boils, like, you either boil stuff into stew in the water or boil some kind of pasta or other carb there, surely there is plenty of other parts of the dish to make in meantime?
Result:
If there’s a tablet: it’s dirty.
If there’s no tablet: it’s clean.
Or simply don't rinse the dishes before you put them in[0]. I've never had trouble telling.
[0] Exceptions: uncooked eggs, yogurt, and for some reason, salsa? None of which ever come off for me if they sit for long before you run the dishwasher.
I can do the dishes after a family meal just as fast, and with better and more consistent results en less water, than when using the dishwasher.
It's done once per item. In my case I have just a few things I know are not dishwasher proof.
> time spent playing dishwasher tetris
Get a bigger dishwasher.
> time spent filling and emptying
The same time you'd spend putting things in the sink and taking them out after you've washed them.
> time pre-cleaning before putting things in the dishwasher
No need to that, unless you leave actual chunks of uneaten food on your plates.
> time spent re-washing after it turns out that the dishwasher did not clean your as well as it advertised on the box
Try powdered detergent. There are a few Technology Connections videos discussing dishwashers, including how capsules are inefficient - basically they're used up on the "pre-wash" cycle. There are a few other tricks to improve the efficiency of the dishwasher, too.
So you have a few things to do once and a few things to do always, which you'd do with hand washing anyway. Having a dishwasher is a game changer. If you're not happy with the results, don't give up just yet. Think of how to improve the process, because it's possible. At first I was also skeptical and disappointed in my (first) dishwasher.
I’m sure other modern dishwashers are also very good, but I’d buy the same again in a heartbeat.
I had an old low end dishwasher that I had kept going up to a point, but the rack was after rusting to the point it broke.
Bought a mid range Bosch after reading so many glowing reviews and I find it does a terrible job at drying the dishes. They're clean, and the third rack is so much better than I had imagined it would be, but there's always still water on everything!
The old dishwasher had a vent on the front, when it was doing its drying you could see the steam coming out. The Bosch doesn't seem to have any vent... it heats up for a dry cycle, but if you don't catch it and open the door at the end the water vapor just recondenses.
Can you please make your substantive points thoughtfully? There's no need to snark or get personal.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
The problem is when you have a dirty dish and assume that the dishwasher contents are dirty too (because usually we unload the dishwasher soon after it finishes). Then you put a dirty dish in, possibly making other dishes dirty. So you have to either hand-wash several dishes or re-wash the entire load.
The logic is to prevent:
- Chunks of fibrous vegetables (e.g.) from clogging the dishwasher filter
- Wet sauces (or egg) from drying and hardening over the hours/days before the next dishwasher cycle, and becoming more difficult to remove
And many of us grew up with older dishwashers that didn't work as well as newer ones.
All of that said, modern dishwashers actually monitor the water (clarity, turbidity?) to determine whether the dishes are sufficiently clean. If you rinse your dishes too well, the dishwasher will prematurely think it has accomplished its goal, and reduce time/temperature to end the cycle early. This is why manufacturers recommend against rinsing or pre-cleaning.
In my household, we have a pair of zealous canine precleaners, who do an excellent first-pass job. The dishwasher's only responsibility is to rinse and sterilize. :)
That reminds me of people who clean before the maid comes. I've never had a maid, but I've read that people do the easiest things themselves so the maid, who is paid by the hour, has to do the harder things only.
If you are cleaning your dishes so much before loading that you literally can't tell the difference between dishes that have been through the dishwasher and dishes that haven't, then just skip the dishwasher step. You're already done.
Second thing is, get a small amount of food safe grease and put it on the copper ferrule to make the connection: took me far too long to learn that.
This is also one thing I love about sous vide cooking. It’s slow in terms of total time elapsed but usually very efficient in terms of time spent actively cooking.
There's a decent caled a "pot watcher" (aka: boiling-rattler) that is a mechanical "hey, it's boiling" indicator.
Anytime I'm cooking or thinking of cooking, I'll always throw water into the tea kettle (countertop boiler) and start it off, for exactly the reasons stated.
I'm very thumbs up (and already follow) almost all of his advice, including the "use two boiling elements to get water boiling faster".
The top oven of a 30" double oven heats up almost as fast as a toaster oven, you don't have to bend over far to use it, and it takes up no counter space. I thought these were just for people who frequently cook huge meals for large gatherings but we moved into a house with one, used the top oven constantly, and it became a must-have when it was time to replace the range.
I got a gigantic weston vacuum sealer for Christmas one year. Fortunately we have the counter space for it, and drawer space beneath it for the bags, in our pantry. In the amounts we cook it's taken a long time to break even on any cost savings but it's a quality of life game changer. Plus sous vide. In a world where less-than-super-premium American butchery has gone from mediocre to downright sloppy in my lifetime, it's very, very nice being able to break down big roasts and subprimals into chops and steaks and smaller roasts etc and trim them up nicely and freeze whatever we're not going to use immediately. I tie roasts before freezing them.
Just buy the big box of sharpies for the kitchen. They walk off and dry out and get that weird thing that happens when they touch something oily. I mark things like super-duper-pasteurized dairy products with the date opened. I'm not michelin-star disciplined about using painter's tape for other containers. If I have a subprimal's worth of meat to go in the freezer, I use a label maker.
OK now I am curious. How powerful is this drawer and how large? I just set my toaster oven to 450ºF and the thermostat clicked off in 18 seconds, at which point an infrared thermometer indicated the walls of the toaster were 355º. My full height oven would take at least 20 minutes to get there. I can see how cutting the volume in half would help but it feels like you'd need more insulation and/or more power to close that gap.
Just today I needed 200 g of chocolate for a dessert. The bars were 160 g each and made into 21 rectangles. Set the slide rule to 200:160 and read out the value of x:21, which turns out to be 26.25 -- the number of rectangles needed. So convenient to be able to do that quickly and with messy hands.
Make frequently-used items accessible close to where they will be needed. Install drawers throughout the kitchen -- especially below the counter. Prep before you cook (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mise_en_place).
And just keep practicing; you will naturally get better and faster.
Big tub sink on one side, range on the opposite side of aisle, and at least 3ft/1m of countertop space on both sides of each those is my ideal. One side of the sink will have a dish rack, leaving 3 sides. That means 3 available spaces for prep, eventually turning into 2 as dirty kitchenware piles up next to the sink.
Look at Souper Cubes (or any silicon knockoff) for the molds.
He would print a menu card for the month with all the 3-4 course meals. He would set the table, light candles, poor the wine and argued what to microwave.
We think our cooking is much better than almost all restaurants we go (and we heard from others that our guests usually thinks the same).
There's also the application of computational methods to cooking.
For me, cooking (prep and cleanup included) is about enjoying the process, understanding what I am making and taking time doing it.
If I want quick, sure there are options around.
Cooking for me is relaxation and time away not thinking about tech and the like.
Strangely based on the movie Soylent green
Practically speaking in a home kitchen you also don't have to cook with heat that high, even if you're using a wok. There are plenty of recipes that call for lower temps, and you can often even make things that do call for high temps on a lower one instead. If you're dedicating to cooking that way you could also look into improving your vent hood if that's an option in your housing setup.
Yet, making just the right quantity each time is invaluable to avoid any waste!
* Quarter hotel pans (the stackable kind).
* Painter's tape and Sharpies.
* Zojirushi water boiler.
* Foot pedal sink.
The one Christmas Eve I worked in college was bananas. We had both ovens running (doesn't happen outside the holiday season) and were putting pans in and taking them out about as fast as we could make rolls and proof them.
However most people (I assume on HN) are not line cooks and do not work in commercial kitchens. I drink out of glass (don't want plasticy taste) and use glass to store leftover food.
Here's one: "There's a reason most line cooks drink out a deli rather than read NIH" [0] :)
As previously mentioned, whether one thinks using glass is worth it is a personal preference.
[0]: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11193405/
[0] TLDR: Guidance
Avoid plastic containers as much as possible. My ranking (and only if food-grade) of probability of leaching chemicals into the foods they contain...
You do you, but if you buy prepared food, be aware that no part of the supply chain for that food is fastidious about plastic the way you are.
Cooktop timer included in the induction stove
I find mis-en-place is a great optimization, especially if you have kids.
For hot water, I have a 2L thermos which I keep filled with boiling water to make hot drinks, with a quick reboil if necessary, and also to use as cooking water. I think there are plumbed in versions of this which would be even better.
Bread-making - I just use a bread machine to make day-to-day bread (specials hand baked etc on weekends sometimes.) For the daily, I pre-measure ingredients (both wet and dry) for 10+ loaves, individually packaged (kids are a great production line again). The to make the bread, just throw in the packets and press the buttons...
No doubt most people already do this, but for some reason my wife can't get it .. keep everything in the same place all the time. It really wastes time and 'stressergy' to have to hunt for the measuring spoons or the molasses or whatever because they were put back in a different place.
I'm sure commercial chefs could add a huge list of tricks that are still applicable at home to this.
Signed: A pedantic French guy (pleonasm)
* multicooker, one with a pressure cooking setting. You just have to press a few buttons and forget about it. If you know how much time it takes to cook something (for example - chickpeas, 26 minutes), you just set it for 26 minutes and go do something else. The multicooker will keep it warm for a few hours after it's done. No need to turn off the stove or anything like that. There's hardly any vapor released. You can make lots of dishes under pressure - pasta, lentils, chickpeas, beans... You can steam (almost?) any vegetable, as well. For beans and chickpeas the total prep time is hours, but the actual human time is minutes. Just put them under water for a few hours (takes ~30 seconds), then drain and put into the multicooker (takes ~1 minute). It takes a few minutes of actual work, but it also lets you forget about it, as it won't over-boil or anything like that. I can put something and go out, come back after a few hours and have a hot meal ready. I only use my regular stove top to make popcorn once in a while. The only downside is not being able to add different ingredients after the cooking has begun, as it's under pressure. And the "26" minutes above don't include the time it takes to reach the required pressure and the time it takes to release it. You can speed both steps by boiling water in a kettle before putting in the multicooker and by using the release valve after the cooking is done.
* bread maker - literally put water, oil, salt, sugar, flour and yeast one after the other, press a few buttons, wait a few hours and you get a perfect bread. Beats any recipe, including the "no-knead" ones, in terms of convenience. I can make better bread with lots of kneading and resting and whatnot, but the bread that comes out is good enough for me, so I don't see myself ever making bread by hand again.
If I lose all my possessions and have to rebuild from scratch, I would buy a cheap multicooker first, then a bread maker. Then, I'd think about a regular stove, a microwave and so on.
Another "optimization" is keeping everything in jars. Flour, coffee, sugar, cocoa, condiments, beans, oats - everything. It's much easier to see what and how much you have of everything, it's transparent, you can put labels on the jars (cheap price tags/stickers), you can pour from the jars easily, you can scoop with them with a spoon. No messy paper or plastic wraps. I don't get why people keep things in their original packaging - a bulky, wrinkled plastic or paper wrap that obscures the view behind it, obscures the view inside and makes it harder to scoop with a spoon.
For jars you use frequently, keep a spoon inside. I have a spoon in my coffee jar. I still have to get another spoon to swirl my coffee when it's done, so the sugar dissolves, but it's nice to not care about that when you're transferring the coffee from the jar to the moka pot or coffee maker.
And finally, keep similar ingredients near each other. The condiments, the teas, the legumes, the flours, the sauces. Just designate a place for each type of food. You can always adjust it later. In my cupboard the sugary condiments (sugar, molasses, xylitol, honey, etc.) are on the left, the salty ones are on the right (various types of salt, as well as salty mixes) and the other ones are in the middle (herbs and whatnot). Above that the most protein-y things are on the left, the cereal-y things are in the middle (oats, various seeds) and misc. things are on the right. The idea is that whenever I buy something, when I come home I immediately pour it into a jar and put it where it belongs. That way everything is pretty and organized. Queries like "how much lentils do I have left" are answered in seconds. The overhead of keeping the jars clean is minimal, as you don't have to clean the jars all the time - if you had a jar of lentils that's now empty, just leave it "dirty". It's not unhygienic, especially if you'll put lentils or other food that you'll boil in it later, anyway. I clean them once they get visible dirty - if I've touched them with greasy fingers, for example.
I struggle with discarding the original packaging. Sometimes I want to know what the nutritional content of product X is. I have a guilt drawer of collapsed packaging. This has the added benefits of confirming formulation changes, shrinkflation evidence, and remembering brands of certain commodities that were better or worse than others. It also satisfies my "preserve all available data" instincts, which I imagine many other geeks share -- although it is only tolerated with amusement by other members of my household.
For jars I use regular jars for most things. Regular jars of food you'd buy in the supermarket. They're basically free. I just have to soak them and remove the original label. For some things I like tall jars, the kind tomato sauce comes in. Doesn't really matter, except they fill certain shelves of a specific height better.
One of the things that I really appreciate about the Weck and Ball jars are their uniformity. You can get different lids for different purposes (air-tight, water-tight, with straw-hole, flexible, etc). The lids are cross-compatible for most jar shapes/sizes within the brand, but not cross-brand of course. This is OK because we use them for very different purposes, usually. They also stack well, the lids can be reused indefinitely and put through the dishwasher without worrying about rust or deformation, can be easily replaced if lost or damaged, etc etc. They're also more durable than the single-use-intended retail packaging jars. I'm sure this sounds a bit silly, but it does honestly make a difference, for my brain at least!
Of course they are not free, and I never would have made the change if it wasn't required for canning foods from the garden. But after making the switch, I've always been happier for it. YMMV!
We are very happy with our Samsung Hotblast https://www.samsung.com/in/microwave-ovens/convection/28-lit... (or a similar version). You setup the temperature to 200°C (392°F), the time to 20 or 30 minutes and you can go to another room while it cooks. It takes some time to find the perfect time, and sometime you must use the microwave or grill instead, but it's perfect for cooking in a short time.
An induction range would remove the need for transferring boiling water around. At least in the US, that's the fastest device, since countertop kettles are limited to 1.8kW or so. Induction 'burners' usually are 2.5-4kW, and assuming the right cookware, much better at transferring that energy into the water (and not the air like a gas burner)
I think you're missing the part where you dump one into the other once one boils.
Obviously, heating in parallel is going to be faster.
But.. Applying heat from two sources is better than applying heat from only one?
(In 2014 they were still in the EU)
No more dealing with dishes, dishwashers, stray items on the table, boiling water etc. The only thing you need to worry about is cleaning your one huel cup which you can do right before you prepare your next shake.
I did it for a few years, eating breakfast + lunch at the office and then Huel for dinner or eating out at restaurant.
I don't know the reasons as I only read parts of papers and posts about it, but it seems something related to human brain evolution, but I am no expert. If someone knows more I would be happy to know
1. Put a modest amount of water in the pot and turn the stove element on.
2. Put a modest amount of water in the electric kettle and turn it on.
3. If one boils before the other, either combine them (if the other is nearly boiling) or add a little more water to the already-boiling one.
What happens if they boil at the same time? Don't combine them? What happens if pot boils before kettle? Add water to the pot and forget about the kettle?
And overall boiling water seems to be the worst example to pick to show how to optimize cooking. You can't over-boil water, so depending on your appliance, if you don't start using your boiling water as soon as it boils, it will either stop heating and start loosing temperature, or it will keep boiling, water will be lost through evaporation and energy consumed needlessly. But if your focus is time, then boiling is not an issue. You can do whatever you want during heating. Furthermore, with electric kettle and induction stove, you'll hardly have time to chop a few onions or clean a few carrots before water is ready.
I've seen people needing half to a full hour to make pasta with a store-bought sauce, and thought that was crazy, but that's because they weren't doing things in parallel and/or not in the right order.
Like, if you plan to make pasta, first you put water to boil, then you get your pasta and everything else while its heating. And don't wait for your pasta to be ready to get your strainer. Same for the sauce. Get it and open it while the pasta are cooking.
You spend that time prepping ingredients, cooking another dish, or cleaning the kitchen. In cooking there’s no such thing as waiting.
I tend to go hyper mis en place when I cook. So by the time "active" cooking is taking place, it's a pretty chill affair and I often end up reading my book in the bits of down time.
Nice! As my mom used to say: A good cook leaves the kitchen cleaner than they found it.
I do a mix of mise-en-place and frantic chopping in between things. Depends on what I'm making and how the different activities gantt chart together.
Then they're boiled and you don't have to do anything. But the point is that they boiled in exactly half the time it would have taken using only one of the devices with the full amount of water.
> But if your focus is time, then boiling is not an issue. You can do whatever you want during heating.
If you're making a full meal, sure. If all you want to do is hard-boil a couple of eggs, then yeah you want to hurry it up.
If you really want speed, use your microwave as a third!
There should be an app that matches home vectorization needs with busy restaurant schedules. So I would pay, say, $50 bucks to jump in the kitchen and get yelled at to properly produce either 16 acceptable salmon entrees or ruin 2, whichever comes first.
Also from the article: "please prioritize safety considerations, such as minimizing the chances of spilling boiling water [...] That stuff matters a lot more than small time savings."
uhm...
I dunno. I try to optimize everything in life, maybe it's the engineer in me (I find it fun and interesting how people do things inefficiently). I also try and measure ingredients exactly (e.g. 420g of flour, not 419g or 421g), however that might be some low form of OCD. /shrug
Whether I use that extra time or not doesn't really matter for me.
Electric coil cooktops, and 120V kettles are the slowest.
Gas/induction cooktops, and 240V kettles are the quickest.