Cook This Page is IKEA’s brilliant cooking hack

Finally, easy to follow assembly instructions from IKEA.

It’s hard to go wrong with the Cook This Page recipe parchment paper, an interactive recipe card from IKEA. Using food safe ink, the recipes are printed on parchment paper, with ingredient blanks measured to size. All you need to do is to place the ingredients on their corresponding images, roll it up and place it in the oven to bake.

The ingredients get steamed in the wrapper and when it’s done, cut it open and voilà! It’s ready to serve. And what I like most, it’s so easy to clean up. The lazy cook/ dishwasher in me is jumping with joy!

Parchment paper cooking is not an entirely new idea, so we can’t give IKEA all the credit. The concept has been around ever since our forefathers learnt how to wrap food in leaves/ mud/ bamboo/ whatever. In my hometown, we have a famous salted chicken baked in parchment paper and it’s the yummiest ever and it’s been around since I was wee small.

But most parchment paper is just that – paper – they don’t come with recipes printed on them, with to-size measurements of ingredients. Well, this may change soon. I see a Kickstarter in the making.

Kudos to IKEA and their agency Leo Burnett for the fresh twist. The extra step of printing the illustrations onto the paper makes it easier for “people who find new recipes intimidating. IKEA wanted to show people that getting creative can be deliciously simple,” it says in this video. It’s a great way for the beginner cook to get started on healthy homemade meals. I think it’s also an awesome way to introduce kids to cooking. What better way to keep little fingers busy than lining up shrimp!

The recipes incorporate IKEA food and kitchen items. From what I can see, each booklet comes with 4 recipes: Salmon with Lemon and Dill, Meatballs with Ravioli, Shrimp with Olives and Rhubarb Raspberry Crumble. Yums.

Now, don’t get too excited. The Cook This Page recipe sheets were a promotional item for the IKEA Canada’s kitchen sale, so we may never see them in stores. But we’re keeping our fingers crossed, aren’t we?