Fortunately, help is at hand. Secret Ingredient and Fresh To Go now offer the kind of pre-prepped meals that can turn weary would-be chefs into the next Joel Robuchon.

At Secret Ingredient, which specialises in international dishes with touches of local flavour, three expats came up with the concept after learning about a similar themed venue in Berlin called Kochhaus. 'It's so hard to source different products in Hong Kong,' says company director Brian Campbell, a former investment banker who has years of private cooking experience both in New York and Hong Kong. 'And we really do want to show people how easy it can be to cook a great meal.'

In order to perfect their idea of creating pre-prepped meals, the trio spent months testing recipes. 'Someone would come in and say 'We had this awesome restaurant meal last night, can't we do this?' No, you can't,' laughs Campbell.

Instead, the trio's goal was to prepare delicious international dishes that could be cooked using gas burners, the most basic utensils and a minimum of fuss and time. 'We say that all our meals can be made in 10 steps or less and within a half hour,' says co-owner Chris Bland, a former lawyer from Britain.

When patrons order one of the four dishes that change every two weeks (the latest menu includes spicy sesame chicken and peanut noodles and chickpea and spinach stew), all of the ingredients are packaged in containers with simple labels. That is accompanied by a menu which details the specific steps a cook must follow to make the dish. 'We've done the chopping and sourcing for you,' says Campbell. 'Just think of us as your sous chef.'

For a little over HK$200, diners can phone in that day and be assured that not only will their food be fresh and delivered, but healthy as well. 'We try to use brown rice, soba noodles and ingredients like whole-wheat pastas where we can,' says Campbell. 'We also always make sure we have a low-carb meal because so many people are asking for that.'

Word of mouth has spread largely by e-mail, newsletters and Facebook. During one recent day, the chalkboard was filled with more than a dozen orders. This has encouraged the trio to think of expanding their concept to desserts, all in the name of making cooking less frightening for novices. 'If we can encourage more people to cook, that would be great,' says Bland. 'Cooking should be enjoyable, not intimidating.'

At a kitchen hidden away in a factory complex in Heng Fa Chuen, Ray Wah and his partner Rainbow Ng had a similar idea two years ago. 'Hong Kong people are very busy and getting more health-conscious,' says Wah, a former investment banker who funded the company known as Fresh To Go. 'They're also starting to wonder what's in their food. This is especially the case with the food from China, where they throw in chemicals, or you wonder where the water comes from. We thought this was a bad sign.'

So Fresh To Go was born, and now offers nearly 100 pre-prepped Cantonese and Sichuan dishes that include organic or premium ingredients sourced from around the world. Without any restaurant experience, the duo researched their concept for nearly a year and faced obstacles even before they started. 'We had to make sure the food leaves the kitchen and arrives at homes in nearly the same condition,' says Wah. 'A lot of local chefs cook differently in the kitchen and rejected our business model.'

Eventually, they recruited a chef with decades of experience at venues such as the Mandarin Oriental hotel who is able to prepare nearly 30 orders of multiple dishes a day, as long as the orders come in before the 11am cut-off time. Customers have learned that such traditional dishes as barbecue pork with vegetables are likely to come with a twist. 'In restaurants, frozen pork is used, but we use Iberico pork from Spain,' claims Wah.

At HK$70 to HK$100 per dish, Fresh To Go's customer base is growing. And it's not just because the food can be delivered, arrives in meticulously labelled containers or can be cooked in less than a half hour. 'Customers think we've made their lives easier,' says Wah. 'Many of our clients have helpers and they didn't like the cooking. It seems they just couldn't replicate their favourite Cantonese dishes like we can.'

There are yet more options for hungry, harried workers who feel that they just don't have the time. Unfortunately, they might have to cook a little. South Stream Seafoods and The Porterhouse are two online stores that have developed a devoted following largely due to their superior seafood and steaks that are claimed to be healthier and cheaper than what can be purchased in even the best supermarkets here. 'They will still rely on their cooking skills,' says Bradley White, who started South Stream Seafoods in 1990 with two partners by supplying wholesale seafood to hotels and airlines. 'It just makes [cooking] much easier if you have fresh ingredients to cook with. If you have a nice piece of fresh fish or good quality meat, you need to do very little to it. You just let the natural flavours shine.'

South Stream Seafoods now offers fresh sustainable seafood, hormone-free beef, chicken, lamb and other meats. They also deliver across Hong Kong Island twice a week after orders are received online. 'Giving people more of what they need makes us more of a one-stop shop,' says White. 'We offer peace of mind. What we're told by our customers is that it's such a weight off their mind. People are concerned about what they're feeding to their children.'

Though they operate under a similar online delivery premise, The Porterhouse carries fresh steaks, sustainable seafood and, for the cooking challenged, ready-made meals. James Fortier, a former Morton's steakhouse employee, imports steaks from Chicago, salami from New Jersey and seafood on a weekly basis. 'With rents being what they are, we just decided to do everything online,' says Fortier. 'People have responded. They're busy and don't want to fight the crowds.'

As it turns out, 60 per cent of The Porterhouse's customers are locals who like their meat wrapped in butcher paper and the personalised service. The Porterhouse intends to roll out more items, including artisanal cheese and cookie dough. There will also be more for those who have no idea what they're doing in the kitchen. 'Education is the barrier to cooking,' says Fortier. 'A lot of people can cook, but they don't know how.'

And back in the kitchen, the hoisin chicken and pear salad didn't kill anybody. Better yet, my three companions even went back for seconds. From box to plate it took just 27 minutes, enough time to contemplate giving Monsieur Robuchon a run for his money.