35 Ways to Cook Better

1. Take recipes with a pinch of skepticism and avoid following them blindly. The recipe developer may have used slightly different ingredients than you, and some quantities may be off. They probably used different cookware and appliances, so cooking times are just an approximation.
2. To make your home-cooked dishes truly delicious, add something sour, something sweet, and something spicy. Wine/vinegar, honey/maple syrup, and black pepper/red chili flakes are your friends.
3. When a recipe calls for wine, use one you would actually drink. The flavor of the wine will concentrate as it cooks, so quality is key.
4. Use less salt than you think you’ll need, then give your dish a taste and add more if necessary. You can always add more salt, but you can’t take it away if you’ve overdone it.
5. If your dish turns out too spicy, tone down the heat with cream or add more liquid/ingredients to dilute it.
6. When cooking with herbs, remember that dried herbs are more potent than fresh ones. Use a third the amount of dried herbs as you would use fresh herbs.
7. When garlic is burnt, it becomes overwhelmingly bitter. Sauté your garlic for 15 to 30 seconds before adding other ingredients or cooking liquid to the pan, which will bring the temperature down. The garlic is sautéed when its aroma fills your kitchen.
8. Dairy curdles, even in moderate heat. To give your cream soups a consistent texture and keep your cheese sauces intact, incorporate the cream or cheese off the heat. The residual heat in your dish should be enough to bind the whole thing together.
9. The only moments you should crank the heat up to high are when you are bringing a liquid to a boil or boiling it down. Heat should be kept at a medium to medium-high level when cooking.
10. Browning is caused by the Maillard reaction, which takes place at temperatures higher than 285 °F (140 °C). If you brown your meats well, you will create an enticing aroma and bring out a depth of flavor that otherwise wouldn’t be there.
11. Once the meat darkens to a brown color, pyrolysis — the scientific term for burning — will follow. Charred meat has lost its delicious aroma and flavor, instead tasting like coal. Avoid charring the meat by removing it before it has blackened.
12. Meat cannot be browned in water. The boiling point of water (212 °F/100 °C) doesn’t reach the temperature required for the Maillard reaction (285 °F / 140 °C). To give your boiled meats more flavor, sear them in hot oil first, then boil them in a flavorful liquid such as stock, broth, or generously seasoned water.
13. Searing doesn’t “lock in the flavor in the meat.” It triggers the Maillard reaction and causes evaporation, producing a crispy, golden brown, intensely flavorful crust on the meat’s surface.
14. Liberally season your meat with salt before cooking it. The seasoning can be done immediately before the meat is cooked, or at least one hour beforehand, with the meat refrigerated. The latter technique is known as dry-brining, and it allows the salt to seep into the meat’s muscle fibers.
15. Tender cuts of meat should be cooked minimally, to the internal temperature for safe consumption. Tough cuts of meat must be cooked low and slow, to an internal temperature of 175–225 °F (80–107 °C), so that the collagen they contain can be melted and turned to gelatin.
16. After cooking meat, allow it to rest for a few minutes before slicing. Steaks, chops, and fillets should be rested for 3–5 minutes. Birds and roasts, for 15 minutes. Resting helps the juices redistribute throughout the meat, keeping it moist.
17. Avoid overcrowding the pan when searing, sautéing, or frying foods (be it shallow- or deep-frying). Overcrowding can lower the temperature of the oil, causing the food to steam rather than brown.
18. To check if your oil is ready for deep-frying, insert a wooden spoon handle. If bubbles form around the handle, the oil is ready.
19. When boiling, cover the pot to keep the warmth and the moisture in. Take the lid off to let the moisture escape in the form of vapor, thickening the liquid.
20. Boil your starches — pasta, potatoes, rice, quinoa, or other — in thoroughly salted water. As the starches cook, they will take in the salted water and turn out well-seasoned on the inside.
21. Starches have the best mouthfeel when they’re cooked to al dente — cooked through and no longer crunchy on the inside but still firm to the bite on the outside.
22. Save a cup of pasta cooking water before draining. The starchy water can be used to adjust the consistency of your sauce.
23. To make a sauce, soup, or stew thicker, you can reduce it by boiling, add a cornstarch mixture, or make a roux. A “cornstarch slurry” is equal parts cornstarch and water, stirred together. A “roux” is equal parts all-purpose flour and unsalted butter, cooked over low heat with ceaseless stirring until uniform and straw yellow.
24. Unlike all other thickening techniques, boiling a liquid to thicken it not only increases its viscosity, but also concentrates — and, in turn, intensifies — its flavor.
25. Butter burns at a much lower temperature than animal fat or vegetable oil because it contains milk solids. Clarified butter — butter melted and with the milk solids removed — doesn’t. If a recipe involves high heat and calls for butter, use clarified butter or incorporate regular butter over lowered heat near the end of cooking.
26. Oil and water don’t normally mix. You can mitigate this by shaking them together in a jar, which disperses the oil into the water, or by emulsifying them in a blender with the addition of egg yolk or mustard.
27. Mayonnaise is the emulsion of egg yolk and cooking oil. For the best quality, make your own. Add egg yolk to the blender and slowly pour in a flavorless cooking oil, be it avocado oil, canola oil, safflower oil, or sunflower oil, into the blender.
28. When cooking with beer, add only a little at a time — exercising restraint and caution. Beer is bitter. In any dish, the right level of bitterness is the hardest to get right.
29. Save money by incorporating canned and frozen vegetables into your meals. Select the cans with the lowest sodium content and fewest additives. The least expensive and simplest to use frozen vegetables are broccoli, squash, cauliflower, peas, and spinach.
30. Rinse canned beans and chickpeas before adding them to your salads or meals. Instead of ending up in your body, a lot of the excess sodium will be washed away down the drain.
31. Diced canned tomatoes don’t cook down because they contain calcium chloride, a firming agent that keeps them from turning to mush during canning. Buy your canned tomatoes whole; you can chop them up with a sharp knife or crush them with your hands.
32. While heavy-bottomed pans and pots heat slower, they distribute heat more evenly. Thicker metal retains more heat, regaining its temperature quickly after adding ingredients (or cooking liquid) and evening out the thermostat cycles of electric and induction cooktops.
33. Baking works best when the dough comes into sudden contact with hot bakeware. To become a better baker, get a pizza stone or a baking steel. It will hold on to heat and transfer it to your baked goods, puffing them up, so they come out crispier and airier.
34. Allow your dough to rest and rise for 15 minutes at room temperature after kneading it, then put it in the fridge overnight for a lighter, more flavorful result. The coldness of your fridge will slow down the dough’s fermentation, giving it structure and ameliorating its aroma and flavor.
35. For roasted vegetables with a caramelized outside and a soft inside, ensure your oven is preheated thoroughly, and the vegetables are cut uniformly.

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