Set up

Read it twice

Read the whole recipe before you touch anything. Then read it again and picture doing it. You are looking for three things: what has to be done ahead (marinating, chiling, bringing meat to room temperature), which steps happen fast and back to back, and which tools you need out. A recipe that says “add the garlic” thirty seconds after the onions go in is telling you to chop the garlic first.

Mise en place

The French phrase means “everything in its place,” and it is the single habit that separates people who enjoy cooking from people who find it stressful. Before any heat goes on: wash and cut every vegetable, measure every spice, open every can, and put each thing in its own bowl in the order you will use it. Then cooking is just picking up bowls.

It feels slower. It is faster, because you never stop to chop while something burns, and you never discover halfway through that you are out of an ingredient.

Your station

• A cutting board that does not slide. Put a damp towel under it.
• One sharp knife, a towel over your shoulder or on the counter, and a bowl for scraps.
• Salt in a small open bowl, so you can pinch it. Shakers make you under-salt.
• Tongs, a spatula and a spoon within reach of the stove, not in a drawer.
• Clean as you go. Every time you wait on something, wash something.

Salt, fat, sugar, acid. Then heat.

This is the method I tell everyone. Four things make food taste good, and almost every fix comes from one of them. Salt makes flavor show up; season early for meat and in layers for everything else. Fat carries flavor and gives food its richness. Sugar rounds the edges off: a pinch in a tomato sauce, honey in a marinade, the sweetness already in an onion or a carrot. Acid, a squeeze of lemon or a splash of vinegar, wakes the whole thing up at the end.

Those four work on their own with no stove at all. A vinaigrette is salt, fat, sugar and acid in a jar. So is a marinade, a slaw dressing, a salsa. Heat is the fifth, and it comes in once you cook: browning is flavor, and gentle heat keeps things tender.

When a dish tastes flat, ask in that order: salt? Fat? Sugar? Acid? Then heat. Nine times out of ten the answer is one of the first four.

Time it backwards

Decide when you want to eat, then work back. The thing that takes longest starts first. Rice takes twenty minutes, so it goes on before the chicken. Meat needs to rest, so it comes off the heat before the vegetables finish. Write the order on a scrap of paper the first few times. After that you will do it in your head.

When it goes wrong

Something burned while you were chopping

The prep wasn’t done before the heat went on. Finish every cut first. Then light the stove.

You are missing an ingredient halfway through

Read it twice and lay everything out before you start. A gap shows up on the counter, not in the pan.

Everything finished at different times

Work back from when you want to eat. The thing that takes longest starts first.

The food tastes flat

Run the method in order: salt, fat, sugar, acid. Fix one, taste, then try the next.

The kitchen is a wreck at the end

Clean while you wait. Every time something is cooking on its own, wash something.