Cooking basics

The things that change your results before any recipe does — and why they work.

1. 01Knife Skills: Grip, Cuts, and Why Size MattersHow you hold the knife matters more than how fast you cut. The pinch grip, the claw hand, and why uniform size is a cooking decision rather than a cosmetic one.
2. 02Heat Control: Preheating, Oil, and Reading the PanThe same ingredients become a different dish depending on pan temperature. When to add the oil, how to read heat by sound, and which dishes want low heat instead.
3. 03Salt: When You Add It Matters More Than How MuchThe same amount of salt either draws water out or seasons all the way through, depending on when it goes in. Osmosis, seasoning in layers, and why salt types are not interchangeable by volume.
4. 04Browning and the Maillard ReactionMeat fails to brown for one of three reasons: it is wet, the pan is cool, or you put too much in at once. Plus how the brown film stuck to the pan becomes your sauce.
5. 05Stocks and Broths: Clarity, Time, and Why You Do Not Salt ThemWhat separates a clear stock from a cloudy one is temperature, not ingredients. Why you start in cold water, how long each ingredient wants, and why salt comes later.
6. 06Cooking Meat: Temperature, Resting, and Cutting Against the GrainDoneness is a core temperature, not a number of minutes. What resting actually does, how to handle a thick cut, and why the direction you slice changes the texture.
7. 07Blanching: Keeping Vegetables GreenBlanched vegetables go dull because of acid and heat. Why the pot should be large, why the lid stays off, and what the ice bath is really for.
8. 08Why Sauces Split: Emulsions and Pan SaucesA cream sauce breaking and a carbonara scrambling are the same failure. Temperature and emulsifiers — plus how to bring a split sauce back.
9. 09Deep Frying: Temperature, Batter, and the Second FryFrying is not cooking in oil so much as trading the food's water for it. Two temperatures, what each kind of coating is for, and why the second fry exists.
10. 10Cooking Rice: Rinsing, Ratios, and RestingHow far you rinse, how much water, and the ten minutes of resting decide the texture. And for fried rice or risotto, the rules invert.
11. 11Eggs: Coagulation Temperatures and What They DecideWhite sets at 62°C, yolk at 68°C. Those two numbers explain scrambled eggs, boiled eggs, steamed custard and crème anglaise all at once.
12. 12Dough and Gluten: When to Build It and When to Avoid ItThe same flour and water becomes a dumpling wrapper or a tender pancake. The difference is whether you built gluten or avoided it — and kneading and resting do different jobs.
13. 13Blooming Spices: Why Aromatics Go into Fat FirstStir ground spice into liquid and half the aroma never arrives, because most aroma compounds are fat-soluble. The thirty-second window, and the order things go in.
14. 14Balancing Flavour: Salt, Acid, Sweet, Fat, HeatWhen something tastes like it is missing something, it is usually salt or acid. Five dials, the order to turn them, and how to taste properly.
15. 15Fermentation Basics: Salt, Temperature, and AirFermentation is controlled spoilage. You control it with exactly three levers — salt, temperature, and keeping air out — and the failure signs are unambiguous.
16. 16Freezing and Thawing Without Wrecking the TextureTexture damage from freezing comes down to ice crystal size. Freeze fast, exclude air, thaw in the fridge, and most of the problem disappears.
17. 17Dry Heat and Moist Heat: Choosing the MethodRoasting and simmering are not hotter and cooler versions of one thing — they are different families. One builds aroma, the other builds tenderness, and most good cooking uses them in sequence.
18. 18Braising: Collagen, Time, and Why It Cannot Be RushedTough cuts turn tender not because the muscle relaxes but because collagen becomes gelatin — and that conversion needs time, not more heat.
19. 19Building Umami: Glutamate, Synergy, and LayersUmami is built in layers, not added from one bottle. The key is synergy: glutamate plus nucleotides multiply each other rather than adding up.
20. 20Reviving Leftovers: Reheating by Texture, Not by DefaultThe microwave is not the right tool for everything. What you do depends on what degraded — moisture, crispness, or starch — and the three want opposite treatments.
21. 21Chilli and Heat: Where It Lives and How to Take It BackHeat is not a taste but a pain signal. Where capsaicin actually sits, why water does nothing, and the four ways to pull a dish back once it has gone too far.
22. 22What Sugar Does Besides SweetenCutting the sugar does not just cut sweetness. Colour, moisture, structure, and the counterweight to salt and acid — which is why savoury dishes call for it too.
23. 23Dairy and Heat: Why Cream Splits and Butter BurnsThe temperature butter burns at, the conditions that split cream, the order yoghurt goes in. Dairy fails under heat in a small number of specific ways, so avoiding them is specific too.
24. 24Thickening a Sauce: Starch, Roux, and ReductionSlurry, roux, reduction — three methods that do not give the same result. Why a starch-thickened sauce thins on reheating, and why the slurry has to be mixed cold.
25. 25Soaking: Beans, Rice, and Everything DriedWhen beans refuse to soften no matter how long you boil them, and when the soaking water is an ingredient rather than waste. The old rule about salt is wrong.
26. 26Choosing Flour: Protein Is the Whole StoryBread, plain and cake flour differ in one number: protein. What that number decides, how to fake one from another, and the things sold beside flour that are not flour at all.
27. 27What Your Oven Is Actually DoingThe dial and the air rarely agree. Why preheating takes twenty minutes rather than five, why convection means lowering the number, and what an air fryer actually is.
28. 28What Marinades Actually Do (and Do Not)A marinade penetrates one to three millimetres. Acid does not tenderise the way it is said to, and the only thing that really travels inward is salt.
29. 29Cooking Noodles: Salt, Starch, and Whether to RinseWhy the water is salted, why oil in it is a mistake, and the actual rule for which noodles get rinsed and which never do.
30. 30Fresh Herbs: Hardy, Delicate, and When to Add ThemAroma is volatile, so timing is the whole game. What separates a hardy herb from a delicate one, why the stems are worth more than you think, and why basil should never meet a knife.
31. 31Cooking Oils: Smoke Point and What Each One Is ForWhat a smoke point actually marks, how much headroom deep frying needs, and why sesame oil and extra-virgin olive oil are finishing oils rather than cooking oils.
32. 32Serving Temperature: Why Some Dishes Wait and Some CannotWhy cold dishes need heavier seasoning, why rice and rice cake go stale fastest in the fridge of all places, and the dishes where letting the steam off is the point.
33. 33Wrapping and Sealing: Why Dumplings BurstA dumpling bursts because of water in the filling, almost every time. How to deal with the filling first, when to seal with water and when with egg, why the pleats are structural, and how the cooking method decides the thickness of the wrapper.
34. 34Alcohol in Cooking: What It Actually DoesAlcohol is a solvent for aroma, it does not all cook off, mirin and sake and shaoxing and wine each do a different job, and there is a real substitution ratio when you have none.
35. 35Grilling: Distance, Zones, and Flare-UpsOn a grill the heat is radiant, so distance is temperature. Why you build two zones, why a flare-up means you are already late, and why sugary marinades go on at the end.
36. 36Fermented Pastes: Gochujang, Doenjang, Miso, and How to Use ThemA fermented paste is not a seasoning but a finished ferment. Why brands differ enough in salt that you season last, why paste scorches, and why miso must not boil while doenjang has to.
37. 37Steaming: Water Level, Condensation, and StackingSteam never exceeds 100°C and still cooks faster than boiling water. The reason is latent heat; the commonest failure is the drip off the lid; and stacking does not work the way people think.