6 Tips That Make You a Better Home Cook

**1. Taste, taste, and taste again.** Most cooks who call their food bland simply don't taste enough while cooking. Most likely it just needs a little more salt, sometimes acidity, spice or texture, but usually salt. Take risks; if you over-salt once (it happened to me, trust me), you know where the limit is and can take it back a notch. That's how you find your own taste balance. **2. Observe techniques instead of memorizing recipes.** See how long something takes, which cooking method makes the dish work. Learn to roast a broccoli and you can use the same technique on every vegetable you want to roast. Do this and you stop relying on a recipe every single time. **3. Mise en place.** French for getting everything in place, and a concept in every restaurant. Cut all your ingredients before anything time-bound hits the heat, have your bowls ready, and keep one bowl for garbage and peels so you're not walking to the bin all the time. **4. Master temperatures.** I was taught in culinary school to feel how tight a steak is for medium or well done, honestly, I don't like that method. Get a good thermometer and measure the internal temperature of your meat; then you know exactly how done it is. A sous vide is the foolproof version of this: the perfect steak every time. **5. Slow down.** Once in a while, give yourself real time in the kitchen. Pay attention to how you cut, to timing. Practice the slow way, and once you've automated the techniques you can go as fast as you want. **6. Maintain your equipment, and for God's sake, buy a decent knife.** If you invest in one thing, make it a proper chef's knife. I've seen people cut everything with a paring knife this big, and it breaks my heart, why make your own life miserable? And keep it sharp: a sharp knife is safer and easier to cut with. Invest in a sharpener, or best, a whetstone.