all times. It’s encoded in their DNA. With practice, you can learn
to have this internal timer too.
05 Control the heat.
Very rarely do recipes talk about that knob on your stove that
controls the heat, but great cooks know that knob very well.
Seldom do they set the heat to “high” or “medium” or “low” and
leave it alone. As they cook, they monitor what’s happening and
adjust the heat accordingly. Recipes can’t dictate a specific heat
setting for every moment of cooking, which is why you have to be
alert, pay attention, and adjust the knob based on what you
observe going on in the pan.
06 Use your ears.
Food will speak to you if you listen. Samin Nosrat, for example,
stopped our conversation while she was roasting her buttermilk-
marinated chicken to say, “Oh, the chicken’s talking to us.” What
she heard was a loud sizzle, which suggested the oven was too hot,
so she lowered the temperature. When I made Angelish Wilson’s
Chowchow, I heard lots of gurgling and stopped it just before it
boiled over. Your ears are an important tool for cooking.
07 Don’t use pepper the way you use salt.
Most of us who cook at home think of salt and pepper as a
constantly complementary duo: wherever we put salt, we can also
put pepper. But that is not often the case in the professional
