Really, it's simple.
One page per move, per cooking method, per vegetable: the one thing to know, the real time it takes, and what to do if it goes wrong. Go at your own pace, in any order, and everything is here.
Nothing goes on the heat until everything is out and ready.
One good kitchen knife with a 7 to 8 inch blade (18 to 20 cm), and a board big enough to hold a cut onion without it falling off. If you only buy one thing, buy that.
A tablespoon is 15 ml. A teaspoon is 5 ml. A standard glass is 200 ml, a bit less than a cup. Everything else follows.
Wash your hands with hot water and soap before you cook, and every time you have touched raw meat, fish or eggs.
A pot handle points towards the inside of the counter, never outwards. It is a simple habit that prevents a lot of accidents, especially with children around.
When you use the last one, that is the moment you put it back on the list, not the moment you need it.
Quantities multiply, but cooking time does not. A bolognese for eight simmers as long as a bolognese for four, it just takes a little longer to heat up at the start.
Count back from mealtime. If you eat at 7:30 pm and the rice takes twenty minutes, it goes on at 7:05. The meat takes ten minutes, it goes on at 7:15.
Keep the root until the end. It is what holds the layers of the onion together while you slice. You throw it away last.
Crush the clove with the flat of the blade before peeling it. The skin comes off by itself, and crushed garlic is already half chopped.
Watch what is happening in the pot, not the dial. Loud sizzling and a little smoke: that is high. Gentle sizzling: that is medium. Barely a few small bubbles: that is low.
The fat must be hot before the onion goes in, and the onion must not swim: a tablespoon of oil or a knob of butter for one onion, no more.
Taste before you salt, salt a little, taste again. It takes three seconds. Salt is there to wake up the taste of the other ingredients: if you can taste it, there is too much.
Taste before serving, always. If it is flat, it is almost always salt or acidity that is missing, not one more spice.
Taste a piece of pasta one minute before the time on the packet. It should be tender, with a tiny bit of firmness left in the centre. The packet time is a guide, not a rule.
Do not lift the lid during cooking, not even to look. Rice cooks thanks to the steam it makes itself, and every time you open, it escapes. The timer is enough.
Trust the timer, not your eye. An egg keeps cooking once it is off the heat, so always stop a little before you think.
Plunge green vegetables into cold water as soon as they are cooked: they stay green and crisp instead of carrying on cooking and turning grey.
A very hot oven, 200 to 220 °C (400 to 425 °F), and the vegetables in a single layer, spaced out. Piled up, they steam and stay soft.
The pan must be very hot and not too full. Too many vegetables at once, the temperature drops, they release their water and boil instead of frying. Cook in two batches if needed.
Water to cover, no more: it just covers the vegetables. You can always thin it afterwards, but you cannot rescue it if it is too watery.
What goes in the dish is already cooked, or nearly. The oven is there to heat, bind and brown, not to cook raw vegetables, except for thinly sliced potatoes that need an hour.
Let the meat rest on a plate, covered with another plate or a sheet of foil, for as long as it cooked. The juices go back into the meat instead of running onto your plate.
Let it brown without touching it. Ground meat stirred constantly releases its water and turns grey. One quiet minute in a hot pan, and it takes a brown crust that makes all the flavour.
Do not move it. Fish laid in a hot pan sticks for the first thirty seconds, then comes loose on its own once the crust has formed. If you push it before, it tears.
Fifteen minutes at 200 °C (400 °F) for a 150 g portion. Beyond that, it dries out. It is done when the flesh is opaque and flakes.
Straight into the cooking, heat or oven a little lower, and half as long again. What you never do is thaw on the counter.
Pour the liquid into the still-hot pan and scrape the bottom with a wooden spatula. What comes loose gives the sauce its flavour.
Dissolve the salt in the vinegar before adding the oil. Salt does not dissolve in oil, and that is how you end up with a bland vinaigrette and crunchy grains of salt.
It only gets salted at the end. As it reduces, it concentrates its flavour and its salt with it, and a sauce salted at the start ends up too salty.
Same weight of butter and flour, medium heat, and you stir all the time: a roux is not left alone, but it only takes two minutes.
Pour the milk in little by little while whisking, and wait for it to thicken before adding more. That is what avoids lumps.
Take the pastry out of the fridge ten minutes before unrolling it. Cold, it cracks at the edges. At room temperature, it unrolls in one go.
The garnish is already cooked and drained when it goes into the pastry. Raw vegetables release water and make everything soggy.
The first crêpe is always ugly. It is there to set the heat of the pan, and it gets eaten standing in the kitchen. From the second one on, everything is fine.
The emptied pot, rinsed and dried, is your only measure. Everything counts in pots, and the order 1, 2, 3 is easy to remember: one pot of yogurt, two of sugar, three of flour.
Two hours. That is the time a cooked dish can spend on the table or the counter before going to the fridge. Beyond that, you do not keep it.
Covered, with a spoon of water, and stirred halfway. That is true for the microwave as for the pan.
What reheats well gets made double: sauces, soups, stews, rice, pasta, roasted vegetables. What does not reheat gets prepared, but not cooked ahead: salad, pan-fried fish, omelette.
A leftover gets transformed, it is not served again as is. An egg, a little cheese, a sauce or a trip through the oven, and it is another dish.
Choosing it, preparing it, cutting it for the dish, storing it.