How to Make Every Meal Taste Like it Was Made by a Personal Chef

In cooking, balance is key.

For those of us that aren’t professional chefs, though (ahem, like your friendly neighborhood digital media coordinator) balancing flavor and texture is often a guessing game. Sure, we know an excellent and complex flavor profile when we taste one, but Samin Nosrat we are not. I may only be speaking for myself, having just discovered that there’s a whole world of depth and variety in salt alone, but it’s long seemed like real understanding of flavor, and how to nail it every time, is out of reach for laymen like you and me. Until, of course, I started working with four brilliant and highly skilled chefs.

As it turns out, a significant part of what makes someone a decent, consistent cook comes back to fundamentals. And the best round-up of these basics - including skills I’ve seen in action with the Tiny Spoon chefs themselves - I’ve seen so far is from Reddit’s R/Cooking page. For real. That’s why we’ve combined them into a helpful little infographic that we hope will be your new best friend over the coming holidays.

But before you go penning a break-up letter to your Tiny Spoon chef, take it easy cowboy. These are only meant to give your own home-cooking a little kick-start. And if you’re anything like me, it’s going to take practice. So let me repeat: Chef Janice, Ben, Matt, or Juan we are not. But hey, maybe we can be the rock stars at family Thanksgiving this year. I’ll certainly take it.

Cheers!