I don't know. Maybe um. When you are hard boiling eggs, pull an egg out when you think they're done. If the water on the shell vanishes within two or three seconds, it is done.
I prefer my eggs medium-well with a bit of gummy in the centre, so my method is to put eggs in cold water in a pot until they're just covered, bring the water to a boil, turn the heat off and then wait 7 minutes before stopping the cooking with cold water. Gives you perfect hard boiled eggs with the centres a bit underdone.
Octosect your onion 90% of the way through and then slice it vertically
This will give you big onion chunks, which is almost never what you want unless you're grilling it. To dice an onion, cut it in half, put it flat side down and put two or three horizontal cuts into it with a bit of a downward slant. Slice the onion almost from tip to root in a semi-circle, following the natural lines on the onion (usually; a little less than 1/16" each). Then slice the onion perpendicular to the slices you just made--the distance between cuts will determine how fine your dice is. To slice an onion instead, stop after the root to tip cuts and slice the root off instead. To get an extremely fine dice, you will need to remove a few layers of onion at a time, such that you can press them flat against the board.
Render pork fat (lard) or beef fat (tallow) in a medium pot with a 1/2 cup of water will prevent scorching or yellowing.
You probably just want lower heat. Too much water in an attempt to deglaze will make sauces or foods "gummy". Some water can save you from a fuck up, but I wouldn't start out with it.
Stand any leafy greens you have brought in a sink of water for an hour or so when you get them home, it revitalizes them like a bunch of flowers. It makes the veg last longer if you are not going to eat on the same day as well as you've arrested the drying out process.
Along the same lines, standing your fresh herbs up in the fridge in a mug of water with a plastic bag over them will keep them good for two or three times as long. Especially good for cilantro or basil. If you just leave them in a bag, chances are they'll be slimy before you can use it all.
The initial crushing is what does it I think. You can use the flat of your knife to do that, and it usually works. Or you can just buy dry granulated or wet minced garlic.
Honest to God, unless you're italian, 90% of recipes that call for fresh garlic benefit more from garlic powder. That shit goes with everything.
What else...
- Learn how to use a knife. Learn some variation of the claw grip so you can cut the sizes you actually want. You will never be as fast or as good at cutting things if you have your fingers out straight or far away from the blade, plus it's actually more dangerous. My food slips all the time and it isn't dangerous at all because the flat of my knuckles stop my actual fingers from going under the blade.
- Learn emulsions. They are very simple. You want to impress a girl; try hollandaise sauce - egg yolk, oil and lemon (with some chipotle powder optional).
- Almost everything lasts longer than you think it does. Trust your senses, particularly your nose. You can eat fish you cooked a week ago, so long as you reheat it in a pan to kill surface germs. The microwave is a bigger gamble and a major cause of food poisoning, because you aren't getting the surface of the food hot enough to kill things.
- Good sauces or marinades contain fats, salt, acids and sugars. You can mix virtually any of these together for something edible. Taste while you cook.
- Fats dull flavours. If something is too *whatever*, add butter or oil.
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Add a hint of coffee to any chocolate you make, and gently salt the tops of your chocolate chip cookies with a nice flake salt.
Coffee also goes well with things like caramelized onions. Coffee's bitterness and depth of flavour goes well with anything sweet.
- Stainless steel is more versatile than cast iron. You still need at least one non-stick pan.
- Homemade bread products are way, way better than store bought. Sourdough in particular is very easy, but so are homemade tortillas.
- Scrambled eggs are supposed to be large fluffy pieces of curd; not 1/4" chopped up nonsense. Just because your mom fucked up eggs, doesn't mean you have to.
- Panko breadcrumbs let you give a crispy coating to everything and you only need to pan fry it. You don't need flour; just an egg and Panko dredge. They are better than Italian breadcrumbs in almost every way. Let the breaded food dry out for 10 minutes so the egg binds the food and crumbs together.
- Steakhouse-steak requires stupid high temps. We're talking 700 degrees on the grill, at a minimum. Pans don't need as much heat, but beware of sticking. Properly seared food should self-release from the pan.
- A couple drops of fish sauce makes just about everything more savory; particularly sauces. It sounds gross, but just do it.
