Give me an ingredient and I’ll give you ten ways of cooking it: how I would write a cookbook or build a cooking website

Have you ever purchased this one specific sauce for a recipe (I’m looking at you, Worcestershire sauce), but you only needed a little and never figured out how to use the rest of the bottle? You’re definitely not alone.

I’ve been listening to Home Cooking, a podcast by Samin Nosrat and Hrishikesh Hirway. The hosts answer cooking questions from the listeners, which are often variations of these:

• How to cook (this specific kind of vegetable, cut of meat)?
• How to use (this specific spice, sauce)?
• What to cook for (this occasion)?

These three simple questions have been asked over and over again. For me, it manifests a common sentiment among home cooks: although we have access to millions of recipes online, we don’t know how to connect them, which then restricts our creativity and ability to cook off-script.

There are a couple of reliable food websites that publish tested recipes (NTY Cooking, Bon Appétit, Serious Eats), but none of them answer ALL of the three questions. Although many cookbooks like The Food Lab teaches cooking more systematically, but it couldn't give you an immediate answer to the question “what to cook for dinner?” Many of us don't always plan dinner ahead of the time. I mean I do, but I soon get tired of it and feel uninspired. We need something that can be searched like a dictionary. You have these vegetables in the fridge, how can I turn them into a delicious meal?

So, if I develop a food website or write a cookbook, this is what I would do:

1. Let’s say that you purchased my cookbook. The table of contents are divided into four main chapters (or more, this is just an example).

2. You are wondering what to cook for dinner, so you go to the "Ingredient" chapter, and there are categories like meat, vegetables, etc. As you went to the grocery store on your way back home, you noticed that chicken thighs are on sale, so you decided to make them tonight, so you go to the “Chicken/Duck” section.

3. You got bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs.

4. At this point, a lot of cookbooks just shows you the recipe, but it doesn’t actually help home cooks to really understand cooking. Many chefs agree that recipes are just a guide, the technique is more critical (David Chang talked more about this in his podcast). Therefore, if I write a cookbook, techniques will be essential. So when you decide to cook the chicken thigh, you choose the technique first, then you will see multiple recipes using that technique. Another advantage of putting techniques first instead of recipes is that you won’t get tired of one way of cooking an ingredient. You can always try to use another method, and it’ll be something new again. For more advanced or adventurous home cooks, they can also find creative ways of cooking an ingredient. For example, we often heard of roasting and grilling chicken thighs, but what about confiting them? What about smoking them?

5. To make the cookbook even more accessible, each recipe is labeled with dietary restrictions and offers substitutions. I also think that there could be an online cooking club for the people who purchase the book, and they can see the electronic version of the recipe. Most importantly, they can click the label and find other recipes with that label. For example, if I’m vegan, then I can click the vegan label and find other vegan recipes in the book.

There you have it. With five easy steps, you can become a better home cook and easily find a perfect recipe for dinner. We need a more systematic approach to design a cookbook or a cooking website, and more home cooks will get better at cooking.