Learning how to cook a dish is a lot like figuring out a very complex puzzle. It’s not if-then conditional all the time – linear.
the puzzle is quite dynamic and if it were a shape I’d say it’s a sphere, with a lot of forces coming into factor.
You probably start with memory -memory of the best version of that dish you’ve ever eaten. Or a picture etched in your mind of the finished product, or the way it smelled, or the ingredient before it was cooked. Perhaps a fish so beautifully and intricately cut that it was done only by a highly skilled, decades of training, craftsman & artist.
When you experiment, it’s not haphazard experimentation (maybe sometimes) but having a strategy is important too. and the ingredients won’t always listen to your strategy – depending on what you’re cooking are quite dynamic so throughout the process you need to see if your original strategy is going well or perhaps you need to change it or add something.
Maybe you need to alter the taste or the texture or the color or any other things that could make the component unsightly, or unpleasant in taste – maybe bitter or cloudy, or … how do we fix this, is it missing something? Can it be better?
And the list goes on.
And if you don’t figure out that puzzle maybe you can start to blame your parents for not playing enough Mozart in the house.
and then somewhere in the process maybe when your colleagues are eating the dish and it doesn’t evoke that verbal WAOOWWWWWW. or their eyes didn’t light up quite enough, or perhaps after everyone is gone and you reflect – then your mind and your heart has deep thoughts and doubt perhaps.
Have I had the best version of this dish? Do I know what the best tastes like?