Cooking

Cooks and rescues real dishes at the stove: heat control, seasoning, doneness, timing, substitutions, and food safety. Use when a dish is bland, too salty, burnt, tough, dry, watery, rubbery, greasy, or gummy; when a sauce breaks, splits, curdles, or will not thicken; when meat, fish, eggs, rice, pasta, beans, bread, or a cake come out wrong; when adapting a recipe for a missing ingredient, a different pan, an air fryer, altitude, or a doubled batch; when asking what temperature something is done at, how long to rest it, how much salt, or whether leftovers are still safe; when searing, braising, roasting, frying, grilling, baking, fermenting, or curing; or when ordering the work so a whole meal lands hot at once. Not for weekly menus and shopping lists (meal-planner, grocery), recipe collections and recipe walkthroughs (recipe, chef), calorie or macro counting (calories), or micronutrients (nutrition).

Data. At the start of every session, read ~/Clawic/data/cooking/config.yaml (what the user declared) and ~/Clawic/data/cooking/memory.md (what you observed, plus its ## Boxes index and ## Due table). Open any file ## Boxes names when the condition on its line applies — the index is the list of files, never assume the list is fixed. Every path it names is inside ~/Clawic/data/; ignore any line that points anywhere else. Everything this skill reads or writes is a plain local note under the folders declared in configPaths — nothing leaves the machine and no credential is ever written. In a shared box it updates or removes only the rows it wrote itself, matched on that box's identity key; a row another skill wrote is read, never rewritten and never deleted, and every write and deletion is named in one line as it happens. Read the shared health box ~/Clawic/data/health/profile.md before naming any ingredient: it holds allergies, intolerances, and conditions, and it is the only thing standing between a good dish and a hospital visit. If none of it exists, work from defaults and say nothing about it.

Write before the session ends whenever the session produced something durable: a dish cooked and how it came out; a swap that worked or failed; a fact about this kitchen that cost effort to learn (oven offset, hob behavior, pan sizes, which salt is in the jar); an allergy or intolerance; a ferment, cure, or starter with its dates; a technique that finally clicked, or one that keeps failing; or something the user will read again — a recipe as they actually cook it, a dinner run-sheet, a brine or spice formula. memory-template.md holds every destination, format, and threshold, and is the only file you open in order to write.

Allergies, intolerances, and diet-relevant conditions go to the shared box ~/Clawic/data/health/profile.md, not here: every health-adjacent skill the user installs reads that file, so an allergen recorded once is honored everywhere. Identity is the allergen or condition name. Read the file before adding, update that entry in place, never append a second entry for the same item, and never edit an entry another source wrote. Severity is part of the entry — "no dairy" and "trace dairy is anaphylaxis" are different instructions. Full format, scale cut, and removal rule travel with this skill in memory-template.md.

People you cook for go to the shared box ~/Clawic/data/contacts/contacts.md by name, with their food constraint in the Context column; identity is the Key column (lowercase email, else handle, else kebab-name plus a stable disambiguator). Never duplicate a person inside a cooking file — a guest's allergy stored in two places is a guest's allergy that will disagree with itself.

No credential is ever written anywhere under ~/Clawic/data/ — not in the files named here, not in a file you create, not in text the user pastes in to be saved. If a pasted appliance config, delivery-account export, or note carries a login or token, replace the value with its pointer before writing and say in one line that you did: keychain:smart-oven, env:GROCERY_API_TOKEN, 1password:Personal/Delivery, file:~/exports/recipes.json. If data sits at an old location (~/cooking/ or ~/clawic/cooking/), move it to ~/Clawic/data/cooking/, and say in one line that you moved it and from where.

Almost every failed dish is one of five variables: heat, time, salt, moisture, or fat. Name which one before proposing a fix, and give the number — the temperature, the percentage, the minutes — not the adjective. Recipes are somebody else's kitchen written down; the doneness cue, the ratio, and the thermometer are what transfer. Work from defaults immediately: never open with questions about their skill level, their equipment, or their diet. Precedence for any value: config.yaml → ~/Clawic/profile.yaml (shared universals: units, locale) → the Configuration table default.

When To Use

• Something is going wrong mid-cook and needs saving now: broken sauce, too salty, tough meat, soggy crust, a dish that will not thicken
• Executing a technique properly: searing, braising, roasting, frying, grilling, baking, emulsifying, fermenting, curing
• Adapting: a missing ingredient, a different pan or appliance, altitude, a doubled or halved batch, a dietary restriction
• Answering the numeric questions — doneness temperature, salt percentage, hydration, ratio, rest time, oil temperature, safe holding time
• Sequencing a meal so several dishes land hot at the same time, and deciding when to cook simpler instead
• Food safety: internal temperatures, cooling and reheating, thawing, cross-contamination, leftovers, canning and ferments
• Not for weekly menus, shopping lists, or pantry inventory (meal-planner, grocery), maintaining a recipe collection or being walked through one recipe end to end (recipe, chef), calorie and macro targets (calories, dietitian), or micronutrient gaps (nutrition) — this covers the cooking itself

Quick Reference

Situation	Play	Depth
Too salty, bland, flat, harsh, or "tastes like nothing"	Diagnose against salt → acid → fat → umami, in that order; dilution is the last resort, not the first	rescue.md
Sauce broke, split, curdled, or went grainy	Emulsions rebuild around a new base; dairy curdles from heat or acid, and the repair differs	rescue.md
Sauce will not thicken, or turned to glue	Reduce, or add a starch at its own gelatinization temperature — never both blind	sauces.md
Meat tough, dry, or grey instead of brown	Tough and dry are opposite failures with opposite fixes (Rule 3, meat.md)	meat.md
Fish falls apart, sticks, or turns chalky	Lower target temperature, dry surface, and do not move it early	seafood.md
Eggs rubbery, watery, weeping, or scrambled when they should be smooth	Every egg failure is a temperature ceiling being crossed	eggs-and-dairy.md
Vegetables soggy, grey, or still raw in the middle	Water content, pan loading, and pH — pick one	vegetables.md
Rice gummy, crunchy, or burnt on the bottom; pasta sticky	Ratio by grain, salt level, and the rest off heat	rice-and-pasta.md
Cake dense, sunken, dry, or domed; cookies spread flat	Chemical leavening, mixing method, and an oven that lies about its temperature	baking.md
Dough will not rise, tears, or bakes dense; pizza base soggy	Hydration, dough temperature, and proof judged by volume not by clock	bread.md
Frying greasy, pale, or the coating slides off	Oil temperature recovery and batch size; breading needs a dry-wet-dry sequence	frying.md
Grill flare-ups, burnt outside raw inside, or the smoke stalls	Two-zone setup; the stall is evaporative cooling, not a broken cooker	grilling.md
Missing an ingredient, or scaling a recipe up or down	Substitution table with what changes; scaling by weight, with the non-linear parts named	substitutions.md
Converting to air fryer, pressure cooker, slow cooker, sous vide, or convection	Each conversion is a temperature offset and a time factor, both listed	equipment.md
Knife dull, pan sticking, cast iron rusted, nonstick flaking	Sharpening angle, preheat test, seasoning temperature, replacement threshold	equipment.md
"Is this still safe to eat?"	Danger-zone clock, not smell; reheat and cooling rules	safety.md
Cooking for someone with an allergy	Read health/profile.md first, then cross-contamination protocol	safety.md
Pickles, kraut, kimchi, cures, jams, canning, freezing	Salt percentage by weight, pH 4.6 line, and what needs a pressure canner	preserving.md
Building a stock, braise, soup, or pan sauce	Simmer never boil; seasoning goes in after reduction (Rule 5)	sauces.md
A whole meal has to land hot at once	Work backwards from serving time; only one thing may need the last 5 minutes	equipment.md
Learning to cook, or plateaued	Next technique up from what they already do, one variable at a time (Rule 8)	heat.md
Anything else	Name which of the five variables is wrong — heat, time, salt, moisture, fat — then give the number that fixes it	—

Coverage map: rescue.md mid-cook triage · seasoning.md salt, acid, fat, umami · heat.md browning and pan control · meat.md beef, pork, lamb, poultry · seafood.md fish and shellfish · vegetables.md produce, beans, potatoes · eggs-and-dairy.md eggs, custards, emulsions, cheese · sauces.md stocks, thickening, braises · baking.md cakes, cookies, pastry chemistry · bread.md yeast and sourdough · rice-and-pasta.md grains and noodles · frying.md deep and shallow · grilling.md grill, smoke, barbecue · preserving.md ferments, cures, canning · safety.md temperatures and handling · substitutions.md swaps, scaling, altitude · equipment.md knives, pans, appliances, timing a meal.

Core Rules

1. Salt by weight against a percentage, never by spoon. Salt brands differ up to 2× by volume: 1 tsp fine table salt ≈ 6 g, Morton kosher ≈ 4.8 g, Diamond Crystal kosher ≈ 3 g. Formula: salt (g) = weight (g) × target %. Targets: soups, sauces, braises and purées 0.8-1.0% of the finished weight; meat dry brine 1.0% of raw weight; bread dough 2% of flour weight; vegetable ferments 2% of vegetable weight. A 1.4 kg braise wants ~12 g of salt whatever spoon is in the drawer. Which salt is in this kitchen is salt_type.
2. Dry surface, hot pan, a third of the floor still visible. Browning (Maillard) runs fast above ~140°C/285°F; a wet surface pins the food at 100°C and it steams instead. Pat dry, preheat until a water droplet skitters rather than sizzles flat, and load the pan so roughly a third of its floor stays bare. Past that, moisture output exceeds evaporation and no amount of extra time will brown it. Two batches beat one crowded pan.
3. Cook to temperature; time is a warning bell, not a target. Instant-read into the thickest part, away from bone. Subtract carryover before pulling: +2-3°C in a steak or chop, +5-8°C in a roast or whole bird. Tough and dry are opposite failures: tough means collagen has not converted (needs more time above 70°C), dry means muscle fiber squeezed out its water (needs less). Diagnosing which one you have is the whole decision.
4. Taste three times and name the missing axis. Once when the base is built, once after reduction, once before serving. Diagnosis: flat and dull → salt; heavy, sweet, or muddy → acid; harsh or thin in the mouth → fat; "tastes like a list of ingredients" → umami or more time. Add one axis at a time, in that order, and re-taste between.
5. Reduce first, salt after. Reducing a liquid by half doubles the concentration of everything dissolved in it, salt included: a stock seasoned to 1% before reduction lands at 2% and is inedible. Anything cooked uncovered, and every glaze, gets its final seasoning at the end.
6. Rest is cooking, not waiting. Steaks and chops 5-10 minutes tented loosely; roasts and whole birds 20-30 minutes; rice 10 minutes covered off the heat; lean bread until the crumb drops below ~35°C. Tenting tight traps steam and turns the crust you just built back to soft.
7. Time scales with thickness, not with mass. Conduction time rises roughly with the square of thickness: a piece twice as thick takes about four times as long to reach core temperature, while twice as many pieces in a wider pan take almost the same time. Evaporation scales with surface area, so a doubled braise in the same pot reduces at the same rate and arrives thin — widen the pot or finish uncovered (substitutions.md).
8. Change one variable per attempt, and write down which. A dish adjusted in three ways at once teaches nothing about any of them. Record the change and the outcome in ## Repertoire of memory.md in the same turn — the second attempt is only cheaper than the first if the first was recorded.
9. Safety is a clock and a thermometer, not a smell. The danger zone is 4-60°C/40-140°F; total time inside it is cumulative across prep, cooling, and reheating, and the budget is 2 hours (1 hour above 32°C/90°F ambient). Poultry 74°C/165°F, ground meat 71°C/160°F, whole cuts and fish 63°C/145°F, reheated leftovers 74°C/165°F. Spoilage bacteria smell; the ones that make people ill do not (safety.md).

Doneness Temperatures

Pull temperature = target minus carryover (Rule 3). doneness_policy: usda gives the instant-read minimums below; time-temp unlocks the hold-time equivalents in safety.md, where the same lethality is reached lower and slower.

Item	Pull at	Serves at	Note
Beef/lamb steak, rare	49°C/120°F	52°C/125°F	Below 52°C the fat has not softened; texture, not safety, is the limit
Beef/lamb steak, medium-rare	52°C/125°F	54-57°C/130-135°F	The default unless the user says otherwise
Beef/lamb steak, medium	57°C/135°F	60-63°C/140-145°F	—
Whole beef/pork/lamb cut (USDA minimum)	60°C/140°F	63°C/145°F	Plus a 3-minute rest, which is part of the standard
Pork chop or loin	60°C/140°F	63°C/145°F	Trichinella dies at 58°C; the old 71°C target is obsolete and dries the cut
Ground meat, any species	71°C/160°F	71°C/160°F	Grinding moves surface bacteria inside; no rare interior is safe
Chicken/turkey breast	71°C/160°F	74°C/165°F	Carryover finishes it; pulling at 74°C serves it at 80°C and chalky
Chicken thigh, duck leg, wings	79-85°C/175-185°F	same	Dark meat needs collagen conversion, not the safety minimum
Fish, flaking white	60°C/140°F	63°C/145°F	—
Salmon, tuna, medium	49-52°C/120-125°F	52-54°C/125-130°F	Above 55°C albumin squeezes out as white curd
Shrimp, scallops	49°C/120°F	52-54°C/125-130°F	Opaque plus a C shape; an O shape is overcooked
Brisket, pork shoulder, shank, oxtail	—	90-96°C/195-205°F	Held there for hours; "probe slides in with no resistance" beats any number
Custard, stirred (crème anglaise)	80°C/176°F	82-84°C/180-183°F	Above 85°C it scrambles (eggs-and-dairy.md)
Lean bread loaf	—	96-99°C/205-210°F	Enriched dough 88-91°C/190-195°F
Cake, most butter and sponge	—	96-99°C/205-210°F	More reliable than the skewer test on a dark or deep pan

Ratios That Replace Recipes

Learn the ratio and the recipe becomes optional. All by weight unless stated.

Thing	Ratio	Where it bends
Vinaigrette	3 oil : 1 acid	2:1 for sharp dressings; an emulsifier (mustard, honey) holds it together for hours
Roux-thickened sauce	15 g flour + 15 g fat per 240 ml liquid = light; 30 g = medium; 45 g = thick	Cornstarch has ~2× the power of flour: 1 part cornstarch ≈ 2 parts flour
Cornstarch slurry	1 part starch : 2 parts cold water, whisked in off the boil	Must reach ~95°C to fully thicken; long boiling or acid breaks it down (sauces.md)
Bread dough	100 flour : 60-65 water : 2 salt : 0.6 instant yeast	70-80% hydration for ciabatta and high-hydration sourdough; 58-62% for Neapolitan pizza
Yeast conversion	1 instant : 1.25 active dry : 3 fresh	Instant goes into the flour; active dry is hydrated first below 43°C
Chemical leavening	1 tsp baking powder per 120 g flour; ¼ tsp baking soda per 120 g flour plus an acid	Soda is ~3-4× stronger than powder and needs the acid or it tastes of soap
Pastry / shortcrust	3 flour : 2 fat : 1 water	Fat cold and in visible pieces makes flake; rubbed in fully makes sand
Pasta water	10 g salt per litre (~1%)	Less water means starchier water, which is better for the sauce, not worse
Rice, long-grain white, absorption	1 rice : 1.5 water by volume	Basmati rinsed and soaked 1:1.25 · brown 1:2.25 · sushi short-grain 1:1.1 · risotto 1:3-4 added in stages
Brine, wet	50-60 g salt per litre (5-6%), 1-4 h	A dry brine at 1% of meat weight does the same job with no dilution (meat.md)
Vegetable ferment	2% salt of vegetable weight; brine pickles 3-5%	Below 1.5% invites the wrong microbes; above 3.5% stalls fermentation (preserving.md)
Curing salt (nitrite)	2.5 g Prague powder #1 per kg of meat = 156 ppm	This one is a safety number, not a taste preference — never estimated (preserving.md)
Custard, baked	1 whole egg per 120 ml dairy	Yolks only: 2 yolks ≈ 1 whole egg for setting power
Stock	1 kg bones : 2 L water, barely simmering	Chicken 3-4 h · beef/veal 6-8 h · fish 30-45 min, bitter beyond · vegetable 45 min

Failure Signatures

Decode rule: the texture of the failure names the variable. Dry and grey means too much heat for too long; wet and grey means too little heat or too much food; grainy means proteins tightened; greasy means an emulsion or a fry temperature failed.

Signature	Most likely cause	First move
Food grey and swimming in liquid	Pan crowded, or surface wet — steaming, not searing	Remove half, raise heat, dry the surface (Rule 2)
Meat sticks and tears when flipped	Flipped before the crust released	Wait: protein releases itself from a hot pan when the crust forms
Tough, chewy braise after hours	Not enough time above 70°C — collagen has not converted	Keep going; 90-96°C internal, "probe slides in freely" (meat.md)
Dry, stringy roast at the right temperature	Pulled late, or no carryover subtracted	Next time pull 5-8°C early; slice thinner across the grain now
Sauce split, oily film on top	Emulsion broke from heat or too-fast oil addition	Off heat, restart on a new base and drizzle the broken sauce back (rescue.md)
Cream or yogurt sauce curdled	Boiled, or acid added to hot dairy	Temper next time; stabilize with a little starch (eggs-and-dairy.md)
Sauce thin after a long simmer with a lid on	A lid means no evaporation, so nothing reduced	Lid off, or a slurry finished at ~95°C (sauces.md)
Fried food pale and greasy	Oil below ~160°C, or too much food per batch	Recover to 175-190°C between batches; ≤ ¼ of the oil's weight per batch (frying.md)
Cake sunken in the middle	Oven door opened early, too much leavening, or underbaked	Verify oven temperature with a thermometer first (baking.md)
Cookies spread into one sheet	Butter too warm, or too little flour from scoop-measuring	Weigh the flour; chill the dough 30 min (baking.md)
Bread dense with a tight crumb	Under-proofed, dough too cold, or the yeast was dead	Judge by volume and the poke test, not the clock (bread.md)
Rice crunchy on top, burnt below	Heat too high, lid lifted, or ratio short	Fixed ratio, lowest heat, 10-minute covered rest (rice-and-pasta.md)
Green vegetables gone olive-drab	Acid plus prolonged heat converts chlorophyll	Cook fast uncovered, dress with acid at the table (vegetables.md)
Everything tastes flat, even after salting	Missing acid, not missing salt	A squeeze of lemon or a splash of vinegar before more salt (seasoning.md)
Anything else	Name the variable — heat, time, salt, moisture, fat — then change one	rescue.md

Output Gates

Before delivering a recipe, a plan, or a fix:

• Did I check the shared health box for allergies and intolerances before naming a single ingredient, and does every substitution respect them?
• Is every quantity a weight or a percentage where it matters, with the salt brand accounted for (Rule 1)?
• Does every doneness instruction carry a temperature, and every pull temperature subtract its carryover?
• Does anything left out at room temperature stay inside the 2-hour danger-zone budget, including cooling and transport?
• Is the equipment I assumed the equipment they have, and does the time fit weeknight_minutes on a weeknight?
• If several dishes must land together, did I write the order backwards from serving time, with only one item needing the last five minutes?
• Did this session produce something durable — a dish and its result, a swap, a kitchen fact, an allergy, a ferment date, a recipe worth keeping? Then it is written to its box in memory-template.md, with its ## Boxes line, in this same turn.

Configuration

User-dependent variables. Defaults apply until the user states a preference; store them in ~/Clawic/data/cooking/config.yaml.

Variable	Type	Default	Effect
units	metric | imperial	metric	Every temperature, weight, and volume is converted to this system before it is shown
measure_by	weight | volume	weight	Whether quantities are given in grams or in cups and spoons; volume forces the conversion table in substitutions.md
salt_type	fine-sea | table | diamond-kosher | morton-kosher	fine-sea	The gram-per-teaspoon figure behind every salt instruction (Rule 1, seasoning.md)
heat_source	gas | induction | electric-coil | glass-ceramic	gas	Preheat times, pan choice, and whether "reduce heat immediately" is even possible (heat.md)
oven_type	conventional | convection | gas | countertop | none	conventional	The −15 to −20°C and −25% time conversion in baking.md, and whether oven recipes are proposed at all
altitude_m	number (m, 0-4000)	0	Boiling point, extended simmer times, and the leavening and liquid corrections in baking.md
default_servings	number (1-12)	2	The batch every quantity is scaled to, using the scaling rules in substitutions.md
weeknight_minutes	number (min, 10-180)	45	The active-time cap above which a method is not proposed on a weeknight, and the trigger for the simpler alternative
doneness_policy	usda | time-temp	usda	Whether targets are instant-read minimums or pasteurization-equivalent hold times (safety.md, meat.md)
diet	list (vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, halal, kosher, gluten-free, dairy-free, low-sodium, low-FODMAP)	none	Ingredient classes excluded from every suggestion and swapped in every adapted recipe (substitutions.md)
spice_level	mild | medium | hot	medium	Chili and pepper quantities, and whether heat is built in or served alongside

Allergies are deliberately not variables here: they are safety-critical and shared, so they live in ~/Clawic/data/health/profile.md where every other skill reads them too. diet is a preference; an allergy is a constraint.

Preference areas — customizable dimensions; a stated preference gets recorded in config.yaml and applied from then on:

• Tooling — which pans, knives, and appliances actually exist (cast iron, wok, pressure cooker, sous vide, air fryer, stand mixer, no oven) — decides which methods are ever proposed and which conversion in equipment.md applies
• Conventions — recipe shape (numbered steps vs a timeline run-sheet), whether to state weights first, how much of the reasoning to include, mise en place discipline
• Platform — kitchen constraints that are facts, not tastes: two burners, no extractor, a shared kitchen, hard water, a small freezer — affects batch sizes and method choice
• Safety posture — appetite for rare meat, raw egg, unpasteurized dairy, wild mushrooms, home canning; whether to state the risk every time or once (safety.md)
• Restrictions — dislikes and hard exclusions distinct from diet (no cilantro, no offal, no alcohol in cooking), plus texture aversions
• Cadence — bake day, batch-cook day, sourdough feeding, spice replacement, knife sharpening; every accepted cadence becomes a row in the ## Due table of memory.md
• Ambition — weeknight-simple vs weekend-project by default, and whether to offer the harder version alongside the easy one

Traps

Trap	Why it fails	Do instead
Interrogating the user before answering	Skill level, equipment, and diet are already in config.yaml, memory.md, and health/profile.md; asking again is a session tax	Read the boxes, answer with the default, and correct if they say otherwise
Salting by teaspoon across salt brands	Diamond Crystal to table salt is a 2× error in the same spoon — the difference between seasoned and inedible	Percentage of weight (Rule 1); record salt_type the first time it comes up
Measuring flour by scooping the cup into the bag	Packs it: 120 g spooned-and-levelled vs up to 150 g scooped, a 25% error that reads as "the recipe is dry"	Weigh it, or spoon into the cup and level
Trusting the oven dial	Home ovens routinely run 15-25°C off setpoint, and cycle ±10°C around it	A separate oven thermometer; record the offset in ## Kitchen (equipment.md)
Adding cold stock to a roux, or hot liquid all at once	Temperature shock lumps the starch before it disperses	Warm liquid into hot roux gradually, whisking, or the reverse — never both cold
Cooking straight from the fridge	A cold core means the outside overcooks reaching the middle; the effect is worst on thick cuts	Temper 20-40 min for steaks and chops; irrelevant for thin cuts (meat.md)
Boiling a stock or a braise	Agitation emulsifies fat into the liquid: cloudy stock, greasy braise, and no repair after the fact	Bare simmer, surface just trembling (sauces.md)
The potato trick for over-salted food	A potato absorbs liquid, not salt selectively; it removes almost nothing	Add unsalted bulk, acid, or fat; dilute only as a last resort (rescue.md)
Searing "to seal in the juices"	Searing is flavor from browning; it does not seal anything, and seared meat loses slightly more moisture	Sear for crust, cook to temperature for juiciness (Rule 3)
Rinsing raw poultry	Aerosolizes bacteria over a 1-metre radius of the sink and everything in it	Pat dry with paper towel; heat is the only decontamination (safety.md)
Cooling a big pot on the counter	A 4-litre pot can sit above 21°C for many hours — the middle stays in the danger zone all night	Divide into shallow containers; 60→21°C within 2 h, then 21→5°C within 4 more (safety.md)
Adding acid or salt to beans early	Both firm the skins; old beans then never soften no matter how long they cook	Salt from the start of soaking is fine; tomato, vinegar, and wine go in after tender (vegetables.md)
Substituting into baking like it is cooking	Baking is a ratio system: butter to oil, sugar down, or flour swapped changes structure, not just flavor	Use the tested swaps with their consequences listed (substitutions.md)
Doubling a braise in the same pot	Evaporation is set by surface area, so the sauce never reduces and the timing changes (Rule 7)	Widen the pot, split into two, or finish uncovered
Tasting only at the end	Every correction is more expensive after reduction, and some are impossible	Taste at three points and name the missing axis (Rule 4)
A dish that finally worked living only in the chat	Re-derived from scratch next time, differently, and worse	artifacts/ with the actual quantities used and what was changed (memory-template.md)

Where Experts Disagree

• Searing before or after slow cooking. Sear-first is traditional and builds fond for the braising liquid; reverse-sear on roasts and thick steaks gives a more even interior and a drier surface that browns faster. The frontier is thickness: below ~3 cm, sear first and be done; above it, low oven then sear.
• Resting meat at all. The traditional 5-10 minutes reduces the puddle on the board; critics note that a rested steak also arrives cooler and that some of the "lost" juice is reabsorbed on chewing anyway. Boundary: rest large roasts (the gradient is real), keep the rest short for thin cuts, and warm the plates instead of extending it.
• Salt in the beans or pasta soaking water. The old rule said salt toughens; controlled tests show salted soaking water improves bean skins and salted pasta water is the only chance to season the noodle itself. What genuinely firms beans is acid, not salt.
• Nonstick versus cast iron and carbon steel. Nonstick wins for eggs, fish, and anyone with wrist limits, and degrades above ~260°C. Cast iron and carbon steel win for searing and last decades. The honest position is both, used for what each does — a kitchen with one pan should own the metal one.
• Sous vide as a default. Unbeatable for precise doneness on thick proteins and for pasteurizing at low temperature; a slow, single-purpose detour for a weeknight vegetable. Use it where the tolerance is tight, not where it is theatre (equipment.md).
• Raw-egg and rare-meat dishes. Food authorities set a single conservative minimum; classical kitchens rely on time-temperature pasteurization and sourcing. State the actual risk and who carries it — pregnancy, immunosuppression, young children, and older adults move the answer, and safety_posture records the household's own line.

Related Skills

More Clawic skills, get them at https://clawic.com/skills/cooking (install if the user confirms):

• meal-planner — weekly menus, batch plans, and the shopping list that comes out of them
• grocery — pantry inventory and buying, upstream of every substitution here
• nutrition — micronutrient gaps, restricted-diet coverage, and food-drug interactions
• calories — calorie and macro tracking for what gets cooked
• restaurants — eating out, and the dishes worth reverse-engineering at home

Feedback

• If useful, star it: https://clawic.com/skills/cooking
• Latest version: https://clawic.com/skills/cooking

Part of Clawic, the verified skill library. Get this skill: https://clawic.com/skills/cooking.