Have you ever eaten at a restaurant and wondered, “How did they get it to taste like this?” Eating out can make a home cook feel insecure, like your cooking never quite measures up. Some of the reasons are probably technical, some have to do with experience. But one major reason is totally under your control: salt. Salt is a hugely important part of cooking and it almost never gets its due in cookbooks or TV shows. Chef Alex Young, founder of Zingerman’s Roadhouse and James Beard Award winner puts it well: “Next to time and temperature, salt is the most important part of cooking.”

My advice on salting is the same as Al Capone’s thoughts on voting: salt early and salt often. Restaurant cooks don’t just salt more than we do at home. They salt at more times in the process. One simple way to improve your home cooking is to salt more frequently. Salt as you go. Salt your marinade. Salt your onions when they’re cooking. Salt any liquid you add. Salt your dish as its cooking. Taste as you go and you will see how the salt changes the dish. You shouldn’t need to salt at the table. If you start delivering dishes to dinner without a salt shaker you’ll know you’re on the right track. In the end you’ll use less salt and gain more flavor by taking this approach.

Going even deeper, think about adding ingredients that bring their own salt to the party. They will add salt in a more subtle, engaging way. Parmigiano-Reggiano and Pecorino Romano are two cheeses that add saltiness to dishes. Marash peppers are sun dried, seeded, chopped into flakes, then salted a bit. In fact, most sun-dried foods have cozied up to salt at some point in time so they make great salt additions. I’m also a huge fan of adding anchovies to the start of a dish. All anchovies are cured in salt, whether they’re packed in salt or olive oil (one exception is vinegar-packed boquerones). A chopped anchovy fillet will melt into a skillet in just a few minutes and the deep sea-toned flavor will subtly flavor the dish all the way to the end.

Anyone with ragged, cherished family recipe cards handed down and copied through generations knows about base flavors. Those ingredients that seem out of place listed next to garlic and onions, are indispensible to the finished dish, binding flavors together and laying underneath it all like the long pull of a lone base string amidst a hundred person orchestra.
Three of my favorite base flavors are below. They’re shockingly easy to use and with a bit of practice, will utterly transform your cooking.

If you’re from anywhere in Amercia that’s not the South, chances are ham hocks are foreign to your home cooking. Don’t let them be. The hock, known as a pork knuckle, is the extreme shank of the pig. It’s not something you’ll eat on its own much. There isn’t a whole lot of meat and what’s there is tough to get at and tough to eat. But it is insanely great for building delicious dishes. Add chunks of hock to anything you’re going to simmer for a long time. The payoff is a concentrated, meaty flavor that turns broths and sauces into silky, rich, heady liquers.

Strattu is from Sicily where it’s long been a secret ingredient of grandmothers everywhere. It’s a super concentrated tomato paste and by super concentrated I’m not kidding: it takes ten pounds of tomato sauce to make one six ounce jar. It’s simmered so slowly for so long, there’s hardly any moisture left, just a very, very concentrated paste that explodes with tomato flavor. Start your next sauce- with a half a spoonful of strattu and olive oil and see what happens when you unleash this monster. The great thing about it is that, unlike ham hocks, which take hours of slow home cooking to extrapolate flavor, strattu is ready to go right from the jar. You get all the benefits of slow cooking without actually having to do the slow cooking.

Finally, anchovies deserve some attention. I’ve been on a crusade for years to bring this great fish out of the culinary closet. People usually see them as despicable pizza toppings and claim they hate them. But the same folks probably never realize that they’re part of their favorite foods, including Worcestershire sauce, remoulade or caesar salad dressing. A small anchovy added to the pan early on in sauce creation dissolves so diners are none the wiser. What it leaves behind, though, is a base flavor that adds enormous depth to the finished dish.