[antonf]

I really like The Food Lab book by one of Serious Eats authors, Kenji López-Alt. It helped me to understand the purpose of different steps in recipes and what is important about them. For example when recipe asked me to saute something for X minutes until brown fond forms on the bottom of pan, I usually continued after X minutes even if brown fond didn't form. It turned out what the recipe actually asked is to create products of Maillard reaction, and it was crucial for taste of final product while amount of minutes it would take can vary depending on type of burner, pan, frequency of stirring, etc...

[sevencolors]

That book and Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat are my go to when i want to understand why something works :)