Tim Buell, chef de cuisine at the mid-Atlantic-themed Dabney in Washington, D.C., uses his eyes, ears, hands, nose, and tongue to make a favorite dish of corn grits.

At the farmers market where he likes to buy fresh corn, Buell looks for husks that are bright green and tight. In his home kitchen, he listens for the high-pitched squeak that comes from stripping leaves and silks from cob. Using a sharp knife, he runs it through each exposed cob to capture the surface 75 percent of its kernels, leaving a quarter behind. He feels the cob to make sure he hasn’t cut in too deeply. Then there’s the brief, joyous moment when cold butter melts into hot, pureed corn on the stove, and a bubble or two pops on the golden surface, releasing what the chef calls “a crazy popcorn aroma.”

Cue memories of giant buckets of popcorn at the movies as a kid.

Spend some time with a professional cook and you’re apt to see their most valuable tools have less to do with gadgets and stoves and more to do with their basic instincts. “My senses are more important than a sharp knife,” author, cooking instructor and TV presenter Ken Hom once told me. The Chinese-American chef says he can judge the cleanliness of a kitchen, for instance, in part with a single whiff. (Rancid oil is one giveaway.)

An immersion blender is the most important inanimate tool in the arsenal of pastry chef Susan Bae of the modern Vietnamese Moon Rabbit downtown D.C. But if she had to declare a No. 1 personal sense it would be sight, because “it influences expectation,” she says. Buell claims sight as his priority, too; a fish with cloudy eyes goes back to the distributor. “My job is observing now,” watching how his crew cuts ingredients, arranges plates, and, he says with a laugh, “whether or not they got enough sleep.”

Indeed, senses are sometimes used in unexpected ways. Bae says she often smells scented candles for inspiration. Would their fragrances work in dessert? she asks herself. (They do, and she has an Outstanding Pastry Chef medal from the James Beard Foundation to prove it.)

Isabel Coss, the chef and co-owner at the upscale Mexican Pascual on Capitol Hill, says touch goes beyond, say, feeling masa to gauge texture (she doesn’t want it to be coarse) or poking a just-baked cake to see whether it bounces back, an indication of doneness. “It’s human to touch,” says the chef, who might fist bump a colleague as a sign of welcome and respect in the kitchen. “Your hands are important. Say thank you to your hands.”

As for hearing, the sound of a door being slammed or a glass breaking can suggest a co-worker is having a bad day. At Pascual, Coss mixes up the background music to learn which genre appeals to the people on her team on a given day; “are their toes tapping?” Coss understands that music has the power to make someone happy – even “cook better.”

Anyone auditioning to work in a restaurant kitchen should be advised of the one move every chef I’ve talked to says they look for in candidates: Do they taste their food?

“If they’re not tasting as they go along, before and after,” it’s a sign they’re not paying attention, says Bae.

Can taste be taught?

“One hundred percent,” says Buell, who also writes an online newsletter and promotes eight-course nostalgia dinners in his handsome townhouse in Southwest D.C. “But it needs to be deliberate.” Some cooks come to him with creations they think are “horrible,” but those dishes really only need more acid, salt, or sweetness to improve or balance them. Mushrooms, for instance, taste more of themselves when salt is added, drawing out extra water, he says by way of example. Some acid might follow as further enhancement.

Coss likes to introduce new flavors to cooks, or present familiar ones in some unexpected way. Ultimately, she says, “taste is like a library, built from memories.”

Author Harold McGee, who’s made a career of debunking or proving culinary myths, says there are scientific underpinnings for intuition and experience.

Consider the bread-tapping sound check. That knock on the bottom tells you that the loaf’s inner structure has set. If the interior still holds too much moisture, he says, the sound will be heavy and dense rather than hollow.

Here are other ways cooks rely on their five senses in the kitchen:

Sight: You can see when cakes are fully baked; generally, they have pulled away from their pans.

Hearing: It can trump setting a timer for readiness. Chefs know that rapid sputtering of oil in a pan indicates it’s too hot. No sound, or a faint sound, suggests the oil isn’t hot enough.

Your ears can gauge freshness and quality, too. Raw asparagus should snap, good potato chips should crunch. A culinary instructor once told me “a true baguette has to talk to you” — crackle when it’s broken apart, in other words.

Smell: As I can attest, alas, when toasting nuts such as pecans and almonds, be attentive to their aroma. It’s a mere moment between when they begin to smell like themselves, and when they start to burn.

Iconic cook Marcella Hazan wrote in “Marcella’s Italian Kitchen” that she could tell whether she salted a cooking dish correctly by sniffing versus tasting. She recalled the time a vintner poured equal amounts of wine in two glasses, one of which was sprinkled with salt, while a taster had his back turned. Turns out the salted wine offered a richer, fuller aroma.

Touch: The surface of a properly grilled chicken breast should bounce back when you press it with a finger. The more resistance, the more done it will be.

Taste: Every good cook samples their food throughout the process; that all-important behavior chefs tell me they look for in identifying kitchen talent. (Oh, and practice — repetition — makes perfect, or at least better.)

All images by Deb Lindsey Photography

For this recipe, Chef Tim Buell of The Dabney recommends starting with fresh, unshucked corn. He likes the bicolor variety grown by Garner’s Produce and sold at weekend farmers markets in Northeast and Northwest D.C.

The peppers he uses here are all sweet, rather than hot or spicy. If you can’t find carmen peppers (or the other peppers listed here), use mini sweet peppers instead. The beauty of the dish is its versatility. If peppers aren’t your thing, Buell says you can simply decorate the surface of grits with slices of your favorite charcuterie.

For the peppers
4 red carmen peppers
4 orange carmen peppers (may substitute with more red carmens OR mini sweet peppers)
10 shishito peppers
6 Jimmy Nardello peppers
2 tablespoons grapeseed, safflower or other high smoke-point oil
⅛ teaspoon or so Kosher salt, preferably Diamond Crystal

For the grits
6 medium ears unshucked bicolor corn
3 tablespoons chilled unsalted butter, cut into ¼-inch dice
1 to 1¼ teaspoons kosher salt, preferably Diamond Crystal
Water, as needed

For the peppers: Position an oven rack 4 to 6 inches from the broiler element; preheat to broil. While the oven’s heating up, place a large cast-iron skillet, griddle, or grill pan on that rack.

Meanwhile, combine all the peppers, oil and salt in a mixing bowl, and toss to coat evenly.

Transfer the peppers to the hot cast-iron pan, arranging them in a single layer. Broil until they are blistered and fragrant, using tongs to turn them for even roasting, about five to seven minutes. Transfer to a plate.

For the grits: Strip away the green leaves and silk from each ear of corn, then use a chef’s knife to cut away the corn kernels, resisting the urge to cut into the starchy, hard parts of the cobs. (Don’t toss those cobs! See the NOTE. below.) You should have 2 cups.

Transfer 1½ cups of the kernels to a high-powered blender, like a Vitamix. Puree on the highest speed until smooth, stopping to scrape down the pulp as needed or keep the machine from running hot. Add the remaining kernels and puree only for a few seconds, in order to retain some texture.

Pour the corn mixture into a saute pan. Season with about a half teaspoon of the salt. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring to avoid sticking or burning. (This will go fairly quickly.) If the corn grits seem too thick, add water ½ tablespoon at a time. Taste often, as the starchiness decreases and the sweetness comes forward.

Once your desired level of sweetness is achieved, begin to stir in the butter one piece at a time, waiting to add the next piece until the previous one is worked in. Taste, and season with more salt, as needed. The grits should be thick but somewhat loose, like just-cooked risotto or porridge.

Serve in the style of chips and dip, with the blistered peppers and corn grits in separate receptacles. Or slice the peppers into strips and use them to garnish your grits.

Note: Corn cobs make a flavorful broth. Cook them with a few bay leaves and whole allspice berries in simmering water for 20 minutes. Buell uses “corn cob water” to thin the grits, as needed.

Adapted from chef Tim Buell.

Got a dining question, rant or rave? Send it to me at [email protected], where I’m addressing reader submissions every Thursday as the new food correspondent for NOTUS.