KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL

Some days there’s no way to focus on food, so it helps to have a few recipes you can cook with your eyes closed.

How many dishes can you cook on autopilot? I’m talking about easy meals that your hands can manage on their own, leaving your mind free to ruminate about your hard day at work or help your children memorise their multiplication tables.

If the answer is zero not counting scrambled eggs or pasta with jar sauce, read on.

The more often you can just cook without worrying through a recipe, the freer, easier and more relaxed dinnertime will be. You and your family will be better fed, too. You will need to take three steps to get there.

First, you need to learn a few techniques, but not in the time-intensive sense of advanced knife skills or mastering emulsions. Just fundamental skills: roasting, sauteing, broiling. That is, going from raw to cooked.

Second, you need to know the basics of adding flavours: aromatics, spices, herbs. This is entirely subjective. If you love lemon, add the zest as well as the juice. What about garlic, onions, fresh ginger and chillies? Leave them out or pile them on. Use whole spices to add fragrance and texture and ground spices for their scent alone. Herbs give freshness, brightness and colour.

Third, you need to learn to measure by eye or hand. Measuring tools slow you down while you cook and create more mess at the end. This is easily mastered; it’s all about getting to know how your pinch relates to the amount of food at hand.

And for anything you cook, tasting as you go is essential. Add more salt, more vinegar, a dash of hot sauce or a drizzle of olive oil before your guests have a chance to wonder what’s missing on the plate. To help you along, here are five basic recipes to build on, the kind that are easy to make on your own once you have the hang of them.

Once you absorb their fundamental premises, you’ll be able to whip them up without a thought.

Or if you’re feeling creative, you can ad-lib, changing the protein, seasonings and the garnishes until you’d hardly even recognise the dish as something you’ve made before. Take comfort in the familiar or revel in the new — the choice is yours.

For starters, try roasting any fish fillet. That old chestnut about cooking fish for 10 minutes per inch holds true for the most part if you have the oven turned to 200C. Rub down your fillets with oil and salt before roasting and garnish with lemon afterward. You can add some kind of sauce (pesto, vinaigrette, sriracha) or a handful of toasted almonds, or capers, or olives — or leave them in their purest form.

It doesn’t matter what kind of fish you cook. Just keep an eye on it, subtracting a minute or two if you like it on the rare side, or adding time if you prefer it to flake. It’s your dinner; take charge of the outcome.

A similar principle applies to roasted vegetables. Slick them with oil, choosing olive, coconut or peanut if you want to taste it, or safflower or grapeseed if you don’t. Season with salt and pepper and spread out on a rimmed baking sheet.

Roast at higher heat (230C) for vegetables with a high moisture content — peppers, mushrooms, eggplant, broccoli et al — and slightly lower (215C) for denser roots and squashes. Then top it all with some fried eggs and a dollop of yoghurt to make it a meal.

You can also riff on top of the stove. Take some thin meat cutlets (veal, chicken, pork or turkey), sear them in butter and garlic and finish with lemon. The goal here: Brown both the butter and protein at once using high heat, and add a minimum of ingredients that are aromatic enough to carry the dish. The fewer ingredients you use, the faster you can get dinner on the table. Butter, garlic and lemon will get you there.

Or use your skillet for simmering a vegetarian chilli made from pantry staples: canned beans and tomatoes, onion and garlic, spices. A bright homemade garnish of onions pickled in lime juice is worth the extra five minutes; it gives the dish exuberance and verve.

Mastering the last dish of meatballs does mean memorising a basic ratio, but a simple one. For every pound of ground protein (beef, veal, pork, turkey, chicken or fish), you’ll need 1 teaspoon salt, 1 egg and a generous handful of breadcrumbs (a half-cup for those who want to measure the first time). Then add what you want to perk them up: ground spices, chopped fresh herbs, a little minced onion or garlic, some Parmesan. Fry or broil.

And with that, dinner is served.