Order is the technique
Most of what separates a good result from a mediocre one is doing the same steps in a different sequence. Nothing fancy, no new ingredient, just the right order.
Mushrooms are the clearest example I know of something that tastes completely different depending on the order you do things in, with identical ingredients.
Oil first: gray, squeaky, slightly greasy. Water first, oil second: deeply browned, nutty, a little crisp at the edges. Same mushrooms, same pan, same fat, same five minutes. The only difference is the sequence.
That's the whole idea of this piece, and I think it's the most useful thing anyone taught me about cooking.
Getting better is not about getting fancier
There's a belief, and I had it for years, that the gap between what you cook and what you ate at a very good restaurant is a matter of ingredients and equipment. Better butter. A better pan. Something you can buy.
It mostly isn't. The gap is sequence and timing, and those are free.
A professional kitchen is organized around order. Mise en place is a sequencing discipline, not a tidiness one. Everything that happens before service happens so that the things during service happen in the right order with nothing waiting. The cook isn't more talented than you. The cook has worked out what has to happen first.
The same pattern, over and over
Once you see it, it's in nearly everything worth cooking.
Mushrooms. Water out, then fat in. Backwards and they steam in oil.
Steak. Salt well ahead or immediately before, never in the ten minutes between, when the surface is wet and the crust can't form.
Onions and garlic. Onions have time, garlic has seconds. In together means one of them is wrong.
Braises. Sear, then aromatics, then liquid. Doing it in any other order means you've boiled the meat and are now hoping.
Pasta. Sauce finished in the pan with the pasta and its water, not poured over it afterwards. Same ingredients, different dish.
Vinaigrette. Acid, salt and aromatics emulsified first, oil last and slowly. Everything in at once gives you a thin dressing that tastes the same and feels like nothing.
Pickles. Hot brine over cold vegetables, not the other way around.
None of those need an ingredient you don't have. Every one of them is free.
Why order matters so much
Because most cooking is about water and heat, and those two interact in one direction only.
Water has to leave before browning can start, because the surface cannot exceed the boiling point while it's still wet. That's the mushroom rule and it's also the steak rule, the roast vegetable rule and the reason a crowded pan never browns anything. Half of all sequencing advice is some version of get the water out first.
The other half is that aromatics burn. Garlic, spices, herbs and anything with sugar in it have a much shorter window than the things they're flavoring. They go in late, near the end, at lower heat, almost always.
Learn those two and you can derive most of the rest yourself.
What this means for you
You do not need to become a better cook in the sense of acquiring some new skill. You need to do what you already do in a different order, and the difference will be larger than anything you could have bought.
That's an encouraging thought, and it's also the honest one. Nobody gets a Michelin star at home and nobody needs to. What's available is a version of the food you already make that's meaningfully better, and the price is paying attention to sequence rather than to shopping.
Start with the mushrooms. They take ten minutes and the before-and-after is the most dramatic one I know.