We’ve all been there. You place your order. You sip your drink, waiting anxiously for that favorite meal of yours to be presented to you fully prepared. Then you think if I could only make this dish in the comfort of my own home. If you could only break the code of secret restaurant recipes so you didn’t have to pay tax and tip every time you want your favorite meal. Here is exactly what you need to do to train yourself in the art of deciphering secret restaurant recipes.

Step 1: Make note of what the restaurant named the dish. Many restaurants now title their menu items with some of the ingredients in the dish (Wild Rice and Tomato Stuffed Peppers). Write down the title and the description of the menu has one (some restaurants just give you a title).

Step 2: Once you get your meal, stop and smell it before chowing it down. Herbs and seasoning are usually caught this way. You may not see the sage or oregano in a sauce, but you should be able to smell them since they are pretty fragrant herbs. This is probably where you will catch the most secret ingredients of secret restaurant recipes since they hope what people can’t see they can’t decipher what it is they are eating.

Step 3: Eat slowly. Not only is it good for digestion and realizing when you are fool, eating slowly forces your taste buds to talk to you. Listen to them tell you what they taste. This step takes some practice, which leads me to the next step.

Step 4: If you have a difficult time with number 3, you can practice by reversing the process. Make a dish using the exact recipe (known recipe). Then taste it while having the recipe in front of you. Eat slowly and savor every bite. Read through the recipe and try to taste every ingredient listed. Realize the proportions of each ingredient (1 Tbsp of parsley compared to ¼ tsp of salt). You may have to practice many times to get this skill down. At least it’s a good excuse to try some new recipes.

Step 5: This step may sound like cheating a little bit, but it is worth mentioning. Search the internet for websites that already have their versions of secret restaurant recipes. The recipes could be right on the website. You may have to pay for access to some of them. There are also cookbooks and ecookbooks out there. Just remember, these are the websites’ owners’ versions of the restaurant dish, so it may not totally taste like you remember it. You can use it as a starting point and adjust the recipe to your taste. Steps 3 and 4 can help guide you in how to adjust it.

All these steps take practice plus trial and error. Step 5 is a bit of a shortcut because you are already starting with a secret restaurant recipe knockoff. Steps 1 through 4 can help nail down step 5 which is why they are listed first. Have fun with this. Consider it a friendly challenge. Use your family as taste testers or hold a cooking competition to see who can copy the dish the best. You could always contact the chef at the restaurant, but where’s the mystery in that?