My process for ground beef in particular involves a potato masher and a really deep skillet. Don't forget the onions. I don't need to see a damn thing. There ar

My process for ground beef in particular involves a potato masher and a really deep skillet. Don't forget the onions. I don't need to see a damn thing. There are 2 completion triggers for the sauté phase: smell and sound. You can smell the sugars being created and burned off, but for me the much bigger one is sound. I can hear the pan and the "sizzle rate" with such precision that I could tell you how many seconds until I need to stir it at every moment. I can get 2 lbs of taco meat prepped in ~20 minutes completely blindfolded with my mise en place. Absolutely no doubts about that. Practice makes perfect. You do something once a week for a decade and it becomes 2nd nature.