LogFAQs > #975168109

Bit more info about critical cooks:

They bestow one of the following three effects, at random:

+3 hearts restored (if it is a "hearty" food, it will already be a full heal food anyway, and instead this effect will be +1 bonus heart)
+5 minutes to the buff bestowed (capped at 30 minutes)
+1 tier to the potency of the buff (for example, if it would have given a +2 "moderate" attack boost, it will instead be a +3 "high" attack boost. If the food already would have produced a maximum tier buff, this effect does nothing; it does not allow you to reach an even higher tier than normally possible)

If the food has no status buff at all, the second and third effects listed above cannot be chosen, so the additional hearts will always be chosen.

It's always worthwhile to keep foods on hand that just restore health without granting a status buff, because only one buff from food can be active at a time, so if you're making use of a status buff you'll want to have foods you can use to heal that won't potentially overwrite your buff with something else.

Cooking during a blood moon (between 11:30pm and 12:15am specifically) is the most reliable way to get critical cooks; normally it's something around a 10% chance to get one, but there's also certain ingredients that influence the chances. For instance, the golden apple in TOTK will also guarantee a critical cook if you throw that in as a food ingredient.

Critical cooks kinda lose their potential value the later in the game you get, but if you're using a low-heart approach, being able to make full heal foods out of things like a single apple or Hylian shroom is really handy for the early going. Having 3-4 max hearts also means that if something does get through your 1-shot protection (most common culprits being tumble damage, fire damage, or getting blasted by a Guardian in the first game) and you get saved by a fairy, the fairy itself will give enough hearts for you to be at full health when it activates, so you usually won't need additional healing on top of it in order to be at full health again.