The single idea here is becoming ready by heat or time. Fruit on the branch ripens; food on the fire is cooked; a plan that has had time matures. The plain verb is to ripen, the intensive is to cook (you actively boil it), and the causative is to bring to ripeness. From the same letters come the adjective "ripe / ready" and the noun for cooking itself. Every word below is verified against pealim, niqqud included.
The same root runs through the verb system. Each binyan is a voice: it bends the one idea into active, passive, causative or reciprocal. Tap to hear.
Three binyanim share the labor cleanly. The pa'al is what happens by itself (fruit ripens); the pi'el is the active, hands-on version (you cook the food); the hif'il is causative (the sun ripens the fruit, an idea is brought to maturity). The passive moulds are not lexicalized here.
Same root letters, different noun moulds (mishkalim). The mould tells you the function: who does it, the act of doing it, or the thing produced.
Strip the prefixes, suffixes and vowels. Three consonants remain, and the meaning lives there.