Mise En Place for Everything and Everthing Mise En Place

You may have noticed that I often recommend the use of mise en place in my recipes but I have never really gone into much detail about what mise en place is. Lacking a recipe today I thought I would share with you my thoughts on mise en place, what it is, and how best to practice it, and most important of all, why do it.



You have probably watched a cooking show on TV. Ever notice how most chefs never measure or rummage around for ingredients while they are cooking? Everything is all ready and measured out and they just add it as they go through the recipe. This is partly due to the fact that going through all the motions would make rather dull watching but it is also due to the fact that any professional chef worth his, uh, salt, uses mise en place.





Simply put mise en place is a method of cooking that involves the chef (or her underlings should she be so lucky) getting out, measuring, and preparing all the ingredients for a recipe before they start cooking.



It is, even more simply, the best way to make your cooking painless, seamless, efficient, and fun.



When people tell me what disasters they are in the kitchen and how recipes never work and things are late and confused I often ask them if they use mise en place. And then I often get blank looks.





Very simple example:



A recipe calls for a cup of chopped onion, a teaspoon of garlic salt, and two chicken breasts. In the method it says to brown the chicken and then add the onion and garlic salt.



The person above will literally do just that. They will start the chicken cooking and only then start chopping the onions before trying to find the garlic salt and then it turns out they don?t have any.



The result is the chicken gets over cooked, the onions are under cooked, and the whole thing is poorly seasoned because they didn?t have any garlic salt, didn?t know they didn?t have it, and therefore did not have a contingency plan.



It would have made things so much easier and fun if they had made sure they had all the ingredients on hand (and made suitable substitutes if not), prepared any ingredients that needed chopping or what ever, and measured everything out BEFORE they ever got out a frying pan.



I know this appears to be self evident but really 90% of the effort in putting on a wonderful, elegant, and easy entertaining meal, is good preparation. If you prepare well then you will eat well. And hopefully enjoy yourself into the bargain!



This is where mise en place helps soooooo much.



If you are new to the concept I am hoping that some of the tips below will get you up and running with this eminently respected standard and incredibly useful methodology.





Methodology

Mise en place is an example of a methodology. A recognised and documented way of doing something.



Usually a methodology has been developed in order to make a process or task more efficient and successful. And this is what mise en place does. It makes following and cooking a recipe easier, faster, and will give consistently good results in most cases.



Sometimes, even with all the best intentions and preparation in the world, it can still go quite wrong. I have found that in my case things go wrong because I am distracted (phone rings or whatever) or I am shorter on time than I would like to be and then rush things. Lack of concentration.



However, where I have practiced mise en place these distractions and stresses cause fewer problems because:



A) I don?t have to worry if I have all the ingredients

B) I don?t have to faff about getting measurements right

C)I have reviewed the recipe enough times that I don?t have to keep breaking off what I am doing to refer to it.



Be familiar with the recipe

Before you get anything out of the cupboard or reach for a grater, read the recipe. Read it all the way through. SEVERAL TIMES.



Take stock

Go through the list of ingredients. Do you have everything on hand? If not can you leave it out or substitute? Do you have the substitute on hand?



Get all your ingredients out on your counter. Bags of flour, cloves of garlic, jars of spices. Get it all out there so you can actually see what you have before you start to do anything with it.



Decide what you can prepare ahead of time

This includes anything that needs to be chopped, diced, sliced, browned, pre-cooked, or in any other way prepared before it can be used in the recipe.



If your tomatoes need to be blanched and peeled before you add them to a roux don?t make the roux and then try to prepare the tomatoes while keeping your roux from burning. What you decide to prepare ahead of time is not often made obvious in the recipe until you read through the method. Sometimes you can multi task. For example if you are making a cheese cake you can make your crumb crust and while it is baking you can get the rest of the recipe together instead of organising the crust and filling all at the same time.



Measure and weigh

As well as preparing ingredients ahead of time measure and weigh all the components of your recipe and have them all ready to add in when you need them.



If you are making a sponge cake it is better to have the flour weighed before you start creaming the butter and eggs so that when the time comes to add it you don?t have to keep starting and stopping your mixer. I find it very beneficial for baking because if I measure while I am mixing or doing something else I am apt to forget how much I have put in or I might even forget to add something! If you have your sugar measured and ready to go in a bowl it is right there on the counter where you can?t miss it.



Put it in order

When you prep or measure something put it into its own dish or bowl. And then go through the recipe and see in what order the ingredients will be added and cooked.



Line up all your little dishes in this order and group things that will be going in together. When I measure spices I don?t put each spice in a separate but rather just put them all in one bowl because they are going to be added all at once. Sometimes though ingredients need to be added at different times because some things cook faster than others or putting some ingredients together will create a chemical reaction that you don?t want to happen until just before you bake. This is why it is important to get the order right.



Read the recipe (AGAIN)

Now if you are like me and you like to have things made up as much ahead of time as possible there might be a gap between some or all of your prep and your actual execution of the recipe. But even if there isn?t a gap it is a good idea to go through your recipe one last time, look at all your ingredients set out on the counter, and make double sure you have not forgotten anything and that the amounts look right and they are in the right order.



This is the cooking equivalent of Measure Twice Cut Once. It also helps just to go through the method one last time.



Execute the plan

By this time you may be familiar enough with the recipe that you will not need to refer to it much. And that makes cooking much easier as well. Go through the method and just add your perfectly prepared and measured ingredients when called for.







Implementation

At its simplest level mise en place can be put into practice for a single recipe. But where it REALLY shines is for entire multi-course multi-dish meals.



Planning and preparation are critical and you can pull off something amazing with minimal effort. For a whole menu you can have your ingredients prepped and ready to go not just in order for one recipe but interlinked to make the execution of the entire meal as efficient and integrated as possible.



Implementing mise en place at that level takes a lot of planning and practice. To see where the cooking and preparation of dishes over lap and coincide in order to have everything come out right at the right time is something it can take a life time to master. I am certainly still working on it.



But practice makes perfect and lots of practice means lots of easy, sexy, delicious, and fun dinners for two!