To Mise en Place, or Not to Mise en Place?

12-31-2008 @3:26PM thefishie said... I've found the more I cook and the more complex the recipes are that I'm using it's becoming more a necessity for me. And it keeps me from having those "uh oh" moments where I discover I don't have a certain ingredient I need right in the middle of cooking.
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12-31-2008 @3:22PM Tamara Kaye Sellman said... Preparing mise en place makes my cooking that much more enjoyable, frankly.

I have a relative who is strictly a home cook and she uses mise en place as well after discovering the value of bullet dishes and ramekins.

I learned to cook at home and in restaurants, by the way, and not in cooking school.

I've had a mise en place habit since the very early 90s. In fact, it's the only way I'll cook when others are clustered around my kitchen during the holidays. Far less stressful and I can be more sociable because I don't have to count or measure, I just have to cook. And others can help as well!
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12-31-2008 @3:33PM Luis Antonio said... I agree with whoever said that this seems a bit too tv-cook... yes, the restaurant chefs have to mise en place but they don´t put everything into little bowls they get 20 portions of meat seared, but not cooked inorder to have them ready for the oven when the order gets placed. I´d be very surprised if I ever saw a (successfull) chef mis en place 1/4 tsp of anything!!!

As for me, I´ve never used the littlebowlmisenplace, I´m too lazy to clean up afterwards =). But I do on occasion make mounds of ingredients at the edge of the cutting board as I try to keep ahead of the dish(es) while I prep the rest.
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12-31-2008 @9:02PM Mike said... It's amusing how fast this turns into "Bash The TV Cooking Shows".....
Prepping or Using the term "Mise En Place", whatever...I think we all agree is Helpful, As a "Home Cook" it makes things easier, and Helps me Learn as I cook...Yes, I start to get a hang of what a "cup of this" or a "1/4 Cup of That" looks like, so that maybe eventually, I'll be able to Eyeball....I can also focus on my cutting & knife skills while prepping & not worry about the Garlic Burning as I'm Chopping!....As for Little Plates, I use whatever is in my Cabinets, and to the Poster who commented that he's never seen a Chef with 1/4 teaspoon of Salt Premeasured for himself....Maybe not, But you can be sure that he has a Bowl of Salt in his Mise en Place and doesn't have to run to the Cupboard to get it!
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12-31-2008 @3:49PM Goro said... I try to mise but often do a demi-mise, where i will do major prep of items so i can put them in a bowl and put the rest of the object away. Eg., flour so i don't have a whole bag of flour just on the counter or 2 stalks of celery so i don't have the whole bunch sitting around.

Also, depending on the recipe i will combine ingredients that are going to be added together. Eg., if i know i'll be adding the sugar, flour, salt together, i just toss them all in a single bowl, saving me 3 unnecessary bowls.

It's an especially nice technique if you have relatives (t-giving, xmas) who insist on "helping" in the kitchen. Make them do prep work so that they're not in the way.
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12-31-2008 @7:21PM rainey said... Real chefs aren't working from tiny bowls with a 1/4 tsp of something because their mise is hotel pans of everything needed for the night. They just grab a handful or a pinch of whatever.

The difference for home cooks is we don't have staff who just do a mountain of mise. We do our own measuring (in a specific or a general sense) for each recipe.

It's really the same thing whether you do all your measuring into tiny bowls before you begin or at each step of preparation. But you'll lessen the chances of surprises, mistakes and distraction if you focus on the measuring before you begin. That doesn't mean having to have a zillion tiny bowls. You can do it on your cutting board with approximate quantities. Or you can do it on small scraps of parchment paper. Or you can do it for one phase of prep like when you work with wet and dry ingredients.

But it's not a parlor trick for TV. It's a significant, traditional, respected way to be organized and focused in your cooking.
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1-01-2009 @12:48AM ShortWoman said... Yes. Yes I do.

If nothing else, it prevents "Holy ****, where's the [next essential ingredient}? Don't tell me we're out!"

Ok, I don't measure out all my spices. But I do make sure all the relevant spice bottles are close at hand. Cooking is a lot simpler when all your ingredients are ready to go. It's stressful and frustrating to be chopping up one thing while another thing is on the heat (and hoping it doesn't burn before you finish!).

And no, you don't need matching bowls. In fact, if a recipe calls for 3 things to be added at once, I put them all in the same bowl!
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1-01-2009 @9:41AM Annoachi said... I don't always seperate things in to little bowls, though I do have a couple of sets of cheap plastic kids bowls from Ikea for when I do, but I do try to prep things before hand. It just makes life much easier for me when cooking. When I bake I don't normally premeasure except to make sure I have enough of whatever ingredients, but I do chop nuts and chocolate etc ahead of time, and make sure I have all my ingredients onhand and nothing is missing.

I find it fascinating as well that a lot of this turned into bashing tv chefs fast, except that I do see it to some extent as common sense, and good for food saftey to chop all of my veggies and make my salad and set that asside before I deal with say, raw meat or chicken and then pop the board in the dishwasher as soon as I'm done with the raw meat/chicken.

Since I don't have a huge kitichen, I actually found as much as doing prep beforehand is a big help, its just as big of a help to have the dishwasher empty and awaiting my dirty dishes.
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1-01-2009 @2:04PM Erica said... I almost never utilize mise en place, but am often grateful when I do. If I know there are a lot of little steps, or it's a recipe that has a lot of ingredients, but comes together quickly - I will make the effort. Mainly so I don't find myself mincing garlic in 20 seconds while my chicken burns or something.

My major issue with the whole concept is the dishes. I am lucky to live in an apartment with a dishwasher, but it's tiny. If I didn't have one, I am not sure I would cook anything other than one-pot stews!
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1-01-2009 @3:04PM Napavalleychef said... My favorite mise en place bowls are "deli tubs" or "prawn tubs"... You know those plastic containers that you get when your order stuff at a deli? They come in different sizes and the best part is that they come with lids... no need to plastic wrap anything. And, I find that it's easier to label stuff because I just write the contents on the lid with a sharpie.
You can either keep the ones the delis give you for free... or I just buy stacks of them and keep it on my equipment shelf.
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1-01-2009 @3:11PM Napavalleychef said... rainey said:
The difference for home cooks is we don't have staff who just do a mountain of mise. We do our own measuring (in a specific or a general sense) for each recipe.

When I was cooking on the line, I prepped everything myself. Each position was responsible for their own mise every shift. If we were lucky enough, sometimes we had a bit of mise left over from the last shift, but more likely than not we had to do everything ourselves.
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1-01-2009 @4:37PM kaszeta said... I generally don't do the whole mise en place thing, but I do have several types of cooking that basically require it. Stir-frying is a good example, I don't have time to prep-while cooking, so I do use a gazillion little prep bowls. Similarly, a lot of sauce reductions are like that, I just don't have time to be fiddling with ingredients when I need them.
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1-01-2009 @9:07PM Sarah said... Love doing it! I found pretty little glass bowls for it in varying sizes at the local restaurant supply store - so I can have everything in front of me.
It doesn't add much in dish washing later and keeps me from forgetting items.

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1-02-2009 @10:32AM whatzerkitty said... I never do it. First, I don't measure when I cook. Since I've done a pretty good job of that all my life, I won't start now. If I'm making something from a recipe, unless it's a baked item, I find that, most of the time, I end up adding way more seasonings than the recipe calls for (can't stand bland food). I can't say that I've ever run out of anything in the middle of cooking, since I do put everything onto the counter beforehand.

On a side note, I saw a cluster of tiny bowls on sale at Marshalls, and I had no idea why anyone would use bowls so tiny. I do now.
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1-02-2009 @5:55PM Kate G said... Definitely not. Mise in a restaurant takes advantage of the existence of prep folks, and minimizes the time from the order coming in to the order reaching the diners table. It does so at a cost of greater total prep time, and possible staling of the ingredients (take a whiff of a bowl of chopped onions that has sat for 15 minutes, or consider the advice to plop potatoes into lemonned water to prevent them browning as prep continues.) At home I need to minimize total effort and total elapsed time. That means, generally, getting stuff off the critical path. If you chop and measure everything first, you will stand around while things brown, simmer, reduce etc with nothing to do - and that browning, simmering and reducing will all have started quite a bit later.

I do things in a sensible order designed to reduce overall time. For example if I need to boil potatoes as part of the meal, first I put the pot of water on to boil and then I start peeling potatoes. Generally they are all peeled and cut up before the water boils. I know that I can chop an onion while a frying pan gets hot - and I know the chef trick that it's safe to ignore an empty pan on a hot ring and just add oil to it when you're ready to add food.

By doing things in the right order, and doing things while rings heat, water boils, or step 1 simmers, you can dramatically reduce total elapsed time till you eat. Focus on that, not on collecting little bowls of ingredients before you even turn the stove on.
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1-12-2009 @2:50AM Bill said... Too funny. I like reading about all the chefs in restaurants who don't measure out bowls with a 1/4 tsp of anything. The point is, they have bowls of whatever ingredients they will be using...handy. Right? Sounds like a mise to me...or at least a half-place. Being pros, they can just eyeball ingredients better than the average person.

I like to have as much ready to go as possible ahead of time, it makes a huge difference. Too often I've forgotten to add this or that. I don't use a bunch of little bowls, it just depends where certain ingredients fall in the recipe. Most often I'll set up a big plate with onion, celery and carrot..maybe garlic. Then on another (or a small bowl if handy) I'll get the herbs going.

Liquids I'll try to measure out shortly before using them.

Don't knock the FN cooks/chefs. I think the fact that they show pre-measuring is just a nod to culinary training and the benefits of mise en place. I have a feeling that most people at lease "half place" to help things go smoothly and efficiently.

The point of the FN is to show the average home cook simpler techniques to be able to cook good, wholesome meals themselves and provide nutrution for them and their families.

In this day and age where time is a premium and it often feels like too much to cook a meal...anything that can help make the process run smoother and provide a tasty result is well worth it.
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