Cool Tip: What is Mise en Place... and Why Should You Care?
- Jun 24, 2015
Mise en place (pronounced “meez on plas” and translated as "putting in place") is a French phrase, thought to be originated by Escoffier, defined by the Culinary Institute of America as "everything in place", as in setup. It is used in professional kitchens to refer to organizing and arranging all the ingredients and tools that a cook will require for the menu items to be prepared during a shift.
For the Home Cook, having all the tools at hand, if not very nearby, usually is not an issue; this is especially true if you have been a devoted customer at Colbrook Kitchen... kidding!
The main challenge for the Home Cook is to identify all the ingredients in each recipe, and then to check that (a) you have all the ingredients in the quantities needed for each recipe and (b) the ingredients you have are fresh and ready to use. If that peanut oil is a little rancid, or those onions have grown shoots, check carefully, and then build-in time to go to the store (or stores, as necessary). But that is merely the first step in preparing your mise en place.
The time-consuming steps are preparation and measuring. For each recipe, each ingredient needs to be prepared - chopped, diced, whatever - and then measured out and set aside, according to the recipe. In many cases you can combine ingredients - e.g., separating the “dry” from the “wet” ingredients - but in more complex recipes, the building of flavors requires different cooking times for different ingredients and they need to remain separated until it’s their time to be added to the dish. And it’s that last minute rush, that “3 minutes for this and then add that and cook that over higher heat for 3 minutes more” instruction that will demonstrate the need for - and value of - a fully-organized mise en place.
And achieving that is really quite simple: just be organized, be attentive, be prepared, and lineup all your ingredients in the sequence they will be added to the dish. And have fun!
For the Home Cook, having all the tools at hand, if not very nearby, usually is not an issue; this is especially true if you have been a devoted customer at Colbrook Kitchen... kidding!
The main challenge for the Home Cook is to identify all the ingredients in each recipe, and then to check that (a) you have all the ingredients in the quantities needed for each recipe and (b) the ingredients you have are fresh and ready to use. If that peanut oil is a little rancid, or those onions have grown shoots, check carefully, and then build-in time to go to the store (or stores, as necessary). But that is merely the first step in preparing your mise en place.
The time-consuming steps are preparation and measuring. For each recipe, each ingredient needs to be prepared - chopped, diced, whatever - and then measured out and set aside, according to the recipe. In many cases you can combine ingredients - e.g., separating the “dry” from the “wet” ingredients - but in more complex recipes, the building of flavors requires different cooking times for different ingredients and they need to remain separated until it’s their time to be added to the dish. And it’s that last minute rush, that “3 minutes for this and then add that and cook that over higher heat for 3 minutes more” instruction that will demonstrate the need for - and value of - a fully-organized mise en place.
And achieving that is really quite simple: just be organized, be attentive, be prepared, and lineup all your ingredients in the sequence they will be added to the dish. And have fun!