Mise en place is a french term meaning everything in it’s place. I should know, because I took 5 years of French! The idea is to get prepped before you start cooking. This is what restaurant chefs do so that things run smoothly in the kitchen. A good mise en place will make cooking much more enjoyable for you. For a home cook, this means reading through the entire recipe from start to finish before you begin. This will ensure that you have all of the ingredients and utensils on hand before you get started. Your significant other will be so happy when they don’t have to make that emergency grocery store run!
Here, I have gathered all of the ingredients that will need to be prepared for a delicious beef stew. The vegetables and aromatics need to be cleaned, peeled, sliced, chopped, and diced and the broth and tomato paste need to be measured out. I always have a “garbage bowl”, which is just a large empty bowl, nearby when I’m doing my mise en place. It’s really convenient to be able to toss away the waste into a nearby bowl.
For other recipes, you might need to toast some nuts, measure out some spices, grate some cheese etc. You get the idea. Anything that can be done ahead of time to make the cooking process run more smoothly.
After all the slicing, dicing, chopping, and measuring I put each ingredient in it’s own appropriately sized bowl. I also arrange them in the order I will be using them. With my mise en place completed, I am ready to cook up a storm (a very organized smooth flowing storm, that is)!
2 Responses
Niki, this is such a great and needful post. I hate those last minute grocery store runs or the realization that I didn’t chop something ahead of time. Thanks so much for the reminder to “get organized.”
Thank you, Kristy! I hope this post was helpful.