How Mise en Place can be Helpful For Home Cooks

The French term Mise en Place is translated variously to mean “setting up”, “everything in its place” or “put in place”. Being organised is important in many areas of life, of course, but the term is popularly used when referring to setting up in readiness for cooking, and no wonder!

Putting everything in place is crucial in a restaurant kitchen and, while not always necessary at home it is useful when cooking fast moving dishes such as risotto, omelettes etc. or when cooking lots of things for a dinner party. So here’s how you do it …

Firstly read your recipe or recipes right through some time before you intend to start cooking, and make sure you’ve got everything! You might need to pop out to the shops or a helpful neighbour. Also things might need doing in advance such as thawing something, bringing it to room temperature or marinating it.

Setting up your mise en place …

Weigh or Measure Ingredients

Although in many cases how much or little you use of an ingredient it up to you (especially on this blog about spontaneous cooking!) some recipes, baking in particular, do require precise measurements.

Weigh the dried goods you will be using – flour, sugar, raising agents, spices, dried fruit, nuts and seeds, etc., and have them ready beside your preparation area.

Similarly, weigh or measure other ingredients; butter, cream, cheese etc. and place the correct amount near to hand.

Prepare Ingredients

Wash, peel, trim, slice, dice, grate, julienne or chop whatever needs such preparation – fruits, vegetables, meats, fish, cheese, etc. This is much easier than trying to stir fry and grate at the same time.  As above put your prepared ingredients where you can easily reach them.

A bonus of getting all this stuff ready before cooking is that you can then clear away your chopping boards, scales, grater, food processor, knives and what have you and have a wipe down so that you will be cooking in a clean uncluttered area.

Tools

I am lucky because I have a very small kitchen (by choice) so that I can stand in one place and reach almost everything I need – utensils, pots and pans, teaspoons, etc. but in a normal sized kitchen it is a good idea to also make sure you know where all the equipment you need is and maybe get it out in readiness.

Mise en Place is Not Always a Good Idea!

Of course, as I said earlier, it is not necessary to go for the full mise en place when just cooking dinner at home, in fact it can be a reall bugger clearing up and washing all those little dishes and spoons, but going some of the way is often a good idea – having all your ingredients ready for a stir fry, for instance is useful. It’s also handy, if making something different, to make sure you remember where you put the sumac or your canelle knife.

Incidentally and to avoid confusion, although mise en place is a verb it is frequently used as a noun, I have on occasion referred to my organised area and said “there’s my mise en place”, also it is often reduced to “mise” or “meez”.