Mise en place

Mise en place for shrimp chowder.  Photo by Rob Robitaille

I always tell people that if you are at all interested in being a better cook, you need to learn from the masters.  There are many cooks and chefs out there that are masters, but many are only within reach of culinary school students and apprentices.  I have two favorites that are withing easy reach of the home cook.  Julia Child and Jacques Pépin.  I grew up with SNL, and most everyone else for that matter, picking on Julia because of her large stature, booming voice, and Patrician English.  It wasn't until much later that I truly came to appreciate her for who she was; an intelligent woman of the world that could teach the French a thing or two about their own food.  Although she is gone, she left behind many of her works.  If you do not own a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, get one!  It is the de facto standard text if you want to learn how to cook French food, and whether or not you think you do, you do because it is the base skill set that will allow you to cook virtually anything else.

Even later in my life, Jacques also captured my interest.  I have never seen anyone wield a knife in a kitchen with such skill as Jacques.  I think the moment that took me was when he showed his viewers how to make melba toast.  He quickly removed the crust of the toast with his knife, then he held the toast gently with the palm of his hand and swung the knife through the toast under his hand to make two very thin slices of toast.  I just about fell off my chair.  I have pretty good knife skills, but I would have been in the emergency room if I had tried that one.  Wow.  Jacques also offers many texts.  One that I enjoy is Jacques Pépin New Complete Techniques, which augments Julia's work very well.

There are many techniques to learn in the kitchen.  One that I think is important for the average home cook is mise en place, or to put in place.  Professional chefs depend on it, and home cooks can benefit from it, because when you really think about it, it is ingenious and beneficial.  It forces you to think things through; what ingredients I need and when.  It allows you to prepare those things, your "mise" as some chefs casually refer to them, ahead of time.  Without even thinking about it, it helps you organize your work area so when it comes time to cook your dish, you can concentrate on the task at hand instead of having to scrounge up ingredients at the last minute.  It allows you to...well, cook.  One of the things that most often plagues inexperienced home cooks is becoming overwhelmed when cooking for a group.  This technique allows you to examine things and break them down into smaller, more manageable parts.  Then, the stress melts away and you can focus on your work.  After all, cooking is supposed to be fun.  Think how cool you will look when your guests arrive and your "mise" is "en place".  Then you can grab a libation, visit with your guests and prepare the meal, cool as a cucumber.  Remember, you don't want to be that person that is freaking out flying around your kitchen like some big jacked up moth.

In the example above, I organized my mise en place for shrimp chowder.  The first thing I did was remove the corn from the cob and put them in a bowl.  Next, I boiled the cobs with the shrimp shells, from my shrimp which was also cut up an put into a bowl, to make a nice stock.  As that was cooking together, I chopped my carrots and celery and placed them in a bowl.  Yes, technically those could have gone into individual bowls, but I had them portioned out and were all going into the pool together anyway.  Then I diced onion and pepper into another bowl.  Then, the potatoes.  Finally, the shrimp/cob stock was done and went into the measuring cup along with what I scraped off the cobs.  Not pictured are the shrimp, corn, turkey stock, and cream, which were already "en place".  Finally, all I had to do was cook the chowder, which was splendid, I might add.  And why?  I thought things through and concentrated on the task of cooking so that I could taste and adjust and coax it into what I wanted.  And it was easy, relaxing, and fun.