“Everything in its right place” isn’t just the title of one of my favorite Radiohead songs; it’s one of the fundamentals of proper cooking. The term mise en place, literally means “put in place”. Simply put, gathering all of your ingredients and utensils is an important step in food preparation. You could say that organization and foresight are the first two ingredients in any recipe.

At Mirepoix, I am known for being obsessively single-minded about our mission and our brand. Since our mission is to “teach people to cook and think like professional chefs”, the principle of mise en place is reinforced at every class for two very practical reasons.The first being that we are on a tight schedule; 3.5 hours isn’t as long as you think it is when you are working on preparing over 12 recipes! Secondly, being organized and neat is essential to kitchen safety.

More importantly, though, applying the basics of mise en place in your kitchen will aide in your quest to become a more competent cook, and, it makes the process much more enjoyable! After all, cooking is a lot of work; you should at least have a good time! I am often saying that people make things way too hard on themselves – don’t complicate it and don’t drag it out! Good cooking, as well as peaceable living is easy, not hard!

Here are the three basic things that working like a professional chef will do to enhance your next culinary undertaking:

Avoid an emergency trip to the pantry, neighbor or, worse – the grocery store at a critical step in your recipe
Save time
Better tasting food

Avoid an emergency trip - By gathering, trimming, dicing, and measuring all of your ingredients first, you will be able to avoid the inevitable and annoying realization that you are out of, or don’t have enough of a particular ingredient. The order of events should literally be: read the recipe, gather ingredients, wash/trim/slice/dice, measure. All of your prepped ingredients should be lined up (not combined) in small dishes or containers so that you can check one last time to ensure that you have everything you need, and in the right quantities. The LAST step is the cooking.

This is the LEAST fun part of cooking, the “grunt work”, but it is the most important part in order to make good tasting and properly prepared food. In restaurants, we spend hours getting everything cleaned, prepped and ready to go before service. When a chef begins service, everything he or she needs is right at hand, and ready to use. He isn’t peeling and dicing carrots in between meal tickets – this has been done hours before.

Save time - by doing all of the necessary prep work, you will be able to quickly and seamlessly prepare the recipe, simply because all of your ingredients and utensils will be at hand. At this point, it’s just assembly and proper cooking technique.

Better tasting food - You won’t be as likely to burn or scorch a pan because you are chopping cilantro, peeling carrots or dicing the remaining ingredients. By having everything in its place, you never have to be distracted because of disorganization or poor planning.

To learn more about the Mirepoix Cooking School, visit our website at www.mirepoixcookingschool.com and register for one of our classes!

Cooks Tools

So many times I overhear our students say, “wow! This is so much easier – these knives are so sharp!” Often, people avoid cooking because cooking can be a lot of work, yielding average results when you don’t have the right pieces of equipment. Worse, allowing your equipment to go into disrepair, which happens almost exclusively with the cutlery that people buy because they don’t know how to care for it.

I am often asked by students which types of knives to buy, if they should splurge on a really expensive set of pans, and why certain pieces of cooking equipment are so expensive. I’ve been answering this question for over 15 years.

One of my first jobs was as a sales clerk at a very high-end kitchenwares store. I started working there in high school and stayed in their employ until I went to culinary school. People would come in and browse the toasters, marveling at their very expensive price tag. “Why would I spend so much on a toaster/blender/food processor?”

It was then that I had the opportunity to teach people about the very important difference between price and cost. Paying more for quality, better functionality, or more efficient design often means that in the long run, you won’t have to replace your equipment as often.

My mother has had the same Kitchen Aid stand mixer since I was in high school, over 15 years ago. For my high school graduation, some very generous friends gave me a gift certificate that I used to buy a Kitchen Aid food processor, and the motor still runs like a dream. My food processor is over 12 years old. I paid $150 for it. Cost per year is about $10. For a piece of equipment that produces excellent results, time after time, and makes cooking easier, I suggest that such an expenditure is a good investment.

Wouldn’t we all like to go on a shopping spree and fill our kitchens with the little tools and gadgets that make our culinary efforts more enjoyable? I know I could easily and very happily spend about $5000 on some really nice things in no time at all! Truth be told – maybe even $10,000 if I were shopping for a grill too! But the truth is, when it comes to kitchen gadgets and equipment, there are three basic categories.

Essential: Essential kitchen items are the items that you must invest in to see the best results and, most importantly, will aide in proper cooking technique. Knives, an excellent quality food processor, etc.

Nice-to-have, but not essential: This category is for the appliances and tools that would be nice to have, but you could make do without them. An example of this would be a Vita Mix blender or a certain mixing attachment.

Unneccessary, Non-sensical and downright ridiculous: Onion goggles and their ilk. I am amazed at the idea of such ridiculous “tools”. As someone who has worked in the unruly and impolite world of professional cooking, my advice to you is that you should avoid such outrageous gadgets. If it were me, I would take this into consideration: if you were working in a professional kitchen, anything that would indicate that you are no match for some sulfurous onions or shallots would invite an embarrassing string of events to which you would want no part of, and should be avoided.

Just sayin.

My goal as an educator and writer is to discuss the basic foundations of good cooking, and selecting the proper tools and appliances are necessary to make good tasting and properly cooked food. In tandem, caring for these items is also very necessary. Don’t invest and then neglect.

If you would like to learn more about the types of tools you need to have, how to care for them, AND have a chance to use them yourself, sign up for our class “Cooks Tools” at the Mirepoix Cooking School. The class is April 3. In this hands-on class, you will have the opportunity to cook with the appliances that we deem essential and decide if they are right for you.

Also, be sure to tune in to Channel 7 WXYZ this Sunday morning between 8 & 9 am to watch my cooking segment. I will be demonstrating a tool that I really like called “The BeaterBlade”.