Mise en place - 'Everything put in place'

It has been a great week and a good start to my Culinary Foundations III course. I think we have started to cook with the 'grown-ups'.

Each cooking session is divided into two days, one day for mise en place and the second day for actually cooking the dishes. The emphasis of this module is on cooking techniques and the recipes are less descriptive than they were in Culinary Foundations II. We are encouraged to interpret the recipes in our own way, for example by adding additional spices or seasonings if we feel it will benefit the dish. Another focus of this module is on plating. All plates are a complete entree, which means each plate contains a protein, starch, vegetables and a sauce. The question is how do we want to present the dishes so that they are shown to there best advantage?

You can imagine that all of this requires a lot of planning. Planning my preparations for day 1 of the session and planning my cooking routine and my plating for day 2. That's where the mise en place comes in. It's literal translation from French means 'everything put in place'; for me it means 'know what you are doing, have a plan and get organized'. It's a phrase we've been talking about since day one at the school, but now it's really coming into it's own right. One of my chefs once said that " the best chefs are the ones who are most calm". I now totally understand why. Proper mise en place definitely makes the difference between frantic chaos and frantic cooking.

Let me explain what I mean. Our first two dishes of the module were beef stew with vegetables together with tournéed potatoes, and roast pork loin with apple & sage sauce and Bulgar pilaf. As you can see this is a lot to prepare and cook. On day 1 we measured out the portions for protein, vegetables and starches, chopped all the vegetables, and got the seasonings together for the protein and the vegetables. While performing these tasks, I was also thinking about how to plate my dishes the next day. To what size should I chop my vegetables for the beef stew? Was I cooking them with the beef stew or separately? If I 'd cook them with the beef stew at what point during the cooking time would I add them so that they wouldn't totally lose they color and shape? In the end I decided to cook the vegetables and potatoes separately, which meant they would retain their vivid colors and be very visible in my dish, which in turn demanded that they had to be cut in visually pleasing shapes and all the same size. The same decisions needed to be made for the roast pork loin dish.

Roast pork loin with apple & sage sauce and Bulgar pilaf and carrots etuver

Once all my preparations were complete, all the little prep bowls labeled and I had visualized how to plate my dishes, I needed to decide on a schedule for my cooking processes for the next day. I knew my beef stew would take a long time to cook, so that needed to be my first priority on day 2. That in turn meant that I would need to switch on the oven immediately when I came into the kitchen the next morning. I would get the beef stew in the oven and than focus on the pork loin dish while the beef was cooking for about 60 to 90 minutes. The pork needed to be browned on the stovetop, than cooked in the oven, and subsequently rested once the cooking process had been completed. I was evaluating those times against the time the Bulgar pilaf would take to cook in the oven. And what about the reduction of the cooking juices to make the apple & sage sauce for the pork loin? I decided to get the pork going first than get the Bulgar pilaf in the oven and as the pork was resting, concentrate on the preparation of the apple & sage sauce. In between those steps to prepare the roast pork loin dish, I was also keeping an eye on the beef stew so as not to overcook the beef. Luckily, the beef took it's time, and I was able to prepare and present the dish to my Chef instructor, before I needed to focus on the beef stew.

Beef stew with tournéed potatoes and vegetables etuver

Once the pork dish was out of the way, I went back to my beef stew. I started to cook the potatoes and vegetables, strained and reduced the sauce for the beef stew, and finished off the seasoning. It all went smoothly and I was very happy with both dishes I produced that day.

However, things don't always work out that easily. Our next two-day cooking session consisted of cooking two fish dishes, Sole Meuniere with baked tomatoes, braised endives and farro-risotto as well as Paupiette of Flounder with Salmon Mousseline, Quinoa salad with bell peppers and buttered Asparagus. Those are two dishes that require a lot shorter cooking times and much of the work had to be completed in parallel, which meant that proper organization and planning were even more important. So focused was I on ensuring that I got the timing right that that I actually forgot to take pictures of my finished plates that day! I was trying to keep an eye on everything and more importantly ensuring nothing burnt.

To sum it up, before I started culinary school, I used to think that only dishes cooked in a wok needed prior preparation of all the ingredients. Now I am just starting to appreciate that mise en place should be a 'way of life' for everyone, never mind what one cooks and never mind at what level the cook operates. It's the difference between chaos and efficiency in the kitchen.

Have a great week and happy eating.