My Mom cooked this way - you set everything out before you start cooking. Chefs apparently do this as a matter of course.

I never have but for the first meal cooked in the new kitchen (I can’t find a damned thing) I decided to give it a shot. I liked it and may start doing it as a matter of course.

Do you do mis en place when you cook?

I do but never thought of it as a thing.

I will add that I put away things as I use them..so by the time I am done, the kitchen is pretty clean..

My Mom always cooked and left all out..it drove me crazy....I learned the 'clean as you go' as I worked in fast food as a teen.

I have no philosophical objection to mise en place.
In practice I am limited by available countertop space in my kitchen, so not every dish can be done mise en place.
Then there are some things I want to minimize their time outside of refrigeration so for those items I would rather do "just in time" rather than "mise en place."

Some things like stir-fries really require it. You don’t want something to burn while you’re chopping.

Mis-en-place also requires an ample number of dishes or bowls.

I tend to gauge how much I need to do it based on the complexity of the recipe.

Sometimes I’ll do clean-as-you-go. But if it’s a complex dinner, I leave the cleanup to my other half.

Mise en place is essential if you're cooking anything complex and don't want to ruin things by having to essentially stop your cooking process three times while you go find, chop, shred, dice, or otherwise prepare things before using them.

Started mis en place the second time I cooked a dish that required a lot of timing that left no time to prep or find one thing while doing another.
I like it.

A lot of dishes start with sautéing onions, so you can get away with doing other tasks during that time.

quote:

Originally posted by RealPlayer:
A lot of dishes start with sautéing onions, so you can get away with doing other tasks during that time.

That's kinda the way I work--not really mise en place, but planning ahead for when I'm going to peel and chop. So when I make beef vegetable soup, I cut up the meat and chop the vegetables and get them started cooking. Then I chop things like potatoes and carrots that take a long time and add them when I put in the water or broth. Then I get the quicker cooking veggies ready when the carrots are nearly cooked and throw them in. And at the very end, I chop any fresh herbs and throw them in.

There are plenty of gaps in between those stages to do things like make garlic bread or salad. I can use those gaps to do some dishwashing and cleanup when I'm feeling really energetic, but I've never mastered the art of getting it all done before the meal's ready.

That's the way my mother taught me to do it.

Usually. It makes cooking much easier if everything is prepped and measured in advance. Always if it is a complicated dish.

Prep everything ahead of time. That way I skip the oh-carp-i-forgot- to-put-in x moment.

I do it for complicated things, or where you really have no spare time to do it on the fly--like stir fries, as rp says.

If I have help in the kitchen I always have them help set up a mise en place. I do like it a lot, but I find that I can do a fair amount of prep while other pieces are cooking.

I think the hardest thing in cooking a meal, by far, is to have everything ready at the same time. It's become an "issue" (cough, cough) at times when I holler that dinner's ready and then some family member says, "Is it OK if I make (a salad, a quick sauce, a sandwich)...."? No. The answer is no.

My problem is usually that I'll start making something, then realize that someone in the house used up the last of the newt extract or the coarse arugula flakes and didn't put it on the shopping list, so now I have to scour the kitchen for a suitable substitute. Setting everything out beforehand would help. But, we don't have a lot of counter space, so it's tough.

I am the only one in the house who is familiar with the concept of clean-as-you-go. Others are more familiar with the mountain-of-dirty-dishes-in-the-sink-that-might-get-washed-in-a-couple-days method of cooking.

I do have the timing of scrambled eggs and toast for one, two, or three down so everything is ready at the same time. Anything more complex than than is a toss-up. I think the real secret is knowing what can sit for a while and what is better served as soon as it comes out of the microwave oven. Salad... make and stick back in the fridge. Mashed potatoes... add a little extra milk and keep them warm. Salmon... gotta eat it as soon as it's done.

When we do have dinner at the same time, which isn't often, we seem to do a lot of DIY things like tacos where we heat up the beans, cook some meat glop, then grate the cheese, chop a tomato, and stuff, so it just needs to all get on the counter about the same time.

I think the hardest part of meal time should be waiting for the delivery guy.

Yes, for the most part, but like beelady said, what I really like to do is to clean and put away as I go so the cleanup at the end isn’t such a big deal. Nothing worse than finishing eating dinner and then having to deal with a trashed kitchen.

quote:

Originally posted by pianojuggler:
My problem is usually that I'll start making something, then realize that someone in the house used up the last of the

you forgot AND PUT THE FREAKING EMPTY BOX BACK INTO THE PANTRY.

Not that I'm bitter.