One of the best ways to enjoy what you do is to get good at it.
Today, I want to share how to get good at cooking in your kitchen, not by explaining a lot of cooking terms and tricks, but by teaching you how to operate well as a cook in your kitchen. You’ll be more efficient while working, saving time and energy. You’ll enjoy kitchen jobs more. You may even realize that your kitchen looks better after you’ve cooked in it than it did when you started (AMAZING! And completely possible!). It’s possible to have a from-scratch meal on the table with all the dishes clean. I’ve done it, and a lot more than once, so I know you can do this too! Post-meal cleanup in this scenario is a lot easier.
To do this, We’re going to look at how chefs operate in their kitchens and take home some lessons to our kitchens.
Watch these three videos. What do you learn from the professional chefs that you can use?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDfByjnR-ac&list=PLWO9fBDX536xEt3uVGtyk6JQ-OePInUVT&index=4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Op99GdXMd4Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDFBdk0d21A&list=PLWO9fBDX536xEt3uVGtyk6JQ-OePInUVT&index=6
Here’s my procedure for working like a pro in my kitchen:
Step 1: Set up my workstation. This includes filling up the sink with hot soapy water, anchoring my cutting board if I’m using one, sharpening my knife, and getting out a dish to catch my scraps and wrappings as I work with food. Step 1 takes about a minute and a half to do.
Step 2: Pull out all tools. If I need any mixing bowls, measuring cups, dishes to hold chopped or measured foods in, skewers, or whatever, I pull them all out before I do anything else.
This takes another minute, maybe two if I need to get something from way up high (I’m not the tallest person around.)
Step 3: Get out all ingredients. Getting all the ingredients out before you ever turn on a burner or start chopping anything ensures that you won’t get into that classic situation where you’re cooking chicken enchiladas and realize you’re all out of chicken…This dinner-saving strategy adds another minute and a half.
Step 4: Prep and cook. Cooking is SO fun when you’ve got everything you need already prepared and you can just get down to cooking. And for the record, my estimate shows that preparation, steps 1 through 3, those things we always feel too rushed to do, actually only take about five minutes to do. And they payoff for these five minutes of prep is huge. Now that you’re well prepared, cooking feels like you’re the star of a cooking show, and your meal comes together calmly and gracefully. I sometimes feel like I’m dancing when I cook this way. All the trash is going into the scraps bowl, all the food is going into prep dishes, and when the heat gets turned on, everything is ready to go in at exactly the right time. Smooth. And the results are delicious. No more burned, overcooked, or missing-ingredient meals.
It’s very rare that I enjoy anything any restaurant has to offer as much as I like what comes out of my own kitchen now that I use good cooking practices.
Tip: Clean as you go. With your speed dishwashing skills and a sink of soapy water prepared, don’t set your measuring cup down on the counter! Throw it right into that soapy water! it’s really easy to throw your cookware into the sink as soon as you’re done with them and get them soaking. Then, while you’re waiting for something to get done browning or braising or baking, you can blast out your dishes. When you do this, by the time dinner is ready, the kitchen looks great and smells great and by golly, it is great! Because YOU are great! You just mastered that meal and the kitchen like a pro. You should feel pretty pleased. Your family will feel pretty pleased too when they get to eat a home-cooked family meal without piles of dirty dishes staring at them from the background. Score.
The reason why we don’t practice proper “mise en place” like a pro is either because we don’t know how to do it or we think it takes too long. Well, now you know how to do it. And If you’re starting in a reasonably tidy kitchen, setting up your workstation and getting your gear and food organized is an investment of FOUR minutes. Maybe more if you’re cooking a multi-course meal for a crowd. But really, it’s not hard or time consuming. It saves time in the long run.
Homework: Watch the videos, sharpen your knives, and practice setting up your workstation and doing “mise en place” for the next meal you prepare. How does it change your experience?
Have a sink of hot soapy water ready while you work. Practice washing/loading your dishes as you finish with them. How easy or hard was that for you to do?
Please share your photos, experiences, or even the recipes you followed while you practiced your mise en place!
Bonus homework:
Getting good sharp knives and knowing how to use them properly makes chopping and dicing fun and much less time consuming. Here’s a videos on knife skills for you to watch so you can start practicing safe and swift knife work in your kitchen. I encourage you to snoop around for other video demos of knife skills, especially those that teach how to chop specific foods.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-Fg7l7G1zw
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