I’m about to contradict a piece of advice we at BA have given you a hundred times by saying this: Most of the time mise en place is just not that important for the average home cook.
If it isn’t already seared into your brain, mise en place is French for “put in place” and refers to the set-up wherein all of the necessary ingredients and tools are organized neatly and toeing the start line. Chopped garlic? Check. Toasted nuts? Check. Soy sauce in one tiny bowl and gochujang in another? Check, check. It’s sort of like how I used to make sure my fly was zipped and my shoes were tied and my fly-away hair was fully contained before entering the office building.
But while there’s a lot of emphasis placed on mise en place as THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD, it’s not always that critical for the average home cook—a person who isn’t plating a hundred meals over the course of a couple of hours. Of course if you’re making a super fast-cooking dish like a stir-fry where you don’t have time to pause, the mise en place will keep you on track. And if you’re building a stew with lots of spices, it will stop you from rummaging around in the pantry for ground coriander while the turmeric is burning.
A cute set-up with a million tiny measuring cups!
Let’s say you’re making a recipe, like this cheesy greens gratin, where the cooking happens in progressive stages, with inactive time between each part during which you could prep for the next. In that case, setting up your mise en place can actually waste time and, if you’re divvying ingredients into bowls, create a lot more dirty dishes.
Here on Basically, our recipes are written to walk you through the mise en place process. We list all of the ingredients in their unprepared form, then tell you exactly when to slice, measure, or mix. But most of Bon Appétit’s recipes (and most recipes in the world at large) expect that you do that mental work yourself. If you’re thinking to yourself “uh, rude,” remember that recipes that do not incorporate all of the prep into the directions tend to be shorter and easier to digest.
When you’re deciding whether to mise (and how to do it), first, read the recipe. Seriously though! This is so that you don’t get burdened with a three-hour marinade at 7 p.m. and so that you get a grasp of how quickly things come together. The faster the cooking process, the more important it is to mise. Otherwise, you risk over-cooking one ingredient while you prep the rest.
