490-Thinking Like a Chef While Cooking At Home

Today’s show is done at the behest of one of my Telegram subs and is my attempt to let you see how chefs think at work, and at home too. This topic could go in many directions so I hope I did justice to this subject and provided some helpful insight into how I try to process home cooking using my chef background.

Some of the things I did not mention on the show were mise en place (everything in its place) or what we chefs refer to as “being ready” for the “pick up”. I see many people cooking with poor or non-existent mise en place. So if you’re making a pb& j you need the following for your mise en place:

peanut butter
bread
jam, jelly, preserves? what do you like?
toaster?
knife
cutting board
plate
napkin
a glass of milk….haha….just kidding on these last few items.

You get the point though-don’t start cooking until you have gathered everything you need, including equipment and a place to put the prepared food. And, if you don’t want me barking at you clean as you go, do not leave a bunch of containers, etc on the counters and work around them, that pisses me off to no end!

“Mise” can be complicated, let’s examine an easy example; making a poached egg on toast. You’ll need water boiling in a pot, a slice of toast in the toaster, a slotted spoon, a paper towel or kitchen towel, an egg, salt pepper, and in my case, Worcestershire sauce, serving vessel, all ready to go so you can execute this simple dish.

This probably makes sense to you now. These are just a few of the things that go into cooking at home, in my mind.