/ck/ - Food & Cooking

From a linguistic standpoint why do we still use"mise en place"?
Granted, the translation is a bit rough ("establishment") and that gives us little of value when cooking food from a recipe (also a french word)
there's this weird displacement/ballast between Anglo-Franco terms in cooking, and somehow the French have this hold over that art, but it feels so aristocratic origin: surely we've moved beyond terms/phrases like:
>"sous vide"
>"bain marie"
>"mirepoix"
>"beurre noisette"
>"mise en place"
idk, perhaps i'm just being a thick-headed/uncultured american (or maybe french words just sell better on the menu) but it seems like we could easily transliterate all this

>>17494019
You want to learn mise en place first (everything in its place). Before you make a dish you gather and prepare all the ingredients. Pick something you want to learn, ideally not super complicated, and get the ingredients together. Then prepare them for cooking. Once that is done, start the recipe and all the ingredients are ready to go.

You do this a few time for each new recipe then you improve over time. Eventually you can relax on mise en place but it is generally a good idea to handle all the up front prep before you start. This makes cooking much easier and following a new recipe much easier.

OP learn to make shakshuka next. It is a very newbie friendly recipe. You chop up aromatics (onions, bell peppers) and fry them in oil. Spice them with paprika, salt, and pepper and other herbs/spices of your liking. Then you pour in a couple of cans of stewed tomatoes. Bring to a simmer for 20 mins returning once or twice to stir. Drop in some eggs and let them poach for around 6 minutes.

https://youtu.be/ifWWRZSWS18

This will teach you a little prep and the basics of sweating down aromatics. It is also quick to assemble so it is good for practicing mise en place. Always assemble everything you need to cook before you begin cooking. If it is a fried egg, consciously place the salt, pepper, butter/oil, spatula, and frying pan. Once you get mise en place down it becomes so, so much more fun.

Clean as you go. Get that handled don't wait.

>>16632349
Start with simple dishes and the things you already know. Learn to make a better sandwich by buying better ingredients. Learn to make a simple chicken noodle soup to dunk that sandwich in. Hard boil a dozen eggs and then make egg salad. Make a baked potato, caramelize some carrots, sautee spinach, and boil broccoli or cauliflower.

Get the cheap $20 rice cooker and a big bag of basmati rice. Make rice, put it in a bowl, drop a pat of butter on top, season with salt and pepper, then drop a few over easy eggs on top.

Make some hot dogs, simple as. But this time make toppings. Get a can of chili and finely dice up some onions and throw on some cheddar cheese. Or learn to sweat down peppers and onions in a pan to throw on top of them. Or make a hamburger and try a bagel for a bun with really good cheddar cheese.

Very easy way to learn how to prep is to just do the simplest recipes you already kind of know, improve them in your own way.

Then, after you've gotten a habit down of just preparing your own food, start looking at recipes you want to learn. Begin to practice mise en place. This means preparing everything for cooking before you begin to cook. This is one of the most important things you can do, as simple as it sounds, just get everything nice and ready for the recipe first. No matter how simple the recipe.

Start with improving simple foods. Make a sandwich but buy better bread for it and get tastier ingredients. Learn to make a really great grilled cheese then learn to make a tuna melt, or a patty melt. Learn to make a simple chicken noodle soup. Then learn to make chicken and dumplings. And so on.

Also, learn to make sofritos. This just means chop up some veg and toss it in oil for a few minutes. Trust me, look into this now. It will change your life.

Most important of all, learn mise en place. Practice mise en place first even for the most simplest recipes. If you embrace this you will first learn to follow recipes but then you will learn to cook. Even if it will take longer to cook the meal by prepping, and especially when you are new to cooking - mise en place every time to learn the habit. Once you do this a few times for a recipe the rest becomes easy. You will learn cooking twenty times faster this way.