Cooking With Dexter: Prep School

[elleng]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/magazine/19food-t-000.html?_r=1&hpw

[blaze]

1. No, no, no!!!!!

"Mise en place" is my saving grace!!!!

If I don't have everything chopped and measured and prepared as best I can, then I get totally stressed!!! Which is not fun at all!! I don't like stressed. I have more than enough of that at work.

The joy for me comes in simmering and stirring and smelling and tasting and relaxing in the whole adventure.

Do not take away my little glass bowls!!!! :)

[elleng]

2. Wouldn't think of it! Have fun!

:hi:

[Warpy]

3. Mise en place is the only way to do a Chinese thing for a crowd

Sure, you can combine the aromatics at the beginning and the sauce ingredients at the end, but everything must go in separately and in the right sequence or it's caca, half over cooked and half raw, and if you're doing half a dozen sample dishes, those stacked mise en place bowls are the only thing that will save your butt. You don't need to consult any recipes, just use that stack of bowls in order. You can then cook quickly enough to plate the final dish while the first one is still hot, swishing the wok out with a paper towel between them.

Anybody who disses it as a technique doesn't know what he's talking about.

[blaze]

4. I wish I could combine aromatics at the beginning

or the sauce ingredients at the end!! My brain and taste buds just don't make the necessary connection! My sister can taste a dish and say, "That needs a touch more xxxx." I had a boyfriend who could do that too. My poor little pedestrian taste buds just aren't up to snuff.

But that does not deter me!!!!!!

Give me a recipe (and my little glass bowls) and I am game!!! :)

[Warpy]

5. I should have added that the mise en place varies for western fare

and is quite likely to be the whole veggies lined up at the cutting board in the order in which they hit the pan, Western cooking techniques affording adequate time between them to chop them up in order and scoop them off the board and into the pan. It's why I always insist on enough counter space right next to the stove for the cutting board.

Chinese aromatics are always pretty straightforward: onion, garlic, scallion, ginger, hot chile pods or flakes singly or in combination. The sauce at the end does occasionally need a wee tweak, and that's usually easy to do with a quick taste with an impeccably clean pinkie to figure out what it needs. I always had a couple of extra little dishes of garnishes like chopped green parts of scallion, nuts or snipped cilantro.