1. Mise En Place

2. Mise En Place
Cooks must have a talent for organization and efficiency.
Many tasks must be completed over a given time and by a limited number of workers.
All must come together at one crucial point: service time.

3. Mise En Place
Chefs take pride in the thoroughness and quality of their advance preparation or Mise en Place.
Mise en Place : French term, meaning “everything put in place.”

4. Planning & Organizing Production
Pre-Preparation
Pre-preparation is necessary! You must:
Assemble your tools
Assemble your ingredients
Wash, trim, cut, prepare, and measure your raw materials
Prepare your equipment

5. Planning & Organizing Production
Pre-Preparation
The Chef must plan pre-preparation carefully.
Break down each menu item into its stages of production.
Determine which stages may be done in advance.
Determine the best way to hold each item at its final stage of pre-preparation.

6. Planning & Organizing Production
Pre-Preparation
(… cont’d)
Determine how long it takes to prepare each stage of each recipe.
Plan a production schedule beginning with the preparations that take the longest.
Examine recipes to see if they might be revised for better efficiency and quality as served.

7. Planning & Organizing Production
Pre-Preparation
The Goal
The goal of pre-preparation is to do as much work in advance as possible without loss of quality.
Quality should always take highest priority.

8. Planning & Organizing Production
Holding Temperature
Holding temperature: The temperature at which a product is kept for service or for storage.
Holding temperatures for all potentially hazardous foods must be outside the Food Danger Zone.
Food Danger Zone: 41°F (5°C) to 135°F (57°C)

9. Planning & Organizing Production
Adapting Preparation to Style of Service
Set Meal Service
All customers eat at one time.
Often called quantity cooking because large batches are prepared in advance.
Examples: school cafeterias, banquets, employee dining rooms

10. Planning & Organizing Production
Adapting Preparation to Style of Service
Extended Meal Service
Customers eat at different times.
Often called à la carte cooking; customers usually select items from a written menu (carte in French).
Individual items are cooked to order rather than cooked ahead.
Examples: restaurants, short-order counters

11. Planning & Organizing Production
Mise En Place: The Required Tasks
A large part of a cook’s workday is spent doing mise en place.
A large part of learning how to cook is learning how to do mise en place.

12. Using the Knife The Sharpening Stone Follow these guidelines:
Hold the blade at a constant 20-degree angle to the stone.
Make light, even strokes, the same number on each side of the blade.

13. Using the Knife The Sharpening Stone
Sharpen in one direction only to get a regular, uniform edge.
Do not over-sharpen.
Finish with a few strokes on the steel (see next slide), and then wipe the blade clean.

14. Using the Knife The Steel Follow these guidelines:
Hold the blade at a constant 20-degree angle to the steel, just as when using the stone.
A smaller angle will be ineffective. A larger one will dull the edge
Make light strokes; do not grind the knife against the steel.

15. Using the Knife The Steel
3. Make even, regular strokes. Alternate each stroke, first on one side of the blade, then on the other
Use no more than five or six strokes on each side of the blade; too much steeling can actually dull the blade.
Use the steel often; then, you will rarely have to sharpen the knife on the stone.

16. Using the Knife The Grip A proper grip
Gives you maximum control over the knife.
Increases your cutting accuracy and speed.
Prevents slipping.
Lessens the chance of an accident.

17. Using the Knife The Grip
The type of grip you use depends, in part, on the job you are doing and the size of the knife.
Many Chefs fell that grasping the blade with the thumb and forefinger gives the greatest control.

18. Using the Knife The Guiding Hand
Proper positioning of the hand achieves three goals
Hold the item being cut.
Guide the knife.
Protect the hand from cuts.

19. Using the Knife The Basic Cuts
Cutting food products into uniform shapes and sizes is important for two reasons:
1. It ensures even cooking.
2. It enhances the appearance of the product.

20. Using the Knife The Basic Cuts
Chop: to cut into irregularly shaped pieces
Concasser : to chop coarsely
Mince: to chop into very fine pieces
Emincer : to cut into very thin slices (does not mean “to mince”)
Shred: to cut into thin strips

21. Using the Knife
The Basic Cuts

22. Using the Knife The Basic Cuts Slicing
When food items are cut into round slices as shown, the cut is called rondelle.

23. Using the Knife
The Basic Cuts
Bâtonnet
Dice

24. Using the Knife
The Basic Cuts
Julienne
Tourné

25. Using the Knife
The Basic Cuts
Paysanne
Lozenges

26. Using the Knife
The Basic Cuts
Fermiére
Oblique

27. Preliminary Cooking and Flavoring
Advance preparation often requires precooking and flavoring of ingredients to make them ready for use in the finished recipe.
Partial cooking may be done by any moist-heat or dry-heat method.
The term blanching may mean any of these methods:
simmering or boiling (parboiling)
steaming
deep-frying (especially for potatoes)

28. Preliminary Cooking and Flavoring
There are four main reasons for blanching or par- cooking:
To increase holding quality
To save time
To remove undesirable flavors
To enable the product to be processed further

29. Preliminary Cooking and Flavoring
Marinating
To marinate means to soak a food product in a seasoned liquid in order to:
1. Flavor the product
2. Tenderize the product

30. Preliminary Cooking and Flavoring
Marinating
Marinades have three categories of ingredients:
Oil
Acid from vinegar, lemon juice, wine
Flavorings—spices, herbs, vegetables

31. Preliminary Cooking and Flavoring
Marinating
Kinds of Marinade:
1. Cooked
2. Raw
3. Instant
4. Dry

32. Preparation for Frying
Breading
Coating a product with bread crumbs or other crumbs or meal before deep frying, pan-frying, or sautéing

33. Preparation for Frying
Breading
The Three Stages of the Standard Breading Procedure:
Flour
Egg wash
Crumbs

34. Handling Convenience Foods
Convenience food: Any product that has been partially or completely prepared or processed by a manufacturer.
Convenience products are not a substitute for culinary knowledge and skill.
It takes as much understanding of basic cooking principles to handle convenience products as it does fresh, raw ingredients.