Copyright © 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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.
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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.”
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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)
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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
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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
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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.
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Using the Knife
The Sharpening Stone
Follow these guidelines:
1. Hold the blade at a constant 20-degree angle to the stone.
2. Make light, even strokes, the same number on each side of the blade.
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Using the Knife
The Sharpening Stone
3. Sharpen in one direction only to get a regular, uniform edge.
4. Do not over-sharpen.
5. Finish with a few strokes on the steel (see next slide), and then wipe the blade clean.
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Using the Knife
The Steel
Follow these guidelines:
1. 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
2. Make light strokes; do not grind the knife against the steel.
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Using the Knife
The Steel
3. Make even, regular strokes. Alternate each stroke, first on one side of the blade, then on the other
4. Use no more than five or six strokes on each side of the blade; too much steeling can actually dull the blade.
5. Use the steel often; then, you will rarely have to sharpen the knife on the stone.
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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.
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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.
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Using the Knife
The Guiding Hand
Proper positioning of the hand achieves three goals
1. Hold the item being cut.
2. Guide the knife.
3. Protect the hand from cuts.
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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.
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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
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Using the Knife
The Basic Cuts
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Using the Knife
The Basic Cuts
Slicing
• When food items are cut into round slices as shown, the cut is called rondelle.
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Using the Knife
Bâtonnet
The Basic Cuts
Dice
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Using the Knife
Tourné
The Basic Cuts
Julienne
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Using the Knife
Paysanne
The Basic Cuts
Lozenges
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Using the Knife
Fermiére
The Basic Cuts
Oblique
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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)
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Preliminary Cooking and Flavoring
There are four main reasons for blanching or parcooking:
1.
To increase holding quality
2.
To save time
3.
To remove undesirable flavors
4.
To enable the product to be processed further
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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
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Preliminary Cooking and Flavoring
Marinating
Marinades have three categories of ingredients:
1. Oil
2. Acid from vinegar, lemon juice, wine
3. Flavorings —spices, herbs, vegetables
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Preliminary Cooking and Flavoring
Marinating
Kinds of Marinade:
1. Cooked
2. Raw
3. Instant
4. Dry
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Preparation for Frying
Breading
Coating a product with bread crumbs or other crumbs or meal before deep frying, pan-frying, or sautéing
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Preparation for Frying
Breading
The Three Stages of the Standard Breading
Procedure:
1. Flour
2. Egg wash
3. Crumbs
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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.
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