{"id":654,"date":"2010-02-07T08:41:50","date_gmt":"2010-02-07T13:41:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/noelfigart.com\/blog\/?p=654"},"modified":"2010-02-07T08:41:50","modified_gmt":"2010-02-07T13:41:50","slug":"an-addition-to-the-cooking-manual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/2010\/02\/07\/an-addition-to-the-cooking-manual\/","title":{"rendered":"An Addition to the Cooking Manual"},"content":{"rendered":"

I added this to the little cooking manual I’m making for my son. \u00a0He has an engineer mindset, so I figure that explaining the principles behind some stuff is a good idea.<\/em><\/p>\n

How to cook so you won\u2019t drive yourself crazy in the process<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s a good idea to combine complex recipes with easy ones.\u00a0 Don\u2019t make every dish in a meal time-consuming, or you\u2019ll just drive yourself nuts.<\/p>\n

Mise en Place<\/h3>\n

This is a French phrase that means \u201cputting everything in its place\u201d.\u00a0 The way to cook so that you don\u2019t drive yourself to distraction involves setting up everything, as well as having a system of putting things away and cleaning as you go.\u00a0 If you\u2019ve ever watched a professional cook, you\u2019ll notice that s\/he doesn\u2019t approach cooking by just randomly doing things. \u00a0S\/he knows in what order he needs to cook to make sure that every dish is finished at the same time.<\/p>\n

The Mise en Place Process<\/h4>\n
    \n
  1. Check your recipes for the meal<\/strong><\/li>\n

    This is when you decide in what order you\u2019ll prepare dishes.\u00a0 For instance, if you make a stir fry and you can cut very <\/strong> quickly, you might start the rice before you start cutting up the veggies and meat for the meal.\u00a0 Otherwise, you\u2019ll start your prep work, take a break from it when you think you\u2019ll be about 20 minutes away from finishing cooking, and go ahead and make the rice, so that it will be finished at the same time as the rest of the meal.\u00a0 This step is a thinking<\/em> step.<\/p>\n

  2. Preheat the oven (if necessary)<\/strong><\/li>\n

    Obviously this isn\u2019t always necessary.\u00a0 Not every meal uses the oven.<\/p>\n

  3. Make sure you have the necessary ingredients.<\/strong><\/li>\n

    Sometimes you can make substitutions in a dish.\u00a0 Sometimes you can\u2019t.\u00a0 If you can\u2019t, flip through the recipe book to see what we have in the kitchen that you can<\/em> make.\u00a0 In theory, if we\u2019ve made a menu plan for the week, we\u2019ll have already shopped for all the ingredients for every dish we\u2019re going to make.<\/p>\n

  4. Lay out any equipment you need to prepare it.<\/strong><\/li>\n

    Do you need knives, cutting boards or bowls to hold ingredients?\u00a0 Get them out now, and lay them on the counter.<\/p>\n

  5. Lay out the ingredients you need for the meal.<\/strong><\/li>\n

    This means everything \u2013 spices, meat, vegetables\u2026 Anything you need.<\/p>\n

  6. As you finish with a dish or tool, either put it in the dishwasher, put it away, or wash and put it in the drying rack if it\u2019s a hand-wash tool like a knife or pots.<\/strong><\/li>\n

    This is the \u201cclean as you go\u201d principle.\u00a0 You\u2019ve probably never seen a kitchen scattered with every dish in the house dirty and waiting for you at the end of a meal.\u00a0 It\u2019s nasty and overwhelming and will make you not want to cook.\u00a0 If you get in the habit of putting away and cleaning up behind yourself in the process of cooking, after-dinner cleanup is no real big deal.\u00a0 If you\u2019re going to be cooking a big meal, I invite you to enjoy the wonders of a sink full of hot soapy water to make cleanup even quicker.<\/ol>\n

    Also remember if you don\u2019t clean up after yourself[1]<\/a>, you will die a horrible death.<\/p>\n

    Love and kisses,<\/p>\n

    Mama No\u00ebl<\/p>\n

    [1]<\/a> And this includes wiping down counters and the stove.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I added this to the little cooking manual I’m making for my son. \u00a0He has an engineer mindset, so I figure that explaining the principles behind some stuff is a good idea. How to cook so you won\u2019t drive yourself crazy in the process It\u2019s a good idea to combine complex recipes with easy ones.\u00a0 … <\/p>\n

    Continue reading “An Addition to the Cooking Manual”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food","category-kids"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}