1. Mise En Place
Mise en place (MEEZ ahn plahs) is a French culinary term for “everything in its place.” When cooking, prepping and laying out all the ingredients can help a dish come together quickly and efficiently.
Consistent practice of Mise En Place yields several benefits:
- You will be able to see if any ingredients are missing before you begin cooking
- Makes it easier to clean as you go when cooking
- Ingredients can be grouped based on the steps in the recipe
- Minimizes chaos that can happen when making a complicated recipe
2. Read the recipe ahead of time
There is something uniquely frustrating about pulling up a recipe at 5PM for dinner and finding out you were supposed to marinate the chicken overnight. You end of being left with 2 options. 1. Shorten the marinate the time or 2. Suck it up and delay the recipe to later in the week. Don’t let this be you! Read the recipe in its entirety before you shop for ingredients. Read it again right before you start cooking.
3. Season and taste as you go
If you have ever been to a fancy restaurant, you may have noticed they don’t put salt and pepper shakers on the table. This is because the food is seasoned well. Casual restaurants don’t always have the time to season their food perfectly. When cooking at home we do have the time to make sure things are seasoned well prior to serving. As you are cooking, use smell and taste to make sure you are delivering a great final product!
4. Take notes for next time
I am a huge believer in making small constant improvements over time. When my wife makes something new for us, she always asks “What would you change?” Everyone’s tastes are different and minor tweaks can take a dish from a 4-star to a 5-star experience. You can open any cookbook in our home and see recipes marked up with notes ranging from “Use less cayenne” to “Substitute canned beans for dried beans”. Taking notes and making changes will help make recipes your own.
5. Always use fresh squeezed citrus
While it may be easier to open a bottle of lime juice from the fridge and throw that in whatever you are cooking, fresh squeezed citrus provides a lighter more robust flavor. Fresh citrus also has a higher vitamin C content than concentrate to boot. Fresh citrus stays good in the fridge for a long time and is an affordable way to impart flavor into a dish. So, ditch the concentrate!