How to set up your kitchen

When I first moved out on my own and realized I had to learn how to cook or starve/go broke (or both), there many mistakes I made. A few years later, I still make mistakes, but thanks to a few core skills I've learned along the way, I can put together some great dishes without wasting time or money on ruined groceries.

One of the most important things you'll have to do is to set up your kitchen. This means having a stocked inventory of essential equipment (check out my posts on choosing your knives and essential cookware) and a tasteful pantry. Once you've got all that you need to cook, it's time to start cooking.

So you've selected your favourite recipe that looks easy enough to make and you're about to dive into it. You dice your onion like a pro (almost) and throw it in your pot. You look up the next ingredient and prepare it as well. A glance back to stir your onions, and you realize the heat's too low and nothing's happening. Turning it up, you add your second ingredient. The recipe asks you to add stock, but you realized it's not boiling, so you pull out another pot, dump stock in, and throw it on the element. The onions and whatever else is in there are practically ruined by the time your stock is ready. and you keep stepping all over your onion peels as you stomp back and forth trying to salvage the situation.

Okay, maybe that hasn't happened to you, but it definitely has happened to me. More than once.

So I quickly learned how to really get organized. Chefs call this Mise en Place.

Mise en Place

A Mise en Place is a well organized cooking station, where you have everything you will need to perform the task at hand. This means both tools and ingredients. I also recommend a beer, because it's more fun.

Once everything is chopped and organized in the order in which it will be cooked, I can put a pan on the heat, splash some oil in there and get started once it's hot enough. A great benefit of organizing everything before you start is that you can also clean while you cook. Once you throw a bowl full of a few things in your pan, the bowl goes straight in the sink or dishwasher. By the time all your ingredients are in, the only thing left to do is wrap up the garbage bowl and have a drink.

Let's go over a very simple example. I have this "recipe" for a simple pasta; basically, ingredients I had lying around that needed to be cooked.

I cleared of my table, gave it a wipe, and brought out a clean cutting board and my knife. Since I'm making pasta, I threw a pot of water to boil while I prepared everything, which is always a good idea. Even if you think you don't need it, it's just water and you can dump it after. It's handy to have it going, just don't forget about it!

I collected all of the ingredients I would need, in the right quantities, and stacked them handy on my work station. Normally, I would look through the list of spices I'd need and arrange them as well, in the correct amounts (usually mixed together in a small bowl, if they go into the pot all at once), but this pasta called for only some salt and pepper.

With my ingredients ready, the water on the heat, and a cold beer within reach, the last thing to do is really to start chopping. I always place a bowl or two near my cutting board so I can put the cut-up ingredients there instead of clearing out everything after each piece. I also always have a bowl wrapped in a plastic bag for garbage. It's very convenient having it right there, and it's also a lot easier and more hygienic than dragging your garbage cans around.

While I was at the grocery store, I saw they had a great special on chicken breast so I bought a bunch. I knew I'd need one or two for the pasta, but while preparing my dinner anyway, it's a good idea to just throw a few more breasts in there and freeze for next time. I will share with you my ridiculously easy way to cook chicken breast in the next post.