Kitchen Talk: The Importance of Little Glass Bowls

Kitchen Talk:
The Importance of “Little Glass Bowls”
by Kristin Franklin

Practically the first lesson we were taught as fresh, green culinary students in our crisp whites with our sharp, unused knives was the term and practice of mise en place. Mise en place (MEEZ ahn plahs), a French term, pretty much translates to “everything in its place,” but it is used as a noun in the culinary world, referring to the culmination of ingredients needed for a dish being ready and “in their place” before beginning to prepare that dish. Mise en place is what you see on Emeril Live in the form of little glass bowls filled with neatly chopped onion or measured soy sauce or nicely picked herbs. You see, without the mise right in front of him, Emeril would have to go backstage, grab an onion himself, peel it, chop it and place it in the glass bowl all while joking and Bam!-ing like his usual self before the first commercial break. The soy sauce would need to be measured and the herbs picked, and before you knew it, Emeril would end up just finishing the mixing of his marinade right as the network was switching to Sara Moulton running around looking for her olive oil. Without the idea and practice of mise en place, the Food Network would basically look like continuous episodes of Iron Chef. And you don’t want to be playing Iron Chef every day when working in a restaurant kitchen. You want to be ready, prepped, mise en placed.

Little glass bowls would be destined for a shattered dust-panned life (or death) in most restaurant kitchens. Thus I present the hotel pan, the Cambro and the Lexan; the industrial versions of little glass bowls. These containers, which are available in varying sizes and shapes, fit neatly into tight, organized space-efficient rows, stack nicely (when the lids are used) and make for what I have just dubbed “ease of mise.” The containers make mathematical sense, too. For example, the standard hotel pan (or steam table pan) is called the “200 pan,” and is about 2.5 inches deep and about (I’m estimating here) 1.64 times the size of your standard 9"x13" Pyrex. From the standard 200 pan, you’ve got your 400 pan (4" deep), and your 600 pan (6" deep). Then there are the fractions of the standard pan; three third-pans fit into one standard pan, as can six sixth-pans and nine ninth-pans. Ideally, food items should fit into the proper size container with as little empty space as possible. No one, especially a chef, wants to see 1.5 cups of crepe batter stored in a 5-gallon Cambro. Mise en place is everywhere and space is a valuable commodity in a small walk-in cooler.

In a busy restaurant kitchen, it is often a necessity to prepare mise en place for the mise en place. Let me explain. At the time of service, when the restaurant is open for seating, the goal of the kitchen is to have all components and ingredients ready up to the point of cooking. This means certain raw ingredients must be chopped, sliced, grated or just plain put in a container at the appropriate station (i.e. hot side or cold side or dessert) before the service rush begins. But this also can mean that already cooked ingredients, such as sauces or starches (mashed potatoes, etc.) need to be ready as well. There is no way to make mashed potatoes from scratch to order; it would take way too long. So, the mashed potatoes need to be made in advance and held warm for service.

Rewinding back several hours before service in the kitchen, the mise en place for the potatoes had to be prepared before the potatoes could be made. Raw potatoes, peeled and put in a 5-gallon Cambro in water the day before, were transferred to a big pot to cook. As the potatoes cooked, cream and butter were heated or brought to room temperature, garlic was roasted and put in a small Lexan, and salt and pepper were put in two ninth-pans (not glass bowls). A colander for draining the potatoes was put in the sink and the food mill or ricer or bowl and masher were placed on the counter on standby. The mise en place to make the mashed potatoes, which are part of the mise en place for service, was ready. Obviously, mise en place is importance for kitchen efficiency and organization. But I’ve also learned that mise en place is important for preventing burns.

The whole purpose of mise en place is to have everything in its proper place. If chopped garlic and shallots are used every night for service, the garlic and shallots should be in the same place every night, ideally right in front of the cook who is using them. This practice, I now believe, should also be applied to kitchen tools, such as tongs, spoons, etc. Hence an emphatic caution on my part: do not store your tongs in a hot sauté pan on a burner on the back of the cook-top during service while all of the surrounding seven burners are being used to practically their maximum BTU output. Blistering palm burns are no fun and hurt quite terribly. If I had only practiced good mise en place, my tongs would have been stored “in their place,” not inches from fire. In general, mise en place is a good philosophy to live by.

So get your little glass bowls today, and you’ll be on your way to efficiency and organization in your kitchen. Whether your glass bowls are Tupperware, Cambros, Lexans, or just neat piles of ingredients on a cutting board or plate, mise en place will change the way you cook, and you’ll probably never again forget to put the baking soda in the chocolate chip cookies. That is, unless you enjoy playing Iron Chef every day.

Kristin can be reached at kristin@babblog.com.