Mise en place and timing
Read the whole recipe, get everything ready before the heat goes on, and work backwards from the time you want to eat. After this you can cook two or three things and have them land together.
Mise en place
Everything the dish needs, prepared and within reach, before you turn on the heat. Onions chopped, spices measured into a small bowl, meat salted and dried, liquid ready, bin open, pan chosen. Once the cooking starts, your hands never leave the stove.
It sounds fussy for a Tuesday dinner. In practice it's the difference between cooking calmly and standing over a pan chopping garlic one-handed while the onions darken.
Read the recipe before you buy or chop anything
- Read it end to end, twice
Once for the shape of the dish, once for the details. Most disasters are in a line you skipped.
- Find the hidden time
Marinating, soaking, resting, chilling, "leave for an hour". These don't appear in the cooking time and they're usually the thing that ruins the plan.
- Look at how ingredients are described
"One onion, finely chopped" means chopped before it goes in, not while the pan waits. The comma is an instruction.
- Check what you don't have
Equipment as well as ingredients. Finding out mid-recipe that it needs a sieve, or a second pan, or an oven you didn't preheat, is the same problem as missing an ingredient.
- Write your own short order of work
Four or five lines in your own words, in the order you'll actually do them. A recipe is written to be read; your list is written to be followed.
Check yourself
Babak plans to cook chicken for guests at 8pm. The recipe says "cooking time: 40 minutes", so he starts at 7:15. Halfway down the page he reads: "marinate in yoghurt and saffron for at least two hours". What was the actual mistake?
- He read the recipe as he cooked instead of reading it through first and finding the hidden time
- Two hours of marinating is not really necessary
- He should have doubled the cooking time for guests
- The recipe was badly written: the marinating time should have been printed at the very top of the page
Show the answer
He read the recipe as he cooked instead of reading it through first and finding the hidden time
Right. Marinating, soaking and resting almost never appear in the stated cooking time. Reading end to end first is what surfaces them while you can still change the plan.
THE KEY DISTINCTION
Some steps wait for you. Most don't.
Every step in a recipe is either forgiving (a stew that can simmer another ten minutes, onions on low) or unforgiving (garlic in hot oil, spices toasting, an egg setting, fish in a pan). Your prep should be finished before any unforgiving step starts, because that step will not pause while you find the sieve.
Onions can wait. Garlic cannot: it goes from fragrant to bitter in under a minute. That's why recipes say to add garlic after the onions and why it should already be chopped and sitting in a bowl.
Two kinds of minute
Forgiving
Onions softening on low, a stew simmering, rice soaking, something in the oven for 40 minutes. These minutes are yours. Use them to chop, wash up, lay the table or start the salad.
Unforgiving
Garlic, spices, eggs, fish, anything on high heat, anything that browns. These minutes belong to the pan. Everything you need should already be beside you before they start.
Check yourself
Can you walk away for two minutes?
- Minced garlic just added to hot oil
- A lamb stew on a low simmer with the lid on
- Ground spices toasting in a dry pan
- Rice soaking in salted water
- Eggs setting in a pan for an omelette
- Aubergine roasting in the oven at 200°C
Show the answer
Forgiving: A lamb stew on a low simmer with the lid on, Rice soaking in salted water, Aubergine roasting in the oven at 200°C
Unforgiving: Minced garlic just added to hot oil, Ground spices toasting in a dry pan, Eggs setting in a pan for an omelette
PLANNING
Start at the end and walk backwards
Don't plan forwards from "now". Take the time you want to eat and subtract. Find the longest item, count back from dinner to when it must start, then slot the shorter things into the gaps it leaves. The dish with the longest total time, including its hidden soaking and resting, sets the whole schedule.
If the rice needs 20 minutes to soak, 8 to parboil and 45 to steam, the rice decides when you start, not the stew, even though the stew cooks for longer on the heat.
Dinner at 8:00 · lamb khoresh, rice, salad
Written backwards, then read forwards
8:00 eat
7:55 taste the khoresh, final salt and a squeeze of verjuice
7:15 rice into the pot to steam (45 min)
7:05 parboil the rice 6-8 min, then drain
6:50 big pot of salted water on to boil
6:15 rice into salted water to soak
6:00 khoresh on a low simmer, lid on
5:40 brown the meat, add paste and water
5:25 onions into the pan on medium
5:15 salt the meat, chop the onions, everything out on the counter
Dead time you already own:
5:25-5:40 chop while the onions soften
6:15-6:50 wash up, lay the table
7:20-7:50 make the salad while the rice steamsThree dishes, one cook, nothing rushed at the end.Write it once on a scrap of paper. The list, not your memory, is what keeps two pans and an oven honest.
Check yourself
Mina wants to serve roast chicken with potatoes at 9pm. The chicken needs about 70 minutes in the oven plus 15 minutes resting. The potatoes need 45 minutes in the same oven. What should she do?
- Start both at 7:35, so they come out together at 9 and neither one sits around waiting
- Start the chicken at 8:00 and turn the oven up to catch up
- Cook the potatoes first, then the chicken
- Work back from 9: chicken in at 7:35, potatoes at 8:05, chicken out at 8:45 to rest
Show the answer
Work back from 9: chicken in at 7:35, potatoes at 8:05, chicken out at 8:45 to rest
Yes. Counting back from the serving time gives each item its own start, and the chicken's rest is exactly the window the potatoes need to finish.
Rules of order that always hold
- Longest first. Whatever takes most time, including soaking and resting, starts first.
- Prep everything an unforgiving step needs before you start it, including the bowl you'll tip it into.
- Fill the forgiving minutes. Chop the next thing, wash a pan, dress the salad. This is where the time comes from.
- Cook the thing that holds heat last-minute-free. Stews sit happily; fried and grilled food goes soft and sad, so it should be the last thing you do.
- Clean as you go. A clear board is workspace. A covered board is the reason you cut the salad next to raw chicken.
Check yourself
You have a gap. Match each one to the best use of it
Show the answer
- Onions softening on low for 20 minutes → Chop the rest of the vegetables and measure the spices
- A stew simmering with the lid on for an hour → Wash up, lay the table, make the salad
- Meat resting for 15 minutes off the heat → Finish the sauce and warm the plates
- Garlic just hitting the hot oil → Stand there: this one is not a gap
Check yourself
Kaveh is cooking one dish: onions, then garlic and spices, then chicken, then liquid, then a 30-minute simmer. He has 10 minutes of prep to do. When is the best time to do it?
- Chop the onions first and do the rest while they soften
- During the 30-minute simmer, when he has time anyway
- All of it before the pan goes on the heat
- Between adding the garlic and adding the chicken
Show the answer
All of it before the pan goes on the heat
Right. The garlic and spice stage comes early and is unforgiving, so everything has to be ready before the heat goes on. Chopping while the onions soften is tempting and works for some dishes, but here the gap arrives after the risky step, not before.
Lesson recap
- Read the whole recipe twice before you start, and hunt for the hidden marinating, soaking and resting time.
- Prepare everything into reach before the heat goes on, especially before an unforgiving step like garlic or spices.
- Sort the steps into forgiving and unforgiving. The forgiving minutes are where all your prep and washing up fit.
- Plan backwards from the time you want to eat, starting with whatever has the longest total time.