[bob1029]

How to cook not only good food, but also how do it so efficiently that you never get burned out on doing it. I started applying a lot of engineering principles I picked up from semiconductor manufacturing to my kitchen. You'd think this sucks all the joy out of it, but I have found the exact opposite to be true.

The #1 sub-skill in cooking that really keeps me going it is the practice of "mise en place", which is effectively just the preparation you do before you turn on the range. If you break the effort of cooking everything into multiple stages: Preparation, Execution, etc, you can make the overall experience significantly better. The mental barrier to "make stir fry" is pretty big. If you decompose that into "lets dice some chicken and then carrots and we're done for the day", its a lot easier negotiation.

Another theme for me is to batch as aggressively as you can. Even if you skip the pre-prep, economies of scale are amazing if you own a freezer and some pyrex. If you are making 1lb of taco meat, why the hell aren't you making 2? Do you like cooking everything from scratch every day? Most stuff still tastes just as good (and sometimes better) after a trip through the freezer.

[notyourwork]

Cooking good food is really simple when you break it down like this! Also, cleaning as you go can be crucial to avoiding the nuclear disaster that can be left in a kitchen after cooking.