Keeping the kitchen clean as you cook

[JAZ]

When I was catching up on this topic on bad kitchen habits, it struck me that most of them (mine included) had to do not with cooking but with cleaning the kitchen (or not cleaning). In the midst of the bad habits were a few suggestions on how to keep the kitchen cleaner, and I thought it might be good to have a topic dedicated to cleaning tips.

Everyone always says "clean as you go," but that to me is not very helpful; I need something more concrete. Two things have helped me work cleaner. The first is simply to pull the garbage can out from under the sink and over to my prep area when I'm prepping lots of vegetables. I don't have room for a garbage bowl close to my prep area so I tend to push all the scraps aside, and then I end up with a messy counter and little actual prep room. But I find if I just remember to get the can out before I start working, my area stays much cleaner (if I wait until I've started working I don't like to break my stride, so I rarely stop to go get it).

The other thing I've started doing is to run the dishwasher every night (or first thing in the morning) and then to unload the clean dishes before I start dinner. This sounds really obvious, but I really hate to unload the dishwasher, so I tend to put it off. If there are clean dishes in there, I don't have anywhere but the sink to put dirty things. (Also, I have to keep going back to the dishwasher to get my tools, which is annoying.)

These two things alone have vastly improved my cooking experience, and I'm sure there are other cleaning tips out there that I haven't thought about. So, what are yours?

[jgm]

Having a sink full of hot soapy water has been helpful to me. I chuck measuring spoons and cups into it, and if I need them again, it's just a quick swipe and a rinse, and I re-use them instead of getting out more.

And like you, I find it helpful to get the dishwasher cleaned out ASAP, especially before starting to cook. Often, however, I don't have room for everything, so if one or two bowls or pans has been soaking in the soapy water, it's a simple matter to finish cleaning them up and rinsing them off.

I'm glad you started this thread. I don't know why I have never thought of moving the trash can over, but it's a great idea. I try to put as much into the garbage disposal as possible, since in our community it eventually becomes fertilizer; stuff like celery and potato peels can't go that route, though. It would save some floor cleanup, too.

[michael_g]

The dishwasher unloading tip is a good one---I tend to put that off, as well.

The biggest thing I do to clean while cooking is not dirty things in the first place. For example, when I was making cornbread, I used a bowl for all of the dry ingredients. Since I was using the last of a jar of homemade yogurt for the liquid, I threw the egg and oil into jar, shook, and poured into the bowl.

I also try to use downtime in prep and cooking to clean a few things. You can definitely clean a plate or a bowl in the time it takes for a pan to get hot.

[Anna N]

I had a friend who prepared an excellent and exotic meal for me and my husband. When she had finished her kitchen looked unused. Her secret beside starting with an empty dishwasher and putting dishes in there as they were used, she took out all needed ingredients and as each one was used she returned the remaineder to the 'fridge or cupboard. The added benefit of this system is that if she was interrupted she knew that the baking soda had been added to the biscuit dough because the container was back in the cupboard. I try to follow this system.

[paulraphael]

Working clean ... my holiest grail and pettest peave. It's how I know who's good and who's not; who's helping and who's banished. The rest of my life looks like a Superfund site, but I'm OCD in the kitchen.

First tip: start clean. Organize up front. If your kitchen is also playroom, office, warehouse, and kitsch museum, you've lost the race before the gun. Get the crap out. Don't squander precious surface.

Second tip: learn excellent board management. This alone can distinguish cooks trained by world class chefs from ones raised by wolves. It means keep your prep space clean and organized. Have your cleaned food ready and in order. Have your mise containers ready and in order. Stop and plan how you'll use every section of the cutting board. After each task, stop and clean the board. Don't let vegetable ends, peels, crumbs, and puddles accumulate. This is a running theme: stop and clean. Bad cooks think they don't have time to clean; good cooks know they don't have time not to.

Third tip: keep your sink clean, so you can keep everything else clean. If you have multiple sinks, then organize them like restaurant dishwashing sinks: an empty one for scraping, one filled with hot soap water, one filled with cold, clean, sanitizing rinse. If you have one sink or two, do your best, but always keep one empty and clean. Use it to clean every pan and utensile the minute you're done with it. The sink, your surfaces, and your tools need to be ready to go all the time. This lets you keep to your schedule; you won't hit a wall because the pan or knife or widget you need is at the bottom of a pile, caked with squid effluent. That theme again: stop, clean.

Fourth tip: have a pile of side towels ready. Or two piles. You need dry ones for grabbing hot pans, and one or two soaked with sanitizing solution so you can wipe down your knives and boards and prep surfaces constantly. Change out the wet ones often.

If you can work like this, you will FLY. Doesn't matter if you're scatterbrained, klutzy with a knife, or walking with a limp. I'd much rather work with a meticulous newbie who takes 5 minutes to dice an onion than a ninja master who leaves a trail of destruction.

Slow is fast. (Fast is faster, but only if it's clean and fast ...)

[Shamanjoe]

What kind of sanitizing solution do you suggest?

[Caputmundicibus.com]

You guys wouldn´t believe what a mess us "professionals" (chefs) can stir up in a home kitchen while cooking. In the restaurant kitchen everyone seem like angels, working clean, tidy, organized. But when it comes to cooking up a simple dinner at home, the kitchen turns into the third world war. Ingredients and containers everywhere. It´s not like on tv!

It´s mainly due to the fact that a home kitchen is not laid out the same way as a restaurant kitchen. At work you have to have everything easily within reach. We also have more space.

At home you´re always afraid of dropping something on the floor while cooking. Or making a mess with the flour. Then one job (cooking dinner) suddenly becomes two (cooking + cleaning).

At home you´re more mentally relaxed as well, cooking is allowed to take a bit longer. In the restaurant no.

Just from my two-kitchen-point-of-view...

[MarkIsCooking]

Let me add this tip to the list. I save all the plastic bags that you put produce in at the grocery store. I used them to line a small bowl and I throw my scraps into this bag-lined bowl as I'm cutting and prepping stuff. When I'm done prepping or the bag fills, I pull it and toss it into the trash. The bowl is still clean and it provides some use for those produce bags.

-Mark

[paulraphael]

What kind of sanitizing solution do you suggest?

I've been using quats (quaternary ammonium compounds). bought a gallon jug from the resto store; a capful in a quart of water makes a working solution. It's odorless, doesn't corrode knives or eat sponges (as bleach can) and doesn't need to be rinsed. The stuff I got also has a wetting agent in it, so when you use it as a final rinse for glassware it doesn't leave spots.

My only hesitation is that quats are among the sanitizers that leave residue (unlike bleach). The residue itself isn't harmful, but there's some evidence that leaving low-concentrations of the stuff around can eventually breed bacteria that are resistant to it. I don't know how serious a concern this is, but at least one organization has recommended against dish soaps and hand cleaners containing triclosan for this same reason. So I'm open to finding a better solution.

If I were just cooking for myself, or a few people with strong constitutions, I might dispense with sanitizer entirely. But I got in the habit of using it when I started throwing bigger dinner parties and underground events. Someone at the table could be immune-compromized, or pregnant, or god knows what. Best to be paranoid.

Edited November 20, 2009 by paulraphael (log)

[David A. Goldfarb]

Paul works pretty much the same way I do. If I've got a moment when I don't have to attend to something on the fire, I'm cleaning, and I just don't leave peels and such on the cutting board. The trash can is nearby. I'm always cleaning the knives I'm using and putting them back in the block, if I don't need them again right away.

I don't always use bowls for prepping, though, because sometimes it is more efficient to prep as I go and have fewer bowls to clean after dinner, and the food is fresher when it is cut and goes straight into the pan rather than sitting until it's ready to be used.

[Joisey]

My wife is continually amazed at the mess I can stir up at home..."You're not this much of a slob at work, are you??" LOL.

I'll second the soapy water filled sink to start with, as well as the empty dishwasher. I also will find a spot in my prep where I can back away and devote myself to cleaning and re-organizing. Another thing I will do is re-use as many pots and pans as I can. Sometimes wiping stuff out rather than washing it is effective and saves a lot of dish space.

[Corinna]

This thread is very useful to me. Thank you!

Two questions:

(a) What if you won't have a dishwasher? (Really, there is no room.)

(b) What's the best way to wipe out and re-used? I have tried this technique, but haven't been successful.

Thanks again!

Edited November 20, 2009 by Corinna (log)

[David A. Goldfarb]

I don't have a dishwasher. I wash things in the sink as I use them as much as possible, particularly if I know I'll need the sink to wash food I'm preparing.

[Corinna]

I don't have a dishwasher. I wash things in the sink as I use them as much as possible, particularly if I know I'll need the sink to wash food I'm preparing.

I appreciate the solidarity.

I just have to push myself, I guess. I also have a very kind boyfriend, who doubles as a dishwasher, especially when I work during the day. I don't want to abuse that, however.

Thank you, David.

[vice]

Paul hit on the point that I think is most important for me, and it's one that comes up again and again: have your mise ready to go before anything starts cooking. That way you can afford spare moments to clean as you go. If all you have time for throughout the cooking process is ingredient prep, you're left with the whole mess at the end.

[paulraphael]

I don't always use bowls for prepping, though, because sometimes it is more efficient to prep as I go ...

sure, same here. But with meals simple enough to let me get away with this, I don't find it takes much effort to keep the place clean. My comments apply more to the knock-down, drag-out multicourse bouts that can turn into disasters if you lose control of the kitchen.

[Dave the Cook]

Perhaps it would be useful to distinguish among three reasons to clean as you go. One: you intend to reuse equipment and can't afford to do thing any other way. Two: you just work better in a tidy space. Most of us probably don't have adequate room to start with, so sequestering the mess by dumping it in a sink, relegating it to a dishwasher or cleaning and replacing is a matter of maintaining not just physical but mental order.

The third reason -- and one no one's mentioned so far -- is to avoid that late-night or early-morning Superfund clean-up that paulraphael alluded to. Sure, you made a great dinner, you sat down and enjoyed it with a group of close friends, you made a wonderful pot of coffee and served terrific port with generous portions of amazing cheeses that you smuggled in from France in your underwear (of course, with these cheeses, no one could discern between provenance and transport). None of that will subdue the monster you created and left behind to multiply -- if you didn't clean as you went.

[Marlene]

. None of that will subdue the monster you created and left behind to multiply -- if you didn't clean as you went.

I am so guilty of this. I can remember several fabulous dinner parties, but the next day I had to run the dishwasher 7 or 8 times in a row just to get the kitchen cleaned up. I suck at cleaning as I go.

Like tonight for example. I've been testing recipes all day, plus had a friend over for dinner. So I've got piles of pots from the recipe testing, plus pots and dishes from dinner. It's almost midnight and I've run the dishwasher twice. I will run it probably three more times tomorrow before the place is clean again. But I dont' want to clean when I have company either. I'm just essentially messy when I cook!

Edited November 20, 2009 by Marlene (log)

[paulraphael]

(a) What if you won't have a dishwasher? (Really, there is no room.)

I don't have one either. I don't even think they're much help to the cooking process, unless you have one of the commercial machines that sounds like a jet taking off and works just as fast. Regular dishwashers hold your stuff prisoner for nearly an hour. I'm going to need that stuff! It takes 10 seconds to wash something in the sink.

Edited November 20, 2009 by paulraphael (log)

[saltedgreens]

For more complex events at home I work in batches. I create my mise en place. I get everything cut and prepped. Then I clean down the kitchen and begin the execution of my plan. Then I clean again.

Like the others, I do not let garbage sit around. I wipe my knives constantly. I use the kids bowls to store all of my mise. I have towels for countertops. I just don't like being messy.

I'm not always the best at being clean, but I do try.

[maggiethecat]

I take the artisinal approach to dishwashing because the water in my town is so hard it can crunch dishwashers like the Jaws of Life withing six months. But of course, I have to empty the dish drainer, which is unlikely to be as full as a dishwasher, but still.

I don't sweat the mise, but a sink of soapy water, an empty dishrack and a handy garbage can make for cooking clean. So does a Dedicated Plongeur -- next time a well meaning friend trips into the kitchen during prep and chirps "Can I help?" show him the sponge and the suds.

And get a dog. Since Willa the Wonderdog died a few years ago my kitchen floor has deteriorated. Dogs clean up everything.

[Peter Green]

Ummmm.....you'll hate me...but.....servants? If it wasn't for the help, our life would be a lot harder.

P.S. - I actually enjoy cleaning up after a dinner party with Yoonhi (the far better half). It gives us a chance to relax into muscle memory and chat about what we've heard over the meals.

[Pierogi]

I usually try to clean all the produce I'll need for the meal as the very first step. I have a very small kitchen, with limited counter space, and a small, double sink. One side has the disposer. Over the other, I have a vinyl-wrapped rack that I use to drain the produce. The rack lives there all the time, I also use it as a small dish drainer. Garbage can lives consistently outside, no room in any cabinets to stash it. All non-disposer trimmings go directly into the trash, or if its something like a lot of potato peels, I'll peel onto a piece of newspaper, or an empty produce bag, and then dump it. Since the side of the sink closest to the prep area has the disposer, and I will sweep stuff off the counter or the board directly into the sink, I don't keep soapy water in it. If something is really scuzzy and has to be washed with soap, and I need to reuse it, I'll dribble a little liquid detergent onto the dishrag and take after it. Otherwise, dirty equipment goes directly into the dishwasher when I'm done with it. Knives get periodically rinsed, especially if I've used them for cutting something gooey or sticky, or even for mincing herbs. I usually don't do a bunch of mise using bowls. I find I get enough natural breaks in the process that I can accomplish one thing while monitoring another. Chop the mire poix while watching the meat browns, for example. When I use bowls for mise, I'll do all the mise at once, before I really get into the process. Then the stuff goes into the sink before being rinsed for the dishwasher. I also, as someone mentioned, pull out ALL the ingredients for all the recipes as one of the first steps. I line them up, grouped together, on the side counter. That way I'm not in the middle of making the roux and discover I haven't gotten the dried thyme that goes in next.

Since the kitchen is so small, I make it a point to get all the prep equipment loaded into the dishwasher before anyone sits down to eat. It also irritates me to see a huge mess in the kitchen while I'm relaxing with my meal. The kitchen is open and visible from the dining area. Again, the counter space is so limited, and the sink so small, that there's plenty of mess generated just from the dining plates and utensils after the meal is done.

And yeah, a dog or two removes any need whatsoever to buss the floor.

As part of the final clean-up before I start the dishwasher, the stove top, the cutting board and the counter get the final, thorough cleaning, and all the knives get washed and dried and returned to the block. Clean as you go has to be the mantra, because otherwise there'd be no place to actually work

[Dian]

This thread is very useful to me. Thank you!

Two questions:

(a) What if you won't have a dishwasher? (Really, there is no room.)

(b) What's the best way to wipe out and re-used? I have tried this technique, but haven't been successful.

Thanks again!

I don't have a dishwasher. I also have extremely limited dish rack space (this fact alone is enough motivation to look for a bigger place). My limited dish rack space problem is so bad I actually go through in my mind what to do before starting cooking.

The first habit I've adopted since moving to my tiny apartment is obviously, to start packing the dried dishes/utensils before starting prep. I spent so much time cramming more wet dishes into an already full rack and re-wetting the dried items.

I have a tiny sink too. I hate overloading the sink with dirty dishes so I try to make sure that dishes in the same "category of dirty" get washed together as I go along. I hate it when I have prep bowls that were stained only with non-oily dirt at the bottom and then someone else comes along and dumps a grease-filled pot/spatula in. So that when you start washing, your grease-free prep bowls swim in the grease filled water and you spend more time scrubbing them.

Baking can be a pain in the ass in this regard. Whatever touches dry ingredients gets washed up immediately. Anything that touched batter gets dumped into the mixer bowl and put to one side. When finally the sink is clear, I run the hot water and do only greasy dishwashing.

Oh oh I like this habit too - when I'm using greasy bowls and I know I'm going to be boiling pasta/vegetables, I don't bother with cleaning the bowls immediately after use. I usually wait till the boiling is done, then set my strainer over the sink so that the hot water engulfs the bowls in the sink, set the strainer aside and start the washing. Just make sure you don't have non-heat resistant stuff in the sink!

If anything, I hate dishwashing because it ruins my hands so and sometimes, gloves are just ineffective because you do need to get your fingers deep into some crevices to make sure some things are clean.

Anyone has tips on how to maintain sanity while washing dough encrusted bakeware/hands? I weep when I see scraggly wet pieces of dough in my sink trap (which never fails to attract all sorts of crap). Urghhh just typing that just made me feel sick. . This is why hand-kneading bread (using Lepard's short knead every ten minutes method) doesn't appeal to me that much. Having to consistently scrape off the dough into the sink just messes up my dishwashing routine.

[KarenDW]

I also have small-ish sinks; double sink, but neither is large enough to put an 8" pan into

So, if there is a seriously prep-intensive cooking day, I run some hot water & soap into a small basin, and set it on a chair (!) in a convenient location. Any sticky, gooey (but not greasy or doughy) dishes are pitched into the basin. We are blessed with both a dishwasher and a disposer. "regular" dishes are rinsed and put into the dishwasher periodically throughout the mise. Yes, I do mise into bowls; my favorites are the bowls with measures on them (pampered chef), and lids.

Before I start actually "cooking", I try and get the cutting boards into the d/w, and wash, dry and put away the knives and other blades. If the dishwasher is "nearly full", I might add a few dinner plates, so that they are hot when dinner is ready