The Little Glass Bowls I Can't Cook Without

If you've ever worked in a professional kitchen, you've probably heard the term "mise en place" (meez•on•ploss). I don't speak French, but I'm told the phrase means "put in place." Makes sense, because that's the whole idea with these bowls.

They're made by Pyrex, and they're officially known as 10-oz Rimmed Custard Cups. They can go in the oven or in the freezer. They can go in the dishwasher. I have seen more than one bounce off my kitchen floor and come away unscathed. These are glass, people. No, scratch that: These are magic.

I spent many of my college years in kitchens—my parents only signed up to pay my way for four years, and I took a lot longer than that to get my degree. I was a little shit. Didn't know how easy I had it—until I had to shell out $1,264.33 every month to keep myself registered. I only had to borrow money once. The rest of the time I earned it working in restaurants: first waiting tables, and then, eventually cooking—the first job I ever truly loved.

I burned out of professional cooking pretty quickly—I wasn't tough or talented enough—but I brought a lot of the habits into my home kitchen. The most important by far is mise en place. When you're cooking for 80 heads a night, you use giant steel prep bowls. But the principle stands, and the home version is a small glass wonderbowl that I first saw on Yan Can Cook. (I love that guy—saw him debone a chicken at Wegmans once. 18 seconds!)

You've totally seen this on cooking shows too (and maybe you do this already—it's not rocket science). The host already has all her ingredients prepped and in the bowls. Yeah, sure, some underpaid showbiz monkey probably does it for her but whatever.

There's no reason why you shouldn't adopt the technique if you haven't yet. Just divide the cooking process into two segments: prep and preparation. If your recipe calls for something to be, for example, salted and peppered and then sauteed with garlic and then garnished with parsley, you put garlic, salt and pepper, and parsley in three separate bowls and then add them when you need to, etc. No rushed grinding or chopping or fridge runs from across your sprawling TV kitchen.

Yeah, you could just ghettoize your cutting board and get the same effect, but these bowls are so clutch! They make the whole experience less cluttered and altogether cleaner. Oh, and here's the best part: They're like $3 apiece. COME ON BUY SOME YOU WILL LOVE ME. [Pyrex]

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Discussion Threads

Why does it need to be Pyrex? Couldn't any small bowls work, really? If this were posted on slickdeals, I'd think the OP was posting an ad...

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Because Pyrex is totally awesome! duh!

Because Pyrex is crazy indestructible. Seriously. Unless you're moving these bowls from a 400° oven to a bowl of ice water, you're going to have a hard time breaking them. Not the case for other glass or ceramic bowls. Maybe if you get metal dishes, but... Come on, man, glass is PRETTY.

Yeah, it's all about the indestructability, as @LARPkitten said.

I thought they were indestructible until my cat knocked my 9x9 pyrex onto the floor and it brock into several pieces. But, most of the time they are pretty unbreakable, especially the smaller ones like these little bowls.

I don't know if it's only with liquids or how long it takes, but I know metal and plastic can both change the flavor of things more so then glass, which is why beer taste different depending on if you have a longneck or can.

Good post. Perhaps this can be the start of a series of culinary gadget articles.

True. I mentioned the temperature thing because my brother pulled a stupid (pouring ice water into a preheated Pyrex baking dish) when I was a kid.

But on the bright side, Pyrex is a well-known, widely available, inexpensive name brand that has been around for ages, so if one DOES break, it's no sweat to find a perfect matching replacement.

It doesn't have to be Pyrex, but choosing a small bowl that can be thrown in the oven, microwave, and dishwasher (mines named Tiffany), along with just being a bowl is pretty nice for the cost. Saran wrap also sticks to it well. A lot better than plastic, metal, and ceramic. Another plus.

I buy cheap saran wrap.

Well, it used to be. But now "Pyrex" glassware is just tempered soda-lime glass, not borosilicate, and so it's no longer particularly resistant to temperature stress. I see that Lock&Lock has a line of borosilicate dishes, and I mean to try some, even though their lids are still plastic.

That is "true", but it isn't entirely "true".

Pyrex (and most other US based glassware products) has been made from soda-lime glass for at least 30 years now and while soda-lime glass has more trouble with thermal expansion, it has twice the mechanical strength as borosilicate (breakage from drops are the cause of much more non-fatal incidents than breakage from thermal expansion)

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