Chrisse en place is a play on words combining my nickname, Chriss, with the culinary term, “mise en place,” which, in French, means to have everything in place. While maybe my life and health was everything but “mise en place”, I am at least always able to make sure everything is in my kitchen. I always like staying organized and planning ahead in my day to day activities, so this practice of “mise en place” or prepping and measuring out ingredients before starting a recipe always calms me. Perhaps when you “mise,” you also experience the same calming fluidity as you seamlessly go through the steps in a recipe.
You’ll notice that a lot of my recipes are of Korean cuisine. While I am Korean American and born here in the states, I actually lived in Seoul, South Korea, for 8 years. After returning back to the states for college, I realized that it is difficult to find authentic Korean food at reasonable prices. So I thought it would be nice to share recipes of some of my favorite Korean dishes for you to recreate at home. I wrote these recipes to closely resemble the taste of dishes I liked back in Seoul.
Besides the Korean cuisine staples, you’ll find some other original cooking and baking recipes that are mostly Asian fusion with some original flavors and ingredients, or recipes replicating some of my favorite dishes and desserts I had growing up.
My main culinary inspirations are Chef Thomas Keller, Chef J. Kenji López-Alt, Chef Roy Choi, and Chef Joanne Chang.