People eat with their eyes, as much as you want food to taste good, you must also try to present it in a way that is pleasing to the sight and stirs up an unforgettable experience. When it comes to the food business, visuals go along way and focusing on presentations also showcases the creativity of the chef.
There are really no hard and fast rules when it comes to food plating, still, there are certain important things to keep in mind during preparation and presentation of meals.
It’s always important to consider the type of dish you will be preparing and presenting as this helps to select the best plating technique.
GUIDELINES FOR FOOD PLATING
1. Choose the right plate
Think of yourself as an artist, the plate as your canvas and the food your medium.
It is important to choose the right size of plate, big enough to accommodate the food and small enough to make your portions stand out.
Also, choosing the right color of plate is equally important. Usually people go with white plates as they provide a neutral background and create a high contrast for colorful creations.
2. Placing your ingredients
As you proceed to place your ingredients, picture the plate as a clock from the diner’s point of view, arrange your proteins between 3 and 9, carbohydrate from 9 and 12 and vegetables from 12 and 3.
You can also use moist ingredients as base and place other foods on top of them.
3. Create flavor bites
Arrange your food in such a way that a forkful of the food combines the ingredients in the dish, resulting in flavor bites. This pleases the eyes as well as the taste buds.
4. Overcrowding
Careful not overcrowd your plate, place ingredients strategically and in the right proportions.
5. Pay attention to details
As you plate your dish, pay attention to details such as color and contrast of different elements of your dish. Think about the texture of your ingredients, placing crunchy onion rings beside a smooth vegetable puree is an example of contrasting textures that come out really nice. Design and create with sauces, using tools such as paint brushes and squeeze bottles, it gives your dishes an overall pleasing effect. You can also make use of height, neatly arrange your elements on each other or resting on one another, it enhances visual appeal.
Food plating is one sure way to get creative with food as much as you like, as long as you don’t go overboard, be free to experiment as much as possible.
FOOD PLATING 101 – a basic guide to food presentation
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