28Presentation, plating and the buffet

A guest judges food with the eyes before tasting it. A plate that looks careless suggests food that was cooked carelessly, while a plate built with thought makes the guest hungry and shows that the cook cared about the food and the person eating it.

Presentation does not replace good cooking. It shows good cooking off. The same ideas work on one plate, on a dessert, on a tray of small bites and on a long buffet table.

• balance
• color
• height
• a clear focal point
• nothing wasted

28.1 Principles of presentation

There are no fixed laws for "correct" plating, but there are ideas that experienced chefs keep in mind. Good plating can make food taste better as well as look better, and it shows guests they are getting value for their money.

Four things to balance

Look at a plate the way an artist looks at a picture. Check four things.

• Balance: foods that taste good side by side, but that still bring variety and contrast.
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• Color: two or three colors hold the eye better than one. A plate of a single color is called monochromatic.
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• Shape: your knife work can give each part of the plate a different shape. see chapter 4: Knife work
• Texture: put something chewy beside something crisp and something smooth or creamy. Different feelings in the mouth keep the diner interested.
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Choosing the plate

Think of the plate as a canvas and the food as your paint. Pick a plate big enough that the food stands out, but not so big that the portion looks small.

White plates are a common choice. White contrasts strongly with food and gives a colorful dish a plain background. Treat the rim as a picture frame and leave it clear.

Placing the food

• Use a clock. Imagine a clock face as the diner sees the plate. The protein goes between 3 and 9, the starch between 9 and 12, and the vegetable between 12 and 3.
• Put wet food down first. Purees and other runny foods slide as a plate is carried. Plate them first and hold them in place by setting other food on them, or by leaning sliced meat or vegetables against them.
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• Serve odd numbers. With small items such as shrimp, scallops or bite-sized appetizers, give an odd count. Seven Brussels sprouts look better than six, and the guest feels there is more food.
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• Build flavor bites. Arrange the parts so one forkful can pick up every element of the dish at once. That pleases the eye and the palate together.
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• Do not crowd the plate. Keep it simple and let one item, usually the protein, be the focal point. Everything else then plays a supporting part.
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Color, height and texture

The protein gets most of the attention, but the small details around it make the plate. Green vegetables or bright fruit can act as points of color, and colors that complement each other look better together.

Height catches the eye. Tall, tightly stacked food is less in fashion than it was five to ten years before, but a plate with some height still looks better than a flat one. Balance a tall item by leaning long, flat food against it. For example, set a steak on polenta and lean spears of asparagus against it at about 45 degrees.

Texture contrast is a classic of fine dining: a smooth vegetable puree with crisp fried onion straws, or a steak topped with crumbled blue cheese.

Sauce

Sauce goes on after the main items are in place. Never just pour it over everything. Use a squeeze bottle or a spoon the way a painter uses a brush.

Two simple ways to use it: put dots of sauce on one side of the plate as accents, keeping the rule of thirds in mind; or drizzle a little over the main items so every bite carries some sauce.

Garnish

For years kitchens put a leaf of kale and a slice of orange on every plate. These added nothing, and few guests ate them. A good garnish follows three rules.

• It must be edible, and it must belong to the dish. It supports the main flavors instead of pulling attention away from them.
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• Spread it with thought to add color or texture; never pile it in one corner. Avoid garnishes that put people off, such as raw herbs, big pieces of citrus, or anything with a strong smell.
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• It must be fast to put on, so the plate still leaves the kitchen very hot.

The small tools for this work are described with the rest of the kitchen's equipment. see chapter 3: Plating tools

Reading a plate from left to right

People in the western world read from left to right, and they tend to scan a new picture the same way. That habit gives a short checklist: the plate should flow from left to right, with a splash of color on the left and height on the right. Color on the left, such as a sauce or fresh fruit, draws the eye first; something tall on the right, such as a garnish or a ramekin, pulls it across the plate.

The eye should move. A curved tuile or chocolate piece, a caramel stick linking two parts, or a line of coulis can lead the eye and create a focal point.

The main item does not have to sit in the exact center; slightly off center works. Sauce, any frozen part such as ice cream or sorbet, and the chief garnishes should fan out from the main item, close to it. This keeps a balance of empty plate (white space) and food, so the plate does not look busy. Keep food away from the outer edge as well.

Three common mistakes show what goes wrong.

• Parts pushed apart. When the main parts sit at the edges, the eye goes to the empty middle, the negative space. Bringing them together so they touch makes the plate look whole.
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• Half the plate unused. A plate can follow the left-to-right rule and still fail if the cake sits at the back edge and all the sauce is crowded on the left. Running the sauce across the whole plate and moving the cake nearer the center balances it.
• Too much, in the wrong place. Lots of sauce in repeated shapes, with the tallest item in the bottom left corner, confuses the eye. A simpler plate, with movement leading to the tallest part, works better.
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28.2 Plating, worked examples

Three common plating styles are classic, free form and landscape. Each example below uses the same foods: filet mignon, potato puree, carrots, demi-glace, a pea puree, a mix of lima beans and peas, thyme and fried leeks.

A pastry bag pipes the potato. Precision tongs place every solid piece. A spouted saucier or a squeeze bottle puts down the sauce. see chapter 3: Plating tools

Classic

• Pipe the potato puree onto the plate.
• With tongs, set the carrots beside the puree and top them with thyme.
• Set the steak in place and put fried leeks on top of it.
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• Drizzle demi-glace around the plate from the spouted saucier.
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• Wipe the rim with a clean towel.
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Free form

• Pipe the potato puree in dots.
• Cut the steak into three pieces with a chef's knife and place them with tongs.
• Spoon the lima beans and peas around the plate, then add the carrots.
• Dot pea puree around the plate from a large squeeze bottle, and dots of demi-glace from a small one.
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• Finish with fried leeks, then wipe the rim.
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Landscape

• Dot pea puree on the plate, then spread it with a brush to paint a base.
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• Pipe the potato puree and place the carrots.
• Prop the steak up against the potato and the carrots, which gives the plate height.
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• Spoon on the lima beans and peas and drizzle demi-glace around the plate.
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• Top the steak with fried leeks and wipe the rim.
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Every one of the three ends the same way: a clean towel around the edge of the plate.

Careful plating helps any kind of place, from fine dining to a casual café. It changes how guests see the business, shows what its cooks can do, and can raise sales.

28.3 Hors d'oeuvre, caviar and the buffet

Hors d'oeuvre and appetizers

An appetizer is the first course of a meal. An hors d'oeuvre is a small bite served before the meal, often during a cocktail hour, apart from the meal itself. Servers often carry them on trays among guests who hold a drink in the other hand.

The French words mean "outside the work". An amuse bouche is a single bite some restaurants send out when guests sit down; done well, it gives a glimpse of the chef's style or of that night's menu.

There are four kinds.

• Hot: sausages, smoked fish or meat, or a potato napoleon with caviar and sour cream.
• Cold: pâtés, oysters, cheeses, crudités (raw vegetables).
• Finger food: tea sandwiches, wontons, empanadas, deviled quail eggs.
• Canapés: one or two bites, always made of four parts.

Hors d'oeuvre are served two ways: passed, carried round on trays (butler style), or set out on a stationary buffet. At a party with "heavy hors d'oeuvre" the food may go beyond one or two bites and be served from a fixed table with plates and cutlery.

Other countries have their own names for small dishes before a meal.

• England: starters
• Spain: pinchos or tapas
• Greece: mezzes
• Italy: antipasti
• Russia: rakuski

Composed hors d'oeuvre

A composed hors d'oeuvre is built from two or more ingredients, usually made ahead for the event. Each needs something to carry it.

• Barquettes: small boat-shaped pastry shells, usually plain in flavor, often filled with a mousse. Because of the boat shape they should always hold fish or shellfish.
• Tartlets: like barquettes, but rounder and often fluted. To line the molds, roll the dough very thin, lay a mold upside down on it and cut round it with some extra dough to spare. Then press a second mold inside to shape the dough against the first.
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• Profiteroles: small, hollow balls of baked choux paste (pâte à choux), filled with something sweet or savory.
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• Bouchées: tiny puff pastry cups with straight, often fluted sides. The top can be cut off and used as garnish, and the cup filled, for example with crawfish étouffée and chives.
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• Spoons: Asian-style soup spoons let you serve a bite with a sauce that would otherwise make a mess. Edible spoons made from a cracker dough are a newer idea.

The canapé

The canapé is the most common catering hors d'oeuvre: a tiny open sandwich in four parts.

• Base: usually a toast point. A vegetable or fruit can also be a base if it is firm enough to carry the rest.
• Spread: adds flavor and moisture and glues the next layer to the base. Compound butter, flavored cream cheese or mayonnaise, or a bound salad of chicken, ham, tuna or egg all work; cut the ingredients finely at this small size.
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• Main ingredient: meat, vegetable, mousse or cheese. It may carry the main flavor or support another part. If the spread is an earthy truffle mayonnaise, choose a main ingredient that goes with it. Smoked fish or meat, sometimes made into a mousse, is common.
• Garnish: every canapé needs one. Keep garnishes the same size and in the same place on every piece. Caviar, capers, chives, salmon roe, nuts, fruit and herbs are all used.
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Small bites like these depend on finished mise en place and a strict production schedule. see chapter 5: What gets done before service Toast points should be wrapped and kept at room temperature. Spreads and main ingredients are perishable and must be kept cold, at 4°C (40°F) or less.

Caviar

Caviar is the salted roe (eggs) of a fish, and only roe from the sturgeon is legally caviar. Roe can make up 10 to 50% of the fish's weight. The Caspian Sea has traditionally been the world's largest source; Russia produces 90% of the Caspian harvest and Iran about 10%. In the United States, white sturgeon are farmed for caviar in California.

Other roes are often sold with "caviar" on the label: flying fish roe and salmon roe at a sushi bar, or jars of lumpfish caviar on a shop shelf. In South Louisiana the choupique, or bowfin, gives a shiny jet-black roe, taken in winter and salted before it is jarred. It is usually saltier than most sturgeon caviar.

Caviar is graded on several qualities.

• the size and evenness of its grain
• its color
• firmness
• smell
• flavor
• shine
• how easily the skin of each egg breaks

Grain sizes are graded 000, 00, medium and small, and lighter colors grade higher.

Salt preserves it. Most caviar carries 5 to 8% salt by weight. Caviar labeled malossol, "little salt", has only 2 to 3% and is excellent.

There are three true caviars.

Beluga eggs are soft, clear, glossy and well separated, each with a dark "eye", which is the embryo. It is the most expensive of the three and is usually served alone on toast. Sour cream, crème fraîche, minced onion or minced hard-boiled egg white may be offered beside it to clear the palate.

Osetra comes from a sturgeon of 50 to 400 pounds that can live 50 years, and only beluga costs more. Lighter osetra is the most wanted, and rare golden osetra is golden yellow and very rich. Tradition puts it on blinis, with crème fraîche.

Sevruga is the cheapest of the three. It comes from the starry (stellate) sturgeon, which overfishing has already removed from part of its range.

Cheaper caviars are served in more ways: in hollowed, cooked new potatoes, on blinis, or with sour cream, crème fraîche, onion or egg white. Lower grades go into stuffings for seafood and some meat dishes, and into salads.

Some other forms are on the market.

• Almas, from rare albino sturgeon 60 to 100 years old in the southern Caspian, is the most expensive caviar of all. A kilogram regularly sells for more than $30,000. It goes to market with nothing added.
• Payusnaya, Russian for "pressed", is made from broken eggs pressed into a spread that Russians like on toast.
• Kaluga is farm-raised in Siberia and China from a large sturgeon of the Amur River, also called the river beluga. Wild kaluga has been hunted almost to extinction for its roe, and fishing for it anywhere in the Amur is against the law.

Buy caviar from a supplier you trust. Keep unopened caviar at 28 to 32°F for up to four weeks, and use it within two or three days of opening. That is colder than the general cold-storage limit of 4°C (40°F) or less.

What a buffet is for

A buffet is a self-service meal. Guests help themselves from platters, chafing dishes (chafers) and action stations. A buffet has three aims: to get guests to fill their plates with foods that are cheap to produce, to keep the line moving, and to give a feeling of lavish plenty.

Two things make a buffet look right: lavishness and abundance. A table of plentiful, beautifully set food excites the appetite. These create that look:

• color
• height
• platters and bowls kept full
• good spacing
• simplicity, because the trick is not to overdesign
• order: food arranged simply and beautifully in one consistent style

Setting out the line

The order of the line matters.

• Plates go first.
• The cheaper items come before the more expensive ones.
• Hot food is best served at the end.
• Each sauce or dressing sits right next to the food it goes with.
• Desserts are best on a table of their own.

A cocktail buffet suits tasty, well-seasoned appetizer foods. Stack small plates where service begins, and make the table easy to reach from every side.

How many tables, and how much room

The number of tables depends on several things.

• how many guests are coming
• how long service lasts
• what service equipment is needed
• the menu
• the style of service
• how much décor is wanted
• the floor space available

Some rules of thumb help with the sums.

• Allow about two running feet of table for each food container or chafer. Three cold items, three hot items and a basket of condiments need a table 14 to 16 feet long.
• Two 8-foot tables take 48 square feet of floor. Add about 150 square feet for a standard 3-foot aisle around them so guests can serve themselves: some 200 square feet in total.
• One single-sided buffet serves 50 guests; one double-sided buffet serves 75. A party of 150 needs two double-sided buffets.

Centerpieces

Cut flowers, potted plants or foliage, alone or with candles, lights or an ice carving, all make good centerpieces. Avoid strongly scented flowers, which get in the way of tasting the food, and do not block the guests' view. For height, use an epergne, a stand with a slim center that hides less.

Think about how long the flowers will last on the day. Ask for "funeral roses" if you want roses fully open, and keep flowers at 38 to 45°F. An ice carving needs proper drainage, with a bucket hidden under the table skirt to catch the melt.

The load list

A load list makes sure nothing is forgotten. For each item on the menu, ask what you need to show it, serve it and eat it. Crawfish empanadas, for example, need all of these.

• the empanadas
• a pan to hold them
• a chafer to keep them hot
• a pitcher of hot water for the chafer
• fuel to burn under it
• a serving utensil
• plates and napkins

Add the tables, cloths and skirting. A buffet only works if it is planned.

Platters and boards: B.U.F.F.

Any platter, a charcuterie board included, can be checked against the B.U.F.F. principle.

• Balance: the food and garnish are balanced in size, kind of food and flavor.
• Unity: everything on the platter belongs together. Do not put sweet and savory food on one platter.
• Focal point: the arrangement has movement that leads the eye to the centerpiece of the platter.
• Flavor: the parts go with each other and bring out each other's flavor.

Holding food safely on a buffet

Buffet food sits out for the whole service, so temperature control matters more than ever. The full rules for holding, cooling and reheating come earlier in the book. see chapter 2: Heat: cooling, holding and reheating The key figures for a buffet follow.

The danger zone is 4°C to 60°C (40°F to 140°F). Most harmful bacteria grow and multiply in that range, so keep buffet food out of it: hot food hot and cold food cold. Cold food is held at 4°C (40°F) or less, and hot food at 60°C (140°F) or more.

Chafers and steam tables are hot-holding units. Use them like this.

• Preheat it before any food goes in, to a minimum of 60°C (140°F).
• Put in only food that is already hot, at 74°C (165°F).
• Never use a hot-holding unit to reheat food. It cannot heat food fast enough. Reheat on the stove, in the oven or in a microwave until the food reaches 74°C (165°F) and stays there for 15 seconds or more, then put it in the unit.
• Check every day, with a thermometer, that the unit keeps food at 60°C (140°F) or hotter. Look for burnt-out elements, low water in a steam table and a wrong thermostat setting.
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• A mistake can leave food in the super danger zone, 20°C to 49°C (70°F to 120°F), where bacteria grow very quickly.
• When service ends, do not switch the unit off and leave the food in it to cool. Take the food out at once and cool it.

Food being cooled has two hours to get down to 20°C (68°F) from 60°C (140°F), then four more hours to reach 4°C (40°F).

28.4 Plating desserts and garnishes

Who orders dessert

Guests love dessert, but in most restaurants half of them at most will order one. Many are too full for a large dessert but would like something small and sweet, or something to share. So offer lighter, simpler choices as well. A cheese platter or a savory dessert are popular options too.

Made ahead, put together at the last minute

Pastry work has two stages. First the cook makes the parts, such as doughs, batters, fillings, creams and sauces. Then those parts are put together into finished desserts. A plated dessert is one or more parts arranged on a plate. The parts (mousses, meringues, ice creams, sorbets, cookies, cake layers, pastry cream and sauces) are almost always made well ahead, but the plate itself is put together à la minute: just before it goes out.

Five things to plan

Plan a plated dessert around five things. Three concern taste and feel in the mouth, and they matter most: flavor, texture and temperature. Two are visual: color and shape.

• Flavor: flavors should support each other, like caramel sauce with roasted fruit, or contrast pleasantly, like tart lemon with a sweet sauce. Taste each part alone, then together, to be sure they work.
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• Texture: a soft main item, like a mousse or ice cream, wants something crisp beside it, like small cookies or caramelized nuts.
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• Temperature: hot and cold together please the diner, such as ice cream on a warm fruit tart.
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• Color and shape: variety looks good, but too much looks like a jumble. Keep it simple and trust the food. Brown works well: a well-made dessert in a few shades of brown can look lovely, and a tarte tatin with properly caramelized apples needs little or no garnish.

Some general rules hold behind every new idea.

• Vary textures and tastes to avoid sameness.
• Contrast matters as much as harmony, but avoid extremes.
• Foods from the same season or the same place usually go together.
• Fresh and ripe always wins.

From idea to plate

A dessert goes from idea to plate in three steps.

• Picture it. Start from what you have or can get now, what has worked or failed before, your memory of how things taste and smell, and whatever catches your eye, nose or hand in a raw ingredient.
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• Set the flavor profile. Once the main idea is fixed, decide how the basic tastes will balance. see chapter 6: Describing flavor: the flavor profile
• Bring in the other senses. Temperature, real or felt (mint feels cool, spice feels hot); a wide range of color; shapes that catch the eye; some of each texture; mouthfeel, whether dry, fatty or rich; smells that do not overpower; and sound, since noisy, awkward food can spoil the mood.
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Try new things, but never too much of anything. The best dishes reach several senses. Look to classic pairings and carry them somewhere new: flavors that work together in one dish will work in another, which is why savory pantry items now turn up in desserts.

Does it need a garnish?

What a garnish can do

A garnish may be only decoration, but a well-chosen one does more: it can add flavor and texture and solve a practical problem.

Ice cream or sorbet starts to melt the moment it touches a plate, which spoils the look. Set the scoop on something, such as a cookie base, and it melts more slowly, so it is easier to serve and the guest sees the plate as it was meant. These all work as a base for a frozen part:

• tuiles, which also add looks, flavor and crunch
• sliced fruit
• a meringue disk
• a small cookie
• a chocolate garnish
• crumbs of cake, crushed nuts or brittle

Kinds of garnish

How sugar, chocolate and eggs behave under heat is explained earlier in the book. see chapter 7: What heat does to food see chapter 15: What eggs do in a recipe

• Tuiles: thin cookies. Spread the batter through a stencil onto a silicone sheet, comb it, pipe it, or spread it on a textured mat, then shape it while still warm.
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• Hard meringues: use 1.5 to 2 parts sugar to 1 part egg white, by the common or the Swiss method. Dry them in a low oven for 12 to 36 hours. Pipe them as sticks, disks, or baskets like those of the classic French dessert vacherin.
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• Pulled and blown sugar: cook a syrup to 155 to 160°C (310 to 320°F), cool and color it, then fold and stretch it into ribbons or bows. For blown sugar, a pump inflates the slightly cooled sugar like a balloon, to make shapes such as fruit.
• Bubble sugar: pour liquid sugar at 150°C (310°F) onto a special paper, then tilt the paper so it runs and bubbles.
• Caramel: cook a syrup to 165 to 185°C (330 to 365°F), darker the longer it goes. When it has cooled enough, spin it, pipe shapes or sticks, drizzle it onto an upturned bowl to form a caramel cup, or dip nuts and pull them out to form spikes.
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• Isomalt: a special sugar that reaches caramel heat without coloring and takes up less moisture, so it lasts better in humid air. Pull or blow it like sugar, or sprinkle it between two silicone sheets and bake 12 to 15 minutes in a 175°C (350°F) oven, dusted first with powdered color if you like.
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• Chocolate: keep it delicate, since a thick piece overwhelms the dessert, and always temper it, for snap and shine. Spread a thin layer on marble and shape it as it sets into curls, fans or cigarettes. It can also be piped, poured with nuts as bark, or mixed with cream and made into chocolate "caviar" by spherification.
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• Marzipan and rolled fondant: roll and cut into shapes and figures, or use as a base.
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• Filo: butter and layer it, scattering nuts, seeds, cocoa, herbs or spices between the sheets, then cut it into shapes or cups and bake.
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• Kataifi: a filo cut in thin strands, from Middle Eastern cooking. Brush with butter, tie into knots or baskets, and bake.
• Bric: sheets from Middle Eastern cooking. Wet them with a brush, sprinkle on cinnamon sugar, bake, and cut into shapes.
• Puff pastry: a crisp base, or cut and twisted into straws and allumettes (thin sticks).
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• Choux paste: pipe or comb it into long strands and scatter seeds or nuts over before baking.
• Cheese crisps: scatter grated hard cheese on a baking sheet and bake at 175°C (350°F) for about 5 to 10 minutes until crisp, then break into shards once cool.
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• Fruit: fresh, or dried into leather or powder. Slice firm fruit thinly, dip it briefly in sugar syrup with lemon juice, and dry it on a silicone sheet in a 95°C (200°F) oven for several hours, or in a dehydrator.
• Candied zest: poach citrus peel in sugar syrup, cool, and roll in fine sugar.
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• Candied nuts and brittle: cook syrup to the hard crack stage, 148 to 155°C (310 to 330°F). Stir in toasted nuts, lift them out, drain and cool. Chopped nuts cooked in the syrup make a brittle, to break up or grind to powder.
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• Rice noodles: deep-fry briefly and toss in cinnamon sugar.
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• Cookies: sugar cookies, shortbread, or cookies of sweet dough (pâte sucrée) or tart dough.
• Sponges: genoise, angel food, japonaise, joconde or baumkuchen, sliced thin and cut into shapes.
• "Caviar": small spheres made by reverse spherification.
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Sauces on the dessert plate

A dessert sauce adds both flavor and looks, just as a savory sauce does for meat, fish or vegetables. The most useful are the fruit sauces and coulis, chocolate and caramel sauces, and crème anglaise; one of these suits almost any dessert.

• Caramel sauce: bitterness grows as the sugar darkens, so cook it lighter or darker to suit the dessert. Liquid added at the end stops the cooking, softens the sauce and can add richness: cream, milk or butter for richness, water for a clear sauce, fruit puree for another flavor.
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• Chocolate sauce, or fudge sauce: cream or milk, butter and chocolate, served hot or cold. The balance of the three sets the thickness.
• Compote (French for "mixture"): fruit cooked in, and served with, its own liquid, usually a sugar syrup.
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• Coulis (French for "strained liquid"): usually an uncooked, strained puree, bright and pure in flavor. It can separate quickly on the plate, so use it à la minute.
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• Crème anglaise ("English custard"): eggs, sugar and milk or cream, stirred over heat until it thickens lightly. Too much heat scrambles it; keep it at or below 85°C (185°F). see chapter 7: Eggs
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• Curd: a creamy fruit sauce or spread, most often citrus or berry, made from juice, eggs, butter and sugar, cooked much like crème anglaise.
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