Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / Selecting the Right Plates and Plating Ep.30
Transcript
- 0:00Hello chefs. You're listening to chefs, PSA
- 0:02podcast. I'm your host Andre natera.
- 0:04On today's episode, we're going to talk about plating Styles and
- 0:06different plates. You could use for them.
- 0:08Anyway, stay tuned. This episode is brought to you
- 0:22by Steel light International. If you want to make your food
- 0:24look even better, look no further than steel, light
- 0:26International. They are the leader in the
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- 0:41And wide, they're committed to providing the best and
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- 0:47the environment. Check them out at steel,
- 0:48light.com. All right, chefs, let's get into
- 0:51this episode. Before we get into it, let me
- 0:53give you an update. I always like to give you an
- 0:55update of a big one, but I am working on the line.
- 0:59Cook survival, manual. Audiobook.
- 1:00So, I think that should be released most likely early
- 1:05February. It's a companion to the first
- 1:07book, The, how not to be the biggest idiot in the kitchen.
- 1:10So, if you haven't picked that book up, Should go get it, the
- 1:12paperback version and ebook versions of line.
- 1:15Cook survival manual are available.
- 1:16I want to make sure that there's an audio book available for it
- 1:20as well because I know a lot of people are moving towards
- 1:21audiobooks. I know, I listen to a lot of
- 1:23audiobooks. So I want to make sure that it
- 1:25was available for everyone and the narrator that I work with,
- 1:28he's got a busy schedule. So most likely it won't be
- 1:32released until early February, anyway, not related to this, but
- 1:36I thought it was pretty cool. This week, I started messing
- 1:39around with an AI. Image generator, which I thought
- 1:43was pretty deep where you type in a prompt and then it gives
- 1:46you whatever you want. And I thought this is this is a
- 1:48very wild thing like How quickly a i is moving, and the level of
- 1:54quality that you're getting from AI.
- 1:57I think the world that we're going to be looking at within a
- 2:00year, is going to be completely different than it is right now.
- 2:03So any way I could, I know I did an episode on a, I could a very
- 2:06fascinated by it. I think, I think, if people
- 2:08haven't caught on to that, I wrote an AI recipe book.
- 2:12A while back, it took me like three days to write it, but
- 2:14anyway, it was very quickly, it saved a lot of time for me to
- 2:18write these recipes. So if you haven't started
- 2:20working with AI, And you feel like goofing off, I was using
- 2:23chat GPT on open a.i., because everyone keeps asking me, and
- 2:26I'll even say in the comments like 100 times open a ichat GPT
- 2:30in the next person will comment, what do using anyway.
- 2:33Read the comments and you'll know what I'm using, but anyway,
- 2:35if you want to experiment with AI, this is this is pretty cool.
- 2:38I don't get, I don't get why people are resistant to take a
- 2:42look at it because I think it's like Google, it's just another
- 2:46tool that we're going to have. It makes you exponentially more
- 2:48efficient enough about AI. That's Not what you guys.
- 2:51Listen to this, let's talk about Chef stuff.
- 2:53Today's episode, we're going to talk about plating and different
- 2:56plates and different plating Styles.
- 2:58So I think it's important that people understand that plating
- 3:02Trends come and go. So, I've kind of been a little
- 3:04bit reluctant to talk about the way people should plate, because
- 3:10you'll start doing something like, you know, I could think
- 3:11back a couple of years. Like, when I started, it was
- 3:14partially on the rim, you know? That's when I started cooking,
- 3:16you know, there was Rosemary sprigs everywhere and, and lemon
- 3:19crowns. And you know, Birds birds made
- 3:23out of fruit was very popular, if you know pineapples or
- 3:27whatever the case may be. And anyway if you do that, now
- 3:29people can look at you like you're crazy.
- 3:31So anyway you can't do that today.
- 3:33So if you're listening to this podcast 10 years from now,
- 3:35understand that we're going to talk about is kind of the
- 3:38current plating styles that might not make sense in the
- 3:41future. So keep that in mind.
- 3:44I must say plates and plating. Go hand in hand.
- 3:47It's very important to select the right plates.
- 3:51It's for the right type of plating experience that you
- 3:54want. And I want to, I want to touch
- 3:57on kind of understanding your restaurant, understanding your
- 4:00audience, you know, where you at?
- 4:02Are you in a very high-end restaurant?
- 4:04Are you in a more casual setting?
- 4:07Are you in a three-michelin-star restaurant?
- 4:10Are you in a cool trendy restaurant?
- 4:12Because all of those types of environments require a very
- 4:16different type of plate that you should be.
- 4:18Using this show is sponsored by Light.
- 4:22And personally, I do you steal light.
- 4:24I actually, I love them. I've worked with them for a long
- 4:26time, there a supporter of an organization that's near and
- 4:29dear to my heart. They support Mentor bkb, which
- 4:33is the organization that supports a competitor to go to
- 4:36the Bocuse D'Or, which is happening right now, probably,
- 4:40as this podcast is being released.
- 4:41Go, Team, USA. Shout out to Team USA, Robert
- 4:44Salada. Key, who's the coach over there?
- 4:47Jeffrey, Hayashi, who's the competitor for Team USA?
- 4:50Anyway, Steel. Like supports Mentor bkb.
- 4:52So, I'm a big fan of them. They've been very supportive of
- 4:55me and the organizations that I'm passionate about throughout
- 4:58the years, aside from them being supportive of things that are
- 5:01near and dear to my heart. I also think that they offer
- 5:03great products anyway. So let's just kind of talk
- 5:05through that a little bit. So if we're talking, casual
- 5:08dining, right? This is kind of your entry
- 5:11level. You need, you need to make sure
- 5:13that you're choosing the right plates for the job.
- 5:15So, in casual dining, you know, you hate to say your slang in
- 5:18plates, but I don't, I can't think of another word to To use,
- 5:21but it's a more quick hectic environment.
- 5:26So you need a heavier piece of china to stand up to the volume
- 5:31that's going on, you know, plates fall often and chaotic
- 5:33environments. So you want to have your China?
- 5:36That's that's not going to break as much.
- 5:38That's not going to chip as much something heavy-duty.
- 5:41That's going to stand up to the PACE and intensity that goes in
- 5:44a fast-paced, casual dining setting, something like The
- 5:47Homer Laughlin, or the Hall, China, Robert Gordon like that
- 5:49is kind of the idea. Real China that I would use in a
- 5:54casual setting, kind of, in the, in the mid level, you know,
- 5:57that's kind of where you want to.
- 5:58Look at your steel out, your folio, your your Royal,
- 6:01porcelain your Robert Gordon, China, your mom Studio.
- 6:04That's, you know, a more of a combination, it's still hard,
- 6:08it's still sturdy but you're going to see more modern shapes
- 6:11different colors and things like that.
- 6:12And then on your very high-end, you know, that that's when
- 6:15you're going to get into like the bone china, the William
- 6:17Edwards bone china? The Renee Osorio, Steel like
- 6:22bone. China is something that you're
- 6:23going to see more in the high ended.
- 6:25And I'm not saying you don't see it in the Casual as well because
- 6:28I know I've used bone china in casual settings as well.
- 6:32It is a little bit more elegant, it does require a lot of
- 6:34finesse. You don't want to be slang in
- 6:36plates using bone china because it is more fragile.
- 6:39So choosing the right style of plates that you're going to use
- 6:43is very important for the type of restaurant that you have and
- 6:46knowing, which plates to choose very important, right?
- 6:48So be smart about it, your Making a big investment, I know
- 6:53as a chef. We would budget China glass and
- 6:57silver. What we call the the big four
- 6:58really trying to Glass silverware Linen, in most hotels
- 7:01and restaurants you budget that and you would put big chunks of
- 7:05money quarterly so you could buy it.
- 7:07So you do a month, end inventory, you trued up the next
- 7:10month's. You see what your variances 20s,
- 7:11any or vote, variance to par, you get a chunk of money and
- 7:14then you buy what you need. So, I know that obviously food
- 7:18cost labor cost. These are your biggest expenses
- 7:20in. In a restaurant setting, but
- 7:23China, glass and silverware, are also some of the biggest
- 7:26expenses that also go into operating, a kitchen /
- 7:30restaurant. So getting something that is the
- 7:32right China for your location. The bright silver where the
- 7:37right glassware for your location is very important.
- 7:39So like I said, if you're working in a fine dining place
- 7:41you're probably not going to use all China and if you're working
- 7:44in a very casual setting you're probably not going to use
- 7:47William Edwards, bone china. So so so keep that in mind,
- 7:50right? You want to make sure.
- 7:51Sure, that you're using the right tool for the job.
- 7:53In this case, we're talking about the China that you're
- 7:54using. Now, there are some cases where,
- 7:56you know, let's let's just say you're in a big hotel and I know
- 7:59a lot of chefs that listen to this podcast working, you know,
- 8:02and big hotels and you have to kind of watch your costs and
- 8:07things like that. So you, you sometimes want to do
- 8:09a little. I don't want to say sneaky, but
- 8:13you want that look and feel of a bone china.
- 8:16Maybe you have a exclusive Lounge, like for members only or
- 8:19something like that. A lot of hotels, do You want to
- 8:23have that fine dining look maybe in room service or something
- 8:25like that. But you also know that you're
- 8:27going through a lot of volume. So you need something that has
- 8:29that look. But also has that feel so, you
- 8:33know, maybe you're looking at the folio bone china or
- 8:36something like that, right? So, so a bone china look, but
- 8:40maybe it's a little bit more affordable, you can do things
- 8:42like that. Anyway.
- 8:44We digress. I think when we talk about
- 8:47plating and plate, Trends, what I see right now, as you know, I
- 8:52go to a lot of restaurants or heating on Instagram.
- 8:56I like to call it as I'm looking at all the food pictures, what
- 8:58you're starting to see chefs kind of Shifting towards.
- 9:01And obviously you know, plating Styles and plate Styles, they
- 9:05change over the course of time. But one thing that you're
- 9:08starting to see right now is kind of this more natural you
- 9:12know these Stone glazed Stoneware natural glazed plates
- 9:17that have, you know, I don't want to call them Earth Tones
- 9:19but you know, like maybe pink isn't the right word, but maybe
- 9:23like a Peach Stone. They're brushed they look
- 9:26hand-painted plates. Like that are very trendy right
- 9:29now or darker plates, which, you know, for so many years it was
- 9:33always beautiful, white china. Now, I think it's okay to serve
- 9:36things in Darker bowls plates Coupe plates.
- 9:42It almost has like a like a Japanese restaurant.
- 9:44Men looking bowl style, you know, I can think of like the
- 9:48I'm trying to think you'll see these plates that have like a
- 9:52little bit of fish. Maybe some, shaved, vegetables,
- 9:55pour a little bit of broth tableside like the folio as oars
- 10:00plates that, you know, steel light has to offer.
- 10:01So those are kind of the things that you want to look at that
- 10:03natural style plate, with with different types of colors,
- 10:08because sometimes your food is going to lack a little bit of
- 10:10color. So you need the plate to kind of
- 10:13make it pop a little bit, but but you also don't want the
- 10:15plate to be so beautiful that it takes away from the food.
- 10:19But I do want to talk about that in a second.
- 10:20We'll get to that when we talk about different strategies when
- 10:23it comes to plating. But anyway, what you'll notice
- 10:27right now is very trendy in the restaurant world.
- 10:29A lot of chefs are opening up. I mean, who's opening up a
- 10:32Mediterranean restaurant right now raise your hand, right?
- 10:34If you're listening across the world, you're opening up
- 10:37Mediterranean restaurants across the board or some sort of Middle
- 10:42Eastern style restaurant. Is that Food has become very
- 10:45popular, it's definitely having a moment.
- 10:48So, a lot of these natural plating Styles lend themselves
- 10:52well to that style of food. A lot of, a lot of restaurants
- 10:56are starting to move into this more shared plates concept.
- 10:58So even though we're in a postcode patrolled, I don't
- 11:01think it took very long for us to go back to some old habits,
- 11:04where it's food arrives, as you order it, and then everyone's
- 11:08sharing food, so I can think of, like the Mayhem Studio.
- 11:14Plates that are that, like, have this Stone glazed, look where
- 11:19you can Saturday, where you could serve like a lot of little
- 11:21Tapas and and a little shareable snacks and things like that.
- 11:25That's, that's also very popular.
- 11:26So, it's important and I can't, I can't emphasize this enough.
- 11:29It's important that you choose the right plate for the set and
- 11:32setting. And what I mean by that is like
- 11:33if you're if you have this very casual Mediterranean restaurant
- 11:36again, you don't want to be serving bone china for that,
- 11:40right? You'll also start to notice like
- 11:42a lot of food is being plated. Again, the shareable things
- 11:46right? And what's called like a
- 11:48stacking tray. So it's like it's like a
- 11:50combination Bowl. It almost looks like an ashtray,
- 11:54but you know, the sides are straight.
- 11:55They're not, they're not curved like a bull, the sides sides are
- 11:58straight but you could use it as a bowl.
- 12:00And I know, you know, it's very trendy right now is like you
- 12:03could put one of these stacking trays and maybe you fill it up
- 12:06with rice or rocks or something like that.
- 12:10In the you stack a couple of bites on top.
- 12:12So those traits are very useful in that and that That regard an
- 12:15interesting thing also and I was doing this right before in my
- 12:19last job right before I retired is it was very cool to have mix
- 12:23and match China. So we might have something that
- 12:26looks very elegant would call like the grandma style plates
- 12:29mixed in with something more modern.
- 12:30It was just a very eclectic mix. The food would always come out
- 12:33on a different look so it was fun.
- 12:35It mixed it up. The idea of serving food in your
- 12:39house. If you're having a dinner party,
- 12:42you would just grab whatever you have in your pantry and you
- 12:43might have a mixer. After something that your
- 12:45parents gave, you something that you bought a one-off piece and
- 12:48so you have this mix and match Style on the plate and that's
- 12:51the way it would look at home, right?
- 12:53You'd have all these different these different colors.
- 12:55These different shapes. Same way in a restaurant maybe
- 12:58on a buffet or something like that.
- 13:00You're going to have all sorts of different styles and shapes
- 13:02on. There's everything, you know,
- 13:03might be a very beautiful piece of china, it might be a stacking
- 13:07plate, it might be a bowl, it might be whatever, right?
- 13:10So mixing that all up adding color and vibrancy to the to the
- 13:14station, whether you know, we're looking at a table scape or if
- 13:17we're looking at a buffet or whatever the case may be even
- 13:19for photo shoots, all of that works well.
- 13:21So again, you need to make sure you're making good decisions.
- 13:23When you're selecting two plates that you want in your
- 13:26restaurant, then when we get into the, when we get into the
- 13:29very high-end level, and you'll see this in a lot of like three
- 13:33Michelin star restaurants, or restaurants, that are very high,
- 13:35fine, dining, and they start using the bone china.
- 13:39I think, I think one of the things that's really cool, is a
- 13:42lot of places. I know still light will do this
- 13:43for you. We'll use the bone china.
- 13:46Like, you know, the William Edwards, where you have
- 13:48beautiful patterns, that might have a little bit of gold in
- 13:51there or something like that. There might be multiple serving
- 13:53pieces. You might stack a dish, you'll
- 13:56see this often where, you know, there's there's three plates,
- 13:59stacked on one another and then there's something, you know, I'm
- 14:02just I'm just making this up. There's a there's a beautiful
- 14:05piece of fish or a cup stacked on three other plates and
- 14:11there's some theatrics in the presentation.
- 14:14So understanding that incorporating some bone, china,
- 14:19incorporating some, you know, stoneware and all that, it could
- 14:22make a really cool feeling out the restaurant that I was chef
- 14:26of right before, right. Before I started chefs PSA, we
- 14:29would incorporate a big mix of things.
- 14:31So we'd have things that were on bone china, we'd have things
- 14:33that were, you know, like stoneware things like that and
- 14:38it made sense because sometimes we do like a high-low plating
- 14:42concept, and I'll tell you The story and then after the story
- 14:45will get into plating strategies.
- 14:48But anyway, so here was the story.
- 14:50If you're going to charge high prices for something as a chef,
- 14:54really you got to look at two things, your they're providing
- 14:57an exceptional quality ingredient that costs you a lot
- 14:59of money. So, obviously your parts, you're
- 15:01passing some of that markup off onto the customer.
- 15:04So let's just say you're serving foie, gras truffles Lobster,
- 15:06something like that caviar. Well, You need a beautiful
- 15:10vessel to present that in sometimes.
- 15:13You're presenting something very familiar and comfortable and How
- 15:20do you get a lot of money for it?
- 15:22Well, I'll tell you what I did. If you've ever seen the movie
- 15:24Inglorious Basterds, and I love that movie and one of my
- 15:28favorite food scenes in the history of food scenes for
- 15:33movies TV, whatever the case may be, is the scene where they are
- 15:36eating the apple strudel and they go and they open up the,
- 15:42they put the thing down and they get the cream and they put it on
- 15:45top and there's this whole presentation.
- 15:47I remember watching that. I'm like, that looks so good.
- 15:49I love Love that scene and I love the way that they eat it
- 15:52and you know, the cinematography is great.
- 15:54Anyway, we digress. What I loved about that so much?
- 15:57Is that in the restaurant, that was upscale dining that I had
- 16:02prior, I got with the pastry chef and I said, I want to serve
- 16:06a lemon tart and the lemon tart wasn't necessarily on the level
- 16:12of the restaurant. Like, it was a little bit.
- 16:15It was a little bit too simple. I was too much of a fastball
- 16:17down the middle for the level of food that we were trying to
- 16:19provide I said, but we're going to serve it on a beautiful plate
- 16:22with a gold rim and we're going to come out and we're going to
- 16:26have this service piece where we're going to bring the cream
- 16:28like Inglourious Basterds. And we're gonna put the cream on
- 16:30top so you could take something that's very simple and very
- 16:35familiar but you could present it in a way that's unique that
- 16:39would allow people to be like, wow, like I've had a lemon tart
- 16:43before but I haven't had it presented that way.
- 16:45And so you put a little bit of theater behind it.
- 16:48So there's a difference again, so So again, we're talking about
- 16:50plating Styles but there's we're also talking about service and
- 16:53theater. There's a difference between
- 16:55getting a dish that has truffles on it and then there's a
- 16:58difference between that and then the chef coming to the table and
- 17:00shaving the truffles for you and saying, tell me, when to stop,
- 17:04that's a different experience. I'll tell you a story years ago.
- 17:07I went to spiaggia restaurant and Chicago and I wish I could
- 17:13tell you the name of the champagne but I remember they
- 17:14had brought out a bowl of water and they popped the champagne
- 17:17inside the bowl of water, and they did.
- 17:19Abel's, I was just a really cool presentation and I've never seen
- 17:22anyone do it in a big clear bowl of water.
- 17:26And I just remember thinking, like that was so cool.
- 17:29Everyone else around it, saw it and they're like, that's cool
- 17:31and other people order the bottle of champagne.
- 17:34I wish I could remember what the champagne was, but I thought the
- 17:36story was super cool and the theatrics of the dish were super
- 17:40cool or I'm sorry, the champagne was super cool that it allows
- 17:43them to charge more, so doing things like that.
- 17:46Bringing the cheese gear, add on to the table and saying, You
- 17:49know, we have these 20 selections achieves, what would
- 17:52you want? That is a different experience,
- 17:54bringing a breadbasket and saying we have all these breads
- 17:57that were just made today. So you take something, simple,
- 17:59like bread. And now, all of a sudden you
- 18:00make it a bread experience or, you know, where they do the
- 18:03canal of butter. And they put that on there that
- 18:06that elevates the dining experience and then now you
- 18:08could charge a lot more for something that wouldn't.
- 18:13You might be free or maybe you wouldn't charge a whole lot for
- 18:15it in a casual setting. So it's a lot of times it's the
- 18:17same food, it's just the way it's presented.
- 18:19Comes to plating Styles, obviously Trends change and
- 18:23things like that, but so here's some things to keep in mind,
- 18:26like whenever you're playing something, everything has to be
- 18:29proportionate. So, whatever the feature
- 18:32ingredient is needs to be, it needs to be prominent so you
- 18:35don't want to order. I'm giving you an example, you
- 18:37don't want to order a steak plate and you have a little bit
- 18:39of bead and then the whole lot of everything else.
- 18:41So you want to make sure that whatever it is that you're
- 18:43selling that the feature is there.
- 18:44I like to keep my plating to a minimum in general.
- 18:48I don't like a ton of things on There.
- 18:50And I know it's very trendy right now sometimes to have a,
- 18:54you know, maybe too much. But I think everything, you
- 18:57know, I still subscribe to the idea of everything needs to have
- 18:59a purpose on the plate. So if you're going to garnish
- 19:01with herbs, whether we're talking flowers, maybe you're
- 19:03getting a whole bunch of flowers from Chef's Garden, or whatever
- 19:05the case may be. You want to make sure that it,
- 19:07you taste it with the dish. Does it taste good?
- 19:09Is it beautiful? Yes.
- 19:10But does it taste good. So you want to make sure that
- 19:12you're going through these exercises, right?
- 19:14So like, let's say borage flowers, have like a cucumber
- 19:16taste. Maybe you're putting that on
- 19:17cucumber. Okay, that makes sense.
- 19:19But I wouldn't put it on something where it would be a
- 19:21clash of flavor. So looking at the plate
- 19:23aesthetically, a lot of times you could use negative space to
- 19:27make the plating look, you know, more aesthetically pleasing, you
- 19:31want to have a variety of shapes so my formula and I came up with
- 19:36this and I know I've talked about another podcast but I'll
- 19:39kind of bring it up again. My formula for plating when I
- 19:42ran a higher-end restaurant was always like this.
- 19:45It was you always have to have a protein.
- 19:47That was that was your focus, right?
- 19:49So, It might not be a proteus, let's just say it's a carrot
- 19:52dish or pasta dish. But, whatever the focus was that
- 19:53needed to be your primary thing on the plate.
- 19:56And then there would be a lot of Supporting Cast.
- 19:58So you have your main, you have your star, your main character,
- 20:00and The Supporting Cast. So let's just, let's just say,
- 20:03in this case, maybe it's a piece of meat and then you'd have all
- 20:06the things that support the meat.
- 20:08So you might have a puree of carrot and then you might have
- 20:11some shaved carrots and then you might have some roasted carrots
- 20:14and then you might have some carrot fronds and then you might
- 20:16have something else. So my thing was you always want
- 20:18to incorporate If there was a vegetable on there, you'd want
- 20:21to incorporate that multiple times on the plate.
- 20:23So, like I said, you have a carrot, you have a carrot puree
- 20:26and then you'd also have Franz and maybe a raw shaved carrot on
- 20:32there. So you did she have some visual
- 20:36textures and understand that people could look at things and
- 20:39say, okay, I could get that there's going to be texture on
- 20:41there, right? When we're plating, we want to
- 20:43make sure that there's very clean plates going out.
- 20:48So I always have plate wipes, and by the way, You should be
- 20:52using plate wipes. If you're not using plate,
- 20:53wipes, use plate wipes, there's a lot of different ways to do
- 20:56it. Some people just roll up a
- 20:57towel, some people put a squirt bottle full of like vodka or
- 21:02something like that and I'll spray the plate and then the
- 21:04wipe it other people I've seen cut sponges up like regular
- 21:08dish. Sponge is clean sponges and
- 21:10they'll soak them in vodka and they'll use that to wipe the
- 21:12plates, which I think is pretty cool.
- 21:14Some people will take little torque towels or chick towels or
- 21:16something like that. Cut them roll them, soak them,
- 21:19use that to White plates. But anyway, Late wipes.
- 21:22Make sure your plate is clean and then when you're plating,
- 21:24you know, have an intense focus and deliberate intent, and what
- 21:27you're doing. So things to keep in mind, like
- 21:29if you're putting meat on a plate, you want to dab the meat.
- 21:31So let's say you slice some beef and it's maybe you didn't let it
- 21:35rest long enough. You want to just kind of dab it
- 21:37on a towel or something to absorb any any leakage to make
- 21:41sure that it's going on the plate and it's not going to
- 21:42leave like a pool of of pool of blood, basically on the plate or
- 21:47something like that. You want to dab your meat before
- 21:48it goes on the plate. So it goes on clean.
- 21:50You're not making boil. All over with your hands.
- 21:53That's why I let you know, I know tweezers, you know, they
- 21:55catch a lot of shit when people are using tweezers.
- 21:57But the reason people use tweezers, obviously because
- 21:59they're precise, right there are tool to make sure that what
- 22:02you're doing delivers, a precise and result in what you're trying
- 22:05to do. So placing herbs where they go,
- 22:08putting a spoonful of puree, and there's a lot of things that
- 22:11people could do with purees, right.
- 22:13So shout out to the French Laundry and Chef David, Breeden,
- 22:17Thomas Keller and the new book French Laundry per se.
- 22:20They go in depth On using. Pre hydrated xanthum gum and you
- 22:26know using it in different purees and things like that.
- 22:29I think that's an incredible tool and Chef should definitely
- 22:32be using that for your purees where they hydrate the xanthum
- 22:36gum and the blender, they put it in a cryovac machine or
- 22:39something to kind of compress it.
- 22:40They have, I know I used to do this when I was a chef, we'd
- 22:43have a big, you know, 5 gallon bucket of pre.
- 22:47Hi. So you put a little bit of
- 22:50squeeze bottle, so when you need to add a little bit of pre-high
- 22:52to a green puree, or I puree or whatever.
- 22:55The case, maybe you could do that.
- 22:57So when you put it on the plate, it doesn't weep and it holds it
- 23:00adds a little bit of structure to the puree, but it also makes
- 23:03sure that it doesn't weep on the plate.
- 23:04So, you know what I'm talking about, right?
- 23:06You put a little, a little sauce or something like that, tomato
- 23:08sauce on a plate. And then, it has, you know, a
- 23:11couple of seconds like a little pool of water, a little ring of
- 23:13water around the puree. So doing things like that will
- 23:16elevate your plating skills, right?
- 23:19There's some tools of refinement when it comes to plating an
- 23:22offset pal. Let knife to do smears and
- 23:26things like that to add some, some visual contrast.
- 23:30You want to make sure that you have your tweezers.
- 23:32If you're if you're that style spoons for for placement or as
- 23:37they say God's tweezers, the fing the fingers on your on your
- 23:40hands, right? So when you don't have tweezers,
- 23:43you could use God's tweezers and that'll make sure that you could
- 23:46put things where they belong. So general advice when it comes
- 23:50to plating, make sure you have deliberate intent.
- 23:53Make sure that It on the plate, has a purpose, make sure that
- 23:56you have a lot of contrast of color and variety.
- 23:59Make sure that there's textures on there.
- 24:01Make sure that it all makes sense.
- 24:03Make sure it's beautiful. Make sure you wipe the plate
- 24:05before it goes out. Very cool right now is to do
- 24:08natural style plating, right? You'll see a lot of a lot of
- 24:11food with a lot of fresh herbs picked herbs like that.
- 24:14So, you want to make sure the herbs that you're putting on
- 24:15their fresh, maybe you're holding them in a little
- 24:17container of ice water. Or maybe you've compressed them
- 24:19in the cryovac machine with ice water prior to keep them
- 24:22vibrant, whatever the case may be, Those are the things that
- 24:25you should be doing, to make sure that everything looks nice
- 24:27looks fresh and plated beautifully because I know I've
- 24:32said this before in chefs, PSA taste is more important than
- 24:35plating and it still is, but plating a second, and it is
- 24:39important. People do eat with their eyes
- 24:41first. They, you need to make sure in
- 24:42today's world, at least, right? Food is very Instagram, double.
- 24:45So, you want to make sure that your food is Instagram, mobile
- 24:47and people are looking at and say, wow, that looks beautiful.
- 24:50And and and then they taste and it's like, wow, not only, is it
- 24:52beautiful, but it also tastes Think about the China that
- 24:55you're using contrasting colors. If you have, you know, depending
- 24:58on what you're going for, maybe you have like a very beautiful
- 25:02piece of William Edwards style, bone china, or something like
- 25:07that with the gold rim and then you have something, you know,
- 25:11kind of high low as they say. You have this beautiful
- 25:14beautiful golden plate and then you put, you know, tater tots
- 25:17with black truffles on it or something like that.
- 25:19So, again, have fun with it. Have it make sense, but whatever
- 25:22you do. Again, last piece of advice,
- 25:23whatever you do, Make sure you have a story.
- 25:25It's deliberate and it's intentional and you're not just
- 25:27winging it. I'll save that story for another
- 25:28day about how I got out of some trouble just by telling a good
- 25:32story and get the job. So anyway, long story short, I
- 25:38could talk about plating at length, make sure you use the
- 25:40right plate. Make sure you have deliberate
- 25:42intent with everything that you're doing, make sure it's big
- 25:46sure it's tasty. Make sure it looks good and
- 25:48quite honestly, look at all the beautiful food on social media,
- 25:51right? Natural plating, you know,
- 25:53follow the best chefs. I'm you look at all the, all the
- 25:55new plating Trends as they come out.
- 25:57Get inspired. I won't say steel.
- 25:59Because last time I got in trouble because everyone was
- 26:01saying, I'm talking down to chefs, we're saying steel, but
- 26:04get inspired and learn about that learn from other chefs that
- 26:09incorporate your own style into it.
- 26:12Want to thank our sponsors, steel light, go visit still
- 26:15like.com follow chefs, PSA on all social platforms.
- 26:20Go get the books line, cook, survival manual, culinary
- 26:23leadership. Metals, how not to be the
- 26:25biggest idiot in the kitchen. There's a video course on that,
- 26:27as well. If you want to support the show,
- 26:29leave five stars. This is a five-star podcast.
- 26:31Anything else other than five stars is a lie and you wouldn't
- 26:35want to be a liar. Thank you all very much.
- 26:37See you next week, hit the porno music.