Art Of Presentation: Lunch

As you continue to learn the art of gourmet cooking, you should also learn about presenting the food so that it looks clean and professional on a platter. This will give you a chance to be creative and use some art in the process.

Technique: For the best presentation results, try to cook ingredients separately when possible. All ingredients have different cooking times and they will look best when the time was taken to carefully prepare them individually. For example, when preparing soup for lunch, cooking all vegetables together will not make the dish look as desirable. If you cook tofu, peas and mushrooms separately, they will look much nicer once they are brought together separately in the bowl.

If you take the time to carefully prepare ingredients separately, you will then have the opportunity to design them in a soup bowl the way you choose, rather than have all the ingredients mixed together.

Layout: When you are preparing items such as a salad or soup for lunch, be mindful of your best-looking ingredients. You want to place less-attractive but equally important ingredients at the bottom. With a soup you can pour the broth after placing the ingredients in the cup. For example, you may want to place zucchini on the bottom, then the tofu, mushrooms or meat, and finally top it off with the soup broth.

Consider putting the salad dressing on the side so you can decorate the vegetables and meat as desired. In a salad, choose colorful ingredients and build from the bottom up, just as you would a soup.

If your lunch or brunch will have a mix of foods such as pasta, salad and dessert, think about where the food goes on a plate. A general rule of thumb is to put the carbs at the top left of the plate followed by the vegetables or salad to the right. If you are serving meat, it would go in the center of the plate after the salad.

Sauces: Food prepared in advance can dry out quickly, so be prepared to touch them up before serving. You can use a colorful sauce, water or oil to give food a little sparkle. Pasta or vegetables will regain some life after a spritz of water. To add some color to your dish, use a sauce and paint the border of the plate slightly to make it stand out. If you are serving a portobello mushroom dish, add the sauce around the mushroom to frame the food.

If you like this post, please be sure to check out the following!

How To Make A Tasty Tuna Melt
How To Make Minestrone Soup
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