Serving Up With Ed Smith - It's Just Your Tea
The food is ready and the table is set. The cocktail cabinet is fully stocked. Your friends are arriving at any moment. But if you thought your work for the evening was done... think again. As the old adage goes, 'You eat with your eyes first'. You (that is, we!) may have spent hours - sometimes days - preparing a delicious meal, but how it's presented is just as important when trying to impress your dinner party guests.
We've asked our friend, the award-winning food writer and cook Ed Smith, to dish out some industry secrets on how to make a plate pop. As someone with hundreds of recipes and two published recipe books under his belt, you can say he's a dab hand at this kind of thing. Take it away, Ed!
Ed Smith:
Last week I tried the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen Shawarma Feast. Which was super. And, as it happens, a great way to illustrate how one of the easiest ways to ensure your food looks as good as it tastes, is to put it in thoughtfully chosen (and inherently attractive) crockery.
The points I made about serving the OTK meal apply to any of the meals that you can get from Dishpatch. BUT, because of the sharing nature of that particular meal, I didn’t really provide any tips on how to plate-up individual portions.
So, although the Cafe Murano sea bass feast box also suits a communal set up, as I warmed it up, I thought I’d tweak a couple of things so that I could pass on some thoughts on how to make non-sharing plates look pleasing.
These comments are not exhaustive and my plating is by no means perfect! But I hope there’ll be something in here of interest to you.
There’s not much I need to say about the bread and arancini course. And having experimented with a few options, the images of the mozzarella and onions that are on the menu are the ones to follow. So this is a deep dive into the sea bass and orzo, and the panna cotta (though the points raised could apply to many other dishes).
1) Asymmetric
It’s *nice* when people spend lots of time patiently arranging ingredients in complex and/or symmetrical patterns. Nice, because they’ve made an effort. But, also, err, twee (no offence). If you look at contemporary yet timeless cookbooks, food magazines and restaurants, you’ll notice that food often tends to be plated asymmetrically, with ingredients deliberately off centre.
So with the orzo and fish, for example, I’ve deliberately spooned my orzo portion to the left of centre, with the portion of fish sitting at a slant to the right of it (rather than the middle of it).
Similarly, you’ll see below that I did something similar with the panna cotta, giving the plums and syrup more space of their own.
2) Space around the edge of the plate, not between components
A natural consequence of asymmetric plating, is that you might end up with an area of plate unused. This is fine. Good, in fact! It’s the equivalent of negative space in a photo.
To achieve that, you’ll probably find that you’re bunching the ingredients together a bit. Again, this is good, because one general rule of thumb is that it’s easier to make a dish look appetising when the components touch or overlap each other; not least because this helps you to present a coherent meal, rather than an arrangement of different ingredients (a jus, gravy or, as I did here, olive oil, will also help to join the dots). It’s not inconsequential that this leaves the empty rim of the plate acting as a picture frame.
3) Green is good
Don’t tell Angela, but not only did I fillet the sea bass rather than keep it whole, I also added some green leaves. This was really because, having plated the orzo and fish individually, a third colour (and element – see below) felt necessary. “Something green” is often the answer when a plate feels like it’s lacking. It tends to both bolster and bind. In other autumnal menu scenarios, wilted leaves such as chard, kale, cavolo nero or cabbage would work well. You’ll also find that a wedge or slice of lemon or lime has a similar effect.
4) Odd numbers rule
Also, while I love simplicity, having just two things on the plate didn’t feel complete. Whether you’re devising your own meal, or assembling someone else’s, it’s always worth remembering that an odd number of ingredients tends to look better than even. Maybe that’s the asymmetry thing again.
This is a slightly loose rule – sometimes relating to three or five individual ingredients, or three or five significant elements. It might include sauces and crunchy bits, or ignore them… but still, group things visually in threes or fives and you’ll be somewhere close to a perfect plate.
The panna cotta dessert provides another good example: technically there are two components. But, I tried to plate it so that, visually, there are three distinct elements. As already mentioned, the panna cotta sits off centre, leaving space for the plums (note, three of them), with the striking syrup able to occupy a distinct section of plate too.
5) Simple, natural forms
Chefs on TV with their tweezers … can stay on TV.
At home it’s far better to make just one or two big movements, letting rice ooze across a plate, leaves and petals fall where they fall, and sauces spread naturally within the curve of a shallow bow or plate with a dip in it.
With the parsley salad, for example, I picked up a bunch, cupped and partly arranged it in my hand, then placed it on the dish – rather than faffing with herbs individually, which would probably have led to an odd looking and flat pile. On the panna cotta dish, better to spoon the juices over the fruit and let them spread from there, rather than try to do a cheffy spiral or drizzle around the plate.
6) It’s just tea
As with my guide on plating up the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen shawarma, my final point is simply to say: don’t worry, don’t fuss, faff and take so long that the food goes cold. It’s just your tea. And it’ll taste great.
About Ed Smith
Ed Smith (@rocketandsquash) is a cook and food writer, the author of the award-winning cookbooks CRAVE, The Borough Market Cookbook, and On the Side.