TL;DR I’m making and plating a ten course meal and want advice on rapid plating and fancy presentation.
Hi, I’m not sure if this is allowed here since I’m looking for plating advice instead of critique (though I’ll certainly post for critique once I cook the food), but I could really use the help and figured it couldn’t hurt.
So story time. Usually I take my parents out for Christmas instead of buying something since they don’t really want more junk. This year I talked to my mom about taking her out to a ten course meal, since she has raved about one she went to on vacation years ago. Unfortunately as it happens ten course meals are really expensive. And I’m now paying $600 for us three to have dinner. So instead I decided to attempt to make my own from scratch. That is ten dishes, cooked and plated from scratch, and hopefully looking and tasting like fine dining quality.
In order the dishes are
1. Hors d’devours:
a garlic shrimp and avocado crostini. I have a rectangle plate that might work, but it has a very sparkly bronze colour. I thought I might use whole leaf lettuce as a bed to act as contrast, or possibly do a swoosh of more guacamole (though that’s not really necessary flavour wise since it’s in the dish)
2. Soup:
a Hungarian mushroom soup. For this one I was going to take out some roast mushrooms to act as garnish, as well as adding a dollop or swirl of sour cream and fresh chopped dill on top, plated in a flat style bowl that’s a dark brown colour, with a border of muted coloured squares on the edge.
3.Appetizer:
crispy jalapeño potato skins. I have a wooden dish with a spot in the middle for sour cream. I figured plating would be pretty simple, sour cream in the middle, potato skins fanned around it.
4.Salad:
Fresh greek salad, plating ideas for this one would be great, right now I’m wavering between a small salad bowl (brown) for each, or a plate (white) with garnishes around the edges. Any garnish suggestions or plating designs would be awesome.
5. Fish:
Teriyaki prawn skewers with a side of white jasmine rice. I was going to set aside some of the teriyaki sauce to act as a swoosh or possibly to use as a drizzle, while packing the white rice into a small castle/puck but I’m actually kind of struggling with this one. The best plate I have for it seems to be a white square, since I don’t have any more rectangle dishes (and the teriyaki sauce wouldn’t really contrast with the bronze plate I mentioned before), but since it’s one plate and only two skewers I’m struggling to come up with a good presentation. Green onion and sesame seeds will probably be the garnish on the skewers, and I was also considering adding in some decorative carrot curls. Not sure about how to jazz up the rice though?
6. Main Course:
A crispy chicken breast roasted in a sun-dried tomato cream sauce. I have to plate options, a white square plate, or a brown rounded square plate. I figured the sauce could be part of the presentation, but was wondering if anyone had any ideas for contrasting garnishes that I could make ahead or do really quickly. I was toying with the idea of making roast broccoli but I’m still not sure (Timing is very tight for everything)
7. Palate cleanser:
served in a clear pitcher with small clear glasses, raspberry lemon and mint infused ice water
8. Cheese dish:
basically just a charcuterie board.
9. Dessert
Layered white, milk and dark chocolate parfait topped with fresh raspberries and a sprig of mint. Since the parfait is already in little cups I’m unclear if it needs extra plating
10. Mignardise
Basically four fancy chocolates on a small white plate, thinking about doing a Carmel circle on the plate under them.
So yeah, any tips for rapidly plating and presenting these dishes would be amazing.
Thanks
by brittanyrose8421