I've been inspired by all the beautiful pictures I've seen posted here recently.
This is the first time I've put any real thought into plating dinner, so happy to receive some feedback on what could be done better.
Should have removed the pink doily placemat but that aside;
- Pan-roasted, skin-on breast with pan sauce
- Roast crispy layered potatoes
- Foil-jacket roasted yellow beetroot
- Simple pea puree with garlic, onion and chicken stock
- Oven-blistered tomatoes
- Alyssum flowers for garnish (only edibles we had in the garden)
by joshbarkd
7 Comments
I’m sorry, this is sufficiently bad it’s actually hard to critique.
Try again, this time puree at the bottom. Chicken on top, minus the sauce. Potato and beetroot alongside. Tomatoes dotted, then sauce to serve.
As side notes, your pea puree is lumpy, your sauce is over-reduced, potato cut poorly.
Everything definitely looks tasty! Good job.
First – what I like:
– Pea purée has a great color.
– Chicken skin looks crispy
– Alyssum flowers are a fun garnish, especially considering you picked them from your garden
– Potato pave (?) looks well prepared
My criticisms:
The purée is pretty thick looking. Next time add more liquid and blend for longer. Always pass purées through a fine mesh sieve after blending.
The beetroot.. if you’re going to do square cuts, make them *square*. They’re awkwardly cut and take away from the rest of your dish.
The pan sauce is strange. Next time add more wine, stock, whatever you used as a base and whisk in a little bit of cold butter. The sauce just isn’t saucing.
Lastly, the orientation of all the ingredients is too spaced out. If I was to plate this with the same components I would tighten up the purée smear, square the potato perpendicular with the chicken breast, tuck the tomatos and beetroot in the blank spaces between the chicken and potato’s and let the pan sauce fall off of the opposite end of the chicken breast. Oh, and I would take away a cherry tomatoes half. And plate them skin side up.
Regardless – this looks yummy. If I was a guest at a friends house for dinner and this was presented to me I would love it! It’s clear that you plated this with intention.
i’m not trying to be mean- i’m half awake and i thought this was something out of a dr. seuss book or from the grinch before i realized what sub i’m on
recent Babish video had guests from Fallow where they gave him shit about micro greens
you did it well here
Beetroot should be your purée with tomatoes blistered much further and more naturally placed in the puree, the chicken should be in rhe center, and the potato to the side with more green on it. Have the peas sautéed and around the edges and on of the puree that is central. The potato can go off to the side if you need it but could be cut into 2 strips that are nestled under the chicken poking out slightly.
As other people are saying, move the chicken on top of the puree. Also, rotate the potato 180 degrees so it follows the curves of the plate, move it to where the chicken was to balance out the plate once the chicken is on the puree, and see if you can find a more natural feeling/intentional way to place the veg that dosent look as haphazard. Also, I would maybe put the flowers on the puree instead of the food, but either can work. Room for improvement, but also alot of potential! I would definitely eat this regardless of plating, and imo that’s one of the quickest cooking skills to improve on!
Nope. It’s objectively terrible. If I paid money for this in a restaurant, I’d be demanding it was taken off the bill.