Chapter 479 The Art of Plating
A colorful plate that brings joy to the eyes, and a cold dish that looks like a flower path is ready.
"Very good! You have arranged it very nicely. You can tell that you have a bright future." Zhao Xiaojing took the time to praise Lian Yulan while cutting out the braised dishes.
She just roughly told me how to do it, but Lian Yulan already got it all. The various colors were matched very harmoniously and there was no need for any adjustments.
"The deputy captain has a good idea! I'm just copying." Lian Yulan smiled and took the plate of Bright Future to the delivery area. She then made a second plating according to Zhao Xiaojing's instructions, which was the bouquet salad for the round table with Beautiful Moon.
The Bouquet Salad looks somewhat similar to the Bright Future Salad, but it contains more vegetables.
The so-called bouquet is actually two spring rolls folded and fried to form a fan shape for the bouquet. Half a Vietnamese spring roll is fried until crispy, then chrysanthemum is placed on the bottom of the plate, the Vietnamese crispy spring roll is used as white gauze, and the folded spring roll is used as flower paper and placed on the bottom of the plate. Then various vegetables and fruits are either carved or cut into slices and rolled into flowers by hand, and then some vegetables are added as green leaves. Finally, the cucumber is cut into long strips, arranged into a bow, and placed below the bouquet.
As for Songhe Changchun, mashed potatoes are added as the base, and the vegetables are changed to cucumbers, red and yellow cherry tomatoes, blanched broccoli, cherry radish slices and other vegetables that the elderly like to eat. They are made to look like a cluster of flowers on the earth and named Four Seasons Like Spring.
"Just pickle the cucumbers and radishes together, and add a little salt."
"You need to wipe off the moisture a little bit, and the skin on top should be folded inward a little."
"Yes, it's this shape, and the mango flower should be slightly larger."
"Is the broccoli blanched in salt water?"
"Spread some more mashed potatoes."
"Just make the vinaigrette."
While giving suggestions, Zhao Xiaojing kept working, cutting the braised dishes needed for the cold dishes on the Songhe Changchun and Huahaoyue round tables into portions.
There are four types of braised dishes. Like the fruit and vegetable presentation, the ingredients on the two tables are similar, but the themes are different and the presentation is also different.
The four kinds of braised dishes on the Songhe Changchun table were directly cut into diamond-shaped slices, allowing Lian Yulan to arrange them into a majestic crane with its wings spread out, ready to fly.
The shunfeng has crispy bones and is the lightest in color. It is placed at the bottom, peeking out a little from the crane's belly, like lighter belly hair; the beef is dark in color, covering the shunfeng, making sharp feathers when the wings are spread; and the beef tripe is covering the shunfeng, and is covered by the last layer of mouth strips, extending only outward from the crane's head, like a slender and stretched neck; the last mouth strips are the lightest in color, covering the top, and the colors of the wings made of beef are one dark and one light, just meeting at the wings.
As for the head, piece together the mouth strips, put some black pepper sauce in a piping bag, and draw the eyes and crown in two strokes.
"Great! They argued for so long, saying that delicious things don't look good, and that beautiful things are impractical and can't be eaten. Then they asked you to carve a crane out of white radish and put it in front. Now both problems are solved! And this crane is so beautiful with all its layers! I'm glad you're here."
"After you adjusted the wings, it looks much more natural now. It still looks like a crane, but the temperament is so different. How did you do that?"
Lian Yulan roughly laid out the platter, and Zhao Xiaojing made some adjustments to the details. Lian Yulan looked at it again and again and couldn't help but admire it repeatedly.
Zhao Xiaojing smiled and pushed the plate aside. "Boss Nian and Boss Mo put a crane in the private room some time ago. I got the inspiration from that and followed the crane's spirit. I've also cut out the flowers and full moon pattern. Wait for me to find a picture for you, otherwise it's really hard to arrange. You can make the small seafood with sauce first."
"Okay!" Lian Yulan was obviously relieved and walked straight to the pool.
The arrangement of the round table for Hua Hao Yue is similar to that for Song He Chang Chun, except that two mandarin ducks are placed on the table, and cucumbers and cherry tomatoes are needed for some color embellishment, which is a bit complicated. Relatively speaking, Jin Bang Ti Ming is much simpler, because it is small seafood in sauce, and they just need to be piled together and look appetizing.
Lian Yulan turned around and started to prepare the seafood. She chose a beautiful deep plate and quickly prepared the sauce. She then blanched different types of seafood according to the time when their taste was best. She then dipped the blanched seafood into the sauce and put it in the refrigerator.
Zhao Xiaojing looked through a pile of mandarin duck pictures, but couldn't find any that particularly satisfied her, so she simply laid out the underlying graphics herself. After Lian Yulan finished and came over, she briefly explained the order and area of stacking.
After Lian Yulan started, Zhao Xiaojing took out the braised vegetables that had been soaked in the braising soup for a while, cut them up, and waited for Lian Yulan to serve them on a plate.
After all this was done, it was already eleven o'clock, and the already complex and diverse aromas in the kitchen began to spread wildly.
The other chefs had to take turns serving dishes and doing waiters, only Fatty and Zhao Xiaojing stayed in the kitchen all the time. So Nian Fusheng brought over a timer that had been adjusted, told Zhao Xiaojing the time to put the first and second pots on and off the heat, then went to the front hall and began to prepare to welcome the guests.
Over at Mo Feixiang's, a variety of tempura had already been prepared and battered, ready for deep-frying after serving. The fresh black tiger prawns had been cleaned, their heads and tails trimmed, and then coated in flour. The pistachios had been finely chopped, and even the unique rice starch had been stir-fried and sieved. Nian Fusheng was out at the moment, so it was still early for him to leave, so he was roaming around the kitchen helping the other chefs.
Lu Pengyun had already taken two cold dishes to the delivery area and was busy brushing sauce on the beef ribs on the cutting board. The sauce was a complex blend of barbecue juices, vegetable broth, and various spices. The ribs had been oven-roasted for a full three and a half hours, leaving them crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. He would then evenly brush the sauce all over the ribs, then return them to the oven for another ten minutes just as customers were about to arrive.
The pizza chef had already baked the pizza base, spread the pizza fillings on the pizza base, and placed it in the oven to bake. Two portions of colorful hand-shredded chicken had also been baked and shredded, and placed on plates and sent to the delivery area. At this time, cheese was being covered on top of the fried shiitake mushrooms, also waiting for the time to come to the oven.
The chef who makes morels had already chopped the meat filling, mixed it with diced water chestnuts and separately processed diced fat, marinated it, stuffed the meat filling into the morels, and sprinkled it with a little cornstarch for later use; at the same time, the conch meat on the side was steamed and cut into slices for later use. Other dishes such as garlic vermicelli and abalone were also prepared, and they just had to wait until the time to start.
As for the fat man, the braised shark's fin was simmering in the pot, the crispy barbecued pork was roasting in the hanging oven, and the filling of the Jiangnan Hundred Flowers Chicken was also ready.
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