FOOD AS ART.

Food Styling and Plating 101. You know I was in heaven for this one. Over the course of two days, we spent half of the time styling savory dishes and half of the time on desserts.

First off, we took care of the mise en place (“MEEZ ahn plahs”), translated, “everything in it’s place,” meaning you have all your ingredients prepared and ready to go before you start cooking.

My group was in charge of the Peanut Zucchini Noodles with Sriracha String Beans and Lemongrass Tofu, which required spiralizing a zillion zucchini to make that giant vat of zoodles you see up there. After we spent half the class cooking the recipes, we moved on to styling!

Chef Celine taught us a few styling basics (use odd numbers, embrace white space, only garnish with edible elements, etc.) , then demonstrated plating each dish. Our goal was to recreate her plate as precisely as possible to practice replicating a dish over and over as if we were a restaurant and everyone’s work had to be uniform.

Next was the Sweet Potato Bisque with Cashew Crème Fraiche and Candied Pecans. The crème fraiche circle was more difficult to nail down than expected.

The final savory dish was a Shaved Fennel and Orange Salad with Pistachio Crusted Cheese Medallions.

By the end of class, we were supposed to look at all of the plates and forget which one was ours because they were all identical. Overall, I think we did alright for our first go.

Day two was sweet plating. We still spent the first couple of hours preparing the dessert recipes, then Chef Olivia showed us her favorite plating techniques and gave us freedom to play around with our style. So, by the end of class, we had quite the variety of creative dessert plates.

First up, Flourless Chocolate Cake garnished with melted bittersweet chocolate, matcha powder, cacao nibs, mint leaves, and edible flowers.

Then a Fruit Tart with Almond Pastry Cream in an Almond-Oat Crust.

Chef Olivia showed us how you can use freeze-dried fruit and a fine mesh strainer to essentially grate it into a powder to dust the plate.

Last was a Golden Turmeric Panna Cotta with Ginger Pecan Lace Cookies and Blackberry Coulis (pureed fruit sauce).

That splatter effect was the best thing I learned all day. To create that splatter, you squeeze a small amount of sauce on the plate, then use the back of a spoon to quickly tap down on the sauce and splatter. (There’s a fun video of this on the @prepcreative Instagram Stories in the highlights.)

The Ginger-Pecan Lace Cookies were delicious and made with no refined sugar or butter. The secret ingredient was a hint of black pepper that made them pair so well with the Turmeric Panna Cotta.

I had some major issues with getting the Panna Cotta out of it’s mold in one piece, so I improvised and turned it into a dessert taco instead.

And for my flourless chocolate cake, all I could see was the center of a sunflower, so I went with it. Not quite haute cuisine, but it’s p cute :)

Alrighty, I’ll be back next week to talk fish and fermentation!

Happy cooking!

J