Tips for Plating Cold Dishes

Methods and skills for making cold dish platter

Methods and techniques for making a cold dish platter

[] 2. Methods of plating cold dishes: There are roughly six different forms and methods of plating, including arranging, piling, overlapping, surrounding, displaying, and repeating, all of which are closely related to the processing and shaping of the raw materials (strips, slices, blocks, sections, etc.). Therefore, the presentation of cold dishes depends on the coordination of knife skills.

1. Arrangement: Arranging the clinker in flat rows on a plate is called arrangement. The ingredients for the dishes are mostly in the form of single plates, platters, and colorful cold dishes. Use thicker squares or waist-round blocks (oval), and arrange them in various ways: for example, the "thighs" should be shaped like a zigzag, and stacked layer by layer to create a variety of patterns and colors. For fried shrimp or salt water shrimp, peel off the shell on the head and put two pieces together, one upside down and the other upside down, to form an oval.

2. Pile: Pile means to pile the cooked ingredients in a basin, usually used in a single basin, such as braised liver, braised beef, barbecued pork, fried shrimps, etc. in meat dishes, and mixed dried shreds, braised gluten, mixed double winter in vegetarian dishes. When stacking, you can also match colors and form patterns. Some can even be stacked into beautiful pagoda shapes.

3. Stacking: Stacking is to stack the processed clinker neatly piece by piece, generally forming a trapezoid. The stacking needs to be combined with knife skills. Stack as you cut, cut one piece and stack it up. After stacking, shovel it on the knife surface and then cover it in a basin that has been covered with another kind of clinker as the bottom. Dishes such as ham slices, boiled pork slices, pig tongue, beef, lamb, salted pork, braised kidney, Ruyi egg rolls, vegetarian ham, etc. all use this plating method.

4. Pour: Arrange the cut clinker into a ring) layer by layer, which is called surrounding. By using the plating method, cold dishes can be made into many different styles. Some people put a layer of auxiliary material around the main material to set off the main material, which is called edging. Some people shape the main ingredients into a flower and use another auxiliary ingredient to decorate the middle to form the flower center, which is called Pai Wei. For example, if you cut the preserved eggs into corrugated shapes or shape them into a flower, and put some ham or meat floss in the center as the flower center, the shape will be more beautiful.

5. Arrangement: It is to use a variety of knife techniques and adopt cooked materials of different shapes and colors. Arranging things into various shapes or patterns, such as phoenix, peacock, rooster, etc., is called "bai". This method requires skilled techniques to make the images lively and lifelike.

6. Overturn: Arranging the cooked ingredients in a bowl or on a knife blade first, and then turning them over on a plate or dish is called overturning. For example, in cold dishes, such as oil chicken and braised duck, after being chopped into pieces, first place them face down in a bowl, add the marinade, and then turn them over on a plate when eating.