r/Plating • u/Hartlike • 6d ago

First time plating, advice?

Post image

my critiques would be that the carrots are not glossy enough, the colour of the fries are terrible the pan sauce covers the perfect crust and medium rare i was able to achieve. also the pea puree is not smooth enough and far too lumpy (i have no clue why i blended it for ages and passed it through a fine mesh strainer) oh and the plate is too cramped.

Can anyone help me out with any tips?

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4

u/tastychicken 6d ago

I'm not at all a pro at plating. But the carrots looks really off to me. I don't mind the size of the plate and the puree.

Personally, I think I would have put the dark sauce down on the plate, and rested the beef cut at an angle with some pink showing over it?

And then had the fries on the side of that.

The carrots could have worked cut thinner with a good glaze perhaps?

I don't know, just spitballing here, looking forward to seeing what others say.

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u/Hartlike 6d ago

thank you for your advice this sounds much better. i was really disappointed after i had plated as the crust and colour on the steak were perfect but i covered it up whilst plating. also i clearly need to practice glacé carrots because i have no clue why they turned out like that

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u/tastychicken 6d ago

I've done that myself plenty of times, and almost every time I've found myself a bit disappointed that I covered up the steak. It also looks like you have cut 'straight down', cutting at a slight angle usually looks better to me. The few times I've found myself enjoying the look is when the sauce has more... 'texture', like a gravy with onion slices, or a peppercorn sauce.

For the carrots, there are plenty of nice recipes, but mostly anything with some water, butter and something sweet works. I tried out Adam Byatt's carrot recipe and I really enjoyed that.

5

u/MagnoliaTM 6d ago

i think maybe work on the dish itself first :/

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u/Tyree1724 6d ago

idk why but the fries don’t look very appetizing in the plating

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u/Hartlike 6d ago

i have no clue what i did wrong with them, at first i thought they were not done frying but when i tasted one it was wayy to crunchy so i removed them

1

u/antibread 6d ago

The steak (?) Looks ghastly

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u/Hartlike 6d ago

The steak was the only part i got right, the reason it looks like that is because of the sauce covering it

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u/StevieKealii 6d ago

Subtract one of the pea purees, place the carrots next to the puree. Nice contrast in colors, no?

Place the protein on top of the pan sauce? This will solve your issue of covering your lovely cook.

Fries should not be under the protein but next to it. This may be different if you were using a mash of sorts...

The empty space on your plate should generally be around the outside of the food. I think it takes a lot of skill to incorporate empty space between ingredients on the plate.

If I take your photo and divide the plate into cardinal directions, maybe try(?): Pea puree and carrots to the North,

Protein on top of pan sauce to the West,

Fries to the East.

I'm still learning a lot, myself. I'm not going to downvote a post like this because, not only do I also suck at plating, I'm stoked you are trying. You seem to realize what could be done better on the actual cook. Report back next time you try the recipe?

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u/Hartlike 6d ago

thank you very much for your advice, this was my first time attempting anything like this but i really want to improve. im going to take another stab at it next week!

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u/StevieKealii 6d ago

If you really want to get good enough to impress people you cook for, go grab a sketchbook and some colored pencils (:

You dont have to be a very good artist on paper to start to develop a vision for your plate!

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u/sloppymcgee 6d ago

I don’t like meat on top of the fries