Su Qingluan's idea is simple - since the overall taste of the dishes cannot be improved in a short time, then at least some thought must be put into the appearance and presentation.
Shopkeeper Liang said doubtfully: "I have traveled all over the country and seen many wealthy and luxurious homes. All the dishes are exquisite and amazingly crafted. However, we have more than ten assistant chefs in 'Hongfu House', and they can't cook ordinary dishes." It’s feasible, but if you want to do those delicate things, I’m afraid…”
Such exquisite dishes can easily take an hour or even three to five days to complete. But it is impossible for Shopkeeper Liang's small "Hongfu Restaurant" to spend that kind of cost to prepare a dish.
After all, not everyone has such superb cooking skills.
What's more, how many people are willing to wait for such a long time for a dish?
Su Qingluan listened to Shopkeeper Liang's worries and said with a smile: "Uncle Liang, where are you thinking? I just asked your chefs in the kitchen to pay attention to the presentation of the dishes."
The kind of food eaten by wealthy people would make half the plate full of food sculptures. It is beautiful, but the cost of time and price is staggering.
She had observed before that, not to mention the dishes facing the lobby on the first floor, and even the private rooms on the second floor, they were more affordable than exquisite.
Fortunately, the dishes at Hung Fu Restaurant are of various types and are really delicious and reasonably priced. Moreover, the chef Xu Yuanwei is good at cooking braised food, which is why the restaurant has been able to stand up.
However, it’s not like no one has complained that the presentation of Hongfu Restaurant is too crude – especially some literati and female diners, many of whom were dissuaded by the “big and simple” presentation.
Su Qingluan explained: "Everyone has a love for beauty. The knowledge of plate presentation does not require complicated techniques, it just requires a little attention - especially in a restaurant like ours."
As the saying goes, the poorer the student, the greater the room for improvement.
Precisely because Hongfu Lou doesn't put much thought into the presentation of the dishes, as long as she gives a little guidance, the guests can feel the "sincerity" of the hotel.
It's just past half hour now, the store has just opened, and there aren't many customers. Therefore, although the kitchen is busy, it is not as busy as the meal rush hour, and it is relatively leisurely.
Su Qingluan looked at the dishes being made and thought that they could use local ingredients. He divided them into categories according to different methods and told them relatively simple techniques for stacking the dishes.
She didn't teach too many techniques, she just paid attention to three aspects -
Color matching, placement of ingredients, and some very simple decorations.
"The easiest thing is color matching!" Su Qingluan picked up the plate of fried chrysanthemum in her hand, "For example, if this kind of vegetarian fried vegetables is served as a piece of green, it will look too monotonous. You can choose other ingredients with obvious color differences to decorate! "
"What is 'color difference'?" Someone asked below.
"The bigger the difference in color from the original ingredients, the better! For example, if this dark green chrysanthemum is decorated with a few light yellow pine nuts, it will be a good finishing touch, but if it is added with the same dark fungus silk, The effect will be greatly reduced!”
As he said that, he sprinkled a few pine nuts and fungus shreds on the same plate of fried chrysanthemum, and let the chefs present see the comparison effect.
After thinking about it, she added: "However, there is a big premise for using ingredients for decoration - you must not destroy the taste of the dish itself, otherwise the gain will outweigh the loss!"
In fact, it's not that these little chefs are really bad-minded, but they don't put "plate presentation" in their plans at all, so they don't put any thought into it.
Su Qingluan just gave an example, and they immediately drew parallels, and soon came up with several such decoration methods.
For example, adding orange wolfberry berries to the plain yam pork rib soup, or adding sesame seeds to cold spinach...
Some chefs were even eager to use these methods on the dishes that were about to be served, but Boss Liang hurriedly stopped them.
"Two days later is the Chinese Valentine's Day. On that day, our Hongfu Restaurant will welcome diners from all over the world with a 'brand new' look!"
"What's more," Su Qingluan continued, "this method is too limited to improve the presentation. There are two simple and easy to learn methods later."
With that said, he walked around and walked to a young chef who was preparing to put batter on the ribs after frying them again and said, "Please lend me this plate of ribs."
Anyway, the little chef was still simmering the mushy sauce. With the other party's permission, Su Qingluan neatly used chopsticks to place the originally messy plate of ribs in a circle on the plate, and placed the extra ones in a second circle. Finally, Place the remaining two pieces on top.
The originally messy ribs immediately turned into a "pagoda", which was not only more beautiful, but also appeared to have more dishes.
After demonstrating once and carrying the plate of ribs around the back kitchen to ensure that everyone present could watch it closely, Su Qingluan returned the plate of ribs to the person who was making the sauce. Little master.
The little chef flipped his wrist, and the ribs were put into the pot with a "crash" sound. Then with a flick of the spoon, the brown sauce instantly covered the whole body of the ribs.
Of course, the ribs that were re-cooked returned to their messy appearance.
"This kind of presentation is very suitable for ingredients of a certain size and shape, such as ribs, spring rolls, stuffed tofu with soy sauce, lotus root..." Su Qingluan gave a few examples, "These are all suitable for such 'layered' stacking. The code plate method is not only beautiful, but also easy to pick up due to its clear layers.”
On the contrary, the dishes are arranged in a messy manner. When it comes to places with a lot of dishes like Hongfu Lou, the dishes are usually piled high. The result is that often because we don't know which piece of food has been extracted, the food on it will be placed unstablely and fall all over the floor and table, which is very inelegant.
The young chefs below nodded one after another and said that this kind of accident had happened before. Not only was the food scattered on the floor, it was a waste, but it even caused burns to the diners and almost led to a lawsuit.
Su Qingluan looked at the discussion around him for a while, and when the sound subsided, he picked up a cucumber and said: "Some dishes are really difficult to plate in the previous two ways - such as mixed vegetables, which are colorful and difficult to find. Ingredients with huge color differences and shapeless texture can be used in the third way."
As she spoke, she cut a third of the cucumber in her hand and said, "Teach me a simple way to decorate the plate first."
So Su Qingluan first cut the one-third and a half cucumber into two parts from the middle, then placed the two semi-circular cucumbers side by side, cut them into thin slices with a few knives, and then placed them on the plate in an arc shape. Circle, a "lace" is formed.
"Any ingredient that can be sliced like this can be decorated like this - it's just that courgettes are cheap, so I use more of them."
After Su Qingluan said that, someone asked below: "That's the 'simple' method just now, what about the 'unsimple' method?"
