Visual Seduction- Thoughts from my Gourmet Creations: (1) Introduction

Cooking and taking pictures of my dishes are among my top leisure passions, though I have not taken any training in either. In reviewing the pictures, I have drawn out some principles of artistic plating although I never started with any. I am creating this series with about 20 posts in total. Each post is dedicated to one principle, with images of my dishes to demonstrate.

I think artistic plating starts with a desire. I strive for both contents and form in many things. In my cooking, I want my dishes to be healthy, tasty, artistic and enticing. Desire naturally leads to keen observation. Being sensitive to every beautiful form and sound around, I am able to draw inspirations from my environment and my other passions, such as the nature, architecture and interior design, travels, dining experiences, artworks at galleries/museums, performances, etc. Their influences creep into my cooking and plating gradually and often imperceptibly.

Just like how a symphony conductor has to understand the music’s theme and rhythm, and each musician’s role and strengths, creating artful plating requires good knowledge of all the elements, from the food (tastes, colors, textures, shapes, nutrition, cultural relevance, etc) to the serving ware, and dining atmosphere. (See picture and explanaition below for an example.) You gain such knowledge through experiments. I use both planning and spontaneity in my experiments. Sometimes I develop a design concept in mind and go search for the specific ingredients at grocery stores. Sometimes I improvise based on what I have at hand or what I see in the stores. Let your inspirations and your own creativity guide you in experiments, gradually ideas will just spring up for beautiful presentation of your dishes.

In sharing this series, I hope to inspire your gourmet creations by leveraging your own specialties and goods at hand.

This is a tuna carpaccio and spinach salad dish I made. Carpaccio often is served in pieces laying flat on plates at restaurants. I wanted to do something different. Knowing the thin fish pieces would be soft and easy to bend, but hard to stay in a strong form, I wrapped them around to sculpt into a rose-like shape. The freshly crushed pepper and kosher salt mixture on the tuna steak surface before I sliced and flattened it now gives a clear definition of the edges of the “budding roses”. With the tuna carpaccio in pink, spinach in green, slow-roasted campari tomatoes with rosemary in red, apricot slices in orange, roasted hazelnuts in brown-white, it is a colorful plate without being crowded. The colors, shapes and layout present simple elegance. With the olive oil-based citrus-flavored salad dressing, every bite gives balanced flavors, refreshing, tender, crisp, sweet, juicy, spicy, aromatic and nutty.

Note: In this series, some pictures of the same dish might appear in multiple posts, due to the multiple principles involved in that dish.