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Can you explain what happened?

seijoed

I was a little bit busy doing a 10 top serving and I didn't notice this until it hit the plates.

With the acidity and the butter I completely broke the watercress puree.

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Jack_Mayer_85396

a chamber sealer is next on my list, just have to decide on which one ... within the next week or so!

Jack_Mayer_85396

Wow, thanks guys! I assumed that the drop cloth was just a way to blot away excess moisture, but its nice to have it confirmed. I started cooking in college, it was a great way to get (well, let's just say "a date"), and my mom also said "you eat with your eyes and nose first." Best wishes!

seijoed

@tjsnell - She is like Connee, she got so tired of me agonizing over the VacMaster that she just ordered it and told me to shut up

tjs

I'm now on a quest to catch up with you @seijoed! Wife just OK'd a Polyscience Creative (birthday in 2 weeks and I asked her to get me one and she just said go buy it). Of course now I'll want a vacmaster.

seijoed

I am kinda one of those where my dad and I decided when I was around 16 that becoming an electronics engineer probably was a better idea than culinary school in Sweden. That said I've always been passionate around food and many of my parents friends worked int he industry.

I've worked steak house lines, bars and nightclubs - mostly slinging beer and picking up dishes, I never ran a line but a few years ago I started getting really interested in texturally modified components, abstract plating where you tell a story. That led to me going back to take segments of culinary school and I decided to cook my way through most of the Professional Chef. Then @tjsnell and I (we've worked together) got to looking at sous-vide and smoking, curing and so on, I grabbed a copy of Under Pressure and started actively looking at plating, how to plate, how to improve. If I look at things that I did 2 years ago it looks rather ridiculous, now I've gone as far as trying to use pen and paper, see what "story" I want to tell, why I'm doing it, what message I'm sending to the diner and so on. (Not that I always succeed.)

My wife used to giggle a little when I started, it is an obsessive behavior, now she actively comments on any plating she see's - plating as such since it is a fairly young concept also interests me - I think it shows love, care, thought and methodology.

Mason_Perry_34060

I learned to blot or dry pat everything right before plating from a friend who is a classicaly french trained chef. He sold me on it by plating the identical meals and not drying anything on one plate, it didn't look bad until you saw it sitting next to a plate that had all of the items dried including the garnish. It's not that I wouldn't eat either plate but they were worlds apart, one looked fresh and elegant and the other looked as if it had been sitting for a while. I haven't served more than 8 people so far so plating hasn't been an issue but what I did was get another paper towel dispenser and put it on2 the counter between my cooking area and plating. I also have a poly cutting board that just serves to hold paper towels, everything has to pass across the paper towels before hitting the plate, takes maybe 5 seconds extra.\

@Seijoed your plating seems very good for no professional cooking experince, when i serve food at work don't even bother to plate since no one cares, but I really try to make stuff look nice at home, it makes me happier when I start eating.

seijoed

In the picture above, I was rushing those scallops directly from the pan, if I had taken 10 seconds to use a small cutting board, some paper - that never would have happened, i'd also would have been able to season on the board, clean the pan, clean the board as soon as the plates were out.

seijoed

I think technically a drop cloth is a thicker sturdier / canvas, it could be as simple as a paper towel, I think what Trevor was saying was, make sure everything is at least patted clean, put on a transfer sheet/tray for plating, especially if you do many plates.

So taters are all clean on the bottom, meats are rested and blotted.

That way nothing will just start releasing liquid, swim on the plate, look really greasy or un-appetizing, you also get everything organized on size, order, can plate very quickly since all the components are ready to go instead of running between the stove and plating with hot pans, spilling stuff and so on.

Jack_Mayer_85396

silly question, what is a "drop cloth"

seijoed

Duly noted, I'm missing a lot of the professional touches as a homecook

trev_teich

Seijoed at the restaurant we always use a drop cloth on really everything. Even herbs. It's a good habit to get into and forces people to be more organized.

seijoed

Cool!

Nevertheless it was tasty

Chris_Young_80640

Doesn't look like the emulsion split to me. I agree that this was scallop juice floating over the sauce and pooling around the edges.

seijoed

dpietranczyk thinking about it, no I was rushed. Guests were late and we had to keep things around. It is probably moisture and DUH!!! I completely missed the abductor

dpietranczyk_49940

Did you blot the scallops on a c-fold before plating them? Are you sure it was broken or could it be moisture from the scallops bleeding into the puree. Also, slightly unrelated.. You should remove the abductor muscle from the scallop before cooking. You can see them. Just underneath the radish on the left scallop-4o'clock and at 6 o'clock on the right scallop. They are very chewy. They peel off very easily.

seijoed

It was room temp

Brendan_Lee_56950

What temp was the puree when you added the scallops?

seijoed

No, this was looking fine until the scallops hit, it had been in the fridge for 24h.

michaelnatkin

Did you have any trouble dispersing the xanthan gum?