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SCS 16| Composed Salads


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In this episode, we bring our salad series full circle and talk about how to create a composed salad using proper flavor structure and contrasting components. In the culinary quick tip, how to candy nuts!

 

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5 comments

December 1, 2011 - 2:39pm
#2
kc0kdh
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Ok, here's my homework.  Composed salad with pan roasted Siracha Chicken breast, served over red leaf lettus and spinach with orange supremes, gala apples, and diced jicama to balance the heat of the Siracha sauce, fried rice noodles and toasted almonds for texture, and topped with chiffonade fresh mint.  The salad is dressed with a rice wine cranberry vinaigrette. 

My personal critiques: I think my orange supremes need some work (it's not as easy as Chef Jacob makes it look <grin>), and I'm still trying to decide if I'm trying to do too much on one plate. 

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December 1, 2011 - 10:45pm
#3
Jacob Burton
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Nice salad, the flavor components sound like they work really well together. The plate is a little busy presentation wise; you can correct this by incorporating more of the ingredients into your salad underneath the chicken, and then use one or two components for a visual garnish; such as the almonds and orange supremes. Having a larger plate will help as well; think of the empty space around the rim like a large picture frame that dramatically draws your eye into the painting.

Also, it looks like your fried rice noodles didn't really puff up too much which could give them a harder texture. This is caused by your oil being too cold. I have found that rice noodles won't really puff properly unless they are fried in oil that is 400ºF.

100 Stella Stars, nice job!
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December 2, 2011 - 7:35am
#4
kc0kdh
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Thanks much for the feedback and the points.  Presentation and plate composition is probably the area where I feel the most lost.  I just don't understand how to compose a plate that's visually striking.  Your tips here will help, but I would love it if you could do a video on presentation sometime to explain the basic do's and don'ts of plate composition, including sauce presentation techniques such as the smears, circles, etc.  I'm having a devil of a time figuring out presentation.
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December 2, 2011 - 11:54am
#5
Jacob Burton
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I do plan on doing a presentation series a little further on down the road. Got to push out the Bread Series, some more sauces and a few audio lectures first though.
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December 2, 2011 - 12:20pm
#6
kc0kdh
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Perfect!
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