Unfortunately, the overall beauty of a food presentation most often relies on the specific beauty of each of its elements. No need to add anything. In other words, if you want to plate a chicken breast, some mashed potatoes and a few sauteed vegetables, you’d better FIRST pay attention to how the chicken breast, the mashed potatoes and the sauteed vegetables look individually, BEFORE you even pay attention to the overall presentation.

We have already talked about the importance of blanching vegetables for color. Today, I wanted to focus on what may be the best way to enhance the look of meat: the Maillard reaction.
I know, for those who don’t know, the Maillard reaction sounds like a new movie with Tom Hanks in it. It’s not. The Maillard reaction, in a nutshell, is the chemical reaction happening when you sear or grill a piece of meat; The brown crust that smells and tastes so good. I already wrote about it so I invite you to take a look at the post I wrote a few months ago.

I don’t really know what the exact scientific explanation of it is, but I know that when we humans come close to a rib eye steak grilling, or a rotisserie chicken roasting or bacon being sauteed to a crisp, we just go crazy. We just do. And the thought of it right now just makes me want to stop writing and start cooking.

The Maillard reaction looks good too. Look at the photo below and tell me if that is not a niiiiiiiice roasted turkey!
So my point here is that if you succeed in obtaining a beautiful crust on your protein element, you have a beautiful chance of getting a niiiiiiiice presentation. Nice crusts don’t happen randomly. There are really 2 ways of making them happen. Both are called “searing”. You can sear meat (usually smaller items like a steak or a chicken breast) in a saute’ pan (or alternatively on a grill) and you can sear meat (larger pieces like a whole chicken or a veal roast) in an oven.

For the former, you need to heat up your pan to a moderately high heat, add just enough oil and/or butter (butter is better for taste and color but burns faster) to coat the pan. Add the piece of meat in the hot pan (make sure you hear the characteristic sound “pssshhhhh”) and keep it still to give it a chance to brown. Work on the crust on the other side too.

For the latter, the crust is made by pre-heating an oven at about 425F, brushing the piece of meat with oil or butter, and putting it in the oven. We usually wait a third of the total cooking time has passed and the crust has formed, before turning down the oven to a less violent temperature. This is called, of course, roasting.

Searing a chicken breast, if you pay attention to the steps I described above, is easy. But making a nice crust (niiiiiiiice crust) is a little trickier. You’ll need a little more practice and experience. But see the results:

This picture has been (accidentally. I promise) seared too long. Over-maillarded, if you will.

Now, in the following picture, a properly seared chicken breast, and it’s easy to see that a nice Maillard reaction greatly improves the look of proteins. And actually, still taking a look at the picture below, it feels like not only the presentation of the chicken is improved, but also the overall presentation of the plate. Even the vegetables look fresher and more vibrant.

This post is about the technique of cooking vegetables so they keep their natural, vibrant colors. 

In culinary arts, the importance of color is easy to grasp. One must see a black & white photo of a dish and compare it with a nicely colored one to realize that color is essential to bring unity. And unity is what we’re shooting for.

The complexity of color

When I first got seriously interested in color for culinary purposes, I realized that the physics of color is extremely complex and far beyond the scope of this little tiny blog of mine. I’m no dummy, but I’m not a theoritical physicist either. I’m just a chef trying to understand how using color helps me and others plate my food. Check out the Wikipedia page about color; if you can understand it, you live in Florida, you work for Nasa, and they send you in orbit once in a while.  

The way we perceive colors is complex. We see colors because the human brain perceives through the eye different stimulations from the spectrum of light associated with objects. Our eyes can distinguish millions of different colors. For that reason and others, composing a colorful culinary display is a challenge.
To make things even more complicated, color composition is utterly contextual. A physical color not only is subject to physical and psychological perception, but our perception is also influenced by environment and how colors interact with each other. In other words, a color does not have very much impact on its own, but at the contrary needs others to reinforce itself. For instance, the color of a carrot in your veggie plate may look more or less orange depending on where it sits next to. This point, of course, represent the greatest challenge for a chef dealing with attractive color composition.

I’ll stop right there; I already lost enough readers between the beginning of this post and this sentence. In reality, it’s a little less abstract.

Why is color so important to the food we eat anyway?

The dominance of color

In the wild, for instance, herbivorous primates select appropriate leaves by their color, because it is the best way to collect information about the environment. As humans, we are programmed to look at food items and their colors to determine what is edible, ripe or spoiled. Today, we are still very receptive to the color of our foods, and we remain sensitive to those closely connected to nature. Blue food, for instance, is naturally rare, so we do not respond to it as much as other colors. As a result, the color blue is considered an appetite suppressant. On the other hand, bright green, red or yellow colored vegetables, extremely abundant in nature, are colors that we easily recognize and therefore are naturally attracted to.

Some scientific studies have shown that color actually influences taste on diners. Research volunteers in one study could for instance taste imaginary differences between two identical food products, one of which had previously been darkened with food coloring and thus had a different color. The same volunteers also tasted no difference between identically-colored food items, even when one of these was sweetened enough to alter its taste. In other words, the color of food dominates its taste. This is why brightly colored foods seem to taste better than plain foods. (via Erick Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation)

Diners expect carrots to look bright orange, spinach bright green and salmon a deep pink/orange. Therefore, the techniques used to prepare or cook ingredients must take into consideration the intention for the finished product. Respecting colors means respecting cooking techniques. 

Which brings me to my next point: Let’s concentrate, for instance, on what is arguably the best way to bring sparkling colors to your plate: Blanching vegetables.

From Wikipedia again:
“Blanching is a cooking term that describes a process of food preparation wherein the food substance, usually a vegetable or fruit, is plunged into boiling water, removed after a brief, timed interval, and finally plunged into iced water or placed under cold running water (shocked) to halt the cooking process.”

Blanching somehow saturates the natural, vibrant colors of vegetables. That way, you can convey a sense of freshness, seasonality and joviality to the plate. There are two very important points. First, you need to plunge vegetables in BOILING water. And second, you need to shock them in an ICE BATH. Cold; then hot. It’s that thermal shock that fixes the pigments in the vegetable. Green vegetables (chlorophylle) look greener. Orange or red vegetables (carotene) look more vibrant too.

I will add the following comment, though: For the purpose of blanching vegetables to enhance their color, “steaming” is actually good too, and I’d say even better than using boiling water. There is no lost of flavor/color in the water.

The timing for blanching vegetables is important. In restaurants, we often use the term “flash-steaming”. Because really, most vegetables benefit from being just in and out the steamer (or the boiling water) in no time. Beginners often are afraid of undercooking vegetables. But really, we can eat our veggies raw and they don’t taste that bad: carrots, radishes, peas, asparagus, peppers, all can be eaten raw. So beginners, please take the risk of undercooking your veggies.

 Disrespecting the classic technique of blanching or steaming, for instance by falling short of using an ice bath, may turn green vegetables brown, resulting in a less appetizing result.

For instance, you will see on the left the difference between a set of vegetables (above) that have NOT been shocked in ice water, and a second set of vegetables (below) that have been. I know that at first, the difference is minimal. But you will notice that the radishes on the top, for instance, have a duller color than the more vibrant set at the bottom. Same with the asparagus and, less noticeably, the carrots.   

Quick advices when using color for culinary presentation:

• Always choose the freshest ingredients.
• Keep the finished result in mind.
• Choose cooking techniques that will enhance color, not dilute them.
• Take the time to sear meats, fish or vegetables in order to make a nice crust (see my post on the Maillard reaction).
• Avoid dullness.
• Increase color saturation by cooking with the appropriate techniques.
• Small, high contrast elements have as much impact as larger, duller elements.
• Large, white plates usually provide a high contrast to plated foods.
• Think in terms of color palette.
• Playing on the unusual color of ingredients creates a focal point. For instance, using green tomatoes, or yellow raspberries or blood orange brings creativity to the plate.

Examples of commonly-used colors:

• The orange of saffron rice
• The sparkling white of steamed halibut
• The bright green of edamame beans.
• The dark purple of balsamic reduction.
• The saturated red of confite tomatoes.
• The deep maroon of chocolate.

I won’t even start with the notion of contrast; this will be the topic of another post. But as a general rule, chefs will want to increase the contrast in their composition, in order to enhance appearance with vivid, saturated and colorful presentations, and contrast those colors with their support (plate, platter), as I have already explained in an earlier post.

Common visually-appealing, high-contrast combinations include:

• Brown and white:
  Chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream
  Chestnut and turnip
• Red and white:
  Tomato and mozzarella salad
  Nigiri sushi (raw tuna atop oval-shaped rice)
• Orange
  Fried, sunny side up egg
• Green and white:
  Sea bass and spinach
• White and blue:
  Panna cotta and blueberries
• White and black:
  Rice and beans
• Cream and brown:
  Flan (custard and caramel)

What is this blog about? Read the first post here.

Now, as much as I like Chef Colicchio, I really take issue with his disappointing (from a nutritional, ethical and conviviality standpoint) “Eat tastefully campaign” in association with Diet Coke, the American Diabetic Association and the CIA (not the spies, the chefs!).

You can read the press release here: Eat Tastefully Campaign: Diet Coke, Renowned Chef, Pop-Up Kitchen Reveal Secrets to Great Taste, Living Well

Chef Colicchio touts the merits of a soda because “it’s not overly complicated”. I’m not a physician or a nutritionist but talking about enjoying uncomplicated things, I’ve long known that our body only needs one, count them, one beverage: water.

Sure, milk is part of a healthy diet, and so is, in moderation and for many different reasons, wine, especially red wine.

But soda?.. Why would soda be part of a healthy diet? Something you pour on your corroded battery so you can start your car? Really?.. Come on, Chef Colicchio can’t really be serious. A soda is a soda. You don’t fight childhood, teenage and adult obesity, diabetes and poor nutrition habits with more of the same. Drinking “Diet” soda is a very easy, uneffective way out of a bigger problem: changing our nutrition habits once and for all.
The fact that Diet Coke has no calorie and no sugar is totally irrelevant. The (bad) habit of drinking a soda with your meal is a tough habit to break. Regularly drinking soda with your meal can’t be a good thing, no matter what Chef thinks. And actually, I don’t find him very convincing when he struggles to explain the gourmet meal/Diet Coke pairing at 1:30. Citrus bite to it? Caramel flavors?..

This is not the first time I scorn at celebrity chefs teaming up with junk food corporations. A few months ago, I commented on Top Chef’s Padma Lakshmi’s commercial for Carl Jr’s.

Now, I know, I know, all this sounds very hypocritical. I’m a chef who follows a healthy, natural way of eating and cooking. But if only I could get rid of some of the junk food publicity on my blog, that would be a good thing too!

What do YOU think? Post a comment below and take the poll.

Well, look no further, you have come to the right place.

For your reading pleasure, I am posting excerpts of my favorite cookbook. It is appropriately named: “how to cook a turkey!” and it is written by my 5-year old son’s pre-K class.

Now, all recipes on this cookbook may not be perfectly suitable for what you want to do. But they are, however, all worth a look.

So here are the kids’ recipes on how to cook a turkey.

Julian writes:
“Ingredients: hot sauce, rice and broccoli”
“Directions: Bake at 16 degrees for 6 hours”.

Brook has a different idea. Not quite in terms of how to cook that turkey, but she’s being creative in her list of ingredients:
“Ingredients: sprinkles, seasoning and hot sauce”
“Directions: Bake at 1 degree for 2 hours”.

Rachel favors “popsicles and candy” and doesn’t hesitate to add that to the list of ingredients. For Xavier, it’s “marshmallows” that needs to be added, or the turkey wouldn’t be good enough. He has a point.

Elena is more radical in her cooking style:
“Ingredients: salt, rice”.
“Directions: Bake at 1000 degrees for 4 hours”.
Probably for a nice, golden, crispy outer skin.

More subtle (from Ray):
“Ingredients: turkey, chicken”
“Directions: Bake at 1 degree for 1 minute”.

And my personal favorite, courtesy of chef Andrew:
“Ingredients: turkey, eggs, milk, food coloring and chef’s clothes”
“Directions: Open turkey, put food coloring in it, add eggs then put on chef’s clothes. Put into oven on warm for 2 minutes.”

Now, when I say “family cooking in Ann Arbor, MI”, I really mean it. Remember the very detailed and fun post by Lynne of Lithia?.. Well, this is from her brother Horace that we get the following culinary experience.

This is what the Itinerant Cookbook Project is all about. Plus, it looks like they are sending the cookbook to the other side of the planet. Read on…

“We received our cookbook from my sister Lynne in Lithia, Florida just in time for our daughter who was home from graduate school for a week to participate in making some recipes from Barbara Fairchild’s The Bon Appetit Cookbook: Fast Easy Fresh.

We had a great time gathering the recipe ingredients, setting them up for pictures, cooking, plating, taking more pictures and ultimately enjoying the end results.

The recipes that we selected were: Chilled zucchini-mint soup (page 91), Sweet and spicy chipotle-glazed ribs (page 412), and Skillet corn on the cob with Parmesan and cilantro (page 469). It was a perfect time of the year for these recipes as we could obtain many of the ingredients fresh from our local farmer’s market.

These three delicious recipes were fun and easy to prepare. We did modify the ribs recipe by par-boiling the ribs before finishing in the oven just to speed up the preparation time.

We also found that it was difficult to get the parmesan cheese to stick to the corn in the skillet. Otherwise everything was great.

Hope to send our cookbook on to friends in Australia soon.”

Horace, Francine, and Laura
Ann Arbor, Michigan

Thank you so much Horace for such a great post and photos. Let us know if you can get this cookbook to Australia. Special prize for you if you do!

What is this blog about? Read the first post here.

You can check out and buy all itinerant cookbooks by clicking here.

Where are the Itinerant Cookbooks now?

View Itinerant Cookbook Project in a larger map

Here are the Itinerant Cookbooks:

Started in Tampa, FL with Margaret. Was in Tampa, FL with Noel, in Mt Elgin, Ontario with Rosemary. Now in York, Ontario, with Janice.

Started in Brandon, FL with Dave. Now in Brandon, FL with Dave.

Started in Nice, France with Marc-Antoine. Was in Bar-sur-loup with Faye. Now in Exeter, UK with Judie.

Started in St Petersburg, FL with Janet. Now in St Petersburg, FL with Janet.

Started in Dunedin, FL with Janis. Traveled to Chicago. Now in San Francisco, CA with Liz.

Started in Gainesville, FL with Esther. Traveled to Amsterdam, Netherlands. Now in Tokyo, Japan with Martin.

Started in Plant City with Lynne. Traveled to Ann Arbor, MI with Horace.

Started in Largo, FL with Marty. Was in Madeira Beach, FL with Carol. Now with Sharon in Brandon, Mississipi.

Started in Brandon, FL with Debbie. Now in Tampa, FL with Jeff.

Started in Dunedin with Bob. Traveled to Chicago with Bob. Now in NY with Dan.

Thank you to our book sponsor, Wiley. Please check their website here.

We now have cookbooks in Japan, England, France, Canada, California, Florida, Missisipi and New York.

But, I have to say, the path The Bon Appetit Cookbook is following is quite particular.

The Bon Appetit Cookbook first was sent to France but came back with an undeliverable address. So I gave it to Lynne of Lithia, FL. Lynne really took the project seriously and is sending us this amazing description of her experience cooking, before sending the cookbook to her brother in Ann Arbor, MI.

Check this out:

“You kindly sent me The Bon Appetit Cookbook Fast Easy Fresh Cookbook (Barbara Fairchild, c. 2008) from which to choose our adventure for your project.

My husband, Kevin, flipped through the pages and picked out the Grilled steak and bell pepper sandwiches with chimichurri sauce on page 166. I wanted to pick a recipe as well, so I chose the Kiwi-lime sorbet on page 566. A bit later, due to the mishap with the kiwi-lime sorbet, I prepared the Chocolate-orange sorbet on page 567.

The highlight of the sandwiches was the chimichurri sauce, which was a snap to prepare with the aid of our trusty food processor. Kevin grilled the steak and pepper strips to perfection, and we proceeded to put the sandwiches together. I plated the first two and we munched away happily, oohing and ahhing and saying this DEFINITELY is a make-again recipe!! I thought if funny as that was not a recipe I would have chosen to make on my own! The sandwich was pretty with its red, yellow and green colors. Adding ¼ cup of sauce to each sandwich sounded excessive, but we wanted to follow the recipe exactly the first time. Ms. Fairchild knows what she’s talking about; ¼ cup was spot-on. The sauce soaked into the bread a bit and was just the right combination of moist and chewy along with the steak and peppers. Fabulous! Kevin loved it so much he went back for a second sandwich. I let him make his own this time – see the photo labeled “Messy”!!

messy sandwich

Lynn has fun in the kitchen

I scooped them out and proceeded on as instructed. The puree in the food processor was gorgeous – that lovely kiwi green – but seemed a little lumpy for me. So, thinking I had the most ingenious idea ever, I poured the luscious mixture into my Vitamix!

I would ordinarily tell you that this is my #1 favorite kitchen appliance (Vitamix) and you MUST have one. However, kiwi-lime puree and the Vitamix

kiwi lime sorbet

are not the best of friends. My beautiful, bright puree turned this horrid shade of green….I will not tell you what Kevin called it! It tasted fine however, so I proceeded on with the instructions. It did turn into a refreshing sorbet that was just the right finish to our rather heavy supper! I will make this again, but skip the Vitamix involvement!

 

Unhappy with the results of my dessert recipe testing, I decided for one more try. The Chocolate-orange sorbet recipe had been calling my name for days.

I’m not a chocolate lover at all, so I was puzzled by my attraction to this one. The mixture came together very easily and went right into the ice cream machine as planned. Uh-oh. I am destined to be a failure at sorbet making, it seems! This one would not firm up in the ice cream maker for anything! I keep the barrel of the maker in the freezer all the time, so I knew that was ok. Maybe my mixture was not cold enough. I don’t know – but it sure tasted good! I called Kevin in to check it, and you’ll see his solution – he took no time at all to grab a straw and have his dessert!

Kevin checks the recipe out.

After his taste test, he poured the mixture into ice cube trays and we let it have an overnight freeze. The resulting sorbet cubes were amazing! I actually think I may make it that way again, serving a cube or two in a shot glass with an orange section. What do you think?

We did sample them as cubes and then put them into the food processor to chop them up a bit. Good both ways! A winner for sure, and will be a permanent addition to my favorite recipe file!

Thank you so much for the opportunity to try out this cookbook and to make some new favorite recipes!!!

I sent the book on to my brother, Horace Bomar, who lives in Ann Arbor, MI. He was anxious to get started while his youngest daughter, Laura, was home on break from grad school. She’s a great cook (well, all of them are, actually!) and was ready to jump in and help out. She and I were testers together for Chef Jaden Hair Cookbook

chocolate orange sorbet cubes

What is this blog about? Read the first post here.

You can check out and buy all itinerant cookbooks by clicking here.

Where are the Itinerant Cookbooks now?

View Itinerant Cookbook Project in a larger map

Here are the Itinerant Cookbooks:

Started in Tampa, FL with Margaret. Was in Tampa, FL with Noel, in Mt Elgin, Ontario with Rosemary. Now in York, Ontario, with Janice.

Started in Brandon, FL with Dave. Now in Brandon, FL with Dave.

Started in Nice, France with Marc-Antoine. Was in Bar-sur-loup with Faye. Now in Exeter, UK with Judie.

Started in St Petersburg, FL with Janet. Now in St Petersburg, FL with Janet.

Started in Dunedin, FL with Janis. Traveled to Chicago. Now in San Francisco, CA with Liz.

Started in Gainesville, FL with Esther. Traveled to Amsterdam, Netherlands. Now in Tokyo, Japan with Martin.

Started in Plant City with Lynne. Traveled to Ann Arbor, MI with Horace.

Started in Largo, FL with Marty. Was in Madeira Beach, FL with Carol. Now with Sharon in Brandon, Mississipi.

Started in Brandon, FL with Debbie. Now in Tampa, FL with Jeff.

Started in Dunedin with Bob. Traveled to Chicago with Bob. Now in NY with Dan.

Thank you to our book sponsor, Wiley. Please check their website here.

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