Fun Ideas to Make Your Food more Attractive

Planning to cook for your family or friends at your house for a casual get-together? Or wondering where it started to go wrong when your guests didn’t seem extremely happy?

The amount of mistakes I’ve made in the past is crazy and, I thought it’d be nice to share the internal guidelines I have accumulated over the years!

I have put together in this post the essential mental skills that chefs achieve during their careers so you can use them in your cooking.

If you’re wanting to brush up on your creativity in cooking or just curious about what chefs are all about, this article is for you.

Here are the five main points.

・Know the preferences of your guests

Here is the list of things to consider regarding the preferences of your guest.

・Allergies

Not just their actual allergies but also their religious backgrounds, consciousness in health, care of sustainability is a big thing.

Things you never care about might be extremely crucial to others.

In Montreal, where I live, most restaurants use recyclable paper packagings for take-outs because people often complain about plastic ones being not environment-friendly.

Know your guest and be thoughtful!

・Texture

The texture is what you first detect when food goes into your mouth. Crispy, tender, crunchy, mushy, springy, silky, dense, airy, chewy, snappy, slimy, smooth etc.

In most cases, textures are controllable by tweaking the cooking time, temperature and hydration ratio.

The best bet is to include a little bit of everything.

・Saltiness

How much salt should I apply to a piece of meat for grilling?

How much salt does a soup need?

In general, we humans tend to like somewhere around one percent salt content in our meals. It all depends on the styles and regions but having ‘one percent’ as your home position is a great place to start!

For example, a pound of steak would require at least five grams of salt. My ramen soups vary between 0.8% to 1.3% depending on the thickness and the fattiness.

Weigh the food product and calculate the amount of salt you need! To accurately gauge the salt content, you will need an electronic salt meter.

・Likings

People like what they like.

It may sound silly but knowing your guests’ favourites is the key. If you don’t know what they like, kindly ask!

Being familiar with their likings will work as a guideline to decide how you want to treat them.

・Use local/seasonal vegetables

Using local seasonal vegetables is very beneficial for many good reasons.

Locally grown vegetables usually taste better and have more nutrients since they spend less time travelling after the harvest.

They are also more likely to have a lower degree of post-harvest pesticides applied for the same reason.

Most local farmers are happy to tell you the story about their produce. Where and how it’s grown, what to do with it, end of season etc.

The more you know about them and their products, the more they will recognize you. Having a good connection with the farmers is a great way to keep your cooking standards high!

・Don’t spend too much time

One of the biggest issues you could encounter when cooking is running short of time.

I have made countless mistakes being underprepared, missing items and food not being served on time.

To avoid these issues, always start by writing a list of things you need, when and what to do.

Simulate the operation in advance, looking at the list you had just made. Is this item necessary? Are the guests going to appreciate this extra step as much as you’d expect?

Keep it as simple as possible and always save some extra room for spending time to chat with your guests.

Bear in mind, at least ninety percent of the appreciation comes from the fact alone that you have prepared the meal for them!

・Organize your fridge

Keeping your fridge tight and clean means:

• well lit
• everything is covered
• products transferred from the original packaging
• nothing is rotten
• nothing is sticky
• smells fresh
• below 70% of the storage space is used
• Shiny handles
• items labelled with dates
• you know where everything is
• not having two or more opened bottles of ketchup

Passed?

・Use it all up!

Dealing with the leftover food products also requires a bit of planning.

When I first started cooking, I had no clue what to do with all the vegetable scraps. Any extra protein used to go to the freezer and not get used for the next six months till it freezer burns. End up being tossed.

Making staff meals was a big headache for me. People complaining about the taste being too bland, meat and vegetables cut too large, taking too much time etc.

Now that I’m used to it, I am able to make staff meals anytime in no time and clear the leftovers simultaneously. I have achieved the skill over time and experience, but going through the following points should make you skip many of the failures I had done in the past.

Below is the essence of fridge keeping for a waste-free kitchen.

To minimize the waste of food and time, you will need to:

• purchase the right amount of food
• turn the scraps into a broth or hotpot
• always have dried pasta in your dry storage
• know the importance of cooling down the cooked products for longer shelf life
• have a list of your freezer inventory

It is crazy how a piece of memo sheet can solve so many problems.

To repeat the main points,

See you in the next post, happy cooking!