How to Plate Food With Sauce Designs
- 1). Clock your food before adding sauce. "Clocking" means arranging your items -- starch, meat and vegetable -- in accordance with clock designations. Situate the starch -- potatoes or rice, for example -- at the ten o'clock location and the meat at the two o'clock location. Complete the "clocking" process by putting the vegetable at the six o'clock position. The picture should resemble a make-shift smiley face -- two eyes and a mouth.
- 2). Tip your meat up off of the plate. Add a spoonful of complimentary sauce and place the meat back down on top. Making sauce a bed for the meat keeps its outer layer crisp and prevents oversaturation. Add the bed of sauce for your meat prior to clocking the food if you desire.
- 3). Add drizzles of sauce on the open face areas of the plate using a squeeze bottle. Use a spoon to drip drops of sauce on the outer plate rim. Keep all sauce designs balanced. Avoid overwhelming the plate with sauce. Remember, the sauce is a garnish, not a side dish.
- 4). Use sauces that compliment the color and flavor of the main dish. A gravy may suit a finely cooked pork chop, for instance; while several drops of a burgundy, berry sauce adds a bold visual compliment to a breast of broiled chicken.