Sauce garnish

I don't know what it's called, but I wish it would go away.

 

Do those various sauce-plating approaches even have names?

Strange, but it never occured to me that they would.

 

it draws attention to the main focus of the dish depending on that the focus of the dish is. in some cases the sauce is purely auxiliary hopefully as in this case. however the plate is round the sauce is a circle creating almost a "bullseye" to the protein it makes sense its simple that why people do it. get as "creative" as you want with plating but i see nothing wrong with this structure

 

It's called... brace yourself... a "spoon push."

BDL

 

I think it looks amateurish and unfinished.

 

ow ow ow....i wasn't braced enough.  I see it with sauces but it makes those potatoes look like someone took a bite out of them.

 

Sounds like a yoga pose.  Or something I used to do with peas as a child.

 

Isn't it a gastrique?

 

"Food Lover's Companion", page 262 "...syrupy reduction of caramelized sugar and vinegar..."

 

Some of you guys are getting confused.  The question was about the potatoes, which were spoon pushed; and  not more liquid sauce, which was drizzled in a circle on the plate.  

The term for the technique used for the liquid sauce is called, in English, drizzling.  In this case, the drizzle was done as a variant of puddling.  Puddling because the sauce is not on the the food, a variant because the sauce does not cover the bottom of the plate and the food is not on the sauce. 

If the sauce was both on the food and the plate, the drizzle would be a stingy nappe.  As far as I know there's the word nappe doesn't translate into English in any other way.

All of these are minimalist ways of saucing and presenting garnish, and only work with very small portions to the extent they work at all.  In my opinion, they're the plating equivalent to "chick flicks," and overly precious.  But nobody asked.  Also, this particular plating fails, mostly because of the relationship of the spinach to the other two things on the plate.  The spinach shouldn't be touching the chicken, nor should it be in the center of the dish. Also, there's the odd geometry which rusandreas already pointed out.  But again, just an unrequested opinion.   

As Pete says, the word, gastrique, has nothing to do with plating. There's no reason to think the sauce is a grastrique.  At first blush it appears to be a jus, gracing a chicken breast.  However, it could be a beige gastrique, as for instance a reduction of stock, cider, cider vinegar, calvados or apple jack, and turbinado sugar.  Sounds good.  Why not?  

BDL

 

The use of gastriques has expanded quite a bit.  Lots of things are served with gastriques. 

Puree of celeriac or puree de patate... whatever.  The spinach is still in the wrong place.  Unless the chef is suggesting they should be eaten in the same bite, they shouldn't be touching.  Nor, should the spinach be given pride of place.  In the same vein, whether intentional or not, the spoon push suggests the diner should dip her bite of chicken into the celeriac puree.

BDL

 

Quite so.

BDL

 

Anybody but me notice that the chicken looks like a face? Probably the only interesting thing about that plate, for reasons that go beyond those BDL expressed (must be his day to be diplomatic /img/vbsmilies/smilies/biggrin.gif)

If I were being frank, I'd have to say whoever plated that dish has been watching too much Iron Chef America, and missed the point. I don't find anything about it either appetizing or visually appealing. Good thing I'm KYH, and not Frank, isn't it? Ol' Frank can be pretty harsh.

Hey, Boar: How come it's called spoon push when the spoon is most often pulled?

I wasn't aware that puddling had to cover the plate. Always though that so long as the sauce extended beyond the boundaries of the item puddling was the word.

I also think it's a long stretch to think of the sauce on that plate as being even a variation of puddling. Oh, wait. Mebbe so. The chicken is just touching the end of the sauce ring, right there where the spinach is soaking it up.

 

I wasn't going to say anything but I sort of thought at first glance it looked like an angry but hesitant PacMan chicken; upset because someone finger-swiped some of his celeriac and hesitant because there was a glob of greens he'd have to eat to get to the perpetrator.

 

Nice plate!

It has no name in french. You'll have to invent something. I suggest "dérapage" in french, skid in english. Dérapage sounds more cheffy... hahaha!

BTW gastrique is the liquid used for making béarnaise, a reduction of vinegar, p&s, white wine, shallot, tarragon... It can be bought as such.

 

I'm not sure I want to add "skid" to my culinary vocabulary. "dérapage" may sound good to non-French speakers, but in French it sounds too much like something just went very wrong.

/img/vbsmilies/smilies/biggrin.gif