A well-decorated meal increases appetite. Given that often our holiday tables are “snack” in nature, the art of decorating salads becomes one of the priority skills of the hostess. Especially for you, we have collected the most original serving options and the best tips for decorating these dishes.
Simple decoration of everyday salads
Prepare for the holiday will help daily practice. Beautiful food is not just an attribute of a festive table. Having studied the basics of serving and decorating everyday dishes and making it a rule to beautifully arrange the presentation of salads even for a regular home dinner, you can easily amaze guests at the holiday.
To get started, try using these simple tricks:
1. Detail in everyday flow. Sometimes it’s not at all necessary to be wise with complex cuts, laying out layers or using additional products to make some types of salads beautiful. It is enough to use one or more original parts. Here is an example of a fruit salad, in which the stars cut with cookie cutters from a thin slice of watermelon are simply added.
2. Use molding rings when serving salads. Rings here are a conditional name, since they come in completely different shapes and sizes. They are easy to make yourself from improvised items. For example, from plastic bottles of different volumes.
3. Use a plate. Try to give up the idea that the plate is intended for only one dish. Toasts and sauce can be placed on a large plate next to the salad. Chefs often use a plate with a dish as a canvas for painting, and an original drawing made using sauces and greens can fit near the main dish.
Design Color
Color in the beautiful design of salads plays a big role. Sometimes the ingredients themselves come to our aid, and sometimes you can use food or natural dyes. What can you experiment with?
- White color has many products used to decorate salads on the festive table: boiled egg protein, rice, radish, cabbage, sour cream, cottage cheese and cream.
- Red are tomatoes, pomegranates, bell peppers, strawberries and other red berries.
- Orange - carrots, oranges and tangerines. Carrot juice stains products in a bright yellow color.
- Yellow - pepper, corn, bananas, apples. Turmeric is a good natural colorant.
- Green - peas, greens, asparagus, peppers, cucumbers, kiwi, apples. Green is represented in a very large number of products.
- An interesting blue color gives the juice of red cabbage.
- Violet - grapes, red cabbage, lettuce, beets.
- Beautiful pink color gives beetroot juice.
Do not be afraid to experiment with color. The table, designed in one color scheme, looks stylish and interesting, and if the color is also used in dishes, then it is simply unforgettable.
Food colors can be used on adult holidays, but it is undesirable for children, it is better to do natural ones there. A children's table should generally take into account the low allergenicity of the products offered to children.
Classic salads
Many housewives do not refuse to prepare classic salads for the feast, but the hand does not rise to put the finished "bowl" on the table. The ability to design them in an original way comes to the rescue.
Consider a possible design Olivier. This is a ready mixed and seasoned salad. Decorating it with an upper layer is undesirable, as it violates the proportion of ingredients. Of course, it is possible to decompose the salad into its components, but, unfortunately, it is hardly possible to achieve a bright composition of boiled vegetables.
The feed will come to the rescue. Try placing the dish in the shape of a basket.
The base is made of a dense bread crust 2-3 centimeters thick. Guides are inserted into it. You can use wooden skewers for them, or if you want everything on the table to be edible, you can use sticks of straw straw. The tip of the onion feather is fixed on one of the guides and the whole basket is braided from bottom to top. Such an original dish for classic types of salads is filled before serving.
Another salad that is always popular in Russia is herring under a fur coat. A feature of this dish is its layered preparation. It is necessary to preserve the structure of the layers in the original design of the salad. A herring under a fur coat looks very good in transparent bowls or glasses. Of the unusual ideas that preserve the traditional taste, it is worth noting the presentation in the form of rolls.
The most economical (from the point of view of labor costs), but still unusual presentation of the salad will be served in the form of a roll. This form also makes it easy to divide into portions.
To make a roll, lettuce is laid out in layers in reverse order on a plastic wrap or silicone mat, then it is rolled up and sent to the refrigerator for fixing. In a couple of hours, he is ready for further decoration.
We could not ignore such an allegorical version of the design of the salad, as a literal understanding of the name.
The salad is laid in traditional layers in the form of a fur coat. The fringing of the sleeves, the gate and the bottom is made of egg whites. You can add carrot buttons. And at the climax, a real head and tail from the herring are applied to the fur coat.
Children's table
Beautiful decoration of salads for the child's birthday plays an important role. You won’t hold the children at the table, but the beautifully decorated food will undoubtedly attract their attention.
Salads will also occupy a worthy place at the children's holiday table. The main thing is not to forget that children do not trust dishes with a large number of ingredients, and especially not familiar to them. Use traditional vegetables and fruits to decorate children's salads, and funny and edible figures of animals or cartoon characters can serve as decorations.
In addition to salads, children can use canapes, fruit slices and various sandwiches. We remember that a children’s table is the most convenient and practical to organize according to the type of buffet table, where everyone can take a portion treat to their taste when they are hungry.
This is easy to do using stuffing techniques. On the children's table should be a minimum of dishes. Fruit salads can be served in halves of apples or in plates of orange peel.
For salted and vegetable salads, cheese and bread plates are suitable. Snacks can stuff cherry tomatoes, profiteroles or tartlets. Even glasses at children's events are preferable to paper. By the way, harvesting after such a holiday will also be much less.
Carving
For inspiration, you can watch several workshops on carving - the art of carving from vegetables and fruits. Many housewives use this art in the design of salads, not even realizing its official name.
During the creative process, you may need some tools:
- sharp knives, preferably small;
- kitchen scissors (for lack of such, you can use well-washed stationery);
- when working with some vegetables and fruits, it is convenient to use sharp spherical spoons;
- a peeler is perfect for getting thin strips;
- metal cookie cutters have worked well.
Just look what amazing compositions can be made using these simple tools!
Flowers from vegetables and fruits
One of our most popular decorations is flowers. The simplest roses are made of a thin strip of peel cut in a circle. Such roses can be made from beets, carrots, apples, tomatoes. Very beautiful and delicate flowers are obtained from radish.
Amazingly beautiful lotus buds are made from the bow head. After pickling it in vinegar, you let the flower open and make it an edible snack. Light shades can be obtained by dipping the tips of such a flower in beet or carrot juice.
Elongated cherry tomatoes can be cut from the top and peeled the flesh. Having stuffed them with Jewish appetizer, you will get very beautiful tulip buds.
You can recall the traditional and simple design of the Mimosa salad, when on the upper layer of mayonnaise stalks are laid out - dill branches, and the flowers themselves are made from grated egg yolk.
Fluffy asters are laid out from egg whites, cut lengthwise into thin strips. If you use vegetable juices, a bouquet can make them colorful.
Delicious callas are obtained from processed cheese. You need to take soft cream cheese in an individual package in the form of flat squares and simply roll it into a bag, in the shape of a calla flower. This cheese is very plastic, so if you tweak the bag from below, it will keep its shape well. A thin bar of boiled carrot is placed in the middle in the form of a pestle. Stalks are made from whole feathers of onions, leaves - from cut.
It is very easy to make flowers from large strawberries. Just make deep cuts in a circle from the petiole to the very top. Of these roses, you can make a bouquet on wooden skewers or simply decorate the salad on top.
The stalks and leaves for all flowers are traditionally salad greens, dill and feathers of green onions. They can be left in their original form, or to give the desired shape with a knife and scissors.
Greens in the decoration
Even our grandmothers created masterpieces from the classic three: onions, parsley and dill. Now we have a huge number of types of greenery at any time of the year.
Successfully for a long time, the housewives have been using leaf lettuce. One of its advantages is affordability. But we must not forget about other types of greens that have long been available in large and not very supermarkets.
In the summer and autumn season, do not forget about beet tops. She has good taste and is beautiful in itself.
Of the exotic herbs, ruccola, spinach, basil, marjoram and thyme are now available. Each of them has not only excellent taste, but also pronounced decorative properties. Don’t forget about them when decorating your salads. For sweet fruit salads, mint, available all year round, is perfect.
Sauce
Sauces play an important role in decorating salads. They can be either a separate element of the decor, or decorate the dish itself. One of the most popular sauces with us is mayonnaise.
After making a small hole in the bag or putting the mayonnaise in a pastry bag, you can draw thin nets, various lace and curls on salads, and draw individual details of the decor.
In sweet fruit salads in the same way you can use whipped cream or thick, high-fat sour cream. The main thing here is that the sauce has a dense structure and keeps its shape.
Balsamic mixes well with white sauces, you can mix them by playing in color contrast and creating different patterns.
Useful Tips
Some vegetables and fruits tend to wind and darken when exposed to air. If you need to use them in jewelry, carry out preliminary processing.
Vegetable slices for better appearance and preservation can be greased with a thin layer of vegetable oil.
Fruit slices, so that they do not darken, sprinkle with lemon juice, you can also use transparent mirror glaze. For its preparation, 200 grams of sugar, 200 grams of water and 4 grams of gelatin are needed. Gelatin is soaked in water. Water with sugar is brought to a boil. Then the syrup is cooled to about 60 degrees and gelatin is added. Use the icing while still warm.
Fruit and vegetable slices are advised to do on a clean plastic board with a ceramic knife. Of course, this will not stop the oxidation process, but in the absence of contact with the metal it will proceed more slowly.
If lemon juice is not at hand, a small amount of dry citric acid can be diluted in water. If this option is not possible, the aging process of fruits and vegetables in ice water will slow down the oxidation process for several minutes.
Another important point. If you use toothpicks, wooden skewers, other inedible objects in the decoration, notify the guests about this. And do not hide the ingredients from which the decor was created. It is unlikely that someone will want to eat a beautiful lotus in the form of a head of fresh onions.
Serving as part of a decoration
If you perfectly decorate the dishes, but serve them in old ugly dishes, somehow placed on the table, the whole impression of the holiday will be spoiled. Serving is a very important part of the celebration, designed to complement and emphasize the beauty of dishes.
Here are a few nuances to consider.
- Tablecloth. This is a required attribute. If acrylic options are suitable for everyday dinners, then at the celebration there should be a tablecloth made of natural fabric. It should correspond to the shape and size of the table. The edges of the tablecloth according to the rules of etiquette have a length of about 20-25 centimeters.
- Tableware. It is advisable to use sets of dishes designed for the number of guests at the table for the celebration. Unsuited plates look unaesthetic. To make your task easier, you can choose noble white sets. Firstly, this is a classic, secondly, on a white plate, nothing distracts the eye from the dish, and thirdly, they can be discreetly combined with each other. The principle of sameness also applies to glasses and cutlery.
- Napkins are another indispensable attribute. They can be arranged separately, or you can make beautiful compositions from them, most importantly, monitor their availability for all guests. Beautiful, bright napkins are able to combine all the objects on the table into a single composition.
- The arrangement. The arrangement of dishes on the table is very important. It is unlikely that guests will be satisfied if you put all the wealth on the table, and for individual appliances there will be too little space. If the table is small, and there are many guests, it is better to serve dishes gradually. Start with your beautiful salads, then serve hot and then dessert. For snacks it is quite acceptable to allocate a separate small table.
This knowledge is enough to hold the holiday at the highest level. Let your celebration be fun, and guests at the correctly served table enjoy the beauty and taste of the dishes you prepared.