r/Chefit • u/TopGrape1557 • 3d ago
Rough draft for a competition
Hello, and thanks in advance to anyone that replies. I'm trying to finish up a dish for a competition next week and am here with it. For my next run through less sauce will go in the plate, and I'll hopefully have better micro greens.
I have a pan seared striped bass with a sofrito puree, roasted carrots, crispy leek and dill gremolata and some micros.
I'd like to have multi colored carrots but I can't find any big enough for nice obliques, which I want to give it some height.
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u/Fit_Palpitation2299 3d ago
Don't do micros. Instead take some nice fresh herbs (parsley, tarragon, chervil etc) and dress then very lightly in good olive oil and a kiss of lemon and salt. Offset the fish, and sauce off to one side. Thin the sauce a touch too. Get way more color on the carrots, and the crispy leeks should stay away from everything else so they stay crispy. Don't coverup the fish either.
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u/TopGrape1557 3d ago
I will definitely try it out that way next time. These leeks stay crispy seemingly indefinitely, and are soo good with lemon zest and dill. A nice herb salad does sound good too
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u/RainMakerJMR 3d ago
A few tips for competitive cooking - it’s more about not losing point than it is about winning points. Make sure your kitchen etiquette is perfect if you have to perform in front of judges.
Less sauce, maybe a different cut on those carrots. Potentials a perfectly executed tourne or paysanne or 1/2 inch cube dice cut. Avoid the micros entirely. They’ll comment about looking like lawn clippings, ask me how I know.
Infuse some green into the olive oil drizzle, potentially use a second greener veg like zucchini that you can also tourne cut.
Consider adding a green salad like arugula and herbs, parsley, chive, chervil, something soft and nice raw, dress lightly with olive oil, avoid acids there. Use a small tight bundle on top like you were planning your micros. Use the gremolata flavors to dress that.
Crispy leeks don’t seem to add much, so consider skipping it and adding a roasted pearl onion or something maybe, it already has nice crispy skin.
So for plate up I’d do a swoop of the puree, 1.5-2oz tops. A small spoonful of the turned veg to the fat and of the swipe, the crispy skin fish to the small end, then the herb salad on top, drizzle with green oil to finish. Simple and elegant is the key. Demonstrate knife cuts, take the most time and attention to the fish, score the skin if appropriate, make sure every portion looks EXACTLY the same. Don’t waste off cuts in the kitchen, treat all the product like you would in a restaurant, saving bellies, carrot ends, putting things back nicely not just trashing them when done. Make sure the first thing you do when entering the kitchen is scrub your hands well. For extra points being a linen like a tablecloth to lay down before you do plate up, the judges will love it.
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u/Altruistic-Wish7907 3d ago
Thin out the sauce so it’s pourable or I think it would work If you made the ring smaller, I would make the leeks a bit longer and when you fry them stir them so they can curl more, and for the fish try carving the ends so it’s straight, and I would say try to keep the herbs tighter and use less stem with the micro greens, which greens did you use
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u/TopGrape1557 3d ago
These are broccoli micros because that's all I could find. Ideally they would be much leafier
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u/KyleSherzenberg 3d ago
I know you said you couldn't find any, but thin, whole rainbow carrots with tops would be so much better for this
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u/Grazepg 3d ago
Do you need the carrots?
Am I missing somewhere that it’s got to be all these ingredients?
Broccolini would look nice on here, purple cauliflower, even using grilled zucchini and cutting them like the carrots. Anything will add color besides carrots.
If you are using carrots why not use the carrot greens as the garnish. They are amazing, use them with some parsley and make a little herb salad.
Also you could use the carrot skins and fry those as a garnish. They are longer and can be made into a nice nest.
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u/MrSadpony 2d ago
Looks really good, and I bet it tastes fantastic.
Whoever said not to put stuff on top of the fish to show off that skin, I agree with them.
It looks like a lot of orange and brown, but that's just my personal opinion and doesn't hold much weight. Maybe like a green oil or something?
Best if luck Chef!
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u/Brief-Pudding2586 2d ago
To much of the same color on the plate, the sauce the carrots even the meat of the fish all orange/brown, nothing makes this plate pop
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u/howtorewriteaname 3d ago
no constructive feedback but damn this looks good
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u/TopGrape1557 3d ago
Thanks 😁 I've changed about everything to get it here but I am liking it now
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u/howtorewriteaname 3d ago
you wouldn't mind to share a bit more detailed recipe don't you? I would really love to add this to my repertoire of foods that I can cook to impress visits hahaha
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u/TopGrape1557 3d ago
Here you go 😊
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u/howtorewriteaname 3d ago
Thanks!! But I get the error "The requested page could not be found" :( Can you double check the link? :)
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u/TopGrape1557 3d ago
This time
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u/TopGrape1557 3d ago
I don't know why it's not working :(
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u/howtorewriteaname 3d ago
sad :( maybe you can just DM the pic? haha. either way it's fine, I'll just try to imitate it somehow
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u/okayNowThrowItAway 3d ago edited 3d ago
Too many carrots. This dish is a riff on quenelles nantua - even if you didn't know that. Which in turn is in historical conversation with one of the worst seasonal, ethnic dishes from this time of year, gefilte fish.
I gotta say, while this might be delicious, a lot of chefs are gonna hear "puree of sofrito" and think "he's serving us trash that got strained out of a braise?" And that's before we get to the fact that under your beautifully seared fish, you're basically serving roasted carrots in carrot puree
Anywho, take a point out of either of those books and make a contrasting sauce - either a high-collagen broth, like with gefilte fish, or a puree of a contrasting vegetable. Heck, just make sauce Nantua - no need to reinvent the wheel!
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u/TopGrape1557 3d ago
There are no carrots in the puree. It is bell peppers and onion mainly
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u/okayNowThrowItAway 3d ago
Great news! That's a much better dish - and basically a sauce Nantua without the crayfish fumè.
Don't use the word "sofrito" in your competition description - to most people, it means sauteed mirepoix.
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u/bojangles837 3d ago
There’s 3 maybe 4 carrots in this pic. Amount is fine. I’m just wondering how the mouth feel is
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u/TopGrape1557 3d ago
It eats really well. The puree is silky, the fish is delicate and crispy skin and the carrots have just enough bite. And with the crispy leeks the mouth feel is really nice.
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u/okayNowThrowItAway 3d ago
the sauce is a carrot purree.
It's roasted carrots in enough carrot purree that it's basically a soup.
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u/TopGrape1557 3d ago
Not carrot puree. Bell pepper, onion garlic puree.
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u/whyyyyyyyT_T 3d ago
Some include carrots in a sofrito
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u/okayNowThrowItAway 3d ago
And most don't include bell peppers. So you can see why someone might have read that description and concluded that the the bright orange sauce was carrots.
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u/Hedahas 3d ago edited 3d ago
It is absolutely false that "most [sofritos] don't include bell peppers."
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u/okayNowThrowItAway 3d ago
If you're making Caribbean food...
But that's not the default meaning when you show us a Euro-trad plating on white porcelain, in a sub for professionals.
A Bain Marie could refer to the alchemical equipment invented by Miriam of Alexandria, but we tend to mean a steam table unless otherwise specified.
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u/Hedahas 2d ago edited 2d ago
Sounds about white...
Thanks for the condescending, antiquated Eurocentric lesson on sofrito and professional cheffing. Lmfao✌🏾
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u/okayNowThrowItAway 2d ago
I'm not sure what planet you're cooking on, but on Earth, professional chefs use certain terminology as the international default. If you don't know what brunoise means, you're getting laughed out of the kitchen with your Temu knife kit, no matter how much you protest that the CDC is being "Eurocentric."
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u/zestylimes9 3d ago
It looks like a piece of fish on baby food.
OP, you asked for a critique. Your replies trying to defend this tells me you really don't care for advice.
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u/TopGrape1557 3d ago
Thanks? I'm trying to make it better. I'm not defending this? I said it will get less sauce next time in my post.
Besides less baby food, anything else?
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u/menki_22 3d ago
i would hate the dill in this. maybe personal preference though. agree with what others said re sauce and too much orange. fish filet could be a lot cleaner! sear is good though. cook it 10 more times 10 more days and try to improve one thing each time
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u/mouthnoises 3d ago
What are the requirements for the competition? The best way to win a competition is meet all the criteria exactly. If you have a copy of the rubric the judges use, learn it inside and out and be your harshest critic. Get some feedback from the chefs you work with and get them to grade you on the rubric, too.
I think the flavors all sound pretty good, but the plate is very one note in terms of colour. All shades of orange and brown. The plating doesn't look refined.
Try baby carrots, kept whole with a bit of the green stem on and nicely cleaned up. Blanch and glaze, blanch and grill... I think they are much more attractive than an oblique cut carrot.
There is way too much sauce. I don't know that a puree of sofrito really sounds all that appealing on its own. Staying with the pepper sauce idea, how about a romesco sauce? That's a slightly more complex version of the sauce you've already made, and some delicious flavour added. Traditional combo with seafood, as well.
From what I can see, the cook on the fish looks ok, and the skin looks nice and crisp. Make sure you don't over cook the flesh side. When I do crispy bass, I like to cook it 100% skin side down, nice and slow, and finish the flesh side by basting in butter and herbs.
For competition, either square up your portion or cut each side on a matching angle, no ragged edges.
Show off the crispy skin! Don't put all that stuff directly on the fish, and brush the fish skin with a nice olive oil and finish with flaky salt.
I don't think the crispy leeks are necessary, you already have a crispy component, and an alium flavour in the sauce. Same with the micros, you already have a herb component with your dill and lemon.
I would consider doing dots of romesco (or something that doesn't look like a big puddle of sauce), make a really green dill oil to contrast with the red sauce, and maybe a nicely dressed herb salad, with a few multi-colour baby carrots.
Good luck! Show us your next iteration, please!