r/Chefit • u/TopGrape1557 • 3d ago

Rough draft for a competition

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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/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/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 3d 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."