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Looks good, tastes great

Concentrate on the ambience, dress your food. And with the right colour combination, the food might just taste divine!

I want my drawing room to be coloured lemon yellow. The party dress will look good if it is in strawberry red. This spinach-green bed-sheet is great and that suit in olive green is not bad...

The colours of food are so interesting that they seem to be leading all other things in our lives too.

There's nothing new about naming colours after food, we all know about tomato red and orange. Today, there are a total of 40-plus food colour names including some unexpected entrants such as pigeon, tarragon, pimento and shrimp pink.

But the hidden message here is that the colour of food is of prime importance. Food should not only taste good but look great too.

And when we talk of the current culinary trends then we talk of colour and colour combinations.

The food has come of age, travelling many a mile since the time when food was just supposed to be consumed to fill one's tummy. From being just `food' to `designer food', the eatables have changed beyond recognition. And colours have played a key role in `designing' food.

Just a look at a nicely served `designer food' plate has enough power to change your mood, appetite and enough visual energy to make you say, "wow!"

A good chef understands that the `food-rience' has a sequence - the ambience of the food. It starts from eyes, reaches the nose and climaxes at the mouth! See it, smell it, taste it. That is the new formula. But then it is easier said than done. There are some golden rules for colour combinations, which if not followed then may end up ruining the whole idea. Food with the colour blue is generally not appetising. You will probably see nothing in dark black colour on your food plate!

Sense of colour

Colour sense is one of the major inputs while planning a menu for any occasion. A menu comprising spinach soup, stir-fried broccoli, palak paneer, aloo methi is not the combination one looks forward to any day! It may have the right nutrients but the colour combination is what turns such things negative. It is not that the food cannot be of a single hue. It often is. But there are ways to break that monotony. Garnishing is one such way. A tomato soup is simply red in colour but the inputs of chopped parley and a dash of cream break that monotony and give it a different presentation all together.

Another way of doing that is to look for the colour of the serving dish. You sure can serve red food in a white plate but serving red food in a red plate is not advisable.

So next time you call friends over for lunch or dinner, be more imaginative. Create different colour combinations for food. Remember the food has to look good to taste great!

Here is a recipe you can try out at leisure:

Burnt peppers and cheese in herbs dressing

Ingredients

Yellow peppers - 2
Green peppers - 2
Red peppers - 2
Iceberg lettuce - 1 bunch
Cherry tomatoes - 30 gms
Gouda cheese - 40 gms
Black olives - 10
Green olives - 6
Glass noodles - 20 gms
Parsley - few sprigs
Lemon wedge - 1
Olive oil - 1 tbsp
Herb dressing - 2 tbsp

Method

Soak glass noodles in warm water and keep aside for 15 minutes. Wash the vegetables and cloth-dry them. Wipe yellow pepper, green pepper and red pepper with olive oil and place them in a tray to roast in a high heat oven. Cook till the outer membrane of peppers is burnt to dark brown.

Remove the membrane and cut them into fingers.

Remove glass noodles from water and shake them off lightly to remove excess water. Wash lettuce leaves and break them roughly in to approximately one-inch size. Mix them with glass noodles. Place noodles and lettuce mix on a plate.

Cut gouda cheese into ½ inch cubes and mix in the cooked peppers, cherry tomatoes, green olives and black olives. Pour the herbed dressing on top and mix well. Arrange this on top of the glass noodle and lettuce mix. Garnish it with parsley sprigs and lemon wedge and serve immediately.

RAKESH KUMAR

(The author is the Executive Chef, Crowne Plaza, New Delhi)

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