Home chef, Palash Borah, known for organising select Sunday brunches at Room Two, has been rustling up quite a few photogenic dishes that sometimes look too pretty for anyone to take a bite! So, we asked him to share a few tips on making your dish look good and palatable as well. He said he keeps in a few simple things – shapes, colours and textures. “Contrasts are as beautiful as monochromes. Known geometric shapes indicate symmetry and familiarity. Oblong shapes are good when you want to invoke mystery. There is no hard or fast rule about which is better, depends on the emotion you are trying to create,” elaborates Palash. He adds that colours play an important role as well - yellow and orange induce hunger. Greens indicate freshness and nature. Textures play a significant part in visual perception. “When you see that wonderful golden fried food, your brain knows what to expect (crunch) and gets excited,” he says, adding that clean pictures of food are ideal in the right angle. He has shared the recipe of Plum Chocolate Mousse that tastes as good as it looks when photographed.
Plum Chocolate Mousse
Ingredients:
Dark chocolate: 200 gms
Butter: 100 gms
Plum meat: 250 gms
Water/Orange juice: 60 ml
Sugar: 6-8 tablespoons (as per taste)
Fresh Cream: 125 ml
Cinnamon: Half a teaspoon
Gelatin: 3 gms
Water: 20 ml
Method:
■ Prepare a vessel with ice and chill a bowl that fits in that such that the base is in contact with the ice water. You can line the outside of the bowl with damp tissues and settle the bowl in pure ice as well.
■ In a bowl add the gelatine to water to hydrate.
■ Using a food processor or mixer, then make a puree of the plum meat, water or orange juice with sugar. Strain using a sieve and reserve.
■ Melt the chocolate and butter in a bowl (place in silicon bowl and heat in oven at 80C for 5-10 minutes.
■ In a pan, heat the plum puree bringing it to a continuous simmer for a couple of minutes.
■ Heat the fresh cream in a pan and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and add cinnamon and gelatine. Let it dissolve completely, then pour into the chocolate-butter mix. Finally, mix the plum puree.
■ Now pour this emulsion in the chilled bowl and using an electric whisk keep whisking as it cools. As it cools you will see the volume increase and once it is at a medium peak stage, you can leave it in the refrigerator.
■ Serve with fresh cherries, sliced plums and top it with some honey. Leave for five mins outside, before serving to soften and come to the right texture. In my plate, I have also used some plum glazed madeline chunks, a beetroot cinnamon crumb, caramelised frozen plums and a plum glaze.