Vegetable plate - ideas for decorating and serving

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

A beautiful vegetable plate, the composition of which can be different, is the calling card of any holiday or event with a buffet table. Of course, if there are dry carrots, sluggish cucumbers on the plate, and if you're lucky, then chopped bell peppers, seasoned with purchased mayonnaise, this will not cause anyone's appetite. No wonder many people do not like vegetables. Now imagine: a beautifully laid out juicy and crispy radish, bright green, freshly picked asparagus, a bunch of ripe cherry tomatoes bursting under the onslaught of tomato juice and sparkling lettuce leaves. Appetizing?

Vegetable plate is a must for the festive table. This is not the main dish of the table, but its main decoration. For those who don't like salads, a vegetable plate is a good way out. If, basically, there will be meat on the table, for example, in the form of a barbecue, then vegetables must be present. The body, absorbing large amounts of fat and protein, will need fiber, which is rich in vegetables.

Where to start?

And you need to start … with a trip to the market, because the main condition for a beautiful cut of vegetables is the freshness of vegetables. So it's time to go to the paradise of plantsfrills.

All vegetables lose quality over time. To get a beautiful vegetable plate, you need to follow two rules: buy vegetables on the day of the celebration and learn how to properly store them.

Here are some tips:

• Root vegetables such as carrots, turnips, radishes and the like should be stored in a loosely sealed plastic bag in the vegetable compartment. If there is a herb you want to use, wrap it in a damp paper towel and place it in a plastic bag.
• Green vegetables such as asparagus, green peas, zucchini, broccoli should be stored wrapped in a damp paper towel in a plastic bag in the vegetable drawer.
• Lettuce and other leafy vegetables should be stored wrapped in damp paper towels in a plastic bag and left with roots as long as possible. Divide the lettuce right before serving.
• Tomatoes should be stored at room temperature. Never put fresh tomatoes in the refrigerator as this will affect their texture.

Just vegetables? This is boring

Just vegetables? This is boring

Add sauce! But not purchased (although there are a lot of them now - for every taste and color), but made by hand. Believe me, it will not compare with the purchased one.

The simplest and most delicious sauce is based on sour cream with herbs. Mix a glass of low-fat sour cream with a glass of unsweetened yogurt (you can add two or three tablespoons of mayonnaise), squeeze out two or three cloves of garlic, add a little s alt, pepper andadd finely chopped greens (two or three sprigs of parsley, dill and green onions). Pour the sauce into a small saucepan and place it in the center of the vegetable plate.

Color matters

A vegetable plate can have absolutely any vegetables. But here's what's important: they must be neatly and correctly cut and sorted by color. If you have a wide variety of vegetables, you can arrange them along the spectrum, from red to pink tomatoes to bright orange carrots and then to yellow peppers, moving on to broccoli and cucumbers and ending with purple asparagus. This vegetable cut looks amazing. But it's nice and easy to arrange the vegetables so that the colors contrast with each other. In any case, it will look beautiful.

Vegetable plate decoration

Cutting… Carelessly cut vegetables can spoil the whole impression and appetite. How to arrange a vegetable plate?

• The pepper must be freed from the core and stem and cut into strips.
• Broccoli and cauliflower should first be separated into small florets, then, depending on their freshness, they can either be served raw or blanched for no more than a minute in boiling water and then immediately immersed in ice water. They will become crispy and very tasty (al dente).
• Carrots. Its supply depends on the size. Large carrots can be cut into strips and served raw. Small carrots can be blanched and served whole.
• Celery is easy enough to cut into strips. Don't forget to clean it to remove long,viscous, fibrous threads. Store celery in ice water.
• Cherry tomatoes should be served as is. You can even keep them on the branch, if that's okay.
• Cucumber is peeled, halved lengthwise, seeds removed with a spoon, then cut into strips lengthwise.
• Rashes can simply be washed and served directly with leaves if very small.
• Peas. The pod is removed from the peas, and if the peas are tender, calmly serve them raw, and if they are large and dense, blanch, and then give them an ice shower.
• Zucchini and squash are usually served al dente (blanching plus ice water). But if you have milk zucchini with very tender skin and no seeds, then you can serve it raw.

For Christmas and New Year

New Year and Christmas feasts are also not complete without vegetable plates. You can make a Christmas tree out of vegetables. For this we need: broccoli, cauliflower, yellow peppers, cherry tomatoes and some crispy straws. Rinse and dry vegetables thoroughly. Separate the outer florets of broccoli and cauliflower from the stems. Arrange the broccoli on a serving platter, giving it the shape of a tree, and the tomatoes in a garland. Arrange the star-shaped bell pepper strips and the cauliflower as snow (see photo above). If desired, you can close the lid and store in the refrigerator for up to four hours. Right before serving, place a straw at the bottom of the tree to form a trunk.

For kids

It's no secret that children especially don't like vegetables. But kids love fun and love to play. So, you can make a work of art out of a vegetable plate. So vegetables will be more fun to eat. For a children's table, you can cut out various animals, mushrooms, birds and so on from vegetables. Do not create huge structures. Let it be better to be small, but beautifully decorated dishes. For such work, the kids will be sincerely grateful. For example, you can make palm trees: string olives on skewers, decorate the top with parsley. Or make a cucumber frog princess. Any flight of fancy will be ultimately successful.

Carving as the art of cutting vegetables

When we were little, we were told that eating vegetables is he althy, that they will make us he althy. But the Japanese came up with another motivation: their vegetables are a whole work of art, and the name of this art is carving. The ancient Japanese practice of carving vegetables (and fruits) easily inspires us to eat he althy foods. And really, how not to eat a carrot if it looks like a rose? Or a radish that looks like a peony? Of course, vegetable plates decorated in this way are not cheap. But not a single serious event is now complete without curly vegetable cutting.