Bang/Wow

What You See

When I was a kid, the standard presentation for damn near anything in an American restaurant was The Implied Y: one third of the plate held the protein, one third held a vegetable side, and the last third held the starch. Appetizers, soup, salad, and bread were typically served separately. A lot of restaurants today still serve meals in that same dull presentation. It's simple, logical, and recognizable. Mostly, it's the simplicity that makes the Y so prevalent. How hard is it to slap down a slab of protein and blop on two scoops of stuff?

These days, the better restaurants all understand the importance of presentation. Plating can mean simple physical arrangement: centering, layering, stacking, positioning. Do the principal elements form a geometric shape, suggest a shape, imitate a flower? Sauces and pestos can be drizzled, painted, streaked, dusted with spices or herbs. The shape, size, and color of plates and use of white space also receive consideration. Balance of color may not be as important as balance of flavors, but it does affect our expectations. It might sound silly—far-fetched, even—but how often do you walk away from a meal thinking, "That looked great, but it tasted like crap"? Oh, sure, it happens now and again, but the converse is far more likely. Haute cuisine, as a business, thrives on the truism that we feast with our eyes first.

Yet, astonishingly, I often hear home cooks apologizing for even the most meager of efforts at presentation. "I'm not really into garnishes, but...." "I know it's silly, but I thought maybe just this once...." Afraid of appearing pretentious? Hell, if you make a habit of clever presentation, you're not pretending—you're practicing. Besides, if someone puts in a little extra effort to make your meal look more appealing, which of these goes through your head:

A - "Wow! All that trouble for me?"

or

B - "Wow! What a pretentious wiener."

If you chose B, perhaps you should consider the possibility that you're a self-centered prick.

If you put in a little extra effort to make your meals looks special, you're just extending the effort you put in to make the food taste special. At worst, you're trying to better your audience's meals. At best, you're an artist.

Afraid of being viewed as an artist? Tsk. If you want people to enjoy your meals, you want to be an artist. A good cook is an artist*. If you don't want to be an artist, let someone else do the cooking.

Sure, family-style offerings—with every component of the meal offered in its own big bowl with its own big spoon—allow your diners to control their portions. So, yes, plating for individuals does take away a wee bit of control. I have to argue that control is less important than appearance, though. Otherwise, the only successful restaurants would be those that serve family-style, and family-style restaurants are decidedly in the minority. Besides, even family-style service can incorporate bang/wow presentations. I prefer family-style presentations for some meals (pasta, for example, or arroz con pollo).

Seriously, though, what's so bad about hearing friends and family ooh and ah over the appearance of dinner? Sure, the first time or two might throw folks. You're likely to hear a "What's the special occasion?" or two. Why should that be intimidating? Don't assume they're insulted. Answer honestly: the special occasion is dinner. If they press the issue, say that you were trying to impress them, that dinner is an occasion, that a meal at home should be able to compete with a restaurant meal. Above all, they're your family and friends; tell them they deserve bang/wow meals.

Of course, there is one danger in fancy meal presentations for friends and family.

They might come to expect it.


* Concerning artists and cooking: Princess V enjoys baking, studies baking, teaches baking, and receives much praise for her baking, but generally she doesn't care for cooking. She'll tell you that cooking is an art and baking is a science, and in many ways I agree. Cooking requires a lot of control based on judgment, perception, and intuition. Baking requires a lot of control based on trial and error resulting in precise quantities, temperatures, and timing. In the end, though, it's the baker adding finishing touches with a piping bag.

What You Get

Girltzik was eating dinner with her boyfriend's family, so I saw an opportunity to try out a new seared-scallop recipe (Girltzik doesn't care for scallops). I'd seen some beautiful diver scallops at our local grocery store recently. Unfortunately, someone else had also seen them. They had only a few scruffy looking scallop remnants. They also, however, had just unpacked a shipment of big, beautiful, fresh gulf shrimp.

I had been thinking about bacon-wrapped shrimp, a popular item on a lot of restaurant menus and—all too frequently—a huge disappointment. Bacon-wrapped shrimp is usually prepared under a broiler or on a grill. As a result, the bacon is usually burnt, and the shrimp are usually rubbery. Baking doesn't work too well, either. Bacon's high fat content virtually ensures that either the bacon will be rubbery or the shrimp will be over-cooked or both.

I decided to use prosciutto instead. Since I was already going to be wrapping the shrimp, stuffing them seemed an obvious addition.

Prosciutto, shrimp, and crab suggested a range of sauces, but I got the idea of a spicy pasta sauce stuck in my mind. I could taste it before I'd finished purchasing the ingredients. Even though I wanted to use rice, I chose a sauce traditionally served over penne or ziti as Penne all'Arrabbiata. I love that name: Angry Penne. Far more graphic than spicy penne.

Snow-Crab-Stuffed Shrimp with Arrabbiata Sauce

(serves two)

dramatis personae

shrimp
eight large (12-15/pound) shrimp
one snow crab cluster
one-quarter pound prosciutto

sauce
three unpeeled garlic cloves
two tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
one 14 ounce can diced tomatoes
one 10 ounce can tomato purée
two dried chili arbol, seeded and crushed
two tablespoons fine chiffonade of basil

long grain rice or pasta

quality of ingredients

This recipe demands large, plump, firm shrimp, and they have to be fresh. Stale shrimp will be too mushy. Most fish mongers won't let you handle their shrimp, so insist on only shrimp tails with solid shells and intact legs and tail-fins. Don't let them just randomly scoop up a questionable handful of crustaceans. As a shrimp tail ages (weird thinking of a dead thing aging), the legs and tail disintegrate, the shells dissolve, and the flesh discolors and becomes opaque and mushy. More to the point, when you cook a stale shrimp tail, it comes out mushy, bitter, and limp.

See Keeping Cool—the crab course for my notes on crab quality.

Like most American cooks, when I say prosciutto, I mean prosciutto di Parma or a similar dry-cured ham like jamón serrano. Be careful: some prosciuttos are waaaaaay too salty (this is true of a lot of the pre-sliced, pre-packed prosciuttos). Ask the folks at the deli counter to slice your prosciutto as thin as possible. The slices should be thin enough to read through.

Garlic comes in many varieties, but most American grocery stores provide just one or two. The most commonly available garlic is a softneck variety called silverskin, and the next most common is a hardneck variety called purple stripe. For most cooking applications, silverskin is fine; it mellows and sweetens when sautéed. For raw uses (gazpacho, for example) silverskin is my last choice: harsh, hot, metallic. Conversely, raw purple stripe is sweet, juicy, and has hardly any heat. Unfortunately, sautéed purple stripe has a limp musty flavor. The best all-around garlic is also one of the more difficult to grow: porcelain, a hardneck variety with a complex, spicy, garlic flavor but with no bitterness, no burn, and no bite. The good news—for this recipe, anyway—is that roasting mellows and sweetens garlic and gives it a smoky nuttiness, so any variety will work.

Next time I prepare this dish, I might try roasting some tomatoes in lieu of the canned tomato products, but the canned products worked just fine. For the best product choices, I consult the Cooks Illustrated online tasting lab results. This is a subscription service, but well worth the money.

preparation notes

Roast the garlic in a clean, dry skillet over a high flame. Once the garlic peel is mostly black on one side, turn the cloves over (chopsticks work well for this) and char the other side. Remove the cloves to a ramekin to cool. The cloves will be soft. Once they're cool, remove the peels, scrape off any black bits, and mash the cloves.

Preheat your oven to 350F.

Pick through the diced tomatoes and discard any hard pieces of tomato core. Reserve one quarter cup of the liquid from the can.

In a saucepan over a medium flame, heat the extra virgin olive oil to shimmering and add the diced tomatoes, tomato purée, and reserve liquid. Once the liquid begins to bubble, add the dried chili and roasted garlic. Turn the flame down to low, cover the pot, and allow it to simmer for twenty minutes, stirring occasionally.

Shell the snow crab. (Eventually, I ought to videotape this process.)

Peel the shrimp, leaving the tail fin and last segment of shell on the tails. Devein the tails and, with a sharp paring knife, cut the tails almost all the way through to the lower vein. Stuff each shrimp with a portion of the snow crab flesh, and wrap with a layer of prosciutto. Arrange the shrimp tails on a cookie sheet

Bake the shrimp tails for 10 minutes on a center oven rack. Turn the tails over and bake them for an additional five minutes or until the shrimp are fully cooked.

To serve, spoon a portion of the arrabbiata sauce and four of the shrimp over rice or pasta.