Cold cuts: how to style beautifully. Video
Slicing of various varieties of sausages, ham and meat products is an indispensable attribute of festive tables. It is served as an appetizer before main courses, when guests are still able to appreciate the beautifully presented table. Therefore, it is very important to arrange the sliced products on the dishes so that they decorate the table and, by their very appearance, arouse an appetite.
How to cut food correctly
Of course, if there is such a service in the store where you buy meat delicacies for the festive table, it is better to immediately ask the seller to thinly cut them for you using a special device. But not all stores have such devices, so many people buy slicing machines that can be used at home.
If you don’t have such a machine in your house, prepare a large knife, which the chefs call “chef”, and sharpen it well. Before cutting the sausage, you should remove the casing, regardless of whether it is artificial or natural. If the ham is in a shell, remove the shell. Pork skin, which covers many types of meat products – brisket, bacon, rolls, etc., does not need to be removed. The meat sausage should be cut at an angle into thin oval slices. The ham is cut across a piece. Balik and other delicacies made from natural meat must be cut across the fibers.
Use a nice large platter, tray, or flat plate to spread the slices. Meat products cut from one piece are laid out together. Slicing is a creative process, so you can use different options, combine them on one dish and experiment, laying them out, for example, in the form of buds.
You can lay out the pieces in the simplest way, laying them on a dish in rows, overlapping. If the size of the slices allows, you can beautifully roll the chopped food in half, in a tube or envelope and place them on a dish in a row or in a slide. On the outer edge of the plate, you can lay out a sausage or ham of the same type, put a row of slices of ham or balyk on it closer to the center, and brisket in the center. Try to make the food on the platter look pretty.
Vegetables for decorating a dish can not only be cut into thin slices, but also figured out. This is a whole art called carving.
If the size of the dish is large enough, you can put pans with seasonings in its center – mustard, horseradish, spicy tomato sauce. Fresh greens, olives and pieces of vegetables will greatly decorate the sliced dish. Often, lettuce leaves are placed on the plate before laying out the meat so that they protrude along the edge of the plate or dish. Lettuce leaves can also be placed under each layer of cold meats or between different types of food.