Chefs’ Secrets, Revealed: How They Get Their Food to Look So Good
By Lynn Andriani
Pros share their tricks for beautiful lattes, straight-edged brownies, perfect hors d'oeuvres and other drop-dead gorgeous dishes.
Chicken That Glistens
You could finish off a whole roasted bird with a drizzle of its own juices...or you could make a beurre monté by whisking cold butter into the liquid, giving the dish extra richness and gloss. In her new book, Basic to Brilliant, Y'all, Virginia Willis explains how to dress up classic Southern dishes by doing just that. First, remove the chicken to a warmed serving platter and tent it with aluminum foil. Heat the sauce (or juices; there should be about 1/2 cup) over medium-high and boil until it's reduced by half. Remove the pan from the heat and, using a whisk, swirl in 1 tablespoon cold unsalted butter. Taste and adjust for seasoning with coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper; then pour the sauce over the chicken and serve.
RELATED: Chef Tal Ronnen Prepares"Chicken" Scaloppini
Cupcakes with Mile-High Frosting
At New York's Magnolia Bakery, which has six shops and just opened in Chicago, icers spend anywhere from eight to 40 hours learning the perfect way to slather and swipe buttercream into submission, says chief baking officer Bobbie Lloyd. Here are the basics: Start with a flat-topped cupcake; they're easier to frost. (If you are using a boxed mix, which almost always mounds while baking, you'll want to slice off the top.) Using an icing wand (like this Duff spatula), stir the buttercream vigorously in a plastic bowl to remove air bubbles. Scoop up a teardrop-shaped 1/4 cup (which is a lot, but Lloyd says it's necessary for a deep swirl). Pat it onto the cupcake and then swipe down the edges on all sides so the frosting is shaped almost like a pyramid. Pat down the top with your wand and then spin the cupcake itself so the tip of the wand flattens the icing a bit while giving it a swirl. Finally, pull up, imparting a tiny curled edge.
RELATED: Spago Pastry Chef Sherry Yard's Baking Secrets
Pancake-Flat Strips of Bacon
When you heat this cured pork-which has an almost 50-50 meat-to-fat ratio-the fat melts away and shrinks at a different rate than the meat, which explains why some pieces can look like curlicues. If you want a perfectly flat strip-say you're going to be cutting it into one-inch squares for a layered hors d'oeuvre-weight it down under bricks, says caterer Peter Callahan, whose new book, Bite by Bite, shows how he makes even pigs in a blanket look fancy. You can cook bacon under a brick (wrapped in two sheets of heavy-duty aluminum foil) in a frying pan or in the oven, and since the brick conducts heat, there's no need to flip the bacon. One more bit of advice: Use thick-cut bacon; it's much easier to flatten.
RELATED: The Bacon Test
KEEP READING: 5 More Secrets Chefs Use to Make Food Look Good
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