How To Make Your Japanese Dishes Visually Appealing

Wed, 01 Sep 2021 19:27:20 +0000

In Japan, presentation is everything. This is the reason why Japanese dishes are both tasty and visually appealing. Japanese chefs carve vegetables into delicate flower shapes, use sauces to make beautiful swirls and patterns on the dish, mold rice into animal shapes, and more. If you want to make stunning meals, you can learn below how to make your Japanese dishes visually appealing.

Video Overview

Use Proper Equipment

To carve vegetables into delicate shapes, you need the proper equipment. The history and different uses of Japanese vegetable knives are fascinating, and chefs still use these traditional knives to shape vegetables. If you want to carve your vegetables into flowers, swirls, and other lovely shapes, you’ll need to use a traditional Japanese knife.

Decorate with Color

Chefs decorate their dishes using red, green, black, white, and yellow. These five colors are present on every Japanese dish. Keep in mind, though, that you can still use other colors besides these five to decorate your dishes. In fact, these chefs enjoy placing hints of other bright colors onto dishes, such as bright pink or purple.

Organize Asymmetrically

If you’ve eaten at a Japanese restaurant, you probably noticed that the plates and cups all vary in size. The Japanese choose to use asymmetry in their dishes to make them more interesting and more appealing to the eye. Whenever you make a Japanese meal, be sure to use dishes of different sizes and to arrange the food asymmetrically.

Leave Plenty of Space

When you’re learning how to make your Japanese dishes visually appealing, you might be tempted to fill up your plate. However, the Japanese rarely fill a plate to its edge. Western cultures tend to fill plates completely with food, but the Japanese believe in leaving plenty of space. This makes the food stand out. This minimalist style is called ma, which focuses on using space to emphasize other areas of the plate.