Deconstruct!
From 90s Michelin star restaurants to your lunch - deconstructing can make the cooking less stressful, and the meal more enjoyable!
Sounds like a win-win to me!
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You’ve probably seen deconstructed meals in restaurants or on cooking shows. It’s basically taking a famous dish that is usually put together in a very specific way, think cheesecake for example, and instead presenting each part individually on the plate. This now long-lasting trend is attributed to Spanish Michelin-star chef Ferran Adrià, who did this in the 90s.
What may seem a bit pretentious at first glance, is actually not a bad idea at all, in my opinion; it makes you really notice each component of what you’re eating, and become more aware of what you are having. And awareness when eating equals enjoyment!
I’ve always been a bit weird with assembled food that I get served, and I’m not talking at fancy restaurants, but when I have a burger, gyros, a sandwich, a wrap… I usually use my cutlery and cut it up into smaller pieces, and not only that; I will move a bit of the bread to one side and separate ingredients a bit. Not in a compulsive way, it’s just that I want to first of all see what I’m eating, and also I’ve never enjoyed the feeling of stuffing my face with the food. It’s just quite hard to enjoy it that way for me. Maybe, if you think about it, it’s the same for you? Deconstructing a burger, for example, and being able to make sure I have a good balance of the different flavours and textures on my fork is much more enjoyable than just chomping down on the whole thing and not really being aware of how it tastes.
You can use this to your advantage when you are in charge of the cooking too. Making assembled meals like this can take quite a bit of effort, but if you just serve up the different ingredients as they are done, it can both give those who are eating the food the chance to eat it the way they like (by all means, they can “construct” it as well as deconstruct!), they will see all the different components that make up the meal and maybe feel more excitement and gratitude for it, and it’s also easier to discreetly leave out anything they’re not so keen on eating. And you won’t have had to stand by the kitchen top sweating, trying to assemble each plate like you’re on MasterChef with 10 seconds to go!
You can also take deconstructing further by serving family style - which I will talk about in a separate article. But I’d love to hear from you and your thoughts on deconstruction. Maybe you do a bit of it, but there’s a dish you hadn’t really considered that you could deconstruct? Maybe you’ve found some great ways of doing this that you want to share with the community? Comment below or email me at liv@thefromscratchbody.com!
