Your menus are the first reason people are attracted to your catering business. They showcase the kitchen’s abilities and strengths, and represent the coming together of the caterer, supplier and style you offer. It is vitally important to get your menus right, and your starting point is sourcing the ingredients. This chapter puts forward the argument that catering is all about good sourcing of any product, be it chicory, cheese, chicken, chives, chocolate or coffee. It also argues for food consistency, for the caterer to celebrate produce, good food combinations and good cooking practices. This chapter covers:

Creating A Menu

In order to create a menu, these basic principles are vital: understanding produce, understanding combinations, understanding how to cook them and knowing the customer base. The following will give you some guidelines.

Food Consistency

Your food has to be consistent. Of course the ‘wow’ factor is important but even more so is the consistency of the food that emerges from the kitchen to your client. Your customers will desert you in droves if the food on their plate doesn’t match the last meal they enjoyed that you created for them. If standards are allowed to slip then you must re-examine your kitchen’s strengths.

If you go down the complex food route there is more chance that it will go wrong. If you change your chef, or if you as the chef are ill, the replacement may be unable to rise to the challenge. Then you risk losing your audience if his or her skills are not as great as the previous chef.

Therefore, simplicity is the best way forward.

But even simplicity demands care and attention to detail, and knowing what goes with what. Just simply throwing a whole lot of good ingredients together without the knowledge of good food marriages will result in a horrid mishmash of tastes and ill-judged flavours.

Garnishing Your Food

Be wary of over-elaboration. This can be seen by some caterers as adding a touch of sophistication to their dishes. But it could add confusion and totally unnecessary clutter to the plate. What does a slice of orange have to do with a crispy duck and puy lentil salad or a salmon dish? Nothing. Don’t even think of over-garnishing. More is less and never more so than on a plate. Food should look like food, not some fanciful concoction.

First-Rate Vs Poor Quality Produce

If a caterer goes down the route of sourcing second-rate produce it won’t taste any better if served on the finest china or the finest, whitest linen.

A good, honest caterer who passionate about the business and customers will go out of his or her way to source the best produce around. This doesn’t have to mean flying in duck from Paraguay or caviar from the Caspian.

What it means is:

• finding carrots that have flavour and cooking them with interest and knowledge;
• locating a free-range chicken that really tastes like chicken and not blotting paper;
• tracking down very well-hung beef of note;
• buying good quality chocolate with high cocoa solids for the best chocolate tart;
• finding a herb specialist who will supply French, not flavourless Russian, tarragon;
• sourcing the basics with understanding and passion: bread, butter, coffee, wine.

 

A good caterer understands that the way to perfection is via superb produce. They know that the culinary job is simply to present these tracked-down flavours to the customer.

Don’t go looking for difficulty. If certain produce is not available or is tricky to obtain on a regular basis, don’t put that dish on the menu. Caterers must have peace of mind when ordering to fulfil a menu’s promise.