The skills and techniques of preparation, cooking and presentation of dishes
What's covered
Key facts
Food safety practices
Food handlers should not touch their face or hair, smoke, spit, sneeze, eat or chew gum while handling food.
How to prepare and make dishes
Brunoise is a very fine dice: vegetables are first cut into julienne strips and then into very small cubes.
Presentation techniques
An accompaniment is something eaten or drunk together with something else, such as a side served with a main dish.
Food safety practices
Food handlers must wash their hands before preparing food, after touching raw food, after handling food waste or emptying a bin, after cleaning, after blowing their nose, after touching phones, light switches, door handles or cash registers, and after using the toilet.
How to prepare and make dishes
Complex cooking techniques in the spec are baking blind, caramelising, deep fat frying, emulsifying, poaching and tempering.
Presentation techniques
Examiners remind candidates that careful placement and cleaning the sides of plates and dishes can lift even simple presentation.
Food safety practices
Staff with diarrhoea or vomiting must not handle food and must report their illness to their manager; they should not return to work until they have had no symptoms for 48 hours.
How to prepare and make dishes
Complex knife techniques in the spec are brunoise, julienne, mincing, deboning, filleting and segmenting.
Presentation techniques
The spec's four presentation techniques are creativity, garnish and decoration, portion control, and accompaniments.
Food safety practices
Staff must tell their manager if they feel unwell, and must not handle food or enter the food handling area if they have infected wounds or sores, infected skin, nose or throat, stomach pain, nausea, fever or jaundice. They must also tell their manager if anyone they live with has diarrhoea or vomiting.
Practice questions with answers
A taste of the 22 questions in this topic, answers marked. Sign up to practise the full set with spaced repetition.
Which item of jewellery may a chef wear while preparing food?
- ✓A plain wedding band
- •A plain wristwatch
- •A thin chain necklace
- •Small stud earrings
Which preparation technique does the spec class as complex?
- •Grating
- •Mashing
- ✓Piping
- •Zesting
Which of these is one of the four presentation techniques named in the spec?
- ✓Accompaniments
- •Food costing
- •Menu pricing
- •Stock rotation
A chef arrives at work with stomach pain, nausea and a fever. What should happen?
- ✓They report it and stay out of food areas
- •They take a painkiller and carry on cooking
- •They work but wear gloves to handle food
- •They work only on cold food preparation
Which knife skill is rated complex (three stars) in the spec?
- •Chopping
- ✓Filleting
- •Peeling
- •Trimming
Which of these is an accompaniment to a main dish of grilled fish?
- •A probe check of the fish
- ✓A side of new potatoes
- •A sprig of parsley on top
- •A warmed white dinner plate
Three minutes a day. Knowledge that sticks.
Practise all 22 The skills and techniques of preparation, cooking and presentation of dishes questions with spaced repetition, so what you revise today is still there in the exam. Free to use, no card needed.