JL Coquet Blue Porcelain Soup Plate 10 Inch

The wide flat band around this plate is called a wing, and chefs use it as a surface rather than a frame. A garnish, a smear of sauce or a folded herb goes on the wing where it stays separate from the dish in the well, which is what a bowl cannot offer.

• The wing plates too Two working surfaces on one piece, a deep center and a dry ledge around it.
• Fired at 1400 degrees The maker gives that number, and it is why the body handles heat the way it does.
• Blue over white The decoration sits on the white body rather than replacing it, so food still reads against a pale ground.

Two Surfaces on One Plate

A rimless bowl gives you one place to put things. A winged deep plate gives you two, and they behave differently: the well holds anything liquid, the wing stays dry and level. That separation is why this shape survives in kitchens that plate carefully, and it is equally useful at home for keeping bread out of the soup or a spoon off the cloth. The cost is width, since the wing is real estate the food never occupies.

What 1400 Degrees Buys

JL Coquet states its porcelain is fired at 1400 degrees Celsius and that the pieces withstand high temperatures as a result. What that does not cover is a sudden change, and the maker says so directly: moving a chilled piece straight into a hot oven is enough to crack one. Temperature difference is the risk, not temperature itself, which is a distinction worth carrying to any fine porcelain you own.

Blue Where the White Shows

The decoration is a blue that runs over white porcelain rather than covering it, so the plate never becomes a blue object. That matters for food: pale sauces, white fish and rice disappear on a saturated colored plate and stay visible on a pale one. The blue is doing what a border does, marking the edge of the surface without competing with what sits inside it.

Washing, Warming and Metal

Is this plate dishwasher safe? The maker rates every model dishwasher safe apart from those decorated with precious metals, and recommends a low temperature program with the pieces spaced so they do not knock together.

Does a microwave damage this decoration? Yes on this decoration. The exclusion the maker names is gold, silver and platinum decoration, which arcs; a plate decorated in ceramic color has nothing in it to react.

What is a wing for at a home table? Somewhere to rest a spoon, park a piece of bread, or set a shell or a bone without it touching the food. On a deep plate that ledge is the only dry surface the diner has.