curry magic

 

From sublime Joël Robuchon recipes to the ridiculous: curry that looks like fish food in a poly bag.

But I have to share this with you because it's the best curry, outside India, that I've ever tasted - and I'm a bit of a curry aficionado. I would estimate that 80% of non home-cooked meals (restaurants and take-aways) I had when I lived in Scotland were curries. An ex-boyfriend (and fellow aficionado) and I would scour Edinburgh for the wettest curry - because a curry has to be wet, you see.

Sadly, every curry I've had since I've been in France (including Paris, disappointingly) has been revolting: dry cloying sauces tasting predominantly of curry paste from a jar, kicking to death any other flavour threatening to make itself known. There's been nothing fresh or fragrant about any of them. The worst was in Méribel, where the chicken pieces had been coated in a torrid desiccated paste then heated in the oven. 

So imagine my joy when this little bag arrived (from my Aunt Hils) and it turned out to be so good.

At first glance the contents look like wood shavings and bark and other detritus swept up off the forest floor, but when you add water and cook for five minutes, some strange kind of alchemy takes place and you're left with the most amazing wet curry sauce, to which you simply add your meat/fish of choice. It's made by a company called Curry Magic - and they deliver to France.

I'm going to decorate the kitchen with flock wallpaper and pictures of the Taj Mahal that light up and play sitar music - so it will just be like sitting in my favourite Indian restaurant in Scotland.

Aubergine fondant with tomato confit and avocado coulis - the recipe

Serves 4

Tomato confit

4 ripe tomatoes (ideally plum tomatoes)

sugar

salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 sprigs of thyme

1 clove of garlic, peeled

olive oil

Preheat the oven to 80° C/160° F. Place the tomatoes in a pan of boiling water for 60 seconds. Remove and refresh in cold water for a few seconds then remove the skins. (LCB Top Tip: if you remove the cores first using a small sharp knife and make an "X" incision in the opposite end with a knife, they are much easier to peel).

Quarter the tomatoes and remove the seeds. Place the quarters on a baking tray and sprinkle each one with a pinch each of salt, pepper and sugar, some thyme leaves and some chopped garlic. Drizzle with olive oil and cook in the oven for 2 hours. When cooled, place in the fridge until required.

Aubergine fondant

6 medium aubergines

6 cloves of garlic

45 g black Niçoise olives, roughly chopped

olive oil

a pinch of curry powder

juice of 1 lemon

salt and freshly ground black pepper

10 mint leaves, roughly chopped

Preheat the oven to 180° C/350° F. Cut the ends off the aubergines and prick all over with a fork. Make a couple of incisions in each aubergine with a small sharp knife and insert ½ a garlic clove in each. (LCB Top Tip: unless you are lucky enough to have new summer garlic, it's recommended you remove the germ in the centre of the garlic clove. When garlic is young, the germ is pale small and tender. As the garlic ages, the germ turns green, grows larger, and develops an unpleasant bitter taste.)

Place the aubergines in the oven for 40-50 minutes until the skins are charred and the insides feel soft. Cut the aubergines in half and scoop out the flesh using a spoon. Heat some olive oil in a frying pan and fry the aubergine flesh for a couple of minutes to dry out a bit. Transfer to a blender, add the curry powder, salt and pepper, lemon juice, chopped olives and mint and blend to a purée. Place in the fridge until required.

Avocado coulis

1 ripe avocado

1 egg yolk

juice of ½ a lemon

a pinch of curry powder

a pinch of sugar

salt and white pepper

15 g crème fraîche

1 tbsp olive oil

Mash the avocado flesh with a fork, mix in the other ingredients then pass through a sieve. Place in the fridge until required.

To serve

Divide the tomatoes between 4 glasses then add a layer of aubergine fondant and top with a layer of avocado coulis. Leave in the fridge for at least 30 minutes before serving then sprinkle with curry powder and chopped chives or sprigs of mint. Eat with a spoon.

aubergine fondant with tomato confit and avocado coulis

I used to wonder why celebrity chefs with award-winning restaurants would write cookery books disclosing all their secrets. The answer is, of course, that they don't. The recipes in these books are vague approximations of their Michelin starred creations and turn out looking nothing like the accompanying photos. Some ingredient or technique has been omitted (unlike Delia's "take a brown, free-range egg weighing 25.5 g in your left hand ..." approach. I came across one of her vinaigrette recipes the other day and she actually tells you to put the lid on the screw-top jar before shaking! - lest you should forget).

Joël Robuchon is one such chef, but his ideas (using paper-thin slices of turnip instead of pasta in the ravioli of langoustine), not to mention his presentation (a vegetarian Scotch egg  pierced with a miniature pipette of chorizo oil), are inspired, but I have to do a lot of experimenting to arrive at a good result.

The method for aubergine fondant with tomato confit and avocado coulis failed to tell me when to sieve or liquidize or use white pepper instead of black (you don't want black specks spoiling the aesthetic of your silky smooth avocado coulis), but I got there in the end.

This is a stonker - yet so simple. It's the marriage of different textures, flavours and colours that's genius. I promise I'll post the recipe tomorrow.

fine food

I've been getting a lot of stick about the crisp sandwich and the burgers. After all my banging on about "Cordon Bleu this" and "Cordon Bleu that", you expected more from me.

So I give you ... 

langoustes en fines ravioles.

I bet they don't serve these down your local chippy.

This is based on a Joël Robuchon recipe from his book Robuchon Facile - and it really is easy, yet could conceivably feature on the menu of one of his Michelin starred restaurants.

The ravioli are made with layers of paper-thin slices of blanched turnip, their strong peppery flavour perfectly balancing the sweetness of the langoustines and the red pepper sauce. One to impress your dinner party guests with.

To make the ravioli sandwiches

Slice a small turnip very finely using a mandolin and cut into circles (about 7 cm) using a pastry cutter. Blanche the turnip slices in boiling salted water for 15 seconds, refresh in cold water and pat dry with kitchen roll. On top of 2 turnip discs, place 2 or 3 cooked langoustines, some very finely sliced fresh ginger and a flat parsley leaf and top with another disc of turnip. Stack a ravioli sandwich on top of another and serve with red pepper sauce.

Red pepper sauce

50 g onions

100 g red pepper

15 g fresh ginger

½ garlic clove, crushed with the flat side of a knife

45 g butter
pinch of paprika

100 cl fish stock

11 cl crème fraîche

salt and pepper

1. Peel and finely chop the onions. Peel the red pepper, remove the seeds and cut into big chunks. Peel and finely slice the ginger.

2. Melt 30 g of butter in a pan and add the garlic and onions and sweat for a couple of minutes. Add the paprika, salt and pepper, ginger, red pepper and fish stock and cook on a low heat for 20 minutes.

3. Add the crème fraîche and set aside for 5 minutes then add 15 g of chilled butter and sieve.