Real Ratatouille

I personally don’t use tomatoes for my ratatouille. I choose very ripe, sun-kissed vegetables to avoid acidity. I also buy organic if possible, so I don’t have to peel them. The key to good ratatouille is reducing the cooking juices, so we’ll be repeating this step three times. Ratatouille can be served hot, cold, or at room temperature as an appetizer; you can also use it to stuff tomatoes or a rabbit, or as piperade for an omelette. Finally, ratatouille can easily be kept in a jar in the fridge (be sure to pack it down and pour olive oil on top to prevent it from coming into contact with the air).

INGREDIENTS

Serves 8

• 6 yellow onions and an equal amount (in weight) of:
  • Yellow and red peppers
  • Courgettes
  • Aubergines
• 1 pink garlic bulb (fresh if possible)
• 300 ml olive oil
• 1 bunch of basil
• 1 bunch of thyme or savoury
• Olives
• Table salt

STEPS

1. Peel the onions and garlic.
2. Rinse the peppers, courgettes, and aubergines. Cut the onions, courgettes, and aubergines into quarters individually and slice the garlic. Salt and brush with olive oil.
3. In a skillet, cook the quartered onions and sliced garlic.
4. Remove the onions and garlic from the skillet and cook the courgettes.
5. Remove the courgettes from the skillet and cook the aubergines.
6. Grill the peppers or use a salamander. Rotate them until the entire skin is black. Let cool, then peel away the skin, cut them open, and remove the seeds and pith. Cut the flesh into quarters.
7. Put all the vegetables in a flameproof casserole dish, mixing them as little as possible, and add the sprigs of thyme.
8. Bake at 130ºC for about half an hour. Let sit for 12 hours.
9. Remove the juice rendered by the vegetables and reduce it in the skillet. When it is syrupy, pour it back into the casserole.
10. Repeat three times, adding the olives on the third time.
11. If the vegetables are caramelised and coated with a flavourful and fragrant sauce, then it is ready to serve.
12. Add the basil when ready to serve.

CHEF’S TIPS

Always use seasonal vegetables. To make it easier to peel the peppers, seal them in an airtight bag once cooked. Hermès makes a large dinner plate, the Balcon du Guadalquivir, which can be used in the oven—in fact, it’s perfect for oven use—and can be used in place of a casserole.

* The large Balcon du Guadalquivir dish is currently unavailable.

Gourmet Mushroom Ravioli

You can also make these raviolis using fresh lasagne sheets (available at Italian delicatessens). Thin the sheets with a pasta roller if you have one and use a biscuit cutter to cut circles in the pasta. If you like shellfish, you can use crab or spider crab instead of mushrooms. In this case, use mascarpone instead of ricotta—delicious!

INGREDIENTS

Makes 24 ravioli.
As a starter: 3 per person. As a main course: 6 per person.

• 24 pieces of ravioli dough (can be found in Asian supermarkets)
• 600 g mixed fresh mushrooms: button, shiitake, porcini, trompette-de-la-mort, oyster, etc.
• 1 large shallot
• 250 g fresh spinach
• 1 kg vegetable scraps for the broth (carrots, celery, leek greens, parsley stalks, tarragon sprigs, turnip, mushroom stems, etc.)
• 125 g ricotta
• 1 handful tarragon or parsley
• Zest of 1 lemon

STEPS

Broth

1. Rinse the vegetable scraps. At this point, chop the mushrooms for the filling (See “Filling”, Step 1) and add only the stems to the scraps.
2. Place in a large Dutch oven, cover with water, and simmer for a good half hour.
3. Strain by firmly pressing the vegetables, then reduce the broth. Discard the vegetables, as their flavour has been cooked into the broth.

Filling

1. Rinse the mushrooms and spinach and chop. Set aside 2 button mushrooms for garnish.
2. Peel and finely chop the shallot.
3. In a lightly buttered or oiled skillet, cook the chopped shallot.
4. Add the chopped mushrooms and spinach and season with salt and pepper.
5. Cover the skillet and cook for 10-12 minutes, stirring occasionally. Use a colander to drain, then add the cooking juices to the vegetable broth.
6. In a medium-sized bowl, combine the cooled mushroom/spinach mixture, ricotta, lemon zest, and chopped herbs (set some aside to garnish the plates).

Ravioli

1. Roll out the circles of ravioli dough on a floured surface.
2. Place a ball of filling in the centre of each circle. Using a brush or your index finger, dampen the edges of the dough with cool water.
3. Fold the dough to form a crescent and pinch the edges to seal.
4. Place each ravioli on a non-stick baking sheet, making sure they do not overlap. Lightly sift potato starch, corn starch, or flour over the top.
5. Cover with cling film and refrigerate.

Cook and enjoy!

1. In a large pot, heat the broth (add a dash of soy sauce for added flavour). When it comes to a boil, cook the ravioli for 3 to 4 minutes.
2. Place 3 to 6 ravioli on each plate and top with a bit of hot broth.
3. Garnish with very thin slices of raw button mushroom and chopped tarragon.

Pear and Walnut Pancakes

You can even use this recipe to make blinis. Just make the pancake batter as instructed, except leave out the fruit and replace the pears with 100 ml of single cream. Once your batter is ready, all you need to do is pan-fry your blinis.

INGREDIENTS

Serves approx. 2

• 3 tbsp. rolled oats
• 1 egg
• 60 g salted butter
• 150 g flour
• 1 packet chemical yeast
• 250 ml milk
• 2 pears or apples
• 1 handful walnut kernels
• Maple syrup

STEPS

1. In a mixing bowl, pour boiling water over the oats to make them expand.
2. Beat the egg as you would for an omelette.
3. Sift together the flour and yeast.
4. Melt the butter.
5. Peel the fruit and finely dice.
6. Crush the walnuts.
7. Combine all the ingredients and set aside for a few moments.
8. Cook the pancakes a few minutes on each side in a hot buttered skillet.
9. Serve hot or warm with a good maple syrup.

Individual Chocolate Fondants

Although this recipe uses dark chocolate that is slightly sweet, you can use a sweeter chocolate as long as you reduce the amount of sugar accordingly. Remember to grease the pudding basins to make it easier to remove the fondants at the end! And if you want to freeze the mixture once it’s in the basins, add 2 minutes to the cooking time. You can add variation to your fondants such as by adding vanilla to your crème anglaise and sprinkling grated tonka beans or ground cinnamon on top of them before serving.

INGREDIENTS

Makes 16 fondants.

• 500 g slightly sweet dark chocolate
• 325 g salted butter
• 12 organic eggs
• 110 g sugar
• 130 g flour

STEPS

1. Melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler.
2. Whisk the eggs and sugar. Add the previous mixture, and then the flour.
3. Pour into greased aluminium pudding basins and chill in the refrigerator.
4. Preheat an oven to 180ºC and bake for 8 minutes. Serve immediately with crème anglaise flavoured with tonka beans or vanilla.

Airy Meringue

Meringue can be added to whipped cream to sweeten it and add texture, and it makes a great decoration for a strawberry tart, too. It’s also a great way to use your egg whites so they don’t go to waste! Most recipes will tell you to use double the weight of sugar to egg whites, but I personally believe that a one-to-one weight ratio is more than enough.

INGREDIENTS

Makes about 10 meringues.

• 130 g egg whites (40-45 g per egg)
• 130 g icing sugar
• 1 pinch table salt or 1 ml vinegar
• A handful of slivered almonds (optional)

STEPS

1. In a stand mixer, beat the egg whites with the pinch of salt until the mixture stands up in stiff peaks.
2. Slowly add the sugar until the two ingredients are fully combined; the whites should be smooth and glossy.
3. Drop rounds of meringue on parchment paper right away, generously spacing them out.
4. To get the meringues crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside, bake at 160ºC (dry heat) for 20 minutes and leave in the convection microwave oven until it has completely cooled.
5. Remove from the oven and enjoy! Before baking, you can stir slivered almonds into the meringue, making sure not to break the peaks. It shouldn’t be too difficult since the sugar will keep the peaks firm!

CHEF’S TIPS

If you want crunchy meringues that keep a long time, bake at a very low temperature (100ºC) for 2 to 3 hours. Each time you use your oven afterwards, put the meringues back in while the oven is still hot; they will dry out in the residual heat. The drier they are, the longer they keep!