Three Restaurants, Three Recipes

Rob sent a request from Anglo A to collect stage recipes so he would be able to make a book out of it! I appreciate the initiative and decided to share what I wrote in my blog as well. In this rare case that I’m actually writing recipes, why not.
During my stage I had the chance to work in three different restaurants. I am sharing one recipe from each.

Frenchie

Is a tiny (30 seats), very popular bistro gastronomic. Market based cuisine, dishes changing frequently.

Apple Chutney

They serve this chutney with the foie gras, I liked it very much and used to munch on it every dinner service for a month.

1 clove garlic purée
1 red chilli, diced
1.5 cups light brown sugar
1.5 cups dark brown sugar
2 cups raisins
~6 cups apples, peeled and diced (around 30 apples maybe?)
1 cinnamon stick
600 ml rice vinegar
3 tbs mustard seeds
2 tbs salt

Cook all the ingredients without the apples. When in syrup consistency add three quarters of the apples, add all the rest after three quarters of the cooking time. Cook 1-1.5 hours.

 

Pavillon Ledoyen

Very big 3 star Michelin restaurant, I worked there in the banquet kitchen which serves the big parties and reception events. The recipe I choose is pretty complicated to go ahead and try make it at home, especially with my explanations, but it’s appropriate because this is the kind of dishes served in a 3 star restaurant.

Timbale de macaronis truffee

This dish is a cup or a box made from spaghetti and filled with asparagus and mushroom in cream sauce, covered with black truffle sauce. It’s the banquette version of one of the gastro kitchen signature dishes known as Spaghetti au Jambon Blanc, Truffe et Parmesan, made similarly but in a rectangular shape filled with ham and morel mushrooms, decorated with more truffles and gold sheets.

Farcé fine
200 gr Chicken breasts
200 gr liquid cream
pinch of salt

Clean the chicken breast from fat and cartilage, weight so that you will know how much cream is needed (1:1 ratio). Mix the chicken in the mixer with a pinch of salt, then gradually add the cream and keep mixing until incorporated, careful not to heat the mixture due to overmixing.

Pass through a tamis. This is the “glue” for the spaghetti.

spaghetti
1 kg spaghetti (the one with the hole in the middle)
butter
parmesan, grated
salt

Cook the spaghetti with salted water “al dente”. Strain and mix gently with some butter and parmesan. Fix seasoning. While still warm arrange the spaghetti on a plaque with baking paper on the bottom. It should be horizontal, in one layer, without gaps between. Best to do one by one and don’t use the shorter ones. Make as many “sheets” as you get to do. With the help of a spatula cover a thin layer of Farcé fine on top of the “spaghetti sheets” and freeze.
In the meantime cut strips of baking paper, oil them and stick them in the inside of metal rings. Arrange all the rings on a plaque with a baking paper on the bottom.

From part of the spaghetti sheet cut circles, with the help of a metal ring (same diameter you used before), to use as the bottoms of the cups and arrange neatly in the bottom of every ring. easiest to cut when still frozen (less mess). Important: no gaps between the spaghetti, add a little piece whenever necessary.
From another part of the sheets, cut vertically, with the help of a ruler, stripes just a bit wider than the height of the metal rings. While still frozen, arrange these stripes as the border of the metal rings. The Farcé fine should be on the inside. Add little stripes of spaghetti until the structure is perfect without gaps. You know it’s perfect when it’s impossible to add another spaghetti and keep it all one layer.

With a small knife cut the edges of the spaghetti border so that they will be leveled with the metal ring border. With the rest of the spaghetti sheets, cut the covers with a circle smaller than the metal ring (check if it’s covering just right). With a finger, make sure all the inside of the ring is covered with farce fine, most importantly the connection between the bottom and the border, but don’t put too much!

Filling:
liquid cream
asparagus
mushroom
salt

Reduce the cream to sauce consistency, season. Put small pieces of cooked mushrooms and asparagus in the spaghetti cup and cover with the cream sauce (best using chinois piston). You can try different fillings like morel and ham. Cover with the spaghetti “hat”, remove excess filling if leaking and seal with more farce fine. Clean the edges of the ring with your fingers so it will not stick.

Cook in the oven medium temperature until ready (not sure for how long). Carefully release the metal circle, remove the baking paper and gently cover with truffle sauce (I don’t have the recipe for that, sorry).

Decorate with the heads of the asparagus and some fresh trufle.

Etc…

Is a small restaurant (50 seats), one star Michelin under the empire of chef Le-Square (Pavillon Ledoyen). I was working there for one month in the Garde manger station.

Ravioli de Langoustine et Persil, Sauce Beurre Citron

The beauty of this recipe that it’s so simple but delicious and can be used with different variations. Sorry I don’t have a picture of that…

Raviolis
Feuilles de raviolis chinois
(yes, it’s so cheap and good, they didn’t bother to make their own pasta dough for that dish, can be found in any chinese store)

langoustine (or shrimp) peeled and cleaned
flat parsley
egg yolk for glueing
potato starch flour

Season the langoustine, make sure they are dry. Cover your working station with the starch flour and arrange as many ravioli squares as the number of langoustines. In the center of each square put a langoustine and a parsley leaf. With a brush spread the egg yolk on the bottom corner of the square (half of the border). Lift the un-yolked corner and stick it to the yolked corner and close the whole ravioli in a triangle shape. Close it firmly, no air bubbles inside (recut with a metal circle in the case you wish to make them smaller and nice shaped, but triangles are nice too). This can be made in advance and kept dry and separated with some more starch in the fridge until ready to cook.

Sauce
fond blanc de volaille
butter
1 lemon squeezed to juice, strained.
salt and pepper
Heat a ladle of fond blanc (can be done from powder). “Monter” with butter until sauce consistency. Add lemon juice and fix seasoning. Keep warm in a bain marie.

Cook the raviolis 4-5 at a time in a salted boiling water for about 3 minutes, then drain. Serve with a spoonful of sauce, decorate with chopped parsley and dried tomatoes.

 

Thanks Rob for organizing this, can’t wait for the book to come out, tell me if you need help.