Rosemary Shrager
Castellated Crab
This recipe is for the cook/architect. It is a bit fiddly to assemble,
but you can prepare it up to an hour in advance and it will undoubtedly
impress your guests. Of course, it is also scrumptious.
For 6 as a starter, or 4 as a light lunch.
Ingredients:
1lb. (450g) white crabmeat
2 ripe avocado pears
6 large ripe tomatoes
1 tsp dill
2 tbsp mayonnaise
2/3 cup olive oil
Seasoning
Juice of 2 Lemons
Fresh dill
You will also need a plastic ring, about 2 1/2 inches in diameter.
Method:
Skin the tomatoes and remove the seeds; dice and season them and
put them aside. Skin the avocados, chop them in horizontal rings
and put them into the lemon-juice. Mix the crabmeat with the dill
and mayonnaise and season the mix.
Build each little circular castle from the bottom up using your
ring and compressing it as you go. Start with a layer of diced tomato,
followed by avocado, and followed by a layer of crab. Put more avocado
on top of the crab and finish with another layer of tomatoes, topped
with a sprig of dill. Serve it with some basil oil.
Extras:
Mayonnaise
This recipe provides the base for a variety of different flavors
- herb, lemon, caper, gherkin, garlic - anything that takes your
fancy. These flavorings should be stirred in, according to taste.
For 4.
Ingredients:
1¼ cups sunflower oil
2 egg yolks
¾ tsp. salt
2 tsp. Dijon mustard
Juice of ½ lemon
Method:
Whisk the egg yolks and mustard together, then add the oil very
slowly, drop by drop. Add salt to taste, and beat in the lemon juice.
Basil Oil
Basil is particularly good with tomato dishes. This oil will keep
for about three weeks.
Ingredients:
2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
Good bunch basil
Salt
Method:
Liquidise the basil with about 1 tsp. olive oil. Stir in the rest
of the olive oil and salt and leave it in a bowl for about a day
before straining it through muslin (or a tea-towel) so that it is
clear. Store in a screw-topped jar.
How to skin a tomato:
Cut out the hard stalk in the center of the tomato, cut a cross
in its base then put it into boiling water for 10 seconds. Then
quickly run it under cold water.
Remember:
It's the crab that's important, not the mayonnaise or the avocado,
keep those to a minimum, and let the flavor of the crab come through.
Lemon juice on avocados
If you put lemon juice on the avocados, they won't turn brown, meaning
you can prepare them in advance and them put them aside.
Aunty's Quail
Pierre Koffman's cookery book contains a recipe a little like this,
using sweetbreads. He suggested to me, some time before I went to
work for him, that quail would make a fine substitute. We had named
this recipe in appreciation of his wonderful restaurant in Tante
Claire in gratitude for his help.
For 4 as a main course.
Ingredients:
6 quail
1lb. (450g) puff pastry
4 large Savoy cabbage-leaves, blanched and refreshed
1 large chicken breast, weighing 5 ounces (150g)
1 small egg-white
2/3 cup double cream
2 egg yolks
Seasoning
For the sauce:
1 slice bacon chopped
1 leek, chopped
2 tbsp. Butter
6 medium mushrooms
1 cup white wine
1¼ cup quail/chicken stock
½ cup cream
2/3 cup armagnac
A few tarragon leaves
Seasoning
Oven: 400ºF / 200ºC
Method:
Cut the breasts and the legs off the quails. Make stock from the
other bones. Take the skin off the breasts and season the meat.
Take the central cores out of the cabbage leaves, wash and dry them.
Set them aside while you prepare a mousse. Process the chicken breast
with the egg white, blending it really thoroughly. Carefully add
the cream, using the pulse button so that it doesn't curdle. Season
the mixture.
Roll out the pastry thinly. Cut four discs, 3½ inches (9cm)
in diameter and then another four, 4½ (12cm) in diameter.
On top of each smaller circle put a small piece of cabbage and two
quail-breasts. Spoon some mousse on top of the cabbage, followed
by one more quail-breast and a little more mousse. Cover it all
with more cabbage and paint egg-yolk around the rim before putting
the larger circle of pastry on top, pressing it gently together
to make a small, round parcel and trimming the edges. With a little
icing-nozzle or a very sharp knife cut a hole from the top to allow
steam to escape, brush egg-yolk all over the top and bake on a buttered
tray for 30 minutes.
Make the sauce by softening the bacon and leek in butter. Add the
wine and the mushrooms and reduce to 1/3 before doing the same with
the stock and, after that, the vermouth, reducing every time. Finally
add the cream and seasoning. Seat the quail legs on all sides and
roast them for 15 minutes. Serve three around each little pie, surrounded
by the sauce, garnished with a little fresh tarragon.
Extras:
Puff Pastry
Makes approx. 5lbs. (2.5kg)
Ingredients:
7¾ cups all-purpose flour
10 tbsp. well-softened unsalted butter
2 tbsp. salt
4 egg yolks
2 ¼ cups water
9 ½ cups unsalted butter
3 ½ cups all-purpose flour
Method:
In a large mixing bowl mix the flour, salt, egg yolks and water
into a dough. Make the dough into two equal size balls, cut a cross
half way down in the top and then place into the fridge. Now soften
the butter, either on a table or in a mixer (not food-processor)
with the 3 ½ cups of flour and blend in to one large cake
before refrigerating.
At this stage it is important to have the pastry and butter at
more or less the same stage of suppleness when rolling out. Roll
out the dough to form a clover shape, rolling each clover leaf out
separately. Place the butter on the top of the dough. Bring the
sides up over the butter so there are no gaps and it is well sealed.
Carefully roll the dough into a rectangle shape, place on a tray
and place into the fridge for 30 minutes.
Afterwards, roll gently into a thinner rectangle about 1/8 inch
thick, each time rolling from the center out to each end. Fold the
dough back to two thirds up the rectangle and fold the final third
back onto the dough. Place this in the fridge for a further 20 minutes.
Place the folded dough open side facing you and roll out again.
Then fold again and repeat one more time. Put into the fridge for
a further 3 hours. Finally, cut up in to the required sizes, and
freeze or refrigerate.
Blanching and Refreshing Nouvelle
This means it's been plunged into boiling water and lightly cooked;
then plunged into very cold water, which quickly cools it and stops
it cooking. Blanching and refreshing cooks vegetables but doesn't
make them soggy. Blanching also removes some very strong tastes
- like cabbage or onions. They still have flavor, but won't overwhelm
the delicate flavors of the dish.
Strawberry Mousse Nouvelle
There are two special things about this glamorous dessert; one
is the fact that, though very light in texture, it keeps its shape
and can be sliced, almost like a cake; the other is its unusual
biscuit base. It's important to use leaf gelatine. I am grateful
to Jean-Christophe Novelli for the original idea, which I have adapted
in this recipe.
Ingredients:
2/3 lb.(300g) strawberries
5 tbsp. unsalted butter
3 tsp. gelatin powder
4 tsp. cold water
2/3 cup lightly whipped cream
1 quantity biscuit base (see below)
For the Italian meringue
3 egg whites
½ cup sugar
2 tsp. cold water
Ideally, you should use a 10" (25 cm) stainless steel ring.
You will also need a sugar-thermometer and an electric whisk.
Method:
Cut the biscuit base so it fits snugly inside the ring. Soak the
gelatin in the 4 tsp. of cold water to soften. Run all but a dozen
of the strawberries through a fine mesh sieve into a large bowl
and put two tablespoons of the pulp into a small pan to warm. Add
the softened gelatin to the pan, warming and stirring the mixture
until the gelatin has dissolved. Stir in the butter until it too
has melted and pour it into the rest of the sieved strawberries.
Set it aside, stirring occasionally so that it doesn't start to
set.
Next make the Italian meringue. Put two tablespoons of cold water
into a small, heavy saucepan and add the sugar. Heat it gently,
and have a bowl of cold water and a pastry brush handy in case crystals
begin to form. If they do, brush around the inside of the pan to
disperse them. When it has reached 275ºF (120ºC), set
it aside and start whisking the egg whites. When they have just
reached soft peaks, add the syrup slowly and whisk continuously
for five minutes until it is very smooth. Whisk a third of the meringue
mixture into the strawberry mixture then fold in the rest, followed
by the cream.
Spoon the mixture into the ring and refrigerate the mousse for
at least four hours. Remove from the fridge half an hour before
serving, surrounded by the remaining strawberries.
Extras:
Biscuit base recipe
Ingredients:
¾ cup ground almonds
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 tbsp. melted unsalted butter
¼ cup all-purpose flour
1 tbsp. kirsch liqueur
3 egg whites, medium
1 tbsp. sugar
Oven: 200°C/400°F/Gas Mark 6
Method:
In a large bowl combine the first 6 ingredients and the liqueur.
Whisk the egg white until it forms a soft peak, then add the 1 tbsp.
of sugar.
Use the meringue to slacken the almond mixture then fold in the
rest gently so as not to lose too much air. Spread the mixture onto
baking parchment paper in a rough circle, slightly larger than the
diameter of the ring, and bake on an oven tray for 10 minutes. Keep
checking after 7 minutes until it is golden brown.
Remove from the oven and leave to cool on the parchment paper until
ready to use. Peel off and cut out as required.
Fruit Coulis
This can be kept in the fridge for up to four days, and can be
used to accompany sorbets, mousses, ice creams etc. This recipe
uses raspberries, but you can use many different kinds of fruit.
Serves 4.
Ingredients:
½ lb. fresh raspberries
Juice of 1 lemon
1 ½ tsp. syrup*
Method:
Puree the fruit and the lemon juice in a blender, pass it through
a fine sieve and then add the cold syrup.
*syrup - the sweetness of the coulis depends on your taste, so you
can add more or less syrup, as you like. The basic recipe is….
1 ½ cups sugar
1 cup water
1/3 cup glucose
Others:
The recipe works equally well with raspberries. You could serve
this with a strawberry sorbet of coulis.
If you don't have a stainless steel ring to set the mousse in...
Use a loose-bottomed cake-tin, but line it with cling film, this
will stop the metal reacting badly with the fruit.
Don't overwhip your egg whites.
If you overwhip your egg whites, you'll beat the air out of them.
You want soft peaks - not hard ones. You can hold a bowl of correctly
whipped meringue over your head without it falling out - but don't
do this unless you're REALLY confident it's at the right consistency
(or if wearing clothes that need dry cleaning).
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