A beautifully cooked omelette is one of life’s greatest pleasures. As simple as an omelette may sound, it is not always easy to achieve the perfect ‘cuisson‘ (cooking). It must be light, fluffy and velvety soft, just as you would imagine it being served on a silver tray in your dream hotel.

One of our house guests earlier this month, Mathieu (see previous post), is a master at cooking omelettes. We would literally queue up at the kitchen table every morning kindly placing our orders – omelette nature for Thorir, omelette with herbs for Isabelle, omelette with cheese for my husband. My favourite one was the tarragon and Saint-Nectaire cheese omelette. The ingredients just happened to be ready and available on the kitchen counter, so Mathieu made an improvised mix. It tasted like a truffled omelette, only nuttier and more aromatic due to the exquisite Saint-Nectaire cheese. Pure delight.

It is always a pleasure to have guests, but even better when they are marvelous omelette cooking guest hosts.

Ingredients:
3 free-range eggs
10 g butter
A small handful of chopped fresh tarragon
A few slices of Saint-Nectaire cheese (finely sliced and crust removed – you can use any of your favourite cheese)
Salt and black pepper to season

Crack three eggs in a bowl and whisk eggs until slightly frothy, about 3-4 minutes. Heat the butter in a frying pan over a medium heat. When the butter starts sizzling, pour the eggs in the pan. Using a spatula, move the eggs in a circular motion for a few seconds and allow eggs to cook on a low heat. Sprinkle salt, pepper, chopped tarragon and sliced Saint-Nectaire cheese. When the cheese starts to melt, take the pan off the heat and gently roll the omelette on both sides. Flip over, return to heat and cook for 5 seconds until slightly golden. Serve immediately on a plate.

Omelettes are best served with a green salad.

Tomatoes are vegetables that make good neighbours. Bernadette, my lovely ‘voisine‘ (neighbour), is passionate about her home-grown pomme d’amour (that’s how she calls them – love apples). Whenever I drop by to say hello, she will meticulously tell me the difference between the yellow, red and green ones. Each type has a story to tell, from great-grandmothers recipes to how sweet some are compared to others. Whatever it is, I can stay hours listening to her vegetable tales. Earlier this week, she prepared an enormous basket of these glistening red beauties as a gift. I have been admiring them all week, letting my imagination run wild with cooking ideas. We’ve been enjoying gazpachos, tomato salads, and today, this delicious tomato tart. Merci, Bernadette!

Ingredients (serves 6):

For the filling:
5-6 tomatoes (sliced and partly deseeded)
4 tbsp tarragon mustard
5 tbsp grated parmesan cheese
1 tbsp Provence herbs
200 g mozzarella cheese (sliced)
A few fresh basil leaves
Olive oil (to drizzle)
Salt and pepper (for seasoning)

For the shortcrust pastry:
210 g plain flour
125 g unsalted butter, chilled and sliced in cubes
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
3 tbsp cold water
or 230-250 g ready-made shortcrust pastry dough

In a large bowl, mix the flour and salt in a bowl. Add the butter and mix using your hands until dough is crumbly. Make a well in the center, add egg and water. Mix well until dough is soft and form a ball. Roll dough on a floured surface, adding flour if necessary if dough is too sticky. With a rolling pin, roll dough large enough to cover tart pan. Press firmly on the sides to line the pan.

Preheat oven 200°C.

Spread tarragon mustard on the tart base, sprinkle parmesan and arrange the sliced tomatoes in two fine layers. Drizzle with olive oil, Provence herbs, and arrange sliced mozzarella all over. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
(Tip: To avoid a wet tomato tart, let the sliced tomatoes drain for 10 minutes on a plate before placing them in tart.)

Place tart in oven and bake for 30 minutes. Sprinkle with fresh basil leaves and serve immediately.

Out of all the days of the week, Sunday is the golden day. We take time off and enjoy a quality ‘déjeuner‘. Our kids love this family ritual, and I secure it by making sure to cook something memorable. I would like to imagine my children’s lives bookmarked by food memories, especially Sunday lunches. It’s a sacred moment in time where all the ingredients matter.

With so many recipes ideas flowing in my head, I always have a soft spot for Lyonnaise cooking. In a way, it’s the French equivalent to my other food love which is Shanghainese cooking. They both have a point in common where a lot of elements are ‘drunken‘ by wine and spirits. There is also a lot of sourness mixed with sweetness, refined and preserved meats. My identity is defined between these two food cultures where East meets West. It’s good to know where you stand.

I made a Xérès vinegar chicken à la Lyonnaise, a classic dish filled assertive with flavours. I love serving this with braised endives and red wild rice from Camargue – the tangy sauce is a big appetite opener and goes perfectly well with the slightly bitter taste of the endives.

Ingredients (for 6 people) :

6 large chicken legs
80 g butter
2 tbsp olive oil (for frying chicken)
3 shallots (chopped)
1 large onion (chopped)
6 garlic cloves
3 tbsp plain flour
2 large tomatoes (chopped)
6 bay leaves
300 ml white wine
150 ml Xérès vinegar
150 ml chicken stock
A handful of chopped chives
Salt and pepper

Chop shallots, onion and garlic cloves. Chop tomatoes to small squares. Set aside. Dissolve 1 cube of chicken stock in 150 ml warm water and set aside.

In a frying pan, heat olive oil and fry chicken legs till golden on both sides (approx 4 minutes on each sides). Set aside on a large plate.

In an oven-proof large cooking pot, melt butter and fry shallots, onion and garlic for 4-5 minutes on a medium heat, drizzle flour, mix well, and add chicken legs. Stir gently so the chicken gets coated. Add wine, vinegar and reduce for 4 minutes, still on a medium heat. Add chicken stock, season with salt and pepper. Add bay leaves and tomatoes. Cover and place in a preheated oven (210°C) for 25-30 minutes.

When ready, sprinkle with chopped chives and serve immediately. I serve this dish with braised endives and wild red organic rice from Camargue (bought at my local organic health store).

Braised endives:

3 endives/ chicory (leaves plucked and washed)
2 tbsp unsalted butter
A pinch of salt

In a large pot, melt butter until golden, add endives, stir, add salt and continue stirring for 3 minutes. Lower heat and cover. Cook for 10 minutes. Serve immediately.

This nostalgic ‘plat de famille‘ (family dish) from Lyon is certainly one of the most luxurious macaroni and cheese around. The term ‘bon-vivant’ must have been linked with Lyonnais style cooking, for every dish from this region always has a certain finishing touch unlike no others. The gruyère cheese and Beaujolais wine make this macaroni gratin extra rich in flavours and in texture. The oxtail is braised in red wine for three hours creating a succulent and hearty stew, then layered with macaroni and the richest gruyère béchamel sauce ever.

This dish is pure decadence. The simplicity of a ‘mac & cheese’ turned into a Lyonnais feast is what I love about the alchemy of cooking – you can turn anything into something!

Ingredients: (serves 4)

250 g macaroni pasta
1 kg oxtail (cut in chunks)
1 litre of Beaujolais wine
1 onion (chopped)
4 garlic gloves (minced)
1 bay leaf
2 sprigs of thyme
120 g grated gruyère cheese
30 g butter
1/2 tbsp coarse salt
Pepper for seasoning

For the béchamel sauce
60 g butter
30 g plain flour
300 ml milk
150 ml crème fraîche
1/2 tsp nutmeg
Salt and pepper to season

In a large cooking pot, brown the meat with 30 g of butter. Add the thyme, bay leaf, chopped onion and garlic. Deglaze with one liter of Beaujolais wine and cook on the low heat for 3 hours until beef is tender. Remove meat from bone, chop roughly if necessary, add to the sauce and cook for a further 15 minutes on a medium heat. The sauce should be glossy and thick.

Cook macaroni pasta until al dente – rinse with cold water and drain. Set aside.

Prepare the béchamel sauce: In a saucepan on a medium heat, melt butter and add flour. Whisk until smooth and gradually add milk whisking away. Season with salt and pepper and nutmeg and stir until sauce thickens to a desired consistency – this will take approx. 8-10 minutes. Add 50 g or gruyère cheese and mix well until cheese has melted. Set aside.

Preheat oven 210 °C. Line a baking dish with butter and place one layer of beef and sauce, one layer of macaroni, one layer of béchamel sauce. Repeat procedure and finish with a layer of béchamel sauce. Sprinkle with the rest the gruyère cheese. Bake for 20 minutes until golden on top. Serve immediately.

Tip: You can save some meat sauce and serve as a gravy on the side. It’s delicious!

The charm of summer in Médoc is the lack of crowds on the beaches and in the forests. Our environment feels untouched and its inhabitants are glad. Locals love how detached Médoc is from the rest of France – some say that true Médocain character has remained unchanged throughout the centuries. They are raw, earthy and true hunters at heart. I really feel we are in a very special place here, far away from the rest of the world. May it stay this way forever.

When I want to reconnect with civilization, I go to Bordeaux (I will give you a little tour of Bordeaux next month) which is an hour and a half away by car. And for some charming sea-side culture I love going to Cap-Ferret (an hour away from here) which has all the key elements to make me happy – the charming oysters ‘cabanons’ (huts) where you can sit and eat the freshest oysters and drink white wine with your feet in the water, the perfectly shaped white dunes and big waves of the Atlantic ocean, pine trees perfuming the air, Vichy print dresses from Popie’s, the mussels filled with sausage meat and garlic at ‘Chez Hortense‘, the dune of Pyla, the bassin of Arcachon. It’s also where I love buying espadrilles for my kids – the choice is amazing.

A few shots taken on Instagram in Cap-Ferret – At ‘chez Hortense’, by an oyster cabanon, on the beach.

Every summer I discover something new. Something that will mark my memory forever, like a beautiful shell found on a beach or a restaurant discovered on a hill with the best risotto ever (like ‘Da Priori’ in Marque, Italy). Well, summer is still not over, but I have to tell you about the ‘dunes blanches’ I ate last week. They are exquisite little ‘chouquettes’ filled with chantilly cream, a ‘spécialité’ from the boulangerie ‘Chez Pascal’ (46 Route du Cap Ferret 33950 Lège-Cap-Ferret) in Cap-Ferret. Chouquettes (sugar puffs) are sold in every bakery in France, but Pascal’s version with cream is a true delight. When they open in the morning, there’s already a five meter queue. Need I say more?

As I am a totally food-obsessed, I couldn’t wait for a new day to start so I could recreate these creamy gems as fast as I could. So here’s the recipe, to be treasured.

Ingredients (makes 20 large chouquettes or 30 small chouquettes)

250 ml full-cream milk
200 ml water
250 g butter (room temperature)
250 g plain flour (sifted)
2 tbsp caster sugar
6 eggs
1 tsp fine salt
140 g small sugar grains

For the filling:
200 ml whipping double cream
50 g icing sugar

To make the ‘pâte à choux’ (choux pastry)

In a large saucepan, mix milk, water, caster sugar, salt and butter and bring to a soft boil. Take off the heat and add flour in one go. Mix well until dough is smooth. Return to heat for 1 minute stirring constantly – this step is called ‘drying’ the batter. The dough should be sticking off the pan and forming a ball.
Take off the heat, and add one egg at a time, making sure to mix in each egg in the batter.

Preheat oven 180 °C. Line a baking tray with parchment paper. Place the ‘pâte à choux’ dough in a pastry piping bag with a large nozzle and pipe medium (6cm) or small (4cm) dome shapes. Sprinkle with sugar grains. Depending on size, bake for 30-35 minutes for medium size, or 20-25 minutes for small size. Check on them gradually, they should be golden and puffed. I always eat/try one before taking them out to be sure they are perfectly cooked in the center. Set aside and leave to cool completely.

Assembling:
Whisk cream until stiff, add sifted icing sugar halfway. When all the ‘choux’ are cool, make a small slit in the base using a stick. Use pastry bag with the smallest nozzle tip and ‘inject’ each ‘choux’ with the cream (approx 1 tbsp per choux). Sprinkle with icing sugar and serve immediately.

What’s a summer cook to do? With temperatures reaching more than thirty-eight degrees, I hardly want to switch anything on, especially the oven. We have been alternating between the pool, the Atlantic beaches (Médoc is a peninsula with eighty kilometers of beautiful beaches), trips to Cap-Ferret and some brave city slicking in Bordeaux where the heat has been literaly sizzling. Frankly, my favourite time has been spent on our ‘secret’ beach next to our home – the ocean breeze combined with the scent of pine trees and blackberry bushes make my summer.

At home, salads are served as a meal (little joke destined to Brasserie Lipp in Paris where there is a caption on their menu saying ‘no salad served as a meal’!). I can’t imagine eating anything else – it’s got to be light, fresh and tasty in these hot summer days.

Today, I jumped out of the pool before everybody and quickly made this delightful tuna, egg, haricots verts (green beans) and mint salad, dressed in a balsamic vinaigrette. It’s such a fulfilling and cooling dish thanks to the panaché of minty flavours. A summer must.

Ingredients (serve 4):

5 eggs (hard-boiled)
3 handfuls of haricots verts/ French green beans
A large handful of chopped mint
2 cans good-quality tuna fish
3-4 tbsp balsamic vinegar
6 tbsp olive oil
A dash of celery salt
A dash of pepper

Place eggs in a pot and pour enough water over the eggs to cover. Cover with a lid and boil for 15 minutes. Transfer to a bowl of cold water and let the eggs cool completely. Peel eggs and chop finely and set aside. Cut the tips off the green beans on both ends, rinse well and cook for 8-10 minutes in salted boiling water. Drain and set aside to cool. Chop to 1 cm. Set aside. Prepare vinaigrette – mix olive oil, celery salt, pepper and balsamic vinegar . You can add more or less balsamic vinegar to your liking. Set aside.
Assemble salad with tuna fish in the center, a layer of chopped eggs, then a layer of green beans. Sprinkle with chopped mint just before serving and drizzle with vinaigrette. Serve immediately.

This summer, we had several friends staying at Château Cordeillan-Bages , a beautiful ‘relais-château‘ located in the heart of Médoc. They loved every moment of their stay, but most importantly, they adored the hotel’s restaurant, headed by chef Jean-Luc Rocha. When I told them that I had the chance to meet him and cook by his side, they couldn’t wait to see the recipes and try them out.

Jean-Luc’s predecessor for nine years was chef Thierry Marx – a household name is French gastronomy. Upon his departure, Jean-Luc managed to immediately maintain the prestige of the château’s restaurant and preserve the two Michelin stars. Jean-Luc is a real maestro at his work – his innovative modern touch reflects his passion and love for fine cuisine.

Chef Jean-Luc Rocha

For ‘Manger’, Jean-Luc will be sharing his seasonal recipes. Today he chose two desserts very close to his childhood and his heart – ‘the riz au lait‘ just like his grandmother made, with sprinkled Moroccan cinnamon (she had a talent for making beautiful forms and figures by sprinkling cinnamon). And an elegant set of ‘black and white’ ‘sablés‘ biscuits, something he enjoys making at home with his kids as well as at the restaurant.

I felt incredibly lucky getting cooking tips from such a grand chef – his creativity is boundless. Just as he finished making the riz au lait, he decided to make another ‘last-minute’ dessert – a gastronomical version of ‘riz au lait’. Take half the portion of the warm riz au lait and blend in a food processor for 3 minutes until the texture is smooth like cream. Transfer to a ‘whipping cream dispenser’ and chill for 1 hour. In ramequins, place 3 tbsp of chilled ‘riz au lait’, then squeeze an adequate amount of the ‘blended‘ riz-au lait in the shape of a spiraled meringue. Sprinkle with orange and lemon zest.

Riz au lait (serves 4)

130 g arborio rice (rinsed in cold water and drained)
10 scrapes of orange zest
10 scrapes of lemon zest
500 g double cream
600 g milk
1 vanilla pod (split open and scraped – optional)
120 g egg yolk
140 g caster sugar
Ground cinnamon for decorating (optional)

Rinse the rice in cold water and drain. Whisk the sugar and egg yolks in a bowl until light and fluffy. Set aside.
Mix the rice, orange/lemon zest, cream, vanilla and milk in a saucepan and bring to a soft boil on a low heat for 20 minutes. Off the heat, add the egg yolks and sugar mix to the rice, return to a low heat on and off stirring constantly for 3-5 minutes. Finally, add one pinch of fleur de sel/salt. Set aside and chill before serving. Sprinkle with ground cinnamon to decorate. You can create figures of your choice by sprinkling lightly using your fingertips (see photos).

Black and White Sablés

Plain dough
150 g plain flour (sifted)
100 g butter (softened at room temperature)
50 g icing/confectioner’s sugar
2 tbsp egg

In a food processor, combine and mix sifted flour, butter and icing sugar. Mix for 3 minutes, then add 2 tbsp of egg and mix for 10 seconds. Roll in a shape of a ball, wrap in cling film and leave to rest in the refrigerator for 15 minutes.

Cocoa dough
115 g plain flour (sifted)
75 g butter (softened at room temperature)
38 g icing/confectioner’s sugar
12 g cocoa powder
2 tbsp egg

In a food processor, mix sifted flour and cocoa powder. Add the icing sugar, followed by the butter. Mix for 2 minutes. Add 2 tbsp of egg and mix 10 more seconds.

Preheat oven to 170 C.
On a slightly floured parchment paper covered surface, roll the plain dough and the cocoa dough separately to a 1 cm/half-inch thickness. Tip: You can use a 1 cm thick cubic bar to align the dough on both sides to create an even dough (sold at your local hardware store). With a sharp knife or dough cutter, cut 1 cm thick strips. Align each strips to your liking (3 strips on three rows). Roll the aligned strips in the parchment paper to secure the strips and transfer to the refrigerator or freezer for 15-20 minutes. Slice ‘sablés’ and place on baking sheet in the preheated oven for 12-15 minutes (depending on thickness of ‘sablés’). Leave to cool on a wire rack and serve.

My grandmother loved taking me on long garden walks in the beautiful countryside of Périgord. She always had a pair of old-fashioned garden scissors ready to cut off a few of her favorite herbs and flowers. She loved vervain, and religiously had a cup of infused leaves every night before going to sleep – ‘La petite tisane du soir’ she would say. She also mixed them to sliced summer peaches with a dash of sugar – she would leave the peaches to marinate in a covered bowl all day in the fridge. In Roman times, vervain was associated with the god Venus, as it had magical properties to revive lost love. This marvelous herb is such a divine match with summer peaches, so I was inspired to make a peach tart with a vervain infused custard, reminding me of sweet childhood days with my grandmother. The pastry dough is just as she used to do it, with ground almonds – extra delicious and crumbly. The combination of the citrus vervain taste with cream and peaches topped with a large cloud of fruit fool will make your summer brighter than ever.

Ingredients

For the pastry:

250 g/2 cups plain flour

150 g/ 2/3 cups butter (softened at room temperature)

30 g/ ¼ cup caster sugar

60 g icing/ ½ cup confectioner’s sugar

80 g/ ½ cup ground almonds

1 egg

1 pinch of salt

In a large bowl, mix all the ingredients together until the mixture forms a homogenous dough. Shape into a ball, wrap in cling film and place in refrigerator for at least 2 hours. Take out 30 minutes before rolling out.

For the vervain-infused custard base:

400 ml/ 1 and a half cup milk

20 vervain leaves (fresh or dried – alternatively you can use 4 vervain teabags)

2 egg yolks

2 tbsp plain flour or cornstarch

50 g/ ¼ cup white sugar

In a saucepan, boil the milk and throw in the vervain leaves (or teabags). Take off the heat and let the vervain infuse for 10-15 minutes. In a bowl, mix the flour (or cornstarch), egg yolks and sugar together. Blend in the vervain-infused milk slowly and re-heat (on a low heat) until the mixture becomes thick and creamy. Should the mixture have lumps, you can pass it though a sieve. Set aside to cool.

For the tart:

3 large peaches, sliced (in half moon shapes)

For the fruit fool cream topping:

200 ml/1 cup whipping cream

1 plum, 1 peach, 1 nectarine (or any summer fruit you wish – they should be on the riper side)

50 g/ ¼ cup caster sugar

Chop fruits to small bits. Set aside. Whip cream until stiff, adding caster sugar halfway. Fold in the chopped fruits.

A few leaves of fresh vervain

Final stages:

On a floured parchment covered surface, roll out the dough to fit your tart pan. Butter the tart pan, line with the pastry dough, and cut out excess overhang dough approx. ¼ inch/ 1 cm off the rim. Fold in the excess dough to make a double thick rim. Pierce dough with a fork and place in the freezer for 30 minutes (this tip will prevent the dough from shrinking when you bake it). When ready, line the inside with parchment, fill with dried beans (I use my son’s marbles), and blind bake for 15-20 minutes at 350 F/ 180° C.

Leave to rest for 10 minutes. Fill the tart base with the vervain infused custard, place the sliced peaches on top in a circular shape, pushing them in slightly, sprinkle with caster sugar and bake again for 15-20 minutes at 350 F/ 180° C. The peaches might get watery when you take out the tart from the oven – no worries, they will set nicely once the tart has cooled down. Leave to cool completely, serve with fruit fool on top of the tart, or on the side. Sprinkle with a few fresh vervain leaves.

Fruit cakes remind me of a box of jewels, the kind of gems you would win as a child at a fun fair. It looks like a chest filled with all the ingredients to make a rum-loving pirate happy. It’s an old-fashioned cake suitable for any occasions, especially tea parties. I usually love dreamy cream cakes, but I decided to give my friend Mathieu a chance and rediscover his version of a fruit cake. Mathieu loves baking all sorts of cakes and this happens to be one of his favourite. Rum ‘bathed’ candied fruits and raisins are the key ingredients, soaked for forty-eight hours to get the full flavours.

We had a lovely afternoon tea-time snack, out in the garden with friends and family – perfect summer weather, feeling lazy and happy. The cake turned out beautifully, light, slightly glazed on top with roasted almond flakes. Slicing the cake is the fun part, with all the candied fruits sparkling in the sunshine – it matched my mood and the girls dresses.

Ingredients: (serves 6-8)

200 g plain flour (sifted)
100 g caster sugar
125 g butter
3 eggs
1 tsp baking powder
40 g ground almond
1/2 lemon zest
10 g vanilla sugar
150 g mixed candied fruits
100 g candied cherries (halved)
30 g dried dark raisins
Rum (enough to cover the candied fruits)
A handful of flaked almonds
Apricot jam (to spread 15 minutes before the end)
1/2 tsp lemon juice

With Selma and my daughter Louise.

My godson Oscar (left), and my son Hudson.

Combine the candied fruits, raisins and rum (enough to cover the fruits) in a small bowl, cover with plastic wrap and set aside at room temperature for at least 48 hours.
Preheat oven to 350°/180 C. Grease the bottom and sides of a cake mould/ loaf pan with butter and dust all over with ground almond. Tap off excess and set aside.

Combine eggs and sugar in a large bowl and beat until the mixture is pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Fold in the sifted flour, baking powder, ground almond and melted butter – mix well. Drain the soaked candied fruits and raisins – reserve rum mixture. Add the reserved rum, candied fruits, halved cherries, raisins and lemon zest to batter. Mix gently. Pour batter in mould, smooth top with rubber spatula and sprinkle with flaked almonds. Bake for 45-60 minutes depending on cake mould depth. Fifteen minutes before the end of baking time, take out the cake and glaze the top lightly with apricot jam (mixed with 1/2 tsp lemon juice) using a brush (make sure not to break the almond flakes). Continue baking. Insert into the middle of the cake a toothpick – when it comes out clean, the cake is ready. Unmold cake onto a wire rack and let cool completely before slicing.

Café Lavinal’s chef Ludovic Le Goardet

In the kitchen of Café Lavinal

When you have friends over for dinner, what do you enjoy cooking for them? The words sharing, laughter, delicious, special, impressive and fun come to my mind. You want to enjoy the moment, accompanied by fine wines, good music and candlelight. The key to a successful dinner is cooking something that everybody will like, making them feel special, having bought the most sought-after ingredients from the best places possible. After all, you are showing your appreciation of their friendship through food.

That is what Ludovic Le Goardet is all about – sharing his passion for food. Ludovic is the charming chef at ‘Café Lavinal’, a gem of a bistrot located in the village of Bages, just by the gates of Pauillac. Home to the prestigious Lynch-Bages vineyards and estates, Chateau Lynch-Bages wine is a grand cru classé and a personal favourite of mine.

The village of Bages is my ideal weekly getaway in Médoc. You can’t get more excellence in one tiny square. There’s the Café Lavinal bistrot, the butcher Yves Bruneau (elected 5th best butcher in France by the Gault Millau guide), the amazing bakery and grocery store ‘Le comptoir d’Andrea’, the Bages bazaar concept store. These are the ingredients for a luxurious rustic retail therapy.

Ludovic is a bon-vivant from Fouesnant, Brittany. Growing up in a gourmet environment where his father was a baker and mother a ‘crêpière’ (pancake chef) – Ludovic was influenced at an early age to cook with love and joy, something you can really feel when you meet him. His cooking experience around France and Switzerland has given him an enthusiastic approach to food which is truly contagious. I particularly liked his story on how he had a two months vacation from his chef’s duties in Geneva, and instead of taking time off he ended up working in a trattoria in Rome. He fell in love with the food and wanted to learn the tricks of the signora’s cooking, so he offered to work in exchange for her culinary secrets. We spent an enjoyable afternoon in his kitchen at Café Lavinal, along with his sous-chef Lionel Luflade. Ludovic shared one of his favourite summer recipes – ravioles de langoustines à la sauce vierge (prawn raviolis with a virgin sauce). He said this was a typical dish he would cook for his friends on a Saturday night, something he chose because of his love for fresh langoustines from Brittany, and a virgin sauce inspired from his Roman holiday.

Ingredients: (serves 4)

2 kg langoustines/prawns (approx 36 prawns – shelled)
1 bunch basil (chopped)
1 carrot (chopped)
1 onion (chopped)
2 garlic cloves (sliced)
30 g pine nuts
30 g black olives (pitted and chopped)
250 g cherry tomatoes
A bunch of thyme
1 bay leaf
Parmesan shavings
4 handfuls of rucola salad (for serving)
Fleur de sel
Piment d’espélette (Espelette pepper)
32 chinese ravioli/wonton pasta sheets

Remove the prawns from their shells – keep 16 prawns for the filling and 16 full prawns. Keep 4 prawns shelled (without the heads), and slice them in half (they will be used as a topping – see photos).

Part I – filling
Place half of the shelled prawns, 2 egg whites, 2 pinch of salt, pinch of Espelette pepper, 30 g chopped basil and 2 g fresh grated ginger (1 tsp) in a food processor. Process for 5 minutes until you get a smooth paste. Set aside for 1 hour in the fridge.

Part II – making the raviolis
On a clean surface, prepare pasta sheets. Scoop 1 tsp of prawn stuffing on the ravioli, place one prawn on top, followed by a sliced leaf of basil. Brush the borders with water and seal with another pasta sheet. Press together, firmed around each mound to make sure you have squeezed out all the air. Set aside in refridgerator for 15 minutes.

Tip: If you don’t want to waste the prawn shells and heads, Ludovic recommends making a consommé. Boil 1 liter of water, prawn shells and heads, one chopped carrot, one quartered onion, salt and pepper for 30 minutes. Discard the shells and heads. You can use this consommé as a base for a noodle soup with vegetables.

Sous-chef Lionel Luflade

Part III – virgin sauce
Chop tomatoes in 4 quarters. Heat 3 tbsp of olive oil, fry onions for 3 minutes, add ground garlic and pine nuts and fry for 2 minutes. Take away from heat. In a bowl, mix tomatoes and onion mixture, add olives, basil, season with salt, pepper and parmesan shavings. Mix gently and set aside.

Part IV – frying
In a large pan, heat olive oil and fry chopped carrots until golden. Drain the carrots and set aside. With the remaining olive oil, fry the sliced prawns flesh down for 3 minutes, then turn on the other side and fry for 1 minutes. Sprinkle with Espelette pepper. Set aside.

Part V – cooking the raviolis
Boil 3 liters of water with a few sprigs of thyme and bay leaf. Place raviolis in batches (8 at a time) in the boiling water, making sure they don’t stick together in the water. Cook for 5 minutes.
Tip: To keep the raviolis warm while you are cooking the next batch, place them on a deep plate covered in a ladle of boiling water and cover with cling film.

To serve:
Place raviolis on a plate (4 raviolis per person), sprinkle with carrots, rucola, virgin sauce, fried langoustines on top, and drizzle with lemon, Espelette pepper, salt and pepper.