Boeuf en Daube Provençale

When I was a kid, my parents took me to eat at a posh restaurant (The Pheasant at Chalfont St Giles, if I recall) and I chose 'Scampi Provençale' from the menu. So I was precocious, sue me.

I loathed it - I knew what scampi was, it came fried in breadcrumbs with mayonnaise on the side and these dolts served it in a dish filled with tomatoes and red peppers and stuff! Yew!

I think my tastes may have matured a little since then.

Provençale means in the style of Provence and really, as far as I can see, in classic French cookery, means "with a bit o' tomato and maybe the odd mushroom and olive, if you must some red pepper and perhaps some 'erbs". It doesn't mean 'all sloshed with a red and raw sauce, tomato and pepper dominated with lots of bitter olives'. It's subtler than that.

Uber-cooks Elizabeth David and Margaret Costa's Boeuf Provençal recipes inspired me, Auguste Escoffier's repelled me ('cut up cold boiled beef and stew it in tomatoes and stuff. You can chuck in some olives and mushroom if you want' would be a reasonable precis). I've messed around with quite a few versions of this recipe quite a bit over the years and I love this, the result of all that messing.

All you need is a little time in hand but, like most smashing recipes, you can actually do all the prep the night before and then just store it in the fridge before taking it out to come to room temperature and then doing the oven baking the next day. As a party dish, this is perfect - you can simply forget about it until you're ready to serve it up. For a dinner party, I'd do it with some fresh boiled vegetables enlivened with a herb or two (dill seed for carrots, mint with peas, that sort of idea) and a really rich cream, truffle oil and butter laced potato mash. But that's just me...

The crushed garlic in this recipe is literally crushed with the blade of a knife so that it remains sort of intact, but in smashed up lumps rather than in garlic-crusher mush. If you know what I mean. If you can get your hands on good quality bouquets garnis, use these instead of the dried herbs and leave a comment telling us where you got ‘em. If you don’t live in the UAE, in Provence, for instance, don’t bother with the note, smartarse. As for olives, black are best but if you happen to only have green at hand (like the night I took this photo), I think St Peter may possibly overlook your transgression at the final reckoning.

You’ll also need some greaseproof paper, a casserole and an oven. I find a second glass of wine helps, too.

Ingredients
600g beef in small cube
70g smoked lardons or pancetta cubes
2 carrots, roughly chopped
2 largeish tomatoes, deskinned, deseeded & chopped
2 onions, sliced
6 cloves garlic, crushed
8-10 olives, quartered
250g button mushrooms, halved
2 bay leaves
2 tsp dried herbes de provence
2 tbsp flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
250ml red wine
150ml good, strong stock
Olive oil

Heat your oven to GM2/150C/300F.

Heat up a good slosh of oil in a large frying pan and fry off the beef over a high heat. You’ll want to do this in batches, three or four of them, replenishing the oil as required. Space each batch of beef out in the pan so that it fries fast and hot and doesn’t ‘sweat’ and end up stewing. Turn it over when one side has browned, to seal it all around.

Sling the cooked beef into your casserole and sprinkle in the flour, stirring it in to coat the meat. Add some more oil to the pan (and, if you’re feeling ‘naughty’, a good sized chunk of butter) and fry off the onions, stirring them to stop them sticking and burning. Bring the mushrooms and then the lardons into the picture and stir fry them so that the onion softens and the mushrooms start to brown. Add the garlic and keep stir frying for a short while until everything’s looking browned (but not, please, burned), cooked and generally ready to heft into the casserole.

At this stage, I’d suggest hefting it into the casserole.

Add the carrot, the stock and the red wine, the seasonings and the herbs to the casserole and give it all a good stir. Place a sheet of greaseproof paper between the base and lid of the casserole and trim it around with a pair of scissors, then place it in the oven and leave it for 2 ½ hours while you do something more interesting, like compare that second glass of wine to the rest of the bottle (channeling Floyd, I know).

At the end of cooking, fling in the olives and stir them in, letting them heat through for a few minutes while you pour out the red and warm the plates.

Personally, I like to serve this with fresh vegetables (cauliflower, beans, peas) and chunks of warmed French bread with butter. But, as I said above, for a dinner party I'd do a rich, buttery mash.

Vadouvan

Sometimes spelled Vadavam, this Franco-Indian creole flavor originated in the French colony of Pondicherry, and from there spread to various regions in SE India. Those of you who have been to la Porte des Indes restaurant in London, (also in Brussels and part of the Blue Elephant chain of Thai restaurants, which possibly has a facility in Dubai) may be familiar with it. It is used as a seasoning paste, and is excellent with almost anything. This is not the recipe from the La Porte des Indes cookbook, which includes various dhals, but adapted from the recipe of another French restaurant. 

This has recently become very popular with innovative restaurants. Try it with baked potatoes, or sauteed chicken breasts. Or in sandwiches. It kicks almost anything up a notch.

Apologies for the picture, I took it myself with a cheapo camera.

Makes about. 300 ml

350 g onions, cut into 2 cm pieces

150 shallots, coarsely chopped 

4 medium cloves garlic, minced 

50- 75 ml vegetable oil

5 g fenugreek seeds

6 fresh curry leaves, cut into thin slices (optional)

5 g ground cumin

5 g brown mustard seeds

5 g ground turmeric

Pinch freshly grated nutmeg

Pinch crushed red pepper flakes

Pinch ground cloves

30 g sea salt

15 g teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 180° C. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.

Place the onions in the bowl of a food processor; pulse until coarsely chopped, then transfer to a bowl. Repeat with the shallots, then the garlic, adding them to the same bowl. Heat 50 ml of the oil in a large, deep nonstick skillet over high heat until the oil shimmers. Add the onion mixture and cook, stirring often, for 25 to 30 minutes, until the mixture is golden and browned in spots. Add the remaining oil if needed. Meanwhile, use an electric spice grinder or a mortar and pestle to grind the fenugreek seeds. 

Add to the skillet, along with the curry leaves, if using, the cumin, mustard seeds, turmeric, nutmeg, red pepper flakes, cloves, salt and pepper, stirring to mix well. Transfer the mixture to the lined baking sheet, spreading it evenly to the edges of the paper. Bake, stirring occasionally, for 60 to 90 minutes, until the vadouvan has browned and is barely moist. Let it cool slightly, then transfer to the bowl of a food processor. Pulse just until no large chunks of onion or shallot remain; the consistency will be somewhat coarse and a little loose. Let cool completely before serving or storing. It will keep indefintely, refrigerated.

Transformations - 1

Real mayonnaise is amongst the best tasting stuff imaginable. It is a little molecular miracle, and there is something very satisfying about the process.
You will have taken a tasteless fluid oil and transformed it into an ethereal sauce through craftsmanship and care. Add a tablespoon of minced shallot, and maybe a little extra lemon juice for an extraordinary dipping sauce for an artichoke, or blanched and shocked vegetables, or to put on some boiled new potatoes. While citrus fruit is really good (try using limes, and adding chopped fresh dill after making, then letting it sit overnight and use as a sauce for cold salmon.) Don't forget that vinegars can be used as well as long as the acid content is there. Magical stuff.

Ingredients:
1 large egg yolk
5 grams salt
5 ml water
5 ml lemon juice (or 10 for a lemony mayo)
5 grams Dijon mustard (optional, but mustard assists emulsion)
250 ml vegetable oil (or EVOO if you like it heavy, or 50/50)

Then you have to:
Combine yolks salt, water and lemon juice in a medium bowl. The bowl must be very clean inside. Fold a hand towel into a ring on the counter and set the bowl in this ring to hold it steady while you whisk. Using a sauce or balloon whisk, mix the first 5 ingredients together.
Add the oil slowly while whisking vigorously. Measure out your oil into a cup that pours well in a very thin stream. You must add all the oil slowly at first, and increase the speed to a thin stream as the emulsion becomes creamy. From the start, the mixture should be thick enough to hold its shape and look luxuriously creamy. If you add the oil too quickly, it will break - that is, it will turn soupy. When all the oil is incorporated add the remaining lemon juice to taste. If it is too thick, it can be thinned by whisking in a little water.
If it breaks, put a teaspoon of water in a clean bowl and start the process over by dribbling in the broken mayonnaise while whisking.

Or, you can follow the same procedure using an immersion or regular blender, but the oil must be added slowly, always. If you are concerned about salmonella, just let it sit for 2 hours before using.The acid will eliminate any chance of salmonella being present..

There is a culinary myth with origins in France that women who are on their monthly cycle (being delicate here) cannot make mayonnnaise. Is it really a myth? Anybody?

Pithiviers

This is classic French cookery: simple, straightforward and truly brilliant. It is traditionally served with a distinctive swirl of knife cuts on the lid and can be eaten warm or cold. It's Sarah's favourite end to dinner parties and disappears very quickly indeed to be followed by the sounds of over-indulged people regretting that second slice - it's pretty rich.

Does it come from the town of Pithiviers in France? Do I look like I care?

Ingredients
Pastry

• 500g puff pastry
• 1 egg yolk, beaten
• 2 tbsp milk

Filling

• 100g butter, softened
• 100g caster sugar, sifted
• 6 egg yolks
• 150g ground almond
• 2-3 drops almond essence
• 2-3 drops vanilla exract
• 2 tbsp brandy

Pre-heat the oven to GM7/220C/425F.

Beat the butter and sugar to a light cream. This will take some time/effort unless you’re smart and use a hand whizzer with a beater attachment. We’re looking at a white coloured, smooth paste before you start adding the egg yolks one at a time, beating each one in well to combine it before adding the next. If you rush this, it’ll curdle. If that happens then smack yourself around the head for being an idiot and then add in a teaspoon or two of flour to the mixture, which should restore things.

Once all the eggs are combined with the sugar, beat in the ground almonds, brandy, almond essence and vanilla extract.

Halve the pastry and roll it out on a cool, well-floured surface to give two 25cm squares. Spoon the filling in a 20cm circle on one square, giving yourself a good 2cm clear pastry all around filling. Brush around the filling with water, then place the second pastry square on top. Cut a circle out around the filling and that 2cm gap, then knock up the edges to give a nice, secure round parcel of filling. Score the top with a spiral pattern of four light cuts swirling around from the centre to the edges and then brush with the egg yolk and milk mixed together.

Bake for 25-30 minutes in the centre of the oven. Serve warm or cold (better warm!) with a lot of whipped cream. I like to chuck some vanilla and a spoon of something French into the cream just to be naughty...

Bouef Bourgignone

Serves 6




This is an all time classic. I use smoked bacon, which would earn me the rough edge of Elizabeth David’s tongue for a start. I also use a lot of garlic. Which I do in general. Follow this straightforward, classic French recipe and you’ll have a stunning, rich, unctuous dish that will make your dinner party guests empty their bank accounts in your favour just so that they get invited back. It's pronounced berf borginion.

Ingredients

• 1.3kg beef in 2cm cube
• 250g small button mushrooms
• 15 shallots
• 10-12 rashers smoked streaky bacon, sliced
• 8 cloves garlic, smashed
• 500ml red wine
• 45ml brandy
• 250 ml good stock
• 1 tbsp plain flour
• 3-4 bay leaves
• Olive oil

Pour a kettle of boiling water over the shallots to make ‘em easier to skin, then skin them, slicing off any stray black rooty stuff but leaving the root end sealed so that the onions don’t separate during cooking. Flash fry the beef in batches so that it fries off and browns on all sides without stewing: you’ll need a glug of oil for each batch and a pretty fierce heat. Reserve each batch of beef in a large bowl, then drizzle the flour over it, cover it with cling film and give it a good toss.

Stop laughing there at the back of the class, Simon.

Now fry off the shallots in a glug of oil, adding in the bacon and stirring it to fry nicely, giving the shallots some brown spots and letting the bacon fry dry and start to brown. Add in the smashed garlic (by which I mean crushed with the blade of a knife) and then stir it all up before adding the beef and the bay leaves.

Mix everything up, leaving it cooking all the while over a high-ish heat, then add the stock and finally the wine. Incidentally, I like to put in 250ml of wine and reduce the other 250ml to about half before adding it, but it’s up to you.

And now turn the heat to as low as it’ll go and leave it to bubble away. I like to stir it every now and then, uncover it every now and then. But we’re looking at a 3-hour stint here. I also like to take it off the heat for 30 mins or so in that time, just to let it all get settled. And cooking it earlier in the day is a great idea, because you can take it off the heat after 1.5 hours and really let it cool before bringing it back up.

At the 1.5 hour mark, pan fry the mushrooms until they’re browned, turn the heat of the pan down (you do NOT want it too hot if you’re using gas, believe me) and add the brandy. Toss the mushrooms and brandy into the mixture and let nature do its work for the rest of the cooking time. Season, of course.

Serve with nothing more or less than a good dollop of creamy mashed potato.

Dauphinoise Potatoes

Can’t believe that I haven’t posted this recipe before......what an omission! To cook something 'à la Dauphinoise' means to bake it in a slow oven with cream and garlic.


You will need

500g potatoes
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
100ml full-fat crème fraîche
100ml double cream
100ml fresh milk
2 bay leaves
2 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
1 onion, sliced into thin rings
100g grated gruyere
50g grated parmesan


And then you need to:

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350F

Peel the potatoes and slice them wafer-thin, preferably using a mandolin and preferably without including the tips of your fingers. Put in large bowl, cover with cold water and leave to sit for about 10 minutes.

Put the milk, creme fraiche, double cream and bay leaves in a large saucepan and gently bring to the boil.

Drain the potatoes well and put into the saucepan with the heated milk/cream. Simmer gently for no more than five minutes.

Rub butter over the bottom of a baking dish, and then spread a thin layer of sliced onions. With a slotted spoon remove about half of the potatoes and layer them roughly in the baking dish.

Sprinkle half of the chopped garlic and half of the remaining onions over the potatoes. Cover with half of the gruyere cheese.

Season generously with salt and black pepper.

Then layer the rest of the potatoes on top. Try and make the top layer look neat and tidy with overlapping slices of potatoes.

When all the potatoes are in, sprinkle the rest of the garlic and onions on top and pour over the milky, creamy mixture from the saucepan. Remove the bay leaves. Sprinkle the parmesan cheese and the rest of the gruyere on top.

Season again.

Cover with foil and place in the oven.

After 50-60 minutes remove the foil and cook for a further 20 minutes.

Boulangerie Potatoes

I love these, less heart-stopping than 'dauphanoise' but still pretty damn good.

Apparently the name comes from the tradition of housewives in France of sticking a pot of these in the baker's ovens after the morning baking had been finished. The residual heat would cook these in time for dinner.


You will need:

675g potatoes
200ml Good quality, home made chicken stock
3 cloves garlic, chopped fine
1 large onion, cut into very thin slices
Butter
Seasoning

And then you need to:

In a heavy casserole dish smear a generous amount of butter on the bottom. Line the bottom of the pan with half of the thinly sliced onion rings (this stops the potatoes from sticking).

Peel and then slice the potatoes very thinly. The best thing to use is a mandolin if you have one, but please be careful, these things have chopped off more fingertips than anyother kitchen implement!

Layer the thinly sliced peeled potato on top of the onions. When you have layered half the potatoes generously sprinkle chopped garlic, chopped onion, salt and pepper and then layer the next half of the sliced potatoes. If, heaven forbid, you are using stock cubes, don't add any more salt. Make sure the top layer is all neat and has lovely overlapping slices.

Once finished again add garlic, onion, salt and pepper to the top. Grate gruyere cheese all over the top (not traditional I know but I like it), add 200ml of very hot good quality chicken stock. The stock should come about halfway up the layered potatoes. It is imperative you use very good quality stock here, it is really worth making your own. Dot a couple of small knobs of butter on top.

Place lid on top, or cover tightly with foil, then cook in 375F oven for 75-90 mins. Don't underestimate the time that these take to cook, it usually ends up being longer than you think so make sure they are in the oven with lots of time to spare just in case. At the end the potatoes should be all soft and all of the stock absorbed. Some people like to take the lid or foil off for the last 20-30mins or so to make the top all brown and crunchy. Personally I don't but its up to you!

There are a couple of other options to consider:

Use a mix of normal potatoes and the orange-fleshed sweet potatoes and do alternate layers. It looks wonderful. The sweet potatoes will cook much faster than ordinary and so might go a bit mushy but the colour contrast is rather wonderful.

Substitute sliced leeks for the onions (or use both)

Very thinly sliced fennel could also be used if you are serving the dish with fish.

Steak au Poivre

Here is a fantastic retro dish that was all the rage in the 80’s and seems to have fallen off the menu somewhat.

It goes without saying that you need to buy the best quality steak you can for this dish. My personal preference would be for rib-eye, I just like the taste of more fat through my steak, but tradition demands a good sirloin.

You will need:

4 sirloin steaks
2 tbsp mixed peppercorns (black, red and green)
1 tsp butter
2 tbsp brandy
2 tbsp red wine
4 tbsp double thick cream


And then you need to:

Crush the peppercorns in a mortar and pestle and then press the peppercorns into both sides of each steak.

Heat a large frying pan (or a cast iron griddle if you have one) over a medium high heat and add the butter. It will foam pretty much immediately. Throw in the steaks and cook them for 3 minutes on each side. Depending on thickness this will likely give you medium rare steaks.

Pour in the brandy, hold a lighted match over the pan and stand well back.

FLAMBE!!!!

Put on extractor fan to remove smell of singed eyebrows and remove steaks and put on a warmed plate.

Add the wine to the pan, scraping up all the crispy bits. Add the cream and stir. If it looks like it is curdling add a little water and stir vigorously, it’ll be fine.

Let it bubble and thicken a little, and then pour gently over each of the steaks. Serve with my fantastic pomme frites and some crisp green salad leaves.

The most perfect dessert - Creme Brulee

I was browsing through the recipes and this is one that I just can’t believe that I haven’t already posted. This recipe is so simple, so classic and just absolutely yummy. I know that this is really the pot calling the kettle black for I am forever tinkering around with recipes but if I hear that any of you have been messing around with this I’ll haunt you for the rest of your days. This is perfection, sublime, it needs nothing else. Don’t you dare even think about adding fruit, star anise, lemongrass urrgghhhhhh.

You will need PER PERSON:

1 egg yolk
100ml fresh thick cream
20g caster sugar
Vanilla pod (use about one per six portions)


And then you need to:

In a saucepan over a medium-low flame heat the fresh thick (double) cream with the caster sugar.

Carefully slice a vanilla pod lengthways and with the edge of a small sharp knife scrape out all the tiny little seeds. Put the vanilla seeds in with the cream and sugar and give it a stir.

In a large glass bowl put the egg yolks. Place the bowl on a folded tea-towel to prevent it slipping.

When the cream and sugar is simmering and the sugar has all melted and dissolved remove from heat and let to stand for just about a minute or so. With a whisk in one hand gently pour the liquid in a steady slow stream into the eggs and stir with the whisk at the same time. Gently whisk, don’t beat the eggs.

Once all incorporated pour from the bowl into a jug and then carefully pour through a very fine sieve into small ramekin dishes.

Place the dishes on a deep baking tray and then carefully pour boiling water into the tray until half way up the sides of the ramekin dishes.

Cook in 150C/300F oven for 30 minutes though they might need a little longer. When you give them a little shake they shouldn’t be too wobbly in the middle.

Remove from the oven and let cool. They can sit around quite happily out of the fridge for two or three hours.

Sprinkle 1 tsp caster sugar over each pot and then using a blowtorch (or under a very hot grill) melt and brown the sugar on top. A word of warning, if using a blowtorch the difference between golden brown and black is about 2 seconds!

Fast Beef in Red Wine

Bouef Bourgignone, that brilliant classic of great, rich French cuisine, is to my mind about as desirable as a stew can get. But it has drawbacks. It takes ages and it needs the right ingredients – and as we all know, sometimes those ingredients can be scarce. So if you don’t have pork belly and small shallots (or pickling onions) to hand and lack the (at least) two and a half hours’ cooking time that it’ll take to turn that braising steak into something edible, then this recipe will, within the hour, reward with something just as deep and delicious in under half the time. I look forward to the usual death threats from purists.

Fillet steak? Am I mad? Probably. That’s the key to getting a tender stew so quickly and in fact how this recipe got developed: I ended up with a slab of awful fillet, falling for the Spinneys’ trick of wrapping scraggy fillet-ends in cling film. With no time to take it back and feeling lazy, I did this. I can only justify using such an expensive cut for a stew with the time argument! As for mushrooms, I often use Carrefours’ mixed frozen mushrooms: quickly pan-fried before adding to the stew, you’d never notice they weren’t fresh. Use button mushrooms otherwise, though.

I like to serve this with pan-fried sweet cherry tomatoes and herby toast alongside something green (wilted spinach, peas, asparagus: whatever). So now you know I haven’t been going mad this week – it’s all been a cunning lead-up.

Try this with a cheeky Musar. If you’re going to eat fillet steak stew, at least do it in style...


Ingredients

• 500g fillet steak, in 2cm cube
• 1 red onion, chopped
• 8 smoked streaky rashers, roughly chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, smashed
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 500ml red wine
• 1 tbsp flour
• 150g mushrooms
• 1 tsp herbes de provence
• ½ tsp thyme
• 1 tsp salt

Heat a splash of oil in a covered, deep frying pan over a high heat and add the steak in two batches so that it fries dry rather than stewing in its own juices. Put the flour and herbs in a bowl and reserve the browned all round steak into this, tossing it to coat it with flour. Slosh the wine into the pan and boil it to reduce by half: this should take 10 minutes or so. Reserve the reduced wine. Wipe out the pan, add the oil and then add the onion to fry over a medium heat until it turns transparent. Turn the heat up and add the bacon, then the mushrooms and then the garlic, stir frying it all so that it starts to brown but doesn’t catch and burn. Re-introduce the steak and fry, stirring, for a minute more before adding the wine and stirring everything together well. Cover and turn the heat to low and leave for 45-60 minutes, depending on how much time you’ve got. Serve!

Reflets par Pierre Gagnaire

Reflets par Pierre Gagnaire
Intercontinental Hotel, Festival City
Front Desk: +971-4-7011111
Web: http://www.ichotels-emea.com/ic/middle_east/dubai/

I came to an important conclusion over the weekend. I love food that makes me laugh. And I laughed my way through one of the best fine dining experiences to be had in Dubai right now – a meal at Reflets by Pierre Gagnaire, the fine dining restaurant at the uber-funky new Intercontinental Festival City.

We were an interesting group: one grumpy diner who’s had a million more bad service experiences than he wanted and wasn’t going to put up with any messing around. One very loud and entertaining ‘couldn’t give a toss’ redhead. One exceedingly strong-minded and crusty (but lovely!) wine buff. One ‘this is how I like it and I’m not putting up with anything you choose to foist on me in the name of theatre’ Diner With Attitude, two perfectly normal people and a slightly pretentious foodie. (sounds like ‘Tubular Bells’, doesn’t it? “Two Slightly Pretentious Foodies”) In case you’re wondering, I’m the latter. Argue with the ‘slightly’ if you will.

The evening started with cocktails at the Intercon’s Champagne Bar on the 26th floor as we waited for stragglers. This is a truly fantastic place with one of the best views in Dubai, a James Bond sliding door secret entrance and beyond funky furnishings (the cocktail table chairs feel dangerously unbalanced and aren’t terribly comfortable, however). The champagne list here is extensive and pricey: you’re not going to get much below Dhs 155 a glass, but the cocktails are more reasonably priced. Service could be smarter, but the hand-around hot canapés are a lovely touch.

And so down to dinner. Pierre Gagnaire holds three stars for his Paris restaurant, is head chef at London’s Sketch (just the one star, but a top 20 placing by Restaurant Magazine, a top 50 from Time Out and so on) and has recently opened up in Tokyo and Hong Kong. His Dubai venture is so new, it doesn't even get a plug on his website. The decor is definitely individual: a definite taste of Sketch but perhaps a little too close to a room layout in ‘The One’ to be a defining interior design moment. Sure, it’s funky, but it’s also a little, well, last year’s funky.

Time to talk toilets.

Oh, you came here to read about food and drink, did you? Don’t forget where it all ends up, buddy.

The toilets in Reflets are mirrored. The ladies are offered, as a consequence, a view of their derrieres. The men are forced to stand up against a mirrored black wall while water runs down it in front of them. You’re not sure whether to lean closer or step back. Nice piece of visual design, but I do rather prefer interior design that remembers that we humans, inconvenient, erratic carbon-based life-forms that we are, have to manage living with it.

So we sat down to dinner, a merry group led by a loudly guffawing redhead. Now, given that this is fine dining and the rest of the relatively small restaurant contains groups of quiet and well-behaved diners sitting at their well spaced out tables, you’d expect a little nervousness from the staff. Not a bit of it: the team, mainly French from what I could see, have obviously dealt with a great deal worse than us before getting up for breakfast. In what seemed little more than a trice, they’d managed Miss ‘I’m not playing’, not only disarmed Mr. Grumpy (who had actually announced to them that he was grumpy) but had done so to his approval and delight and had gone on to share the joke with our chattering redhead and make it quite clear that if she wanted to bellow at the top of her voice, she was more than welcome to do so! Subsequently the sommelier gracefully dealt with strong minded wine buff and pretentious foodie with such charm that we were both left speechless and, to be honest, really quite pleased.

This is service beyond the ordinary. This is empowered service by smart people who know just when a joke is something to share, just when to intervene and just when to let the flow of the evening take its course. This is service that waits for someone to finish talking before speaking to the table, that knows when to suggest and guide and when to leave you to it, when to smile indulgently and when to simply back off. And I’m not talking patsies here: one guest declaimed she didn’t like chardonnay wines but would appreciate a nicely cooled Chablis. “Chablis is chardonnay, madam” said the sommelier, pleasantly enough but there was steel there, in the velvet glove.

We had a ball.

We started with champagne, because this was a celebration. I'm not telling you what we ordered or what we paid for it. The wine list is extensive, very French-oriented (it’s a French restaurant, so fair enough) and damned expensive. You’ll be hard put to find much worth drinking for under Dhs550 a bottle. We started with a Pouilly Sur Loire, but some found the petrol (“Yes, petrol, but after pineapple”: sommelier. Some agreed, some didn’t) taste too much, so we went on to a Pouilly Fuissé. Our red was that greatest of treats: Gaston Hochar’s amazing Chateau Musar. I love introducing people to Musar: once they’ve tasted it and gone ‘WOW’, you can let ‘em into the big secret: this huge, camphorous, hint-of-the-smell-of-an-old-grand-piano, complex and fundamentally gorgeous wine is Lebanese. We had the 1999 and it was, of course, great. Interestingly, it was decanted for us by the sommelier, who also went to great lengths to let everyone know that 'white wine with white meat' was something that he didn't personally have great time for so they should feel free to order what they fancied without getting caught up in old fashioned thinking. Which is a nice change from the 'deep breath then repeat order in outraged, strangulated voice' school of sommelier, no?

As we sat sipping our celebratory pop, tiny morsels of food started appearing. These were laid out and then introduced by the maitre d’. This was interesting: everyone was slightly wary of trying out the many delights before them. The general feeling around the table regarding this array of little things was clear: this was going to be defining. If they were amazing, the meal was obviously going to be a smash. If they were just puff and pretension, then it was going to be awful.

Amazing took the day.

A shot glass containing a Greek onion marmalade and a slice of anchovy was a tiny amazement, a miniscule salted ginger biscuit was a surprise, a titchy steak tartare with a soft biscuit didn’t really have the volume to compete on taste, the truffle butter with a sliver of nutty bread delicious, cones of soft, barely-holding-it-together-rich crumbly biscuit filled with houmous (a clear nod to Thomas Keller here, surely) grin-inducing, a cheese dip with tiny slivers of toast pleased, a little savoury dip of squid piqued, tiny slivers of dark-sauced smoked eel on sticks exploded... there was more, but I can’t remember it all. A succession of delights, of tiny tastes, textures, flavours and colours that provoked surprise and a childish sense of adventure. I was grinning like an idiot already. We got down to the serious business of choosing from a quite dazzling range of foods – and, for Dubai, some quite dazzling prices. My starter came in at Dhs 210, the main at Dhs 410.

I started with the foie gras de canard marbré: three slices of a foie gras terrine served on the side of a bowl containing a Tarbais bean cream topped with a black olive jelly. Served alongside this is a cocktail glass containing a melba toast sandwich of speck ham and Morbier cheese above a green salad with warm chicken gizzards masking a layer of mango and other fruit below. This was hard to manage: a challenging counterpart to the foie gras and particularly the creamy beans and rich jelly: also relatively hard to eat elegantly. But damn, was it good.

Others had the pascaline de poularde fermiere, a mixture of achingly tender chicken breast, cheese and spinach served alongside a bowl containing a creamy base, which was topped with a rich truffled bouillon by the waiter. One of us had the truffled gnocchi, served over a rocket mash and alongside a crisp salad: the tiny, delicate gnocchi again topped with a sauce at table.

An alternative was a range of soups and cereals: from almond soup with white beans and redcurrant cubes to pressed basmati and black rice with whipped horseradish and a bisque of blue velvet crab. Hard to pass by, really. But we managed.

By now I’m giggling like a schoolgirl that’s just broken into the chemistry lab and taken a major hit of nitrous oxide before meeting the Physics master she's got a crush on. The food is overwhelmingly good, demanding attention and focus – and getting it.

Some had sole as a main, served in its cooking butter and accompanied by a dish of morels in white Port and with a cube of citrus and passion fruit granite (a solid granita, really) on the side. The fish was enjoyed hugely, the creamy morels were amazing, soft and quite, quite delicious.

I had the boeuf ‘Master Kobe’. This was advertised, variously, as: a heart of entrecote ‘Master Kobe’ roasted, sliced on a bed of melted sorrel with a wagyu fondant treated like a condiment, ‘Club Dubai’ and braised turnip with Banyuls wine.

It turned up on one plate and a further three separate dishes. Gagnaire's food is frequently a multi-plattered experience and, while this lets him play to his heart's content, it can sometimes be a challenge to work out quite what to do with everything.

The wagyu came on the plate with its fondant condiment, served on the sorrel. There was a whizz of decorative deep red on the plate. Cooked to absolute perfection (I wasn’t asked how I’d like it and I didn’t tell), the luscious, tender wagyu was red inside, but just the right side of rare not to be bleeding. The steak was, incidentally, very small and had a lump of gristle in it, which was sloppy butchery at this level of dining. The sorrel and fondant were, respectively, excellent. Served in a separate dish, the braised turnip in wine was insanely rich. There was also a small chafing dish of wagyu, a ‘cheaper cut’, the waiter informed me, which had been braised in wine and was delicious, but fibrous in a braising steak kind of way. I’m not sure why you’d serve this, to be honest. It was as good a braised piece of beef as you’ll find, but it didn’t stand up as distinctively wagyu or necessarily complement the main dish in any way. The ‘Club Dubai’, on another dish, was a cube trencher built up from red-stained (beetroot?) bread and topped with a floppy, transparent red pepper jelly sheet that featured the restaurant’s logo on it. Below this, in the cube itself, green vegetables.

This one item, in the whole meal, scared me. I don’t buy ‘Dubai slings’ or ‘Dubai special’ anything. And I didn’t buy this. It wasn’t reflective of Dubai (God help us if someone finds a food that is) in any way that I could see, it didn’t really work for me at any level and the green vegetables inside were, to my mind, over-done. I likes a bit of crunch, see. I would have much preferred something honestly, greenly, crisp and buttery with a challenging flavour along the lemon or creamy scale of things to offset the rich wagyu, deep winey turnip and dark brown, intensity of the braised beef.

But then I’m not swinging four Michelin stars around as my culinary pudenda, am I?

By now the Musar’s flowing and it’s perfect with the rich flavours and sumptuous textures: I’m in transports and everyone around the table is nothing less than delighted, surprised and charmed. We’re also starting to work out that we’re not going to get away with this one on the cheap!

Desserts included ‘Le Latour’ a stack of praline, chocolate and coconut milk cake (“Nice, but ordinary”) and the ‘Feuillitage croustillant’, a puff pastry baton halved at table by the waiter in a neat piece of theatre and served with mascarpone and apples on a bowl of apple and calvados ice cream and apple sauce. I passed and went for the cheese course.

Again, like Keller, Gagnaire doesn’t do a ‘cheese platter’, but actually cooks with his cheese: a ‘composed cheese’ course. This didn’t suit one member of the party, who just wanted ‘some cheese’, but not enough to test the waiters and ask for it.

My ‘Nord de la France’ consisted of a ramekin of salad and beer cream with shavings of carroty Mimolette, a sharp, ammoniac mousse of Camembert with two studs of creamy Pont L’Eveque and a slice of soft, melting Neuchatel with a rich drizzling of lovage and pear cider reduction.

It was nothing less than spectacular and I was deeply glad that I had rubbed my glass to conjure up that genie of the bottle, the sommelier, to bring me a tot of truly excellent dessert wine to go with it.

If this isn’t the longest review I’ve ever written, it’s certainly the longest I’ve written for The Fat Expat. This was a truly, awesomely, great meal cooked by a great chef working for a world class chef and supported by a team of utter professionals. You can't just skim over it..

My fear is that the French team are in for a six month stint, training some local hires before they jet off back to London, Paris or Tokyo. My fear is that the kitchen will go all wayward, the worst danger of the licenses and franchises that are peppering Dubai’s yaya hotels.

But for now, this is as good as you’re going to get. We paid a touch over Dhs 1,000 per head: pretty much the price that had The Guardian wringing its napkin in angst when it reviewed Sketch.

Would I pay it again? Yes I would. This is the restaurant that I would recommend anyone in Dubai visits for a stunning experience: ambience, service, delight and sheer experimentalism combine at Reflets to create a truly sublime experience. The food is not only brilliant, but challenging, silly, funny, charming and entertaining in itself. The service is impeccable. The experience is brilliant.

Go there.

Mushrooms in Red Wine

This is a great way to start a classic dinner party menu, easy enough to do and it not only has a heady, deep, strong and seductive flavour, but a smashing, rich texture – overall we’re talking about a dish that's utterly, wickedly moreish. Serve these mushrooms up in wide-rimmed bowls with ciabatta slices cut on the length and brushed with oil, herbs and sprinkled with salt before being toasted off on a grill-pan until they’re crunchy on the outside but still have a soft heart. And if you're feeling totally decadent, mix some fine-cut fresh dill into a couple of tablespoons of cream cheese and whip it before serving as a spread for that crispy warm ciabatta!

A couple of ingredient notes: 500ml red wine is about two cups. 750g button mushrooms is three UAE punnets: do try and get the smaller ones. I crush garlic by mashing it with the edge of a knife and then giving it a lazy chop or two so you end up with largeish lumps of mashed up garlic. Just because, that’s why. If you don’t have truffle oil, don’t worry. It’s still delicious! Altogether you’re serving a very generous four indeed.

Ingredients

• 500ml red wine
• 750g button mushrooms, de-stemmed and halved
• 70g pancetta in cubes
• 1 tbsp runny honey
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tsp salt
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed
• Fresh thyme
• 2 tsp plain flour
• 1 tsp mixed herbs
• 25g butter
• 2 tbsp oil
• 1 tbsp truffle oil

You’ll ideally need a lidded frying pan. Reduce the wine by a little more than half: a good ten minute rolling boil should see you almost there. Reserve this. Melt the butter together with the olive oil over a high heat and then sling in the mushrooms. Give them a minute or two to start browning and then add the pancetta and the garlic and keep everything moving until the mushrooms have browned all round. Add the truffle oil now and fry it up for a few seconds before adding the flour and the mixed herbs. Mix everything up and let it fry off for a short time and then add the wine. Bring the heat down to low and add the honey, salt, bay and a few sprigs of the fresh thyme.

Cover the pan and leave to cook, stirring occasionally, for ten minutes and then stand to cool, still covered: then reheat when you’re ready to serve. Garnish with a sprig of fresh thyme just to be posh.

The amount of red wine specified in this recipe is scientifically calculated to leave a glass for the cook. Sneaky, huh?

Sauce Espagnole

There are a number of recipes out there for this classic French sauce: this is mine. It’s pretty simple and easily made, freezes like a dream and makes a great base to add the cooking juices of whatever you’re up to along a couple of slugs of hooch for an all-purpose rich brown saucy gravy type thing. As a consequence, I always have a few takeaway trays of it in the freezer ready to sling into a pan at a moment's notice.

A couple of notes: I’ve recommended 30 minutes’ cooking time, but this is really a minimum. The longer you can give it, the better. And the red onion in this recipe is one of the Indian ones, or a large shallot, not those enormous dark American things that Spinneys flogs.

Ingredients

• 1 rasher streaky, chopped
• 25g butter
• 1 red onion, chopped
• 4 button mushrooms, chopped
• 1 tbsp plain flour
• 400ml good beef stock
• 2 tbsp tomato paste
• ½ diced red pepper
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• Salt and pepper

Fry off the onion until it’s soft and transparent, then add the bacon. After a short time, stir in the mushroom and red pepper along with the butter. Fry it all up for a while, then add the flour and stir it in. Keep everything frying for a while, the flour will start to brown. Add the stock and tomato paste and stir it all in: leave on a low heat, stirring occasionally to stop anything sticking too much, for 30 mins or so. Leave the sauce to cool before giving it a thorough whizz and then reheat or freeze as you please!

Herb Crusted Rack of Lamb

This is easy, simple and stunning: as attractive to the palate as it is to the eye. Ask for French cut racks of lamb, you want to get a good piece of loin with a backing of fat (not too thick, now) and the bones sticking up, three or at the very most four bones per person. I like to make the coating with fresh breadcrumbs rendered down in a whizzer, incidentally. The baking dries them out nicely and crisps them up into a delicious crust on the lamb.

Get the butcher to sling a few more lamb bones your way and roast these off in a hot oven (230C/450F/GM8) for about 20 minutes with some olive oil, garlic, onion and herbs. Take this out of the oven and wash it out with about 500ml of water, tipping the lot into a pan, bones and all along with a good squeeze of tomato puree (or a small tin, if you prefer) and some dry white wine, then cook this to reduce, then season (and thicken, if you like, with the addition of a wee bit of beurre manié – a teaspoon of flour mixed into a teaspoon of butter). That’s yer gravy done!

You might like to roast a selection of vegetables in a little oil alongside the lamb.

This recipe needs to be made using fresh herbs. If you use dried then a large and unpleasant monster will leap out of the kitchen drawer and tear your head off.

Ingredients

• Four racks of lamb
• 120 gms fresh breadcrumbs
• 2 tbsp chopped parsley
• 1 tsp thyme
• 1 tsp chopped rosemary
• 2 tbsp Dijon mustard
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 tbsp olive oil

Heat the oven to 220C/435F/GM 7. Mix together the breadcrumbs and herbs. Put a glug of oil in a roomy pan and then, over a high heat, sear the racks of lamb to seal them all over. Remove them from the pan. Put a few good glugs of oil in an oven tray and add the chopped onion, swishing it around to coat it. A few cloves of garlic, unpeeled, can also go in at this stage.

Coat the backs of the lamb racks (the fatty bit) with the Dijon mustard, pressing the breadcrumb mixture into this. Place them on top of the onions in the baking tray and give everything a good sprinkle of sea salt and freshly ground black pepper and then bake for 30-45 minutes, depending on how you like your lamb.

Bearnaise Sauce

Béarnaise can be a bit of a fiddle and it has a very irritating habit of splitting but it is well worth the effort. There is nothing more sublime than a fantastic grilled steak, crisp frites and béarnaise sauce, it is heaven on a plate.

Ingredients:

• 1 small onion, chopped finely
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped finely
• 1 tsp dried tarragon
• 1 tsp whole peppercorns
• 2 tbsp white wine vinegar
• 2 tbsp water
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• 150g butter



In a small saucepan combine the chopped small onion, chopped garlic, dried tarragon and some whole peppercorns. Add 2 tbsp of white wine vinegar and 2 tbsp of water. Bring to simmer and reduce until you are left with about 1 tbsp of liquid, drain and put to one side.

Place a glass bowl (not a metal one) over a saucepan of just barely simmering water. The heat here is crucial for even just a shade too hot and the sauce will separate. Put two egg yolks in the bowl, add the reduced vinegar mixture, 1 tsp Dijon mustard, some chopped fresh tarragon (optional) and whisk. Slowly add a little cube at a time of room temperature/soft butter, whisking all the time, until you have added 150g of the stuff.

If the sauce does separate in another clean glass bowl put an egg yolk and slowly whisk in the separated sauce. It’ll be fine again so don’t worry!

Chicken Breasts Wrapped in Proscuitto and stuffed with boursin

This is quite standard fare in our house and we have it quite often. It is not super exciting but it is yummy, very easy to do and you can make it look quite attractive. I alternate between serving it on a pile of mashed potatoes with some sautéed leeks or for a slightly more sophisticated version I make a saffron-infused risotto and place it in a metal ring and balance the sliced chicken on top.


Ingredients for 2 servings.:

• 1 chicken breast per person
• 2 slices of parma ham or proscuitto per person
• Boursin cheese (garlic and herb) or something similar
• Fresh Basil
• 1 clove chopped garlic
• 2 sun dried tomatoes chopped fine

For sauce version 1:

• 1 level tbsp plain flour
• 50ml White wine
• 50ml Chicken stock

For sauce version 2:

• 50ml marsala sherry



Please chicken breast on wooden chopping board and whilst pressing down flat with the palm of your hand use a small knife to either hollow out a ‘pocket’ or cut open a flap. Do not cut through the breast.

Mix boursin with the garlic and chopped sun-dried tomatoes. Stuff the pocket with a good sized knob of the mixture and a basil leaf or two.

Place two slices of ham together on a board, place breast on top of ham and roll tightly around the chicken breast. (Parma / proscuitto ham is expensive in Dubai so if you only want to use one slice per breast place ham on a diagonal and roll around breast that way.)

Using olive oil grease a baking dish, place chicken in dish, cover with foil and place in oven (375F/190C) for 40mins.

Remove foil after 20 mins

After 35 mins pour off any juices from the dish into a small saucepan, put chicken back in oven.

For sauce version 1: With the saucepan over a medium-low heat whisk in 1 heaped tsp plain flour, add the white wine and whisk again. Add homemade chicken stock, (keep whisking) until sauce is the right consistency. Check for seasoning. Go easy on the salt because the ham is already quite salty.

For sauce version 2: pour marsala sherry into a saucepan with pan juices. Heat over medium heat and reduce by half. That’s it!

Remove chicken from oven, slice each breast in two width-ways (I like to do this on a slight diagonal as it looks better). Place on top of what you are serving it with, pour some sauce over the breast and serve.

If serving with mash and leeks:

Sauté some thinly sliced leeks in butter. Mash potatoes with butter and a little double cream (I also like to add some finely chopped spring onions).

Place a mound of potatoes in middle of a plate, pile some leeks on top of potatoes. Arrange the two pieces of the breast on top of the vegetables, pour over sauce and serve.

If serving with risotto:

Make a basic risotto with onions, garlic, Arborio rice etc. Use wine and chicken stock. I like to add some strands of saffron for the colour.

When the risotto is just about cooked add about 1 tbsp of mascarpone cheese to make it all delicious and creamy.

Using a metal kitchen ring (about 10cms diameter) place risotto in middle of plate and press down a little to make a firm, round ‘tower’ of rice. Arrange two pieces of chicken breast on top of rice, pour sauce over and serve.

Roasted Plum Tomato Feuillete

This makes a wonderful starter, simple to do, pop it into the oven a little while after the guests arrive and away you go.

Ingredients, serves 4:

• 4 plum tomatoes
• EV Olive oil
• 2 tsp balsamic vinegar
• Puff pastry, ready rolled if available.
• Fresh basil leaves (2 whole leaves per person and a similar number again)
• 250g mascarpone cheese

And then you need to:

Slice the tomatoes into two lengthways.

Top tip here: if you look at the stalk end of a plum tomato you will see that it has two small mounds and two small dips. If you slice the tomato down through the mounds it will open up all the lovely flesh and pips, if you slice down through the troughs it will open up showing only the whitish pith.

In a small dish place the tomatoes cut side up, sprinkle with a pinch of coarse sea salt, drizzle about 2 tbsp EV olive oil and the balsamic vinegar. Pop into oven heated to 160C/325F and leave for about 45 mins.

Finely chop half of the basil and stir it into the mascarpone. Taking two dessert spoons make the mascarpone into ‘quenelles’ (small rugby-ball shaped dumpling), one per person.

Roll out the pastry (better still use a ready rolled sheet!) until about the thickness of about 2 or 3mm and with a small bowl or pastry cutter cut out circles (one per person) about 10 cm in diameter. Place them on a lightly oiled baking tray and with a small sharp knife lightly score a line 1 cm in from the edge all the way around, forming a sort of border.

If you have some pastry left over and want to make ‘lids’ for the tarts then feel free but bake them on a separate baking tray.

Place two fresh basil leaves on each pastry circle, place two of the roasted tomatoes on top of the basil, making sure they are inside of the lightly scored line. Put the tray in the oven at 175C/350F for about 12-15 mins, keep an eye on them.

When the pastry has risen and has turned golden remove from the oven. Carefully remove the tarts from the tray and place on plates. Place 1 quenelle of mascarpone on top of each feuillete and serve immediately.

I normally serve this with a few dressed roquette or manche (lambs lettuce) leaves to give a bit of colour.

There are lots of alternatives you could play with. For example substitute mascarpone for goats cheese is excellent (though if you do this cook the goats cheese, put it on top of the tomato tart before putting them in the oven).

Also a little smear of pesto on the pastry before adding the roasted tomatoes is lovely.

Vinaigrette (Classic)

As simple as it gets... Lash out on some really nice olive oil, something like Planeta to be really lavish.

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 6 tbsp vinegar
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 pinch sugar
• 1 pinch mustard

Whip it all up. That's it. If you want to be naughty, bottle it with a few peppecorns and a clove or two of peeled garlic, then shake it up the next day and use it.

Salad Clementine

There's no fruit in this: it's named after a posh French bird, not an orangey thing!

This is the kind of thing you cook in your dreams when Elizabeth David comes round to tea. You offer this with perhaps a glass of lightly chilled Pouilly Fuissé and she smiles at you because she likes it...

Ingredients

• 6 medium tomatoes
• 6 hard boiled eggs
• 1 tablespoon capers
• 1 tablespoon sliced gherkin
• 1 tin anchovy fillets
• A little milk

Dressing

• 2 tablespoons red vinegar
• 1 teaspoon mustard powder
• 6 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons tomato puree
• 1 tablespoon fines herbs
• Salt and pepper

Cut a shallow line across the tops of the tomatoes with the point of a knife, just to break the skin, no more. Boil a kettle of water, and pour over the tomatoes. Leave for no more than 30 seconds, and drain them. This allows the skins to be peeled easily from the tomatoes. Peel them, then cut them in half through the stalk. Remove the seeds. Heat the oil in a frying pan, and sauté the tomatoes quickly on both sides. Lift them out of the pan carefully, and leave to cool. Drain the anchovies, split each fillet into two and then slice each halved fillet to make matchsticks. Place to soak in a dish of milk, to draw out the salt.

Peel the hard boiled eggs, and cut each into four vertical slices. Two of these should be white only, while two should contain the hard yolk. Reserve the slices with the yolk and chop up the remaining whites. Combine the dressing ingredients in a jug, and mix well.

Lay the slices of egg on a serving plate, and place a slice of tomato on top of each, face down. Place the slices of anchovy over the tomatoes so that they form a lattice. Pour over the dressing, and place in the fridge for an hour to chill. Just before serving, sprinkle with the chopped egg whites.

Créme Caramel

This is a completely over the top recipe that produces a thick, wobbly, creamy créme caramel that will make you laugh in a superior fashion every time you pass the packet stuff in a supermarket. Incidentally, you have to practice the superior laugh in order not to be mistaken for the increasing number of people who go insane in supermarkets and wander the aisles endlessly giggling softly to themselves. They can be spotted easily because they invariably carry bar code scanners so that the unwary believe they work there. Never ask them for directions.

This recipe is 100% French cuisine, but the Arab World loves créme caramel. Which, I guess, makes it French Lebanese. We could settle for Canadian...

Ingredients

• 150ml milk
• 275ml single cream
• 4 large eggs
• 40g soft brown sugar
• Vanilla essence
• 110g caster sugar
• 2 tbsp warm water
  

Preheat the oven to 150C/300F/Gas 2. Heat the sugar for the caramel in a pan until it becomes a dark golden brown syrup. Remove the pan from the heat and add the warm water, taking care to avoid spatters as the mixture will bubble. Stir until smooth, and line the base of the dish you are using as the mould for the caramel. (Depending on what type of dish you're using you may like to gently grease it for a hassle-free turning out! You're looking for a dish with a capacity of about 450ml)

Pour the milk and cream into a pan, and heat through over a low heat. Whisk together the eggs, the brown sugar and four drops of vanilla essence in a large bowl. When the milk is steaming, pour it over the egg and sugar mixture, whisking to combine and form a smooth blended mixture. Pour this liquid over the sugar in the dish, and place in a baking tin. Place this in the middle of the oven, and pour cold water up to 2/3 of the depth of the dish. Bake for an hour, remove from the oven to cool to room temperature and then chill for at least one hour. To serve, run a silicone bladed spatula (well buy one, then!) around the edges of the dish to free the caramel, and invert onto a serving plate. If you’re feeling really luxurious (insane), serve with fresh double pouring cream.