What Michelin-starred chef Raymond Blanc cooks at home – it doesn’t involve expensive or elaborate dishes
- In the book Cooking for Friends, the celebrated chef reveals that what he cooks at home is very different to what he serves in his restauarant
- Most recipes can be achieved with modest kitchen skills, such as roast guinea fowl with lentils
When Michelin-starred chefs have time to step away from their busy work kitchens, what they cook at home is very different from the food they serve at their restaurants. Home cooking is, of course, much more casual because friends and family aren’t expecting complex, elaborate dishes and expensive tableware. And at home, the chef wants to sit down and enjoy the meal with loved ones, instead of sweating away behind the swinging doors.
Raymond Blanc, OBE, the French chef-patron of the Michelin two-star Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons, in Oxfordshire, England, writes about the difference between restaurant cooking and home cooking in the introduction to his 1991 book, Cooking for Friends.
“When I was asked to write my first book on the cuisine of Le Manoir, I had already considered writing this one to follow; to balance and contrast the sophistication and relative difficulties associated with the Manoir book, and write one on the beauty of simple home cooking; to show another angle where cooking, eating and enjoying oneself did not necessarily involve elaborate or expensive dishes,” he writes.
“This dual perception is very much part of my own background, characteristic of both earlier and later developments in my craft. My childhood was very strongly associated with simple and delicious home cooking, and that ingenuity, mostly inspired by poverty, must have had a powerful influence on my approach to food.
“The fact that I am self-taught is also relevant, and means that I have a strong empathy with anyone who approaches cooking with some trepidation. I have had to learn through my own mistakes, flops, trials and tribulations, all the while nurturing an inexhaustible curiosity about why and how the mistake occurred, and how best to avoid and correct them. It has been an exciting journey from simplicity to subtlety and sophistication, and back to simplicity again – a rather natural and magical cycle which I believe can inspire anyone.
“Another factor, of course, is to show that while the food at Le Manoir has a particular profile, my cooking and eating at home are entirely different, and it would be a mistake to compare them. My wife, although she loves the food of Le Manoir, would refuse to eat it all the time. We both have simple, wholesome food at home and far from being the intimidating monster of the kitchen, I rather like enjoying the rare luxury of putting my feet up once in a while and enjoying an uncomplicated earthy meal which we share with good wine and lively conversation.”
Most of the dishes in Cooking for Friends can be made by those with modest skills in the kitchen. They include roast guinea fowl with lentils, courgette and lettuce soup, haddock tartare with avocado, pork fillets with sultanas, fillet of cod with onions and potatoes, salad of duck livers cooked in duck fat, fricassee of wild mushrooms, roast leg of milk-fed lamb, peaches in white wine and cherry soup with soured cream.
