Two recipes from "Some stars of Paris and Moscow"

Coquilles Saint-Jacques au bouillon de cresson (Alain Ducasse)

(scallops on watercress broth)

Prep time – 25 min

Cooking time – 10 min

Servings – 4

Ingredients:

12 scallops (coquilles Saint-Jacques) without  corals

2 bunches of watercress

Some leaves of spinach

1 clove of garlic

Olive oil

1 little tin of caviar

4 slices of nutbread

2 spoons of fresh cream

Juice of ½ lemon

Salt, not much pepper

Preparation:

Defoliate the watercress and remove the stems from the spinach. Rinse and dry them.

Peel the garlic.

Cut horizontally the scallops in 4. Season them with lemon juice, a drizzle of olive oil  and divide them into  4 soup plates.

Brush the bread with a little olive oil, toast them slightly and cut them to fill a small basket.

Boil some salted water.  Dip the watercress, spinach and garlic. Cook until the leaves soften a little.

Drain this boil. Stir in the cream and add a little of the cooking water – the liquid shoud have the consistency of a soup. Add salt and pepper and heat the broth. When boiling, pour this broth over the scallops just in time to serve the dishes: the heat will cook them.

The chef’s advice:  “Cook the broth at the last moment; if you prepare it while taking care of the scallops, this broth will darken and keep an unpleasant appearance.”

Rhum Baba (adapted from Alain Ducasse's recipe)

To the babas:

1 whole egg plus 6 yolks

Whisk the egg white well, then add the 7 yolks. Whisk a lot until  almost losing the color.

Sift over the mixer off 2 spoons all-purpose flour mixed with 1 little pinch of baking powder.

Grease 4 muffin cups with unsalted butter and a little flour.

Fill the greased muffin cups with the batter and then bake for 15 to 20 minutes (180 °C), until the dumplings are nicely browned.

Syrup –

1 Kg granulated sugar

2 glasses of water (500ml total)

Zest of an orange and also a lemon - also squeeze some of the juice from the peels in the syrup.

1 vanilla bean divided in 2

Once thickened, and just before taking from the fire, add rhum, cognac or Armagnac to taste to the syrup.

If you wish, do not add alcohol in the syrup and and just serve the babas flambé at the last moment - but always before filling them with the cream.

Leave the dumplings in the cold syrup for about 15 minutes.

Filling – Make a custard of egg yolks with vanilla – light and fluffy not to stay too consistent when cool. When  cold, whisk slightly with Chantilly. Serve this cream apart to fill the babas on the table after cut in half on each plate.

ATTENTION - When it is the case, do not forget to flambé before putting the cream.