Tag Archives: fine dining

Rougail of sea bass with cèpe mushrooms and black lentils

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This warming and nutritious fish rougail, served with rice and lentils, is perfect for a weekend meal when you can take your time preparing, and then enjoying. your food.

Beach dining at Constance Moofushi Resort

Relaxed beach dining

Serves 4
Preparation time: 1 hour
Cooking time: 1 hour and 40 minutes
Soaking time for lentils: 30 minutes

For the rougail

  • 4 seabass steaks
  • 4 tbsp sunflower oil
  • 2 onions
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 1 tsp finely chopped ginger
  • 400g small tomatoes
  • 3 tbsp thick tomato coulis
  • 2 sprigs thyme
  • 2 sprigs parslety
  • 5 curry leaves
  • 1 fresh green chilli
  • 5 sprigs fresh coriander, chopped
  • 300g fresh cèpe mushrooms
  • salt and pepper

For the fricassed black lentils

  • 100g black lentils
  • 2 tbsp oil
  • 1 onion
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 1 tsp finely chopped ginger
  • 2 sprigs thyme
  • 2 sprigs parsley
  • 3 curry leaves
  • 3 tomatoes
  • salt and pepper

1. Soak the lentils for 30 minutes.
2. Prepare the rougail by cutting each fish steak into 4 pieces. Peel onion and garlic, chop them separately, as well as fresh coriander and curry leaves. Finely dice the tomatoes.
3. Season the fish with salt and pepper on both sides, then fry them in oil for 2 or 3 minutes on each side until golden. Set aside.
4. In the same pan, sauté onions, garlic and ginger for 3 minutes without colouring. Add tomatoes, let stew and reduce for 15 minutes on low heat. Add thyme, parsley, curry leaves, chilli and tomato coulis. Cook for 20 minutes on low heat.
5. Slice the cèpes, add salt and pepper, then pan-sear them on high heat for a few moments. Add fish and cèpes to the sauce and let it stew for 10 minutes. If the sauce is too thick, add a little water. Correct seasoning, then sprinkle with chopped coriander.
6. Prepare the black lentil fricassée: peel the onion and garlic, chop them separately. Finely dice tomatoes.
7. Fry onion in a little oil in a saucepan, then add chopped garlic and ginger. Stew for 2 to 3 minutes. Add tomatoes, let them stew and reduce for 10 minutes.
8. Add black lentils, thyme and curry leaves, 50cl water, salt and pepper. Simmer on low heat for 30 minutes, then correct seasoning.
9. Serve the rougail hot, with plain boiled white rice and the lentils on the side.

 

In the kitchen, I can’t live without…

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Microplane

Versatile microplane

In our new series, we take a look behind the scenes of the high-functioning kitchens at our Constance resorts to find out what kitchen equipment our chefs use time and time again.

Here, Chef Dominique Grel, Executive Chef of Constance Belle Mare Plage, Mauritius reveals a Microplane is his must-have gadget in the kitchen.

Tired of your old Parmesan cheese grater that doesn’t grate? Or fed up with your lemon zester that mashes the zest instead of grating it?

Buy a Microplane. They’re sharp. They’re versatile. And they look cool.

At La Spiaggia restaurant, I like to serve a beautiful and healthy salad with seasonal vegetables, elegantly sliced in thin shavings using the microplane.

Season with Dandaragan (a great olive oil from Australia which comes in 3 characters: fruity, delicate of robust), kalamata olives and chunks of Parmigiano Reggiano.

 

Simple to prepare and delicious to eat.

What’s your favourite piece of kitchen equipment?

Do you have a favourite piece of kitchen equipment you use time and again? We’d love to hear from you. You can post a comment on our blog below, or to Constance Facebook or Twitter @constancehotels.

Recipe: Fougasse bread with smoked pork belly

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Indigo Restaurant at Constance Belle Mare Plage

Indigo at Constance Belle Mare Plage

This wonderful bread served with smoked pork belly is perfect for snacking on at the start of a relaxed weekend lunch.

Serves 4
Preparation time: 30  minutes
Cooking time: 40 minutes
Raising time: 2 hours

Ingredients:

  • 75g boucane (smoked pork belly)
  • 125g flour
  • 1/2 tsp turmeric
  • 125g fine semolina
  • 10g fresh baker’s yeast
  • olive oil for brushing
  • 5g salt

1. Preheat oven to 200ºC.
2. Cut off the rind from the boucane, then finely dice the meat. Cook it in boiling water for 20 minutes, then drain.
3. In a salad bowl, gather all the ingredients except the salt and boucane. Knead by hand for 8 minutes. Add the salt and boucane, knead for 2 more minutes.
4. Divide this dough into 2 equal-sized balls. Roll out each one separately in an oval shape, about 15cm long and 5cm wide. Lay each fougasse on a biscuit sheet, cut 3 diagonal slits into each one with a sharp knife, and let them rest for 2 hours at room temperature. They should double in size.
5. Bake the fougasses for about 20 minutes in the oven. Take them out of the oven and brush them with olive oil.

Recipe: Roasted aubergine chatini with peanuts and fritters of cari chilli

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Tantalise your tastebuds with this delicious aubergine chutney served with lightly battered chillies and onion rings.

Chillies

Chillies

Serves 4
Preparation time: 1 hour
Cooking time: 20 minutes

For the eggplant chatini:

  • 500g aubergines
  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 onion
  • 5 spring onions
  • 1 small fresh red chilli
  • 3 sprigs coriander
  • 150g toasted peanuts
  • juice of 1/2 lemon
  • salt and freshly ground pepper

For the batter:

  • 75g flour
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • vegetable oil for deep frying
  • salt

For the coriander salad:

  • 1 bunch coriander
  • 3 small preserved limes (salt cured)
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1/2 tsp fennel seeds
  • salt and pepper

Finishing touch:

  • 6 cari chillies
  • 12 onion slices

1. Preheat oven to 220ºC.
2. Wash the aubergines, season them with salt and pepper, wrap them in aluminium foil, adding 2 tbsp olive oil. Bake for 15 minutes.
3. Let cool, cut in 2 lengthwise and spoon out the flesh. Mash it with a fork and set aside.
4. Peel and chop the onion. Chop the onion greens, chilli and coriander separately. Chop the peanuts with a knife.
5. Mix the aubergine pulp with remaining olive oil, lemon juice, chopped onion, spring onions, coriander, chilli and peanuts. Add a generous amount of freshly ground black pepper.
6. Make the coriander salad: wash the coriander, strip the leaves off the stalks. Halve the preserved limes, remove seeds and cut the flesh into julienne sticks. Toast the fennel seeds in a dry pan for 5 minutes on low heat. Mix all the ingredients and correct seasoning.
7. Halve the cari chillies lengthwise, remove the seeds and blanch them in boiling salted water for 1 minute. Cool in iced water. Repeat once.
8. Make the batter: separate the eggs. Mix the flour with 12.5cl water, the egg yolks, the olive oil and some salt.
9. Heat the oil for frying to 180ºC.
10. Beat the egg whites until stiff and gently fold them into the previous mixture shortly before frying the vegetables. Season the vegetables with salt and dip each one of them (half a chilli and onion slice) in the batter, and fry them until golden (about 5 minutes). Drain on absorbent paper.
10. Drop some aubergine and peanut chatini in a circle in the middle of each plate. Place the vegetable fritters around the chatini and the coriander salad in the centre.

Every Friday we publish a delicious recipe from the kitchens of Constance Hotels. Visit our culinary section to see more of the tasty recipes you can cook at home.

Truffle Week at Constance Belle Mare Plage and Le Prince Maurice

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This year, Constance Belle Mare Plage and Constance Le Prince Maurice organised a ‘Truffle Week’ to the delight our guests who love gourmet food.
Delectable black truffles

Delectable black truffles

La Confrérie de la Truffe Noire, the Brotherhood of the Black Truffle, is based in the hill region of the Drome des Collines in South East France.

They kindly sent one of their members, Helene Faure, to Mauritius to speak with our chefs and sommeliers about the tuber melanosporum, more commonly known as the black truffle.

The black truffle provides the gold standard in the truffle world because of its delicate taste, and delightful and intense bouquet.

 

To help in understanding and recognising this black treasure, Helene offered the team a comparative tasting and visual appreciation of the various kinds of truffle. We learnt how to identify each one’s shape, aroma and taste. Helene also gave our chefs a variety of recipes for how truffles can be used in our cuisine.

Guests in our Mauritian resorts enjoyed special dinner menus on Tuesday 10 and Friday 13 January 2012, featuring a flavoursome black truffle purée and an amazing black truffle soufflé, which made a delicious and tasty dessert.

The atmosphere in the stylish and friendly settings of both the Constance Le Prince Maurice’s Archipel Restaurant and the Constance Belle Mare Plage’s Blue Penny Café was really something to be savoured – quite simply fantastic.

Blue Penny at Constance Belle Mare Plage

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Preshal Guness and guests

Preshal Guness is a lovely host

The Blue Penny is a unique restaurant in Mauritius. Located at Constance Belle Mare Plage, it represents the highlight of the culinary skills of Constance Hotels Experience.

Preshal Guness is a lovely host and combines conviviality and elegance like no other. Discrete and stylish, he and his young and talented team offer a living definition of the expression ‘casual chic’.

The wine list at Blue Penny is impressive (more than 850), and has received the prestigious Wine Spectator award for its excellence.

Under the guidance of Constance celebrity head sommelier Jerôme Faure, sommelier Yann Hangouet has qualified for the semi-finals of the best young sommelier of France.

Dining at Blue Penny

A dinner at Blue Penny should always start with a visit to the wine cellar and the sommelier’s secret room behind it. There, you can enjoy a selection of fresh and joyful wines that will tickle your appetite…

Fillet of red mullet at Blue Penny

Chef Goisset’s fillet of red mullet filled with local shells, crispy pigs’ trotter, tomato “rougail” and squid ink jus.

Chef Frederic Goisset has been creating behind the stoves of Blue Penny for more than 5 years. He started his career in France at L’Ousteau de Baumanière, at Mr Ducasse’s Louis XV and at L’hôtel du Castellet. He is extremely talented and sensible, and enjoys more than anything cooking with local produce.

Five course discovery menu

On the menu, Chef Goisset proposes different options that can be matched with suggestions from the chef sommelier. He also boasts a 5 courses ‘discovery menu’.

Only the name of the basic ingredient is known to the guests (lobster, squab, pineapple, etc…) and the chef takes care of the rest. A great way to understand the real culinary expression of the place!

Wine dinners every Saturday evening

Luxury food at Blue Penny

A dinner at Blue Penny is always a feast

The complicity between sommelier Yann and Maitre D’ Guness is evident – they regularly create new wine dinners that are presented every Saturday evening.

The concept is the sommelier chooses wines that are interesting to discover. They share feelings on the characters of these wines all together and define the aromatic lines that should be followed to be matched by the food.

Then the chef works at creating the best match possible. What is expected is a balance between food and wine. One component should not overpower the other. The menus are tested and tested again until we reach the desired balance.

Have you eaten at the Blue Penny?

If you’ve eaten at the Blue Penny restaurant at Constance Belle Mare Plage, we’d love to hear about your favourite meal.