Enjoying roasted tuna, quail and baked pear

STARTER

Grilled tuna with sweet-and-sour vegetables, Italian pancetta and grapefruit chutney

Wine tip: Rueda Verdejo

MAIN COURSE

Quail on a tartiflette of new potatoes and Brie de Meaux

Wine tip: Normandy apple cider brut

DESSERT

Puff pastry pears with marinated red fruit and wine sabayon

Wine tip: Eau de Vie Poire Williams d’Alsace

Tuna

Cut the tuna fillet lengthways into pieces of around four centimetres in diameter. Wash the lemon under hot water and finely grate the zest and ginger. Mix with ras el hanout spices, rub the mixture over the tuna and set aside in the fridge.

Remove the outer leaves of the butter lettuce and wash them well along with the red lettuce. Cut the heads into sections. Cut through the core so that the lettuce doesn’t collapse.

For the sweet-and-sour sauce, bring the sugar and vinegar to the boil in a pot with 1 decilitre of water and then set aside. In the meantime, peel the Granny Smith and the cucumber and, using a Parisian scoop, make nice balls of the fruit and set aside in the fridge. Grate the radishes into thin slices and set them aside in the fridge immersed in cold water. Cut the cauliflower into small florets, place them in the sweet-and-sour sauce and allow to cool.

For the chutney, cut the Lardo di Colonnata into small cubes, peel and chop the shallots, and take the segments out of the grapefruit (catch the juices). Heat a dash of olive oil in a frying pan, sauté the shallots and add the cubes of Lardo di Colonnata. Cook slowly, add the segments of grapefruit along with the juice and set aside to cool. Set the chutney aside in the fridge. Put the balls of apple and cucumber in the now cooled sweet-and-sour sauce and set aside in the fridge.

Heat the Big Green Egg® to a temperature of 200°C and place the Cast Iron Grid and Half Moon Cast Iron Plancha Griddle on the grid with the smooth side facing upwards. Singe the tuna nicely on all sides, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap and set aside in the fridge.

Tartiflette

Remove the Cast Iron Griddle Half Moon and the Cast Iron Gridfrom the EGG and place the pepper on the glowing coals. Turn the pepper so that its skin turns black. Remove it from the EGG and allow to cool.

In the meantime, peel the potatoes and the mango and cut them into slices of half a centimetre thick. Peel the onions and cut into half rings and finely chop the garlic. Remove the pepper’s skin and seeds, and rinse clean with tap water. Cut into big chunks. Wash and drain the spinach, and cut the spring onion into ringlets. Set aside in the fridge until needed.

Heat a dash of olive oil in a frying pan and toss in the potato slices, onion rings and garlic. Fry briefly and quench with the cream. Allow to simmer for a while before adding the mango, pepper and brie. Fill four cocottes with the mixture, allow to cool and set aside in the fridge.

Puff pastry pears

Peel the pears, wash the lemon and grate the zest, and cut the vanilla pod open lengthwise. Bring the white wine with lemon zest, vanilla core, tarragon, star anise, pepper corns, ginger and sugar to the boil in a saucepan. Toss the peeled pears into the pan and turn the stove down; poach gently for around half an hour. Allow to cool and set aside in the fridge.

Roll out the puff pastry and cut into long strips of around one centimetre wide. Take the pears out of the liquid, dab them dry and roll them into the pastry. Place them back in the fridge. Sieve the liquid for the sabayon, and let it boil down gently until it forms a thin syrup.

Tuna

Heat the Big Green Egg to a temperature of 200°C and place the Cast Iron Grid on the grid. Dribble olive oil onto the sections of butter lettuce and red lettuce, grill then briefly on both sides on the grid and season to taste with salt & pepper. Cut the tuna fillet into nice slices and sprinkle them with coarse sea salt & pepper.

Dish up portions of lettuce and tuna on the plates. Garnish with the sweet-and-sour vegetables and slices of radish, and top off with a helping of chutney. In preparation for the tartiflette, position the Baking Stone on the grid.

Tartiflette

Rub curry powder and salt & pepper into the quails. Place them on the grid next to the Flat Baking Stone and grill them while turning for around eight minutes until golden brown. At the same time, place the cocottes filled with tartiflette on the Flat Baking Stone.

Take the quails off the grid and cut the fillets and legs off separately. Remove the cocottes from the EGG, flavour the spinach with olive oil and salt & pepper, and share across the cocottes. Place the quail fillets and legs on top, sprinkle with spring onion and serve. Lower the temperature of the EGG to 180°.

Puff pastry pears

Take the pears out of the fridge, beat one egg yolk and use it to spread over the puff pastry. Sprinkle with granulated sugar and fry the pears for around 15 minutes on the Flat Baking Stone in the Big Green Egg. In the meantime, pour 2½ decilitres of the reduced poaching liquid into a saucepan, add the remaining egg yolks and heat at a medium temperature while beating until it bonds into a light mixture (NB: be careful not to let the temperature rise above 80°C).

Put the fruit into the remaining poaching liquid and turn it gently.

Dish up a pear – surrounded with fruit – onto each plate, and cover with sabayon. Garnish with a tuft of mint.