Belle Héléne 2008-style

Revolution French When La Madeleine chef Anne Leusch was asked to come up with a food match for the Dombeya Samara 2005, a Bordeaux-style blend, she decided to re-invent a classic. Anna Trapido reports.

When presented with a bottle of Haskell Vineyards’ Dombeya Samara 2005 (4 Stars in this month’s tasting of Bordeaux-style red blends, see p. 96), many chefs would have made the obvious association and matched the Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Malbec blend to venison. Certainly, no one would have begrudged Anne Leusch such an unexciting pairing. After all, she is only 21 years old and she even had fresh game on hand, as her proud father Daniel Leusch (chef-patron of the multi-award-winning La Madeleine restaurant in Pretoria) pointed out: “Last week she shot her first Blue Wildebeest from 160 metres away.”

 

But her gastronomic maturity is considerably greater than her years, so chef Leusch Junior moved past the obvious and instead made what she described as “a modern rethink of the classic dessert Poire Belle-Hélène”.

As she plated petal-thin slivers of red wine-poached pear, she observed: “I have recently returned from a year at Bistro du Sommelier in Paris where we made Belle- Hélène quite a lot, so I have it on my mind at the moment. When I tasted the chocolatey notes in the wine, it seemed like a good match. But then I sipped again and I found liquoricy, spicy things going on too and it didn’t seem fair to just pair it with the vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce of a traditional Belle-Hélène.”

Even in the midst of the excitement of culinary creativity, Leusch says she “kept one eye on the eating experience. I wanted it to feel modern but still be very eatable. I never want a customer to think ‘now what do I do with this?’ so, because the warm chocolate sauce was in a shot glass, which potentially makes it diffi cult to get at, I added a deep-fried macaroni straw”.

She explains: “I chose to make a berry sorbet with yoghurt because I wanted to give credit to the red berry flavours in the wine, echo the dairy notes in the original dish and yet reduce the sweetness to suit modern South African palates. The addition of a Madeleine biscuit was really just for fun and as a tribute to my dad. My plate replicates the tastes and textures of the original but from an Africa 2008 viewpoint. I hope it’s funky without being disrespectful to a much-loved classic.”

She is talking about the dessert but the words could equally apply to the chef herself. It seems the future of La Madeleine and Belle-Hélène will be safe in her hands.
MIXED RED BERRY SORBET
300g mixed red berries
150g yoghurt
200g condensed milk
1 T liquid glucose

Mix all the ingredients in a blender. Place in a dish and freeze. PEAR POACHED IN RED WINE
3l red wine
10 mint leaves
3 star anise
1 cinnamon stick
1kg sugar
3 pears

Boil the red wine and sugar.
Add the mint, star anise and cinnamon.
Peel the pears and boil them in the
red wine until cooked through.
Allow to cool to room temperature.

CHOCOLATE CHIP MADELEINES
200g room temperature butter
190g cake flour
200g white sugar
4 eggs
2 t baking powder
1 pinch salt
A generous sprinkle of chocolate chips

Mix all the dry ingredients. Add the eggs then the butter and chocolate chips. Spoon into a Madeleine biscuit mould (shell-shaped cookie tray). Cook at 180ºC for 7–8 minutes until cooked through and pale golden.

CHOCOLATE SAUCE
280g milk chocolate
280g milk
160g cream
Melt the chocolate. Boil the milk and cream then pour
over the melted chocolate. Mix well.