Viva Brighton April 2015 Issue #26

ecipe
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Chocolate and sherry mousse
One of Brighton’s youngest head chefs, Danny Frape, talks us through
a chocolatey favourite on his menu at The Foragers this spring,
served with raspberry sorbet and a chocolate tuile.
I started working in kitchens straight out of school.
I didn’t go to college, so everything I know now,
I’ve learnt along the way. I got my first job cleaning
mussels, and progressed from there to work as a
sous chef at restaurants like the Chimney House
and Dean’s Place hotel in Alfriston. Now, at 23, I’m
the head chef of The Foragers.
Some of my recipes I’ve picked up from other chefs
that I’ve worked with, but a lot of them have come
from trying things out myself. I usually start by
choosing the main part of the dish, like the fish –
something which is locally and ethically sourced
– and then I look at what’s in season which might
go well with it. I create the rest of the dish around
that. When I’m at home I like just throwing loads
of ingredients into a pan and seeing what works. If
it tastes good, I’ll add it to my recipe book.
One of my first jobs was at the Preston Park
Tavern, which was given an award for sustainability
- that’s something we’re big on here, and we’re
always trying to improve. We only use fish which
is sustainable to eat, and our eggs and meat come
from free-roaming animals which can be traced
back to the farm they were reared on.
I wouldn’t say I have a philosophy of cooking; the
most important thing for me is good produce. If
you use bad ingredients, you’ll cook bad food - you
really do get what you pay for.
The dish I’m going to make today is from our
spring dessert menu and it’s a customer favourite.
This recipe makes about eight servings.
Heat 50ml of milk in a pan with one bay leaf, just
long enough to get the milk warm, then take it off
the heat and leave it to infuse while you make the
rest of the dessert. In a separate pan, gently warm
50ml of dark rum – I use Appleton Estate – mixed
with 50ml of Harveys Bristol Cream sherry.
Separate eight eggs and whisk the whites together
with 80g of caster sugar until they form stiff peaks.
Melt 400g of dark chocolate - it needs to have a
high cocoa content so it still tastes chocolatey when
you’ve added all of the sugar and whites, so I use
a 71%. Add the egg yolks, one at a time, whisking
each one in completely before you add the next so
the mixture doesn’t stiffen. Add one third of the egg
whites and whisk gently, then fold in the other two
thirds with a pinch of salt and pour into your ramekins.
It needs about four hours in the fridge to set.
The chocolate tuile is made by mixing together
75g of softened butter, 180g of caster sugar, 15g
of cocoa powder, 30g of plain flour and 90ml of
orange juice. Spread the mixture thinly on a sheet
of parchment paper and cook it at 170° until it’s dry
and dark brown in colour.
To make the sorbet, add a pint of raspberry purée
(or whichever flavour you want) to a litre and a half
of water. Add two tablespoons of liquid glucose,
500g of caster sugar and the juice of a lemon, and
bring the mixture to the boil. If you have an icecream
maker you can use that, but otherwise pour
the sorbet mixture into a container and place in the
freezer, then take it out and stir it every hour.
As told to Rebecca Cunningham. Photo by Lisa Devlin,
whose food-photography website is cakefordinner.co.uk.
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