To most families the sight of an empty fridge and bare cupboards a few days before Christmas would seem like a nightmare. But such is Michel Roux’s faith in the local markets of the Ardèche in the south of France — where he and his family enjoy the festive period — that he leaves most of his shopping to the last minute. In fact he starts buying food just 48 hours before the big day. Le Gavroche, Roux’s two-Michelin-starred restaurant in London, shuts on December 22 and he travels to France with his wife, Giselle, the following morning.
“We arrive and head straight for the markets. We might take a few things with us, but buying all the food together is part of the fun,” he says. “Then we do the big supermarket shop. We’ve never not managed to find what we need.”
Roux’s faith is not totally blind. The centrepieces are ordered weeks in advance from the local butcher; crucially the black truffles, for which the Ardèche region is famous, have been located. “We’ll either go out truffle hunting when we arrive or our local guy, Matteo, will have reserved a box of them for us.”
This will be the Roux family’s second Christmas without its patriarch, Michel’s father, Albert, who died in January 2021 within ten months of his uncle, Michel Sr. Britain has the two brothers to thank for reintroducing the country to French cuisine when they opened Le Gavroche in 1967, and with the publication last month of Albert’s posthumous memoir, My Life in Food, we were told the story of his journey from private cook to pioneering chef.
Before opening the restaurant Albert worked for the aristocratic Cazalet family, living on the Fairlawne estate in Kent. The Roux childhood Christmases sound like the stuff of picture books. They lived in a tiny pink cottage just outside the estate and their family from France would visit, bringing all the classic treats you couldn’t get here at the time. Being French they celebrated on Christmas Eve. “We’d have saucisson, garlic sausage, big ripe camembert, fine chocolates, bonbons and other goodies. We’d gather around the wooden table and have a feast,” Michel says. “It really was the perfect Christmas.”
The menu was British with a French twist —or, as Roux describes it, “Franglais food, which means the best of both”. It’s a cuisine that continues today. “We’ll mix and match the two exactly like we used to.” In keeping with the Christmases of his childhood, the table is always heaving with food. “It’s a huge family affair and we share the work. When my dad was older we’d have him peeling potatoes. He’d sit in a corner with a glass of champagne and get them done.”
Celebrations begin at dinner on Christmas Eve with a feast of oysters dressed the French way, with vinegar and shallots. There’s smoked salmon and stilton — one of Roux’s favourite cheeses — followed by duck, turkey or lobster, the latter roasted with garlic butter. “My dad first made the lobster for me, and many times after that, so I can’t help but think of him when we eat it,” he says. “I remember eating it as a kid at Le Gavroche and the garlicky butter dribbling down my chin.”
For dessert there will be Christmas pudding, another favourite of his father’s. “It was based on the recipe he used at the big house, though he enriched it a lot — a heck of a lot,” Roux recalls. There will also be the Gallic alternative: a bûche de Noël “à la Roux”. “I’ll make it myself — very light and very simple. I don’t like it too rich.”
One recent addition to their pan-European menu is a pasta course, courtesy of daughter Emily’s husband, the Italian chef Diego Ferrari, with whom she runs Caractère restaurant in London. “We’ll spend Christmas Eve afternoon making fresh tagliatelle, which we’ll have with truffles or seafood.”
One dish Roux will take charge of is his father’s favourite recipe for leftovers. “It may surprise people, but he always made a curry sauce with the leftover turkey or chicken. It’s a very British thing to make a curry but he’d do it French-style, laden with cream and fruit. It’s a tradition we’ll always carry on for him.”
Hannah Evans
ROMAS FOORD FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE
Roast lobster with garlic butter and béarnaise
You have to serve this with chips that you can swipe through the garlicky juices. I have it only once or twice a year to preserve its specialness, so it’s only right we eat it at Christmas. My daughter makes a wicked béarnaise sauce.
Serves 4
Ingredients
2 freshly cooked lobsters, each weighing about 600g
For the garlic butter
250g butter, at room temperature
4 garlic cloves, grated
Juice of ½ lemon
Splash of pastis (optional)
¼ bunch parsley, finely chopped
20g chives, finely chopped
1. To make the garlic butter, put the butter, garlic, lemon juice and pastis, if desired, in a bowl and mix. Add the herbs and mix well. Season with salt and pepper.
2. Lay two sheets of clingfilm on top of each other on a work surface. Scrape the butter onto the clingfilm, then roll up tightly into a large cylinder. This will keep in the fridge for up to a week.
3. Heat the oven to 180C (200C non-fan). Lay each lobster on a board with the tail extended and split lengthways using a heavy knife. Discard the stomach sac from the head and the viscera from the tail. Scrape out and discard all the gungy meat from the head.
4. Disjoint the claws and carefully crack the end joints, removing the meat in the largest pieces possible. Use a small teaspoon or a lobster pick to extract the meat from all the other joints.
5. Remove and cut the tail meat into five pieces and place them back in the half-shell. Sit the lobsters on a baking tray. Divide the rest of the meat between the heads and pour any collected juices back over the lobsters.
6. Heat the grill to the highest setting. Slice the garlic butter and place it over the lobsters. Put them in the preheated oven for 5 min, then under the grill until golden brown. Serve with béarnaise sauce (see below).
Sauce hollandaise
250g butter
1 shallot, finely chopped
3 peppercorns
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 dsp white wine
50ml water
3 egg yolks
Salt and cayenne pepper
Squeeze of lemon juice
1. Gently bring the butter to the boil in a small pan, then remove from the heat and allow the white solids to settle. Carefully pour off the golden clarified butter.
2. Place the shallot in a pan with the peppercorns, vinegar, white wine and water and boil for 5 min, reducing it by half. Pass through a sieve, retaining the liquid.
3. Place the reduction and egg yolks in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water, ensuring the base of the bowl does not touch the water. Whisk continuously until thickened and creamy. Remove from the heat and slowly whisk in the clarified butter until it has the right consistency. Season with salt, cayenne pepper and a little squeeze of lemon juice.
Sauce béarnaise
1 shallot, finely chopped
25ml white wine
25ml tarragon vinegar
225ml sauce hollandaise (above)
25g fresh tarragon, chopped
1. Put the shallot, wine and vinegar, with a twist of pepper, into a pan and simmer for 4-5 min until almost dry and the shallot is cooked. Add to the hollandaise sauce with the chopped tarragon.
ROMAS FOORD FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE
Roast duck, Brussels sprouts and Chantenay carrots with new potatoes
My daughter Emily doesn’t really like turkey but she loves duck with crispy skin. This makes a decadent dinner for four.
Serves 4
Ingredients
750g new potatoes
1 head of garlic
1.8kg whole duck
Olive oil
100ml white wine
120ml chicken stock
200g Brussels sprouts, outer leaves removed
200g Chantenay carrots, cleaned
50g unsalted butter
1. Heat the oven to 220C (240C non-fan). Place the potatoes in an ovenproof dish. Crush the head of garlic with your hand to separate the cloves. Add the garlic cloves to the dish along with the potatoes.
2. Rub the duck with olive oil, season with salt and pepper and place on top of the potatoes and garlic with the duck giblets.
3. Pour the white wine and chicken stock over the duck and place the dish into the preheated oven. Cook for 20 min, reduce the heat to 180C (200C non-fan) and continue to baste every 10 min. Cook for a further 45 min (if you have a probe thermometer, the core temperature should read 72C for perfectly pink duck).
4. Remove the duck from the oven and tip out any juices from the cavity. Cover with foil and leave to rest for 10-20 min.
5. Meanwhile, prepare the sprouts and carrots. Blanch them separately in boiling salted water until soft. Put the butter into a pan and let it go slightly brown, then add the carrots and sprouts, seasoning well. Once coated, serve with the duck and potatoes.
ROMAS FOORD FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE
Crab quiche
I absolutely adore quiches. This one, which has been flavoured with leek, is a really indulgent treat. It’s great either as a light lunch if your big meal is in the evening or on Boxing Day.
Serves 8-10
Ingredients
450g shortcrust pastry
1 medium leek
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tbsp Madras curry powder
250g fresh white crabmeat
6 free-range egg yolks
2 free range eggs
200ml milk
400ml double cream
60g gruyère cheese, grated
4 or 5 heads of endive
Olive oil
1. Heat the oven to 180C (200C non-fan). Roll out the pastry on a floured surface to a circle about 3mm thick and use this to line a buttered 24cm flan ring. Return the pastry to the fridge to rest for at least 20 min.
2. Prick the pastry base with a fork, line it with greaseproof paper and fill with baking beans, then bake for 20 min. Remove the paper and beans, and then put the pastry back into the oven for another 10 min or until the base has cooked but not taken on too much colour. Leave the oven on.
3. For the filling, trim the leek and split it in half lengthways. Cut into fine strips, wash these well in cold water, drain and dry on a cloth. Melt the butter in a wide saucepan, add the leek and cook gently until tender. Season with a little salt, pepper and the curry powder and continue to cook for 2-3 min, then tip everything into a mixing bowl and leave to cool.
4. Pick through the crabmeat to remove any bones or pieces of cartilage, then add it to the leek. Whisk the yolks and whole eggs, add the milk and cream, and season. Stir the egg mixture into the leek and crab, then pour everything into the pastry base. Gently place the quiche in the oven and bake for 25 min.
5. Sprinkle the grated gruyère on top and cook for another 5 min or until golden and set. Remove from the oven and leave to cool a little.
6. Meanwhile, cut the endives in half, drizzle with olive oil and season. Heat a ridged grill pan, add the endive and grill until pleasingly charred.
My Life in Food: A Memoir by Albert Roux is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson at £22