La Rentrée – of new beginnings & Indigo's famous Jalapeño Chocolate fondant!

The average French person has 5 weeks of holidays per year (a reason why I didn’t want to leave the country!) August is the time all the Parisians leave the city and let tourists take over for the entire month. Come September all the tanned (sometimes, a little much) folks return, schools are now open and life goes back to being normal again. La Rentrée or re-entry is the season of re-newal and of new beginnings in Paris.

Since it feels like our blog has been en vacances (it is based on the French after all) September is rentrée for us as well!

So now that we’re back we’ve made a few changes. A new and exciting feature on the Le 15 blog is our ‘Recipe File’. We’ve managed to get famous chefs/hoteliers/bakers (and mothers, grandmothers, chaiwallas, paanwallas and street vendors) to contribute recipes for our readers. If you have a tried and tested recipe, something you swear by, and are willing to share with us, we will be thrilled to feature it in our Recipe File!

Also, we have realized how hard it is to find our Central kitchen (Elphinstone) and Dessert Counter (Worli) and hopefully these instructions will make it clearer! Click here to find our kitchen and here to find the goodies.

Et Voila! Go on now and read how to make Indigo’s famous Jalapeño Chocolate fondant!

The Recipe Files

5th September 2010 – Jalapeño Chocolate Fondant by Rahul Akerkar.

Chef Akerkar

Being a young chef myself, there are some chefs that I look up to, aspire to be and highly respect. The list is long and keeps increasing, but one chef that has constantly been on that list is Rahul Akerkar.

After training as a chef in the USA and working in some of the best restaurants and bars in New York for over ten years, Rahul returned to Bombay in late 1989, and set up his catering business, the Moveable Feast, and his initial restaurants, Just Desserts and Under The Over.

Along with his wife Malini, he started deGustibus Hospitality Pvt. Ltd., which owns some of the city’s finest and most treasured restaurants: Indigo, Indigo Delicatessen, Indigo Café and Tote On The Turf.

I am extremely happy that he was willing to share his most famous dessert recipe with us!

Jalapeño Chocolate Fondant

Ingredients:

Bitter Chocolate 225 gm

Sweet chocolate 225 gm

White butter 350 gm

Icing sugar 550 gm

Corn flour 8 table spoons

Egg yolk 8 nos

Whole egg 8 nos

Jalapeños 9 nos medium size

Method:

1. Deseed the jalapeños & chop them finely and dry it slowly under a heat lamp or in the oven.

2. Melt both the chocolate and butter together. Add the icing sugar, corn flour and jalapeño in the mixture.

3. Whip the egg yolks and eggs together until fluffy.

4. Fold the whipped egg in the chocolate very gently.

5. Grease a small cake tin and pour in chocolate mixture in the mould and leave it in the fridge for two hours

6. Bake in the oven for 8 to 9 minutes, and then unmold it carefully without breaking. Ensure that the center is not overly cooked & the chocolate is runny.

7. Savour each bite and enjoy!