Lyon's Thomas Lemaire's shows us that you don't have to be complicated to make dishes that really speak to people. A former cooking teacher at the prestigious culinary school Institut Paul Bocuse, Lemaire says he looks for recipes that speak to people, without seeking to be complicated.
ADVERTISEMENTChef Thomas Lemaire is a French chef and owner of Lyon-based restaurant Table & Partage.
He shares with The Kitchen a last breath of summer with his recipe for Zucchini Velouté with fresh goat's cheese, which can be eaten hot or cold.
When I started cooking at the age of 15, it was because my mother didn't know how to cook, and I wanted to learn how to make good things at home. Today, 25 years later, I like to make recipes in my restaurant that work, that speak to people, and that everyone appreciates.
Zucchini and fresh goat cheese velouté with fine herbs
Serves: 4
Cooking time: 35 minutes.
Ingredients
For the Zucchini soup/velouté:
- 2 green zucchinis (0.6 kg)
- 3 shallots
- 0.2 lt of milk
- 0.1 lt of liquid cream
- 0.3 lt of olive oil
- Salt and pepper
For the fresh goat cheese base:
- 120g of fresh goat cheese
- 40 g mixed herbs: chives, parsley and tarragon.
- Olive oil
- Salt
- Espelette pepper
Method:
- We'll begin with the velouté. Start by washing the zucchini and peeling the shallots. Cut the zucchini in four, lengthwise. Remove the white excess and keep the green of the vegetable.
- Thinly slice the shallots and the green part you saved of the zucchini. Now take a saucepan, add some olive oil and cook the shallots and zucchini, season with salt and pepper. Stir it, you want to sweat them, not brown them. Before they change colour, add the cream and milk. Once the zucchinis are cooked, mix them in a blender and put them in the fridge.
- Let's make the cheese base. Grab a bowl and mix the fresh goat cheese with a few tablespoons of olive oil. Season with Espelette pepper and a little salt. Now add the finely chopped aromatic herbs. Mix again.
- Assemble your dish. Arrange the cheese harmoniously in the bottom of the soup plate and serve the zucchini velouté. Serve cold in summer and warm in winter.
Pair it with: Beaujolais-Lantigné, Jean-Paul Dubost 2020.
Lemaire is a former cooking teacher at the prestigious culinary school Institut Paul Bocuse, but his restaurant is far from conceptual cuisine. His credo is simple: he looks to please his customers with recipes that speak to people, without seeking to be complicated.
Sometimes you don't have to go any further for people to appreciate what they have on their plate. That's what I told myself at the beginning of my career when I started cooking for my family.
