DUBAI: French chef Yann Roghez has worked in five-star hotels around the world for 15 years, including Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi, Kempinski Hotel in Geneva and Evian Resorts in France, and is currently executive chef at the St. Regis Hotel in Riyadh.
His passion for cooking began in a quaint rural school where his mother cooked for 80 children.
“Every morning during the break between classes, my classmates would tell me to go to the kitchen and ask for the menu,” Lohez told Arab News. “I would run to the kitchen and smell the food. These memories are stuck in my head and are etched in my DNA.”
He recalls that the first dish he tried to make was mayonnaise.
“My grandmother always made egg noodles for Sunday lunch and my job was to make the mayonnaise. I have great memories. I remember the dish being amazing,” he says.
Here he shares his favorite dishes and his best tips for amateur chefs, and also shares his recipe for a traditional tomato salad.
What’s the biggest mistake you made when you were starting out?
I faced a lot of challenges, especially when making pastry. When making pastry, you always have to follow recipes and techniques. And as a cook, you make the recipes yourself. Following a proper recipe was difficult for me. Cooking is about sensation and feeling, but with pastry, you have to follow the recipe strictly to get the right consistency. It was challenging. I always say I can’t be a pastry chef because I don’t want to follow every single recipe. That was my challenge.
What’s your best advice for amateur chefs?
Take steak for example. If you cook it at home, you take the steak out of the fridge and put it in the frying pan. This is wrong. It needs to be left at room temperature for at least 20 minutes. Proteins are very hard when they are in the fridge, so they need to be softened more. Also, you should definitely add a marinade. Add sauce, olive oil, spices, turn the spices into fiber, and cook the steak.
Can you make any dish instantly delicious with just one ingredient?
It’s not the actual ingredients, it’s patience and love. No matter who you’re cooking for, whether you’re cooking for yourself, your family, your friends or customers, without passion the food won’t be done right.
When you eat out, do you ever find yourself criticizing the food?
Not really. I always go to restaurants to enjoy, not to criticize. It’s fun and inspiring to explore different cultures, different foods, different cooking styles.
What are some common mistakes you see other restaurants making?
How you interact with your guests is important. Sometimes waiters get too close or want to interrupt you. When you are in a restaurant, you want to be free to enjoy your meal without being interrupted every five minutes.
As for food, I’m French, so I like my meat rare, and it’s hard to get rare meat here. It has to be cooked hot, not cooked through. Very few restaurants cook steaks the way I like them.
What is your favorite food?
Nothing in particular. I’m very open-minded about food and food culture. I think that’s the best way to get new ideas. I love Indian food. I love Arabic food. I love Asian food. When I come back to France, I like to eat traditional slow-cooked meat dishes, buttery and creamy things.
When you have to cook something quickly at home, what do you make?
Omelettes. For me, they are super quick to make. My dad has chickens and I always buy organic eggs, so I’m really picky about omelets. I think it’s the best way to get the right protein. They keep me going all day. They really only take five minutes to make. You can make them with anything you have at home.
What request from customers frustrating you the most?
Sometimes guests don’t respect the team. Mistakes happen. We take the opportunity to learn from them, but there’s no point in being disrespectful towards anyone.
As a head chef, what kind of person are you?
To answer this question, I will tell you a little bit about my background. As I said, my mother was a chef, but my father was a military policeman. So I learned that discipline is very important to do things right. But with this new generation, it is very important to be fair and to be close to them. You have to lead by example. That is the most important thing. There were some chefs who used to yell, but this mentality doesn’t work anymore. I don’t yell in the kitchen. I am strict, but I want to be close to my team. That’s the secret to success.
Chef Yang’s Traditional Tomato Salad Recipe
material:
160g goat cheese, 10g honey, 2g Espelette chili
For the Bloody Mary jelly: 0.5L tomato juice, 5 drops Worcestershire sauce, 2 drops Tabasco, 10g vegetable gelatin, 2g celery salt
For heirloom tomatoes: 1 beefheart tomato, 2 black krim tomatoes, 1 green zebra tomato, 2 yellow pineapple tomatoes, 8 cherry tomatoes, 1/2 bunch chervil, 1/2 bunch dill, 4g salted oregano, 2g tri-pepper mix
For the basil oil: 200ml extra virgin olive oil, 1/2 bunch of basil leaves
Kalamata Doyo: 50g Kalamata olives, 50ml balsamic cream sauce
Instructions:
1. In a small bowl, mix the goat cheese, honey, and chili peppers with a fork.
2. Roll 4 balls of 80g each. Wrap each ball in a 15cm x 15cm square of plastic wrap. Bring the corners together and rotate to form a tomato shape.
3. Place all 4 balls in the freezer for 3 hours to firm up, then remove the plastic and insert a skewer into each one. Keep in the freezer until the Bloody Mary Jelly is ready.
Bloody Mary Jelly
1. Heat all Bloody Mary Jelly ingredients in a saucepan and whisk until the jelly is smooth.
2. Dip skewered goat cheese balls into the jelly and bake until golden and shiny.
Traditional tomatoes
1. Cut all the tomatoes into different shapes.
2. Fry for 30 seconds, reserving 4 green tomatoes for garnish.
3. Seasoning is important: add salt and pepper 5 minutes before serving.
4. Garnish with chervil and dill leaves and dry with the tomatoes at 60°C for 5 hours.
For basil oil
1. Blend the basil leaves and olive oil in a blender. Strain the oil through a coffee filter to get a clear green oil.
Kalamata soil
Dry the olives at 60°C (same temperature as the tomatoes) for 5 hours. Once solidified, cool and blend until powdery.
plating:
Plating is always a chance to bring your creativity to the stage. My only advice is to reflect nature on your plate. Start by placing a beef heart tomato slice in the middle as a base for the goat cheese balls. Don’t forget to add a tomato stem to make it a “real” tomato. Create a garden around it with the remaining tomatoes. To add some acidity, add some olive powder and a little balsamic cream sauce. Serve this dish at room temperature.
