FOOD & DRINK / Britain's new-wave chefs: Rowley leigh, middle market maestro

A new generation of chefs is dominating the restaurant world with a style that owes much to innovative methods and more than a little to personality. One ran a quayside disco before he mastered cooking, another worked for a Soho film company, most have travelled widely. Borrowing freely from the larders of the world, they have adopted and adapted to produce a style of cooking all their own. What distinguishes their approach is an intellectual curiosity that has produced cross-cultural conjuring acts such as Japanese soy-braised shin of beef, served with east European pickled cucumbers. In the first of our three- part series, we profile Alastair Little, Rowley Leigh and Rick Stein and offer exclusive recipes which can easily be prepared at home.

Rowley Leigh is chef and partner in Kensington Place, one of London's newest and most fashionable eating places - noisy, friendly and fun. The Good Food Guide has said of it: 'You can eat here without an overdraft or a coronary check-up.' He cooked with a Michelin star as head chef of Albert Roux's Le Poulbot in the City, but now his style is price-conscious. 'Times

are too hard to attempt a three-star Michelin,' he says. 'The way out of recession is to become less exclusive by offering high-quality food at more affordable prices. I saw there was a vast gap between the most expensive and the cheapest restaurants. Nobody was doing anything for the middle market.'

Rowley Leigh manages to give the illusion of luxury without using high-cost ingredients: he uses truffle oil rather than truffles; he mingles less expensive ingredients - such as pigeon, black pudding, ox tongue, squid and lentils - with more costly ones. So he does scallops and peas, foie gras and sweetcorn pancakes.

An unlikely recruit to kitchen life, Rowley got an exhibition to Cambridge, failed to make a career of either farming or novel writing and got a job at Joe Allen's in Covent Garden. Working alongside a chef from Carrier's (in London's Islington) he decided he'd need to learn the grammar of cooking. Albert Roux, Britain's leading chef, hired him and then fired him with the accusation: 'You can't even turn a potato.' He couldn't, he agreed, but he hung on in.

Rowley's mother was an adventurous cook in the Elizabeth David mould (she liked to cook meat with fruit, such as guineafowl roasted with a peach inside). He loves great French cooking, like that of Paul Bocuse in France and Pierre Koffmann of La Tante Claire in London. 'I remember when Koffmann did a roast poulet of Bresse with a crisp salty skin, poached leeks, a wily red wine sauce and a delicious, clever joke -a poached egg, lightly broken into the sauce.'

Rowley Leigh is stimulated by the buzz of cafe society, instancing La Coupole in Paris and Langan's in London. 'I love the idea of restaurants as cultural, social and gastronomic meeting places, which the Savoy and Le Caprice were in the 1950s.'

He borrows good recipe ideas wherever he sees them (a dish of baked tamarillos, the tomato-like tropical fruit, was lifted from the three-star Comme Chez Soi in Brussels.) 'The only thing we English cooks have going for us is our ability to borrow,' he says. 'We should play to our strength, our ability to learn. The history of British food leans heavily on stealing from the French.'

It doesn't worry him that we make it more French than the French. He laughs. 'They use a subtle whisper of garlic; I use masses. I stick loads of it in.'

PIGEON CROSTINI WITH TRUFFLE PASTE

Rowley Leigh achieves the taste of truffles at a fraction of the cost of the real thing. A bottle of truffle oil from a good delicatessen is by no means cheap but it goes a long way.

Serves 2

4 breasts of pigeon (ie from 2 pigeons)

4oz mushrooms, chopped finely

4 slices ciabatta

white truffle oil

olive oil (or clarified butter)

lemon juice

salt and pepper

rocket salad

Toast the bread. Stew the mushrooms in truffle oil till a soft puree. Pan fry the pigeon breasts in olive oil (or clarified butter). They should be rare. Leave them to rest five minutes. Cut each into four or five scallops.

Spread the puree on to the toast, lay the breasts on top. Dress with truffle oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Serve with a salad of rocket leaves.

STEAMED COQUELET WITH COUSCOUS AND HARISSA

Stylish French handling of a Moroccan classic. If you cannot get coquelets (small cock birds) you can use chicken breasts.

Serves 4

2 coquelets (small cock bird) or poussins, jointed

(or 4 breasts from corn-fed chickens)

1lb chicken wings or leftover chicken pieces

1 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon coriander seeds

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

2 green chillies, roughly sliced (seeds removed)

1in of ginger, peeled, and chopped

1 can chopped tomatoes

1/2 stick of cinnamon

2pts water (or chicken stock, or mixture of both)

1-2 teaspoons of harissa paste to taste (in tin, or tube or home-made - see recipe above right)

The couscous

1lb packet of couscous

20 fl ozs boiling water (or same volume as the couscous - use a measuring jug)

1/2 lb carrots, peeled, cut into 1/4 in cubes

1/2 lb turnips, also cut into 1/4 in cubes

olive oil, for frying vegetables

In a frying pan, roast the cumin and coriander seeds till they give off a pungent aroma. Remove and grind them.

Fry the onion, garlic, ginger and chilli in a tablespoon of olive oil gently till the onion is soft, then add the ground spices and cook a few minutes more.

Transfer to a saucepan, add the leftover chicken pieces and bones, the tomatoes, and water (or stock) and simmer it all for one and a half to two hours. Strain. Boil the remaining liquid to reduce to about 1/2 pint as the sauce needs to have some body.

Whisk in a generous teaspoonful or two of harissa paste to taste.

Pour a little olive oil into a frying pan and gently sweat the carrots and turnips till soft. Pour in the couscous and a pinch or two of salt, and mix with a wooden spoon. Pour in the boiling water and take off the heat. Leave in warm place (the Aga or a very low oven) for 10 minutes while the water is absorbed. Break it up with a fork.

Meanwhile, steam the coquelet joints till soft (about 20 minutes).

Serve a mound of couscous on each plate, with the chicken joints on top, covered with the harissa-flavoured sauce.

HARISSA

Cover 1oz dried chillies with boiling water and leave to steep for one hour. Sieve out the excess water, chop finely, and blend the chillies with a teaspoon each of roast cumin and coriander seeds, and a clove of chopped garlic, using enough olive oil to make a smooth emulsion. Then put in a jar and refrigerate. Improves on keeping.

GRILLED SCALLOPS WITH PEA PUREE AND MINT VINAIGRETTE

A happy marriage of sweet, juicy scallops and a sweet, juicy pea puree. Easy to make.

Serves 4

12 fat scallops (3 per person), washed and trimmed

1lb peas, shelled

1oz butter

1/4 pt double cream

6 large spring onions, whites only

heart of a lettuce

salt

3 teaspoons of sugar

1 glass of white wine

4 sprigs of mint

4 tablespoons of boiling water

1 tablespoon of olive oil

Cook the peas as for petits pois a la francaise, simmering peas, onions, lettuce heart, butter, salt and one teaspoon of sugar, till the butter is bubbling, then adding the white wine.

Cover with lid and simmer on lowest heat for 30 to 45 minutes till soft. Add cream, and reduce liquid by fierce boiling. Put in blender, and puree by pressing through a coarse sieve.

Make a mint vinaigrette. In a blender combine mint, the rest of the sugar, and boiling water. Add the oil, a pinch of salt, and whizz to make an emulsion. Slice scallops horizontally, and cook fiercely on a hot griddle (or in a non-stick frying pan) for a minute till they start to caramelise and turn golden brown.

Serve the pea puree on the centre of each plate, surrounded by scallops with the mint dressing sparsely sprinkled on top.

POACHED PEARS IN BEAUJOLAIS

A dinner party favourite with a twist - the pears are stuffed with ice cream.

Serves 4

4 large pears (or even 8)

juice of 1/2 lemon

1/2 to 1 bottle Beaujolais

12 peppercorns (these are not optional)

1 stick of cinnamon

1 bay leaf

1 clove

1 piece orange peel

1 piece lemon peel

4 to 6oz sugar (to taste)

4 scoops of ice cream

Peel pears, leaving the stems on. Rub with lemon juice. Put in a small pan, cover with red wine, add the rest of the ingredients, and bring to the boil. Lower heat and simmer 15 to 20 minutes till done. Remove pears and chill in the fridge in their liquid. Some time before serving, boil down the cooking liquid to about 1/4 pint, until thick and syrupy. Strain. Chill.

In the restaurant the pears are served with a filling of cinnamon ice cream, but at home use the ice cream of your choice. With a potato peeler remove the core of each pear from underneath, keeping the pear intact. Fill with scoops of ice cream, arrange the right way up on chilled serving plates, and pour reserved cooking syrup on top. Decorate with sprig of mint. Serve with an almond tuile biscuit.