a roux). “Fennel is such an elegant flavour,” says Smyth, “but I remember being surprised at the other ingredients he used, like dried orange peel and star anise – and I think some Noilly Prat [vermouth] as well. All quite aromatic flavours, but balanced perfectly. I’d never tasted anything like it. I knew right then that I wanted to cook at that level.”
Stephen Harris: lemon tart, Nico at Ninety, Park Lane
Chef owner, the Sportsman, Seasalter, Kent
When Stephen Harris was served the lemon tart that set him on course to becoming a chef, the first thing he did was bang the plate to watch it wobble. “It was a perfect triangle of tart with a crisp, brown crust and an amazing lemon custard that magically kept its shape.” Then he tasted it and all decorum fell away. “I just started laughing like a madman. It was totally inappropriate, but that was the only reaction I could have, it was that good.”
Asma Khan: dum biryani, Kolkata
Cook, Darjeeling Express supper club
Khan was 18 and had never so much as boiled an egg. “I come from a royal family – Rajput on my father’s side, Bengali on my mother’s – where none of the women knew how to cook,” she says.
The troublesome dish was a Kolkata dum biryani: layers of rice, mutton, potatoes, saffron and spices covered with a dough seal and heated over a wood fire for 12 hours. When Khan – “in all my finery, dressed head to toe in jewellery” – rushed into the kitchen to help, the cooks were breaking the seal. “I had never smelled it this close before,” she says. “By the time it comes to the table, it has already lost a lot of the fragrance.” She describes the moment in almost spiritual terms. “The aroma hit my soul. I was mesmerised. The chef put a grain of rice in my hand. I tasted it and thought, I’m going to cook like this one day.”
We want to know when you had your ‘culinary epiphany’ and what instigated it. Comment below and we’ll feature our favourites!
