Cooking is a totally sensual pleasure, for you must be able to smell, to touch, to taste, to watch and to listen. I remember preparing a rabbit en gelée, which I make frequently at my home at the Chateau de Tigné in Anjou, in the company of friend and fellow actor Jean Carmet. Normally, we eat it for breakfast, slathered over a slice of grilled country bread, and washed down with a glass of cold white wine. It is a wonderful memory and one of many that I hold on to. We have five senses. If we use them properly, they will help us appreciate the simplicity behind some of life's pleasures, such as cooking or making love.
Cooking, like drinking a fine wine, gives me the greatest of joy, and I am at my happiest when I am preparing a meal for family or friends. For cooking is all about love, and love is strength. The art of cooking and preparing a meal to share with those you care about is also, for me, a means of communicating that love and friendship without necessarily having to utter a single word. This is also why I want to reveal in my cookery book not only how I cook and what I enjoy eating, but how it all hangs together: from the importance of mood and the best ingredients to the essential respect for nature.
I adore ice cream and fruit in season, and have to confess a weakness for fruit tarts. Juicy, ripened to perfection, fruit that is not eaten fresh makes succulent preserves and jams. An apricot or rhubarb tart or crumble is truly a delight. As for strawberries and pears, they are just as good caramelised as they are cooked with wine and spices. While I am not really all that keen on sweet things, I always enjoy a good dessert.
Rum baba with crystallised pineapple
Serves 4
100g raisins
200ml aged rum
20g fresh yeast
2 tbsp warm water
200g sifted plain flour
30g caster sugar
salt
4 eggs
100g softened butter
For the syrup:
100ml water
500g sugar
zest of 1 lemon
zest of 1 orange
1 vanilla pod
200ml aged rum
For the caramelised pineapple:
1 pineapple, preferably organic
30g sugar cane syrup
Place the raisins in a bowl, pour over the rum and leave to soak. Meanwhile, dissolve the yeast in the warm water. Pile the flour in a heap on a large work surface, preferably marble, and make a well in the centre. Place the sugar, salt, 2 eggs and the dissolved yeast into the well and stir with a wooden spoon until it forms an elastic dough. Add another egg and mix well, then add the last egg and 80g softened butter. When all the ingredients are kneaded together into a very elastic dough, add the raisins, drained, and knead again to incorporate them. Leave the dough to rise for 1 hour at room temperature, covered with a clean cloth.
Grease 16 small baba moulds or a large savarin mould with the remaining butter.
Preheat the oven to 240C/gas mark 9. When the dough has doubled in size, divide it between the 16 small moulds or place it in the large one and bake it in the hot oven for 12 minutes in the case of the small ones, or 30 minutes for the large one.
When the babas are cooked, turn them out of the moulds and leave to cool.
To prepare the syrup: boil the water and sugar together to make a thick syrup. Stir in the lemon and orange zest, vanilla pod and rum, then soak the babas in the hot syrup until bubbles no longer rise to the surface. Remove and leave to drain on a wire rack.
Meanwhile, prepare the caramelised pineapple: peel the pineapple and cut into quarters. Remove the hard central core and cut the flesh into small cubes. Place them in the sugar cane syrup over a low heat and leave until they become saturated with the syrup. When the pineapple cubes are well coated, leave them to caramelise.
Serve the babas on individual plates, surrounded by cubes of the caramelised pineapple.
Chocolate tart
Serves 4
For the shortbread pastry:
1/2 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt
150g plain flour
1 tbsp sugar
75g softened butter
1 egg yolk
For the chocolate mixture:
80ml milk
200ml single cream
200g plain dark chocolate, at least 53 per cent cocoa solids
2 eggs
15g butter
icing sugar
To prepare the shortbread pastry: mix the baking powder, salt and flour together in a bowl, then pile it on a pastry board and make a well in the centre. Place the sugar, the softened butter - cut into small pieces - and the egg yolk into the well and work together until it forms a paste. Add a little water and mix to form a dough. Roll it up into a ball, wrap in clingfilm and leave to rest for an hour.
Prepare the chocolate mixture by heating the milk and cream in a large saucepan. Roughly chop the chocolate and place in a heatproof bowl. Break the eggs into the bowl and add the hot milk and cream, stirring vigorously.
Preheat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6. Grease a large tart tin with the butter. Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface and use to line the greased tin, then bake blind for 15-20 minutes. When the pastry is lightly browned, remove from the oven and leave to cool.
Pour the chocolate mixture into the pastry case and bake for 5-10 minutes. Remove - the centre should still be slightly wobbly - and cool completely. Dust with icing sugar and serve well chilled.
· Gérard Depardieu's My Cookbook is published by Conran Octopus on 15 September
· All recipes developed in conjunction with Laurent Audiot
· Next week: a special extract from Nigel Slater's brilliant new book
