Google Analytics

Tuesday, December 3, 2019

Turban de Langoustines en Spaghetti

In 1997 NBC ran an advertisement campaign with the slogan: If you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you. The goal of the commercial was to get viewers to watch the reruns of the fall TV shows in the following summer. This was the pre-streaming era when shows were not on demand. The campaign wasn’t successful but the slogan always stayed with me.

Instead of television, the tagline might be more applicable to food and restaurants. Just like everything in life, food and restaurants are subject to fashion. Marketeers and journalists are constantly promoting new things, which encourages the general public to chase after the latest trends. From fusion to molecular gastronomy to new Nordic, every few years bring a new must-eat creation or a must-travel-to restaurant.

As we seek to taste the latest creations from the celebrity chefs of the moment, we forget there are more dishes from the past that we never had before. For instance, many people of my age or younger never had the classic dishes such as, Poularde en Vessie, Coulibiac, Canard à la Presse, Chartreuse…etc. Instead of foraging, pouring liquid nitrogen, or eating insects, why not seek out the greatest hits of the culinary world?

One of the classics that have fascinated me for the past year is Turban de Langoustines en Spaghetti by Joël Robuchon. My interest in the Turban began shortly after Robuchon's passing last summer. In an interview Robuchon gave last year, he referred to a proverb that said, “when an old man dies, a library burns down”. Robuchon said, “I have seen so many good chefs — some famous, some not — who have gone and, with them, a part of knowledge and tradition is lost and nobody can take it back.”

With his words in my mind, I flipped through the pages of Grand Livre de Cuisine de Joël Robuchon to see how many dishes of his that I have never tried before. The Turban caught my eye because it is not only a dish from Robuchon’s first three-star restaurant, Jamin, but also one of the ten recipes in the Best of Robuchon book. The dish is also included in Simply French, the book on Robuchon by Patricia Wells. Besides the importance of the dish in Robuchon's repertoire, I am also attracted by the architectural shape of the dish, a torus sliced horizontally in half. Or perhaps I am just intrigued by the peculiar nature of the dish: a French chef using an Italian pasta for his signature creation. I tried to find the history of the dish, but I didn’t have much success. Ever since last summer I wondered whether one day I would be able to try the Turban.

Last October when Philippe Braun, one of Robuchon’s longest collaborators came to Taipei to visit, I asked him why doesn’t L’Atelier make the Turban or some of the other classics from the days of Jamin. Braun said the Turban is not for L’Atelier, where the dishes are meant to be a bit more casual and simple. The classic dishes such as the Turban are for the gastronomy restaurants such as the one in Macau, Tokyo, or Las Vegas; they take a lot more work to prepare. However when I looked online at the menus of the three gastronomy restaurants, I didn’t see the Turban either. The Chef de Cuisine of Taipei at the time, Olivier Jean, told me later that the Turban is not on any of the menus at Robuchon restaurants but only made during special dinners.

I didn’t know when the next special dinner would take place in Taipei, thus I thought I would try to make the Turban at home. After all I have the recipe in my collection of cookbooks. In the Best of Robuchon, there are even photos of each step of the preparation. My thinking was since I make architectural models at work, I ought to be able to assemble a half torus at home. By chance I have a few individual savarin molds at home. I bought them on sale a long time ago at JB Prince in New York. They are bigger than the ones Robuchon called for. But I figured the techniques are the same. Instead of a tasting menu portion I would just make a main course.

The first step of the recipe is to brush the insides of the savarin molds with soft butter and then place them in the fridge to firm up. In the meantime boil a pot of water to par cook the spaghetti for about six minutes. Afterwards rinse the pasta under cold water, drain, and set aside; cover the pasta with plastic wrap to prevent them from drying out. Then line the inside of the mold with a single strand of spaghetti starting at the bottom. The process of lining the mold is not easy with my large hands. I couldn’t quite lasso the spaghetti into the mold so I had to use my two hands to slowly layer and pack the spaghetti in. While it is harder than I imagined, it is definitely doable. Once the mold is completely lined with spaghetti, they go back into the fridge to be chilled.


As the molds are being chilled, I made the mousse. Instead of langoustine which is hard to source, I used shrimp. Simply brush the shrimp with soft butter and blend them with cream in a food processor. Once a mousse-like texture is achieved, brush the the mousse onto the chilled spaghetti in the mold. Then put the deveined and shelled shrimps in the mold. Cover the molds with a buttered aluminum foil and return the molds to the refrigerator again.

The recipe is tedious, but many of the steps can be done separately and beforehand. When it is time to serve the dish, simply take the molds out of the fridge and place them in a steamer and steam for around three minutes. Then quickly remove the aluminum foil and unmold onto a plate. When the turban of spaghetti is unmolded it is quite a sight. I cannot help but marvel at the dish. I don’t know what inspired Robuchon to line a savarin mould with spaghetti strands. It’s just an incredible creation. I asked my two daughters to try the dish and they loved it. Will they remember the dish when they grow older, I don’t know. Unlike me who has met Robuchon, they are are even further removed from the dish. I hope they will learn to love the classics.


Last March the team of chefs from the Robuchon group, headed by Robuchon’s righthand man Eric Bouchenoire, came to Taipei for their annual visit. They prepared a special dinner honoring Robuchon’s legacy. One of the dishes Bouchenoire chose to make was the Turban of Spaghetti. I finally had a chance to eat the dish. He said good langoustine wasn’t available so the filling was made with scallop instead. Nevertheless the dish was everything that I expected and more. There’s a delicacy to the flavors behind the architectural construction of the dish. The sauce for the dish was delicious, full of umami, or as the Chinese would say, xian-wei. The slices of truffle elevated the dish to another level. It was perfect.



After the dinner, I showed Bouchenoire the picture of my attempt at making the Turban. He looked closely and said it was good but I used too much butter. I didn’t think there was ever the possibility of too much butter in French food. I did use a lot of butter because I was afraid the spaghetti wouldn’t unmold properly. Bouchenoire said too much butter may make the spaghetti less stable. I know the reality is even with enough practice I probably cannot make the Turban as well as the restaurant. And I can make two or four nice turbans at a time, it is hard for me to imagine making 50 of them perfectly under time pressure like at the restaurant.


Looking at and eating the Turban I could feel Robuchon’s presence. While he may be gone, he has passed on his knowledge to his numerous collaborators. However, it is not enough to just retain the knowledge. For Robuchon’s DNA to truly live on, the diners need to demand to eat the classic dishes at the restaurants. We need to realize that we always stand in a timeline where the past is farther away from us than the future. The future may be unclear, however, vast parts of the past are just as fuzzy. While it is interesting to be part of the experimentation of the present, a classic is actually an experiment in the past that worked and lasted. If you never had it, it's new to you.