Henry Harris is a conundrum. On the one hand he is the chef who has brought a taste of award-winning French cuisine to West London. On the other, he has just written a diet cookbook. And, even worse, it’s not any diet, it’s Atkins. Henry is a gourmet who has gone low- carb. It’s almost the stuff of confessions.
Or so it seems before we meet. I am to interview him about the book but, in the name of research, I go along to his restaurant, Racine, first. It is exactly like a proper French restaurant should be, all dark banquettes, seamless service and fresh food dressed in delicate sauces. At first it seems the opposite of low-carb living. But as I salivate over my asparagus and lamb, I realise this is low carb, it is just low carb with glamour.
This is quite a revelation. The Atkins diet, as outlined in the famous orange book, may work but it has its drawbacks. I have been on it for a year and although none of the horror stories is true — after the first few weeks you can eat quite a lot of carbs — the food is as drab as a faded housedress. I am tired of hamburger patties and cottage cheese, not to mention “snack” avocados.
What I had not realised, until I met Harris, was that there is an alternative. He too went on the diet a year ago. He lost 2½st (16kg) and has kept it off. But he was not content to survive on my kind of dull fare. Nor was he willing to sacrifice his sense of taste in terms of finding substitutes for carbs or sugar. “The recipes at the back of the Atkins book were terrible,” he said. “I tried the chocolate mousse with artificial sugar and had a taste of it and it tasted like artificial sugar.” He didn’t make it again.
Harris believes in real food and that is what he likes to cook, and eat, for himself and his family. He stresses that Racine is not an Atkins restaurant (the breadbasket on every table backs this up). But, as I had discovered, it is relatively easy to order a low-carb meal in a French restaurant. Harris notes that this is not the case if you are eating Italian (because of pasta) or Indian and Chinese (because of rice).
He had written for various newspapers over the years and, as his weight loss became dramatic, was asked to devise his own low-carb recipes. Though sceptical at first, he found the list kept growing and, more importantly, that he was proud of it. The result is the cookbook A Passion for Protein. The name may not be so delectable (I suspect it was a marketing decision) but the recipes are intriguing, not least because they involve no cottage cheese. I never thought that rabbit with mustard sauce and bacon would be low-carb or, for that matter, baked crab with tomato and tarragon hollandaise. But they are.
For those of us who have come to think that a boiled egg is very tasty indeed, this is exciting. Harris also has devised interesting ways to replace the carb element in foods. Some are obvious, such as using crumbled cooked bacon or pork scratchings instead of croutons, but others include using finely shredded celeriac or courgette in place of pasta, and replacing burger buns with cooked large flat mushrooms.
I suspect that chefs and diets do not go together and, as the interview continues, this becomes a bit of a theme. We talk in the morning at Racine. Harris, who is 40, is wearing his chef whites and it is clear that what he is passionate about is food, not diets. In fact, he is downright suspicious of them. “I think that people on diets, whether it’s something really extreme like the cabbage soup diet or WeightWatchers, are very, very constrained by the rules. They put themselves on a diet, say WeightWatchers, mess up and then they say, oh f*** it and binge. It is like an alcoholic; when they fall off the wagon, they have to descend to new depths.”
The way round this, he believes, lies in the attitude. “I avoid the word diet. I use the word regime.” And, for him, the biggest regime change has been rice. “I used to eat risotto two or three times a week.” This was not the case for pasta and bread. A great pasta dish is a joy, he says, but they are few and far between, and the same goes for bread. The last piece of “epic bakery” he experienced was a crusty bread roll at Merchant House in Ludlow. He describes this in sumptuous detail but adds, with what may be relief, that it is a rarity.
We turn to the vexed subject of puddings. Harris announces that he sees sugar as napalm. Cream on its own is harmless but, when you add sugar, something explosively bad for you happens. He refuses to use sugar substitutes, and so the book has only three puddings: pineapple with rum and crème fraiche, raspberries and Jersey cream, and vodka and lemon tonic jelly. He compensates for this somewhat by including some killer cocktails including a classic Martini.
Harris believes that, if you don’t say that something is low carb, then no one will know. He had a dinner party at the weekend at which he served asparagus and then steak au poivre. Other vegetables included button mushrooms, french beans and a salad of watercress and shallots. He also offered, though did not eat himself, new potatoes cooked with whole garlic. Then there was cheese and, finally, squares of delicious dark bitter chocolate. I’m not sure that anyone could describe that as deprivation.
A Passion for Protein, by Henry Harris, is published by Quadrille, £14.99
TASTE THIS!
JAMBON DE BAYONNE WITH CELERIAC REMOULADE
Serves 8
I large head of celeriac (or 2 smaller ones)
16 slices of Bayonne ham
3 tbsp capers
For the remoulade sauce:
4 egg yolks
6 canned anchovy fillets, drained
3 tbsp Dijon mustard
Splash of red wine vinegar 350ml vegetable oil
Tiny splash of hot water
First make the remoulade sauce: place the egg yolks, anchovy fillets, mustard and red wine vinegar in a food processor. Blitz to a smooth state and then add the oil, initially drop by drop, building up to a more confident stream as the mayonnaise forms. When all the oil is incorporated, add the hot water. Season to taste, and perhaps add more mustard if needed.
Peel the celeriac and cut into very fine strips. Place the celeriac in a bowl and mix in the mustard mayonnaise. Hands work best here. Cover and refrigerate until needed.
To serve, place a pile of the celeriac in the middle of each plate. Arrange 2 slices of ham around the edge, then sprinkle over a few capers.
