Crispy crayfish topped with country vegetables and a home curry sauce

Get creative with this original recipe, as served at Hotels Constance Belle Mare Plage in Mauritius

• 1 crayfish of approx 500g

• 30g flat rice

• 1 egg

• 1tbs of curry powder

• 200g pumpkin

• 100g peas

• 100g green leeks

• 100g green apples

• 20g chopped lemongrass

• 20g shallots

• 10g fresh butter

• 100g parsley

• 100g celery leaves (green)

• 10cl olive oil

For the curry:

• 1tbs coriander

• 2tbs cumin

• 2tbs fenugreek

• 1tbs green cardamom

• 4 cloves

• 4 red chilies

• 2tbs ginger powder

• 1tbs turmeric

• ½tbs cinnamon powder

1) 1 or 2 days before serving, blanch parsley and celery in salted and boiled water. Cool down in icy cold water. Press ingredients in order to extract water, put in a food processor and grind with olive oil.

2) A few hours before meal, percolate it through a coffee filter.

3) Gather all the spices in a coffee grinder, finely grind, and sieve in colander

4) Cut all vegetables in a diamond shape, cook in boiled salted water then cool in icy cold water, put aside.

5) Brown the skin of the pumpkin with shallots and lemongrass; sprinkle with curry and add the lobster stock, reduce to 1/3. Add fresh butter and beat to emulsify.

6) Cut crayfish in 2 parts and take the gut out. Cover it with flat rice, start cooking on rice side and finish cooking in the oven.

7) Reheat vegetables with a knob of butter. Arrange vegetables in center of the plate. Set crayfish tangled on it, put sauce around, decorate with some oil drops and the animal's head.

Chef tips:

Use the skin of the pumpkin in this sauce, as it blends pleasantly with the spicy taste of curry.

Take off the seeds inside chillies, since there lies the hot taste.

Roasting the spices in a frying pan for 1 or 2 minutes amplifies the flavours.

Use preferably a fresh lobster, scald it for 1min before cooling it in icy cold water.

Slightly cut the shell of the tail all around so that it stays in contact with the pan while it cooks.