My childhood on a plate

The finest chefs are often inspired by recipes they remember from their youth. Charlotte Philby asks a selection to recall the dish that evokes their fondest memories

Hélène Darroze: French toast with figs: 'My grandmother used to make me this dish when I came in hungry after school'

French toast is the dish I associate most strongly with childhood. Even now, if I see it on a menu, I have to have it. It used to be made for me by my grandmother who was of a generation of women who didn't want to put anything in the dustbin; she taught us to use up every last bit of food. Every other day or so, she would make French toast from days-old bread, which she would serve with some marmalade or jam and a little bit of cream. It could be eaten as a meal on its own when we came in hungry from school, or as a dessert after dinner. I always knew if she'd made it by the smell as soon as I walked through the front door.

My grandmother was a very important figure in my life. I used to sleep in her bed with her when I was a child, and now I've named my daughter, Charlotte, after her. When I was growing up in the South of France, my father worked in a restaurant in a hotel, and my mother had a pharmacy, and she had to be there all the time. So my grandmother took charge of my brother and of me, of our education – she used to be a schoolteacher, and was very strict and rigorous – as well as making all our meals.

This dish can be made with brioche, too, but my grandmother would never have dreamt of doing that. If you do want to use brioche, make sure it's a little stale. Country bread is a good traditional choice. To add a light, liquorice taste, use muscovado sugar. In this recipe, I've suggested serving it with black figs, but you can use jams according to what you fancy.

French toast with figs

Makes 3 slices

3 slices of pain de campagne (country bread)

A little butter
4 eggs
10cl whipping cream
2 tablespoons of muscovado sugar
Fig jam
4 black figs

Break 2 full eggs and 2 egg yolks into a wide shallow bowl. Beat lightly with a fork. Stir in the whipping cream.

Place a frying pan over a low to medium heat with a thin layer of the butter.

Place the three slices of pain de campagne one at a time into the bowl, letting the slices soak up the egg mixture, then carefully turning to coat the other side.

Transfer the bread slices to the frying pan, heating slowly until the bottom of each slice is golden brown.

Turn and brown the other side of the bread, at the same time as adding about 2tbsp of muscovado sugar.

Slice the fresh figs into four wedges. Serve hot with fig jam and fresh figs.

Helene Darroze is head chef at the Connaught (the-connaught.co.uk)

Mark Sargeant: Gypsy tart: 'I was such a fussy eater – this dish was one of the few things I ate at school'

Gypsy tart is a very typical Kentish pudding. I went to a local grammar school in Maidstone, and it was one of those dishes the dinner ladies would serve up every lunchtime. But people who aren't from our area never seem to have heard of it. It's a very sweet, very rich dish which is just delicious when it's made properly.

At school it was always disgusting, with pastry a foot thick and not enough filling, but because it was so unbelievably sweet I liked it anyway. I'd eat a huge slice and then run around the room for an hour on a sugar rush.

The story goes that there was an old gypsy woman who saw a group of children in the field near her house, they looked so undernourished that she wanted to make them something to eat and made the only thing she could with the ingredients she had...

The key ingredients are muscovado sugar and evaporated milk, which you have to whip until it gets very frothy; then you pour it into a blind bake tart, and set in the oven at a low temperature for just a few minutes, until the tart has a lovely caramelised mousse texture.

It was one of the few things I actually ate at school, I was such a fussy eater. Every day it was egg, chips and beans, and gypsy tart. Or rice pudding with a layer of skin along the top. These days, when it's done nicely with a light, buttery pastry and the filling whipped properly, there's still nothing better. You can buy good-quality pre-baked pastry, if you just want to make it simply, but for the best possible taste you should try to make your own pastry.

'My Kind of Cooking' by Mark Sargeant is published on 10 November by Quercus Books, £20

Gypsy tart

Serves 6

For the pastry (makes 500g)

125g unsalted butter
90g caster sugar
1 large egg
250g plain flour

For the tart

300g pastry
400g evaporated milk
330g muscovado sugar

Combine the butter and caster sugar in a food processor. Add the egg; process for 30 seconds. Tip in the flour and process for a few seconds until the dough just comes together. Add 1tbsp cold water if the dough seems dry. Knead on a floured surface then shape into a flat disc and chill for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 170C/gas mark 3. Roll out 300g of the pastry and use to line a 21cm tart tin. Line the pastry case with greaseproof paper; fill with baking beans and bake for 15 minutes, then remove the baking beans. Return to the oven for 5-10 minutes until the base is a pale golden brown. Whisk the milk and sugar together until light and fluffy (it takes about 15 minutes). Pour the milk mixture into the pre-baked pastry case then cook for 5-10 minutes until risen and the surface is tacky.

Remove from oven and leave to cool and set before serving.

Madhur Jaffrey: Potatoes with tomatoes: 'This dish reminds me of childhood picnics in Delhi and the illicit thrill of food from the bazaars'

The wonderful thing about this simple potato and tomato dish – which is typical of northern India – is that I associate it with childhood picnics when I was growing up in Delhi. It's an ancient city filled with monuments, and there was a spot in the lovely gardens of the Qutub Minar tower where we would go to have big picnics. As children we went there and sat and opened all the packages put together by the women of the house, who had spent all day preparing dishes such as this one. They were all packed neatly in tiffin carriers, which we would heat up in the picnic grounds, and then eat with pickles and poori (deep-fried puffy bread).

To me this meal still symbolises the joy of being free. It reminds me of a time when we could do what we wanted, and play all the games we wanted in the fresh air. But it has a double joy, because I also associate it with the illicit thrill of food from the bazaars. As a rule we weren't allowed to eat food from the bazaars because it was considered unclean, but on Sunday mornings my father would allow my mother to send our driver to buy a bread dish ready-cooked from the bazaars, and this potato dish would come with it free.

The dish relies on a very simple method of cooking, which is typical of northern India, and which can be made without heat (for children) or with heat. For me, it represents the transition from being a little child unable to eat hot food to being older and eating hot food for the first time. And don't forget to add a pinch of asafoetida, a powder with a truffle-like smell, which gives the dish its deep aroma.

Potatoes with tomatoes

Serves 4-6

6 medium, waxy potatoes (about 600g)
3tbsp olive or other vegetable oil
Pinch of ground asafoetida
1tsp cumin seeds
1tsp fennel seeds
1tsp fenugreek seeds
3 whole, dried, red hot chillies
About 3 medium-sized tomatoes, grated on the largest holes of a grater
1tsp very finely grated, fresh, peeled ginger
1tsp salt, or to taste

Boil the potatoes in their skins and allow to cool. Peel.

Put the oil in a wide, medium pan and set over a medium-high heat. When hot, put in first the asafoetida, then the cumin and finally the fennel, fenugreek and chillies together. Two seconds later, add the grated tomatoes and ginger. Stir-fry until the tomatoes turn a deep red, turning down the heat as the cooking progresses so nothing burns. Add 350ml water.

Now break the potatoes by hand into pieces that are, very roughly, -inch cubes. They will all be different shapes, but that adds to the charm of the dish.

Add the potato cubes to the pan together with the salt, then stir and bring to a boil.

Cover, turn heat to low and cook gently for 12-15 minutes, stirring now and again. Serve immediately.

Madhur Jaffrey's latest book is 'Curry Easy' (Ebury Press, £20). Her recipes feature in 'My Kitchen Table' app, coming soon, free to download from the Apple app store

Marcus Wareing: Vegetables, goat's curd and damson: 'This dish is my interpretation of the food that we ate while I was growing up in the north-west'

My father was a fruit and potato merchant in north-west England. When I was at school I used to work for him on evenings and weekends. We used to take our wares to Liverpool market, which was a big old factory full of food. Unsurprisingly, vegetables, and particularly potatoes, were our staple diet. In those days, the food we ate at home always came from the local farm, but we don't have that option in London, so now I get a home delivery of seasonal fruit and veg from across the UK.

The dish that brings back memories of my childhood is a simple vegetable dish with goat's curd. It's made from seasonal ingredients, lightly blanched and served cold. It's fresh, refreshing and focuses on the individual flavours of each vegetable – leeks, baby cauliflowers and onions – adding just enough additional flavour to stop it being just a plate of vegetables. With a dish like this, light seasoning is the best, perhaps adding a dressing with a little olive oil and a little vinaigrette. It's important to enhance rather than camouflage the natural flavour of the produce. Eating veg which is seasonal, and preferably not flown in from Kenya, ensures you get the best natural flavour.

I've just returned from France, where the fresh natural aroma of fruit and veg sitting out under the sun reminds me of being a boy. That's what this dish is all about. It's my interpretation of the food we ate when I was growing up.

The key to getting it right is to make the most of each individual ingredient. Whereas you can eat carrot cut into chunks, beetroot should be sliced thinly to make it more palatable. With cauliflower, you should take off the florets and then slice the core with a Japanese mandolin or a sharp knife, and then drop into iced water for 10 or 15 minutes, before draining it and dressing with a little oil and serving cold for a crisp, fresh flavour.

Vegetables, goat's curd and damson

Serves 4 as a starter

4 baby carrots
2 baby turnips
4 baby leeks
4 baby fennel
1 cauliflower
2 broccoli
Fresh peas

For the pickle

500g damsons
300g sugar
cinnamon stick
9 black peppercorns
3 bay leaves
250ml white wine vinegar
4 cardamom pods
4 cloves
Fresh goat's curd
Elderflowers
50ml chardonnay vinegar
150ml olive oil

Combine all of the ingredients for the pickle, except the damsons. Bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and add the damsons. Allow the pickle to cool. Leave in the fridge, at least overnight but longer if you can.

Boil a pan of water and add the broccoli and cook until tender. Purée the broccoli with a little of the cooking water.

Wash, trim and peel the baby vegetables and trim the cauliflower. Cook all of the vegetables in seasoned water. While warm, dress with the vinegar, oil and elderflowers.

Present with the broccoli purée, raw peas, the pickled damsons and teaspoon-sized pieces of goat's curd.

Marcus Wareing at The Berkeley, marcus-wareing.com, 020-7235 1200

Giorgio Locatelli: Gnocchi with tomato sauce: 'One of my first memories is watching my grandmother rolling out gnocchi for our lunch'

I grew up in a restaurant in a tiny village in northern Italy. When my mother went back to work, my grandmother ran the house and she cooked for everybody, every day. One of my first memories is my nose touching the edge of the table in my grandmother's kitchen, as I watched her rolling out gnocchi for our lunch.

My grandmother would serve up the gnocchi straight from the pot, with a little butter, or olive oil and Parmesan – the perfect food for a kid. The adults would eat theirs with goat's cheese, which makes a very light sauce, or mushrooms. One day, when I was five years old, my grandmother made tomato sauce for the gnocchi. I'd never seen tomatoes before – they were the best thing I've tasted in my life. From then on all I kept saying was, "I want gnocchi and tomato, I don't want the white sauce". This meal reminds me of a simpler life.

Gnocchi with tomato sauce

Serves 4-6

First, make a tomato sauce by simmering one finely chopped onion in 2 tbsp of olive oil, then adding a tin of tomatoes and stewing for 30 minutes, adding seasoning and a teaspoon of sugar if the tomato is too acidic. Sieve and set aside.

Then make the gnocchi – this recipe makes about 1kg. As it is quite difficult to work with small quantities of dough, it is better to make a larger amount and freeze half.

For the gnocchi

1kg very starchy potatoes
About 320g plain flour
2 small eggs, lightly beaten
Pinch of salt

Cover the potatoes (in their skins) in cold water, bring to the boil, turn down the heat and simmer until soft. Drain and put into a warm oven for a few minutes. While the potatoes are still hot, peel and pass them through a sieve; mix with the egg, a pinch of salt, and about three-quarters of the flour. Mix well, stopping as soon as the dough comes together.

Dust your work surface with flour, take your dough and flatten into a square about 1.5cm thick. Cut it into strips about 1.5cm wide – so you have 'square' cigars. Dusting your hands with flour, roll each piece lightly until they are cylindrical. Take two or three cylinders at a time, lay them next to each other then, cutting through them all at the same time, trim off the ends, then cut the rest into pieces (1-1.5cm in width). Repeat with the rest of the cylinders, until you have lots of little nuggets of dough.

Lightly dusting with flour all the time, take a fork and push each piece of dough on to the prongs, so that it rolls itself up and is marked with lines – they don't have to be perfect. However, they should be all the same size, so that they will all cook evenly. As you make each one, roll it on a tray dusted with flour.

Now they are ready to cook. You should cook them as quickly as possible, but if you need to keep them for an hour or so, make sure you dust the gnocchi again with flour, keeping them separate from each other on the tray and every 10 minutes or so shake the tray a little.

To assemble the dish

4tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, chopped
16 cherry tomatoes, halved
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2tbsp tomato sauce (see above)
2tbsp freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Set aside about half of the gnocchi. In a sauté pan, heat the oil, then add the garlic and cook gently for a minute or so. Add the cherry tomatoes and cook gently with the garlic for a couple of minutes, then season. Add the tomato sauce and cook for another couple of minutes. Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and put in the gnocchi. Keep stirring until they rise to the surface (a minute or so), then lift out with a slotted spoon and put them into the sauce. Add the Parmesan, toss the gnocchi in the sauce briefly to coat, adding a little of the cooking water if you think the sauce needs loosening. Serve with a little extra Parmesan over the top.

'Made in Sicily: Food and Stories' by Giorgio Locatelli, £30, Fourth Estate, out 6 October

Sophie Grigson, Sweetmeat cake: 'I remember my mother making this cake to take on picnics and communal meals in the village'

This is one of my mum Jane Grigson's old recipes, which she called a sweetmeat cake. It's actually a tart with no meat in it whatsoever. The recipe goes back a long way; it's an 18th-century, very traditional English dish which she included in her book of English food in the early 1970s. But I always associate it with being in France, in the village we went to every year for the summer from the 1960s. I still go back to the same place every year with my family, to our tiny house, which is half-cave, half-house, with a big fireplace to heat the stone walls.

I remember my mum making this cake to take on picnics and big communal meals in the village where each family would take a different dish. This year I had a request from a friend in the village for an English pudding, and this is what I took. It's made from tart pastry, with candied peel and roasted hazelnut filled with butter custard, eggs, melted butter and sugar.

In the early days when we stayed at the house in France, there was no running water or electricity. My mum did everything, washing our clothes by hand, heating water for our baths, cooking our meals. My father was not the most domesticated man and he expected two meals a day, but he would go and fetch water from the well or the tap behind the bandstand in the nearest town.

One might think that coming from a family of food writers you'd have the most wonderful food all the time, but it could get rather repetitive if my mother was working on one particular theme. I remember that she wrote a book on mushrooms which took a year or two – I never wanted to see another mushroom again.

'Spices' by Sophie Grigson is published in October by Quadrille, £20

Sweetmeat cake

From 'English Food', by Jane Grigson

Serves 6-8

Shortcrust pastry
125g (4oz) chopped candied peel
60g (2oz) chopped roasted hazelnuts
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
175g (6oz) caster sugar
175g (6oz) lightly salted butter, melted
Line a 23cm (9in) flan tin with the pastry. Scatter the chopped peel over it, then the hazelnuts if used. Beat the remaining ingredients thoroughly together and pour the mixture over the peel. Bake at 180C, gas mark 4, for 35-40 minutes.The top should be crusted with a rich golden brown all over – so keep an eye on it after 30 minutes in the oven. At first the filling will rise with the baking, but once the cake is removed from the oven and transferred to a plate, it will sink again as these egg mixtures usually do. Do not worry if the centre part of the filling is a little liquid beneath the crust, as it makes a delicious sauce. The consistency is a matter for individual taste.

Like most sweet tarts, this one is best eaten warm.

Serve with cream.

Wolfgang Puck's Kaiserschmarrn: 'These days we serve it as a dessert with strawberry compote at one of my my restaurants, but at home in Austria it was a sturdy meal in itself,'

My mother Maria was a professional chef. In the summertime I would visit her at the hotel resort on a lake near our home in southern Austria, where she worked as a cook. She would rotate between all the different stations in the kitchen, but I loved it best when she was working at the patisserie station. When she used to come home in the evenings she would go out in garden and pick a few vegetables and make the most delicious soup for our dinner. We didn’t eat meat very much in those days, just a bit of charcuterie sausage and ham which we made ourselves; we had one or two pigs which we would slaughter in the summertime. We didn’t have a refrigerator or a TV or a telephone or anything like that.

Some evenings, my mother would make a dish called Kaiserschmarrn. These days we serve it as a dessert with strawberry compote at one of my my restaurants, but at home in Austria it was a sturdy meal in itself, which my mother made as you would a pancake, with eggs, sugar, flour and a little butter. It’s very simple. You put the mixture in a hot heavy pan and cook on one side, then turn it over and with two forks, one in each hand, you tear it in little pieces, and then put sugar over the little chunks until they caramelise.

Mother would serve it with plum compote which she would make from plums growing in our garden. For me, this dish with a glass of milk was the best dinner. My Father was a coal miner. He would work for three weeks and come home for a week. He never cooked. When I was 14 and left home to do a cooking apprenticeship he thought it was the worse thing. Cooking was a job for women, he wanted me to become a carpenter or electrician - a real profession for a man. But we always agreed about Kaiserschmarrn. This was his favourite dish too, when mother made this we were all big smiles.

Kaiserschmarrn

Serves 4 to 8

4 free range egg yolks
4 1/2 ounces sugar
8 ounces crème fraîche
1 ounce dark rum
4 teaspoons flour
2 tablespoons plumped organic golden raisins
Soft unsalted butter, for brushing
Sugar, for coating
3 cage-free egg whites
1 recipe Strawberry Sauce
1 pound organic strawberries, hulled, cut in halves

Prepare the “kaiser” base. In the mixer bowl, combine the egg yolks and 3 ounces of sugar. Mix over medium speed, with the wire whisk, until pale yellow. Add the crème fraîche and rum. Continue to mix until smooth. Fold in the flour and raisins. This can be prepared up to 1 day in advance.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Brush 4 6-inch saute pans with butter and sprinkle with sugar.

To make the Kaiserschmarrn, in a separate mixing bowl, whisk the egg whites to soft peaks. Add the remaining 1-1/2 ounces of sugar and continue to whip until stiff but not dry. Fold the meringue into the “kaiser” base. Spoon the souffled mixture into the 4 pans. Bake for 12 minutes.

To serve, in a medium saute pan, reheat the Strawberry Sauce. Add the fresh strawberries and toss until well coated. Serve over the Kaiserschmarrn.

For the Strawberry Sauce:

1/2 pound organic strawberries, hulled
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 whole star anise
1/2 tablespoon orange zest
Juice of 1/2 orange
1/4 cup dry white wine
1/2 tablespoon fresh organic lemon juice

Combine all the ingredients in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil. Cook for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and cover with plastic wrap. Allow flavor to infuse for 10 minutes.

Transfer the mixture to a blender and process until well incorporated. Strain. This can be prepared up to 3 days ahead.