Coulis — Puréed Vegetable or Fruit Sauce

Ingredients

• For the red pepper coulis (vegetable archetype)
• 6 red peppers, whole, unblemished
• 1 tsp salt, to season
• 1 dash sherry vinegar, a single drop, to brighten
• 15 ml olive oil, one tablespoon
• For the raspberry coulis (fruit archetype)
• 500 g raspberries, fresh or frozen
• 50 g icing sugar, sifted; dissolves without heat
• 1 squeeze lemon juice, fresh, to brighten

Method

1. 1
   RED PEPPER COULIS — Heat the oven to 220 °C. Lay the six peppers whole on a rack or baking tray and roast until the skin blisters and blackens all over, 25–30 minutes. The sight cue is complete blackening across the majority of each surface.
2. 2
   Transfer the peppers immediately to a bowl and cover tightly. Leave for 10 minutes. The steam loosens the skin; it should slip away cleanly under the fingers without resistance.
3. 3
   Peel, seed, and roughly chop the peppers. Place in a blender and run at high speed for a full 2 minutes without pause. This is where the dish lives or dies: less than 2 minutes of high-speed blending leaves cell walls intact, producing a grainy purée that no amount of straining will correct. At the end of blending the purée should be absolutely uniform, with no visible fragments.
4. 4
   Pass the purée through a fine-mesh sieve, pressing firmly with a ladle or spatula to extract every drop of liquid. Discard the dry solids left in the sieve. The coulis passing through should be vivid, glossy red with no fibre or grain visible.
5. 5
   Season with salt, a single drop of sherry vinegar, and the tablespoon of olive oil. Stir and taste: the coulis should be intensely roasted-pepper in flavour, with the acid present only as a lift, not as a dominant note. Adjust salt if required. The coulis should flow from a spoon in a thick, unbroken stream, pooling with the consistency of heavy cream.
6. 6
   RASPBERRY COULIS — Combine the 500 g of raspberries and 50 g of icing sugar in a blender. Purée until completely smooth. Icing sugar dissolves at room temperature; no heat is applied. The mixture should be uniformly deep pink with no whole fruit remaining.
7. 7
   Pass through a fine-mesh sieve, pressing firmly. Every seed must be removed; a single seed left in the coulis ruins the texture. The strained coulis should be vivid pink-red, entirely smooth, and flow in a thick ribbon from the spoon.
8. 8
   Add a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. Stir and taste: the acid should brighten the raspberry flavour without altering its character. Adjust if necessary and serve.