Celebrity chefs share their private recipes

Soup:
Wash the pears. Peel two of them. Using a Parisienne scoop, make small balls, reserving the waste. Split the remaining pears through the cores. In a stock pot, combine the split pears with the waste from the first two pears. Add vanilla, sugar, water and lemon juice, and bring to a boil. Reduce by a quarter. Strain fruit and cool the soup over an ice bath. When soup is cool, adjust flavor with sugar, lemon juice, Poire Williams and a pinch of salt. Using a small amount of soup, bring half of the parisienne pears up to a boil and allow to cook until translucent. Reserve them for garnish and return soup to the large batch. Cover the remaining pears in port and cook until translucent. Strain from the liquid and reduce liquid until syrupy.

Almond Tuile:
Cream the butter and sugar. When smooth, add the glucose. Combine the flour and almonds, and add to the tuile batter. Mix until combined. Make teaspoon-sized balls of tuile batter and place on silpat, ensuring that each has room to spread. Bake in a 325 degree oven until golden brown. While still warm, remove tuiles from silpat and place over a rolling pin to make a "U" shape. If the tuiles become firm, they can be warmed in the over again to make them easier to shape

Pea Puree:
Make a puree with the green peas and chicken stock in the blender. The puree should be smooth and thick.                                                                                          

Vegetables:
Remove the inside peas from the sugar snap peas. Blanch in salted water for approximately 1 minute and shock in ice water. Pick the pea shoots from their stems. Toss the pea shoots in a bowl with salt, sugar, pepper and corn starch to dust. Heat a sauce pan over medium heat. Add butter and wilt down the pea shoots. Add the sugar snap peas and pea puree to bind. Finish with butter. In a separate sauce pan, heat the red pepper in a little butter to warm through.

Watercress Broth:
In a large pot, sweat the shallots, ginger and garlic in the butter. Season with salt and sugar. Add the chopped watercress leaves and stems and sweat. Add enough water to just cover and bring to a simmer. Cover and let simmer for 20 minutes. Remove from the heat and add the ginger for steeping. Blend with a hand blender to break up, making sure not to puree. Strain.

Halibut:
Coat the fish with oil and season with salt just before ready to cook. Put some butter on the plancha, or in the pan, and wait until the butter becomes frothy and starts to turn brown, then place the fish on the planca, or in the pan, and baste with more butter. Turn the fish on the other side. Season with salt and pepper. Finish under the broiler to melt the butter, if necessary.