Heston Blumenthal is not a classically trained chef. Having spent many years touring France and staging in kitchens as he went along, every night Heston would go home and try and recreate dishes as perfectly as he could. After taking a punt in opening a restaurant in Bray, it very quickly became a must-see destination, followed by three Michelin stars, and was at one point the best restaurant in the world. Heston has become known for his ‘wacky’ approach, but it’s one that is desperate to make the most of every ingredient he turns his attention to.
I took a rare trip to Waitrose armed with gift vouchers, which meant I could spoil myself a bit buying things I wouldn’t usually reach for. I picked up some of this which at £2.29 for a little sachet of sauce is bit pricey. I picked up some sirloin steak too and thought it would be a good match. So I pan-fried the steak and while it rested warmed the sauce through in the same pan, and served it with some potato wedges.
Stone me it was good. Lick-the-plate good. A smooth mustardy flavour but packing seven shades of umami moreishness with each mouthful. According to the man himself it’s a version of sauce Robert bolstered by one of Heston’s favourite ingredients, konbu. I’d love to try making this at home sometime, but if I couldn’t be bothered I’ve been convinced this is worth the money for a special dinner.
2011 is not quite over but I think we have seen the major releases in cookbooks this year that we should expect. If you’re planning on buying the foodie in your life a recipe book, here’s what I would be asking for!
2010 was an embarrassment of riches in the cookbook market; to be honest this year wasn’t quite as bountiful. Nevertheless there are plenty of gems to be had. Here’s a rundown of what I consider to be my absolute favourites of this year.
This was a real joy to discover. Simon Hopkinson, someone I was only passingly familiar with, popped up week after week with relaxed, homely, but gobstoppingly good food. Nothing was difficult, nothing was pressured but everything was tasty without feeling stodgy. The presentation was fresh and geek that I am giggled at the use of QR codes for the recipes. All the recipes are winners.
And on another note: I really want Simon’s kitchen, replete with adjacent sofa for reading while your sponge rises.
If there’s an unconfident cook you know this would be a great gift, with recognisable but foolproof dinners.
This book had a unique criteria for selection in this list. My Dad flicked through it, raised his eyebrows and said “can I borrow that?” and took it home to read cover-to-cover. Not like my Dad at all.
He enjoyed the same things that I did in it: part recipe book and part autobiography, this lovingly prepared tome covers the trials and tribulations of raising livestock. There’s so much humanity in every page you really feel for Tim and Fran as they lose another animal to the ravages of nature and disease.
If that doesn’t do it for you then the recipes will. Proper farmhouse fare treating each animal and each cut with the respect they know it deserves. Casseroles, roasts, stir-fries… all very approachable.
This book also features one of my favourite things: those diagrams that tell you where all the cuts of an animal are from, with dotted lines criss-crossing the beast. I think they’re fascinating.
It could never really be anyone else. My mild Heston obsession peaked this year with both meeting the man himself and then the arrival of this beautiful book. It’s a huge great heavy thing, not easy to read in bed I can tell you (yes, I read it in bed, so what?).
Even though it bears the title “at home” most of the recipes are still quite involved and still multi-stage. Nothing however is insurmountable and thankfully laid out in a clear and achievable way. He admits some things do need a lot of investment but reading the method thoroughly reveals insight. None of it feels extraneous and calling on Heston’s detailed research yields incredible results on the plate. With flavour combinations you’re not familiar with and processes that feel odd at the time, this is a real way to genuinely improve your daily techniques in the way you approach cooking. From chicken and potatoes, from triple-cooked chips to porridge, from sweets in a jar to dry-ice ice cream, all the Heston classics are here plus new delights.
The best parts are the long chunks on Heston’s thoughts about a subject, such as fish, desserts and the long evangelising essay on the benefits of sous-vide (which I would love to have at home – just waiting on Argos to do an Anthony Worral-Thompson branded one).
One slight quibble is if you are a Heston-maniac many of them will feel familiar and almost reprinted but the comprehensiveness of the collection make them apt. To be without them would feel lacking.
In short, it’s a great collection of articles with moments of brilliant inspiration from the chef that most inspires me. Fantastic.
That’s something someone said about my eating habits a few years back. It’s not completely accurate but did draw together a few of my food hates: sweetcorn, baked beans and peas. Baked beans remain the work of the devil, I’m still not really sold on sweetcorn (why does it always end up in tuna?) but over the years I have grown to accept peas. And if any recipe is going to fully convince me of the power of the pea, it’s a Heston one. I was sent this recipe by someone who knows of my Hesotn obsession, and comes from his new book Heston Blumenthal at Home.
It’s refreshingly free of bonkers twists, as long as you discount defrosting frozen peas. Oh yes, frozen peas – I think most chefs now accept frozen is the way to have peas if they’re not straight from your garden. And the peas are barely cooked so they retain their vibrant colour and fresh taste.
The finishing touch, as is so common with Heston recipes (I’m looking at you, vanilla salt), the thing that just makes it. A few drops of mint oil is a crystal clear note among the comforting, meaty flavours.
It’s absolutely delicious. Creamy and fresh, with a round, savoury flavour that is amplified in all directions. Do try it, it’s brilliant.
Heston Blumenthal’s pea and ham soup (serves 4):
1kg gammon joint
1 onion, peeled and sliced
1 carrot, peeled and sliced
1 leek, white part only, rinsed and sliced
8 mint leaves
30ml extra virgin olive oil
900g frozen peas
65g butter, diced
75g shallots, finely diced
1 clove of garlic, minced
160g unsmoked bacon, cut into lardons
Pre-heat the oven to 85°C. Pop the gammon, onion, leek and carrot into a casserole and barely cover with water. Bring to a simmer on the hob, pop a lid on it and transfer to the oven for 5 hours.
While the gammon cooks, put the mint in the oil and leave in a warm place to infuse. Line a baking tray with kitchen roll and layer the frozen peas on this to defrost and absorb excess moisture.
When the gammon is done, let the meat cool in the liquor. Sieve off the solids (Heston then says to discard the veg, but I squeezed out the excess juice and mixed with mash the following day for fab bubble ‘n’ squeak). Then shred 180g of the meat for the soup – the remainder you can keep for another day.
Get a large frying pan over a low heat and add 25g of the butter. Ad the bacon, shallots and garlic and sizzle for five minutes so they soften but do not colour.
Add 750ml of the gammon stock and bring to a simmer for 5 minutes. Add all but 75g of the peas and the rest of the butter and remove from the heat. Liquidize then strain through a sieve, squishing thoroughly to get as much good stuff in the pan as possible. Season to taste and reheat gently.
Use a hand blender to aerate and thicken the soup, then add the reserved gammon and remaining peas. Allow these to warm up and then serve, drizzling with mint oil.
This competition is now closed. Many thanks for all your entries, there were some really fantastic ideas! The winners have been notified by email.
Image copyright HestonBySalter.com
Like most people who love being in the kitchen, I enjoy a good gadget. But better than that is a good gadget you use more than once. There’s the key. And this digital measuring jug by those clever folks at Salter is the business. Heston’s seal of approval has made this a very canny device. Yes, yes, it’s a measuring jug, but it’s more than that. It’s a measuring jug that can gauge liquids of different types (milk, oil, etc.), but it can manage weight too. And in a bunch of different units. One after the other. Let me explain.
I’ve made a bunch of things with it recently, such as white chocolate and blueberry muffins. The cool part is making it all in the one jug. Add your flour, zero it. Then add your sugar, zero it, change to liquids and off you go adding milk, zero, etc. etc. Similarly chocolate and rosemary ice cream was made by measuring stuff as I went along, adding and pouring out, then zeroing and adding something else to the jug. Less washing up and the mixture’s all there in one pot ready to go. Put simply – it’s a measuring jug and add-and-weigh digital scale in one gadget. Genius.
The good folks over at Salter have kindly passed on some of these measuring jugs for me to give away. Want one? Enter below.
In addition to the current range, there’s a brand new selection of Heston Precision products coming very soon. I had a chat with Caroline from Salter who gave me an idea of what it’s like working with Heston Blumenthal and what new products we can expect to see:
How did Salter get involved with Heston Blumenthal?
When we first started thinking about working with Heston and his team, we felt that it was important to understand the brand values for both Salter and Heston to ensure that the partnership had integrity behind it. While Salter has been around for over 250 years, and Heston is very much a forward thinking modern chef, the good news was that our values of Precision, Trust, Excellence, Innovation and “Britishness” bought the two brands together and ensured that our collaboration would make sense to our combined audience.
We approached him with a proposal, and he was very agreeable to collaborating from the start as he knew the Salter brand and was comfortable with our values and ethics. It took a while to decide the range, as we wanted to make sure that it most definitely wasn’t just a celebrity endorsement, rather that it was a range that reflected the methods and tools that Heston would use in his own kitchen.
Heston and Caroline
To what extent has Heston and his team been involved with development?
From day one we have had access to Heston and his amazing team at the Fat Duck. The whole process has been remarkably easy as they are a truly passionate bunch, and Heston is a genuinely nice chap. He is both interesting and interested – he makes time for us, and I always look forward to our development meetings as we are always looking ahead to see what other products we could develop that would help people cook like Heston, at home.
What’s involved in developing one of these products and to what extent does Heston have sign-off?
Product development is a fascinating process as it involves a lot more thought and time than perhaps many people realise. If we know that we have a new category to think about, we will look at it from both consumer and catering viewpoints. We will get together to brainstorm new ideas and talk each one through – taking into account the brand values, and especially how true the product is to Heston’s processes. Once we have a firm idea of a product that we would like to bring into the range, I work with our in-house design team to come up with concepts, showing how the product could look and function. These are then taken to Heston and the team for reviewing and refining. Once we are all happy with the product concept we can get going on the manufacturing process. With any product that Heston is putting his name to, it is important that us that he is delighted with the product and that he has full sign off. Whilst people usually ask for his signature as an autograph, I ask for his signature in order to bring another great product to market!
There’s a new range coming in 2012, what can we expect to see in the future?
All I can say at the moment is watch this space… we are working on a 3 year product plan which will result in many more truly exciting products that will help people achieve great results in the kitchen.
Keep an eye on the HestonBySalter website for more info. Until then though, it’s competition time!
How to enter
There’s five ways to enter, and you can do all of them if you like:
Leave a comment below answering the question what unusual ice cream flavour would you like to make?
