CUISINE REVIEW: Heston Blumenthal at Home - Heston Blumenthal

Release Date: 03/10/11

SYNOPSIS:

Until now, home cooking has remained stubbornly out of touch with technological development but Heston Blumenthal, champion of the scientific kitchen, is set to change all that with his radical new book. With meticulous precision, he explains what the most effective techniques are and why they work. Heston's instructions are precise and easy to follow, with lots of helpful tips, and each chapter is introduced with an explanation of Heston's approach to 1) Stocks 2) Soups 3) Starters 4) Salads 5) Meat 6) Fish 7) Sous-vide 8) Pasta and grains 9) Cheese 10) Sides and condiments 11) Ices 12) Desserts and sweets 13) Biscuits, snacks and drinks. Recipes include Green bean and radish salad; Prawn cocktail; Roast chicken; Shepherd's pie; Sea bass with vanilla butter; Liquorice poached salmon; Carbonara; The ultimate cheese toastie; Strawberry sundae; Liquid centre chocolate pudding and Raspberry sherbert. And, of course, Heston's famous Triple-cooked chips. Heston Blumenthal at Home will change the way you think about cooking forever - prepare for a culinary revolution!


REVIEW:

Heston is often seen as the mad scientist of the culinary world and yet the recipes that he comes up with work on so many levels. This book is a title about getting the best taste and flavour from each of the individual ingredients with each recipe. He has simple tests to help demonstrate his point and he also helps the reader make something spectacular out of a lot of everyday ingredients.

Add to this the use of things like thermometers whilst cooking, he states that it might seem high tech but it takes the guesswork out of making sure that the star of the meal is cooked to perfection rather than praying to the culinary gods that its done to a T.
Finally add to the mix a whole host of everyday classics as well as his own take on some special items (such as salmon fillet with a liquorice jelly, yes I know it sounds weird but it’s a beautiful combination) and the reader gets a whole new range of things that they may never have dreamed of, including great recipes for core staples of the kitchen like Homemade stocks.

All in its weird, its wonderful and it’s a book that I’ll enjoy trying things from again and again, which when added with the odd madcap science to try for yourself such as the Ice Cream made with Dry Ice (and yes Heston does let you know where to get it.) and it’s a cracking book all round. I really can’t wait to try it all, which at the end of the day, is what every chef wants.