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 Post subject: Heston Blumenthal at Home
PostPosted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 7:01 am 
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Joined: Fri Dec 19, 2008 10:45 pm
Posts: 1531
Location: Ottawa, ON
One of my latest acquisitions is Heston Blumenthal at Home. I've given it a good looking over and I must say, I think I am going to like it. Although he is a modernist, this book doesn't use modernist ingredients for the most part and is accessible. It is definitely no ATK in difficulty though; I'd tend to put it somewhere near (or a little below) Ad Hoc in time and trouble. There are some specialist ingredients, but lots and lots of recipes without any. And, although it isn't modernist, it still is full of interesting and different flavour profiles, along with many classic dishes which have been tweaked. Most dishes have very good explanations which are useful whether or not you make that exact dish.

So far, I've only made a caper and shallot vinaigrette, using it as suggest with potatoes and meat (duck breast in this case) and was inspired by his used of brussel sprouts (basically blanching the leaves) and his comments on leeks. I was extremely pleased with this vinaigrette for this application, it really finished the dish.

I imported the UK version to get metric weights; I'm hoping for most of you that they don't screw up the US version too much. I think they'll convert to US weights for sure; if you're lucky, they won't convert everything to volumes.


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 Post subject: Re: Heston Blumenthal at Home
PostPosted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 10:09 am 
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Joined: Mon Jun 07, 2010 8:41 pm
Posts: 1884
Location: Near Toronto, Ontario, Canada
I jsut bought his "In Search of Perfection" at a booksale ($4, could not leave it there) and am enjoying thumbing through it, but not sure if I'll make anything yet. Have you tried that book at all?


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 Post subject: Re: Heston Blumenthal at Home
PostPosted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 10:26 am 
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Joined: Fri Dec 19, 2008 10:45 pm
Posts: 1531
Location: Ottawa, ON
No, I don't have that book. I watched some of the tv series, and it put me off the book some; not because I don't believe in going utterly mad for perfection, but because I felt it seemed kind of arbitrary. But, of course, a TV show has severe limitations a book doesn't, so if I'd seen it for $4, I probably would have bought it :)

My meal that was inspired by him was duck breast (SV'd and seared) over boiled new mini-potatoes tossed with the shallot and caper vinaigrette, with blanched brussel sprout leaves, topped with finely shredded leek sweated in duck fat. The flavours worked well together and was a winner. The only complaint from the peanut gallery concerned the duck breast skin, which I will treat differently next time. Only the vinaigrette was directly from the book, but the overall inspiration was from there.


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 Post subject: Re: Heston Blumenthal at Home
PostPosted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 10:31 am 
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Joined: Mon Jun 07, 2010 8:41 pm
Posts: 1884
Location: Near Toronto, Ontario, Canada
thanks Paul. I too watched the series and enjoyed it. Will post when/if I try anything from there.

For future referenence, if you need testers, I'll need a 4 hour head start for dinner. ;)


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 Post subject: Re: Heston Blumenthal at Home
PostPosted: Mon Jan 16, 2012 9:29 am 
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Joined: Fri Dec 19, 2008 10:45 pm
Posts: 1531
Location: Ottawa, ON
This weekend, tried a couple more.
  • Leek and Potato soup. These recipes tend to interest me because there is so much variation in ratios for such a simple recipe. This one probably has 5x the amount of leek/onion:potato than one I normally make. This version was a hit, my wife said it was her favorite. I've made quite a few varieties. This one has a quite noticeable leek flavour and a lovely texture. Note: I went by his weights, but his quanities might be way off. I think he said 750g of leeks, or 17 leeks or something; I used 4, and got about 750g.... either an error, or they have crazy small leeks in Britain. I served this on as both a soup course one night and a main the second.
  • SV Salmon. Ok, straight forward and good. Nothing unusual here. I went 1 C higher then his recommendation.
  • Crushed potatoes. Excellent. Will be used again. A quite large amount of herbs in here makes it very very nice. Interesting recipe also because it has no dairy, and I have a semi-frequent guest who doesn't do dairy, so this will be a great option.
  • Bois Bourdan sauce. I was a bit leery of this one, seemed almost semi-ho, but it turned out to be quite good with the food. The recipe makes a lot, so I'll have to experiment with other uses.
The meal was soup, duck confit (MC Recipe for confit) salad, Salmon with the crushed tomatoes & bois bourdan sauce. The potatoes are placed on top of the sauce, so you get some with each bit. The salmon/potatoes/sauce combo was his suggestion and is, IMO, perfectly balanced. It would have been good to have some asparagus or something like that as a side, but we were getting full :) Coulda skipped a course in there.....


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