80 replies to this topic

[dougal]

Announcement of a new book by Blumenthal, due October 2011 in the UK. (Amazon UK are taking pre-orders, currently at £21.)

From the publisher's blurb, it sounds like it might just be 'MC for the rest of us'. Hey, it has a section on sv!
And at 432 A4-sized pages, its not going to be lightweight.
http://www.bloomsbury.com/Heston-Blumenthal-at-Home/Heston-Blumenthal/books/details/9781408804407

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.

The first part of the book maps out the new techniques in 15 sections: 1) Taste and flavour 2) Seasoning and the five tastes 3) Stocks and infusing 4) Soups and purees 5) Brining, curing, marinating, macerating 6) Meat 7) Fish 8) Vegetables 9) Pasta, grains, pulses 10) Sauces, emulsions, thickening 11) Tarts and other doughs and pastries 12) Chocolate 13) Ice cream, sorbets, custards 14) Sous-vide cookery 15) Taking control of the kitchen

In the second part, there are 150 specially created recipes. ...

Edited by dougal, 15 August 2011 - 05:13 AM.

[rotuts]

thanks for this tip Amazon USA has atractive pre order price:

Heston Blumenthal at Home

Done!

[Keith_W]

I hope that the recipes do not involve any hard-to-find ingredients such as Liquid Nitrogen, Activa or Carageenans. I can cope with agar-agar but I am not going to order a dewar of LN2 any time soon.

[jeffsf]

Just a note for those waiting -- Amazon alerted me that release has been delayed until November

[jmolinari]

i just put my pre-order in. It says Nov. 22nd

[dougal]

Announcement of a new book by Blumenthal, due October 2011 in the UK. (Amazon UK are taking pre-orders, currently at £21.)
...

Amazon UK are still expecting to dispatch my order on the 4th of October.

[Broken English]

Keen to pick this up when it's released.

[Andrew]

Waterstones (£30) are saying it is 41 days away from publication which takes us to the begining of October.

[dougal]

A short delay before foreign publication wouldn't be unusual.
I wonder whether they'll use the time to take out grams and insert cups for the USA 'home cook'?

[dougal]

Had an email yesterday from Amazon UK.
Its actually running early.
My (free, not fastest) delivery is expected to arrive before 1st October.

[DianaB]

There's an extract from this book in this weekend's Financial Times magazine, also available via their website (www.ft.com). Including recipes which look interesting and not too difficult. The cover price for the book in the UK is £30 but Amazon has it at £15.00.

[Jenni]

^^^
Here's a direct link to the FT article, a lot of recipes here actually:
Check it out

[Brainfoodie]

Got the book yesterday (thanks to Amazon Prime), it's nicely done, very informative both in the discussions on flavour and the actual recipes.

I was surprised it actually has a whole chapter on Sous Vide - , think that's new for a "at home" book - with 6 recipes covering meat, fish and an interesting "Fennel in smoked duck fat"

I'm quite excited to give them a go, so started with the rack of of lamb cooked for one hour at 60C, in plenty of aromatics (rosemary, bay and thyme).



Should be ready in a hour :-)

Also have a pork belly brining now for the "Cocotte of pork [belly] with black pudding sauce" (the belly is sous vide for 18 hours at 60C)

From what I seen the rest of the recipes are also very good - like the salad with edible "sand" made of dried olives, or the fish pie with "sea" foam. It's funny that the book not only has a chapter on desserts but another one on "Biscuits, snacks and drinks".

Finally I think the Health and Safety directorate will raise issues with the recipe for "Chicken with clams a la plancha" which involves cooking with a pan of "oil [..] hot enough so that the pan erupts into flames when you shake it".

Edited by Brainfoodie, 28 September 2011 - 01:08 PM.

[ChrisTaylor]

Just ordered my copy from Book Depository. Hope it arrives before I have to go back to work.

[Honkman]

Is it already available ? I thought it should come out end of November.

[ChrisTaylor]

Comes out in the UK in a couple of days. Different release date in the US, maybe.

[Brainfoodie]

The book is already out in the UK and in stock at places like Amazon UK. The price is great too, 50% off so it costs just £15 (~ $24). Impressive for such a high quality printing and paper - not to mention the content.

[ajnicholls]

Got mine 2 days ago. It's a very well produced, detailed book. There is some repetition if you own any (or in my case, all) of Heston's previous books. Some of the dishes are home-cookable versions of the Fat Duck dishes such as the salmon and liquorice, along with dishes that were in Perfection, albeit in slightly different forms. It has been a very interesting read and I'm looking forward to getting on with cracking on with some of the recipes in there.

Adam

[mr_meanor]

Ordered mine on Sunday evening from Amazon with free delivery, 7.15 on Tuesday morning I was woken by the postman!

I haven't read it all yet, but so far I am very impressed. HB has a way of putting things simply, making it easy to understand, and simple to follow.

I am going to try some of the home versions of fat duck recipes, and see how they compare, the chapter on sous vide is a good introduction to the topic, but the lack of detail is not suprising given the intended audience.

I also have a piece of belly pork bring, ready for the weekend...

[dougal]

Mine only arrived today, so I've barely scratched it yet.

Its a lovely book.
Its laid out like a practical recipe book - minimal mid-flow page turning, components well cross referenced, and a very practical (and attractive) page layout. The single (serifed) typeface (Sabon) is very readable, and in a comfortably large size.

I like the explanations of what is being attempted, why rather than just how.

Its modern, but its not about food additives.


I was a little disappointed with the sv section (don't buy it specially for that). Its a small section.
Despite the glowing intro about how sv "is going to revolutionise the domestic kitchen", etc, etc, ... its a bit isolated.
There are lots of slow-roast meat recipes (oven set well below 100C), but I haven't spotted a single "or sv it" comment in any of them. I haven't noticed a single mention of sv in any recipe outside the brief sv section. Which I find a bit curious. And disappointing, if truth be told.

The recipes are an interesting and wildly varied mix.
From a three-layer mushroom verrine using ice filtration, to a toasted cheese sandwich.
From Roast Potatoes to Pear and Sherry Salad (with Sherry in jellied cubes).
Ice creams from Mustard to the whimsy of Cinnamon & Vanilla (with Cinnamon and Vanilla scent bottles ...)
Whisky-flavoured gelatine sweets to ... celeriac remoulade.
Its a weird mix of Fat Duck (Parsley Porridge or Red Cabbage Gazpacho) and the distinctly homely given a few cheffy tweaks (Chilli con Carne with brined beans, pressure cooked tomatoes, etc and finished with a spiced butter).

All of it seems to be interesting eating, even if none of it is typical weekday suppertime fare.
Its cooking for the pure fun of it, doing things a harder way if that gives a better result. But with a grip on the reality of doing things at home - there's no liquid nitrogen, chamber sealer or centrifuge needed.
Cooking you could hope to do at home, but not 'home cooking'.

Its expected that you will have digital scales, thermometers, and timer, etc He makes much use of a hand blender. Naturally an Isi whipper or sv bath is going to be pretty much essential for a few of the recipes. Some ice creams call for dry ice (eg bacon and egg), others can be done in a domestic machine. In keeping with his precise instructions, where appropriate he gives refractometer (Brix) readings.

A very interesting (if not quite perfect) book and a bargain at Amazon UK's current price of £15.
Blumenthal was generous in his praise for his ghost writer in this month's Waitrose (supermarket) magazine, and Pascal Cariss gets a couple of small credits on the last pages.

[Honkman]

I saw that his recipes are in grams. I hope they don't use the 2 months until the book will be published in the US to convert it to cups etc.

[dougal]

I saw that his recipes are in grams.

Pretty much every UK cookbook nowadays uses weight measurements. In grams.

I hope they don't use the 2 months until the book will be published in the US to convert it to cups etc.

If they did, they'd also have to rewrite the paragraph on 'Precision' found on page 396 ...

[nickrey]

Thanks for letting us know that this is out in the UK. I switched my Amazon US order for this book (and Ferran Adria's family meals book) to Amazon UK. It shipped today and I got free shipping to Australia. Can't wait for them to arrive.

[OliverB]

I'm gonna wait until I find out if they turned it into cups (they do rewrite chapters to make them fit US measurements btw) and if so, order from the UK instead, good to know! I'm in no rush, I have enough cook books to last me a lifetime and then some, but the little man in my head urges me to buy it anyway

[Aman Adatia]

Just ordered it from Amazon UK for 22P including shipping to Canada! Can't beat that!

Edited by Aman Adatia, 29 September 2011 - 07:45 PM.

[dougal]

A short delay before foreign publication wouldn't be unusual.
I wonder whether they'll use the time to take out grams and insert cups for the USA 'home cook'?

I hope they don't use the 2 months until the book will be published in the US to convert it to cups etc.

If they did, they'd also have to rewrite the paragraph on 'Precision' found on page 396 ...

I'm gonna wait until I find out if they turned it into cups (they do rewrite chapters to make them fit US measurements btw) ...

The book itself says (on page 396, Precision, under Using This Book)
"The best way of giving you the chance to reproduce these recipes at home, it seems to me, is to specify precise weights, timings and temperatures. That's why weights are given only in metric and not in cups. While cups might seem like a convenient system that's appropriate for a book on home cooking, it can be quite inaccurate, particularly with irregular solids." (The emphasis is mine.)

Strikes me that a gram-free bowdlerisation of the book would be contrary to the author's clearly expressed intent, and cause enough for an immediate return for full refund.

[FoodMan]

A short delay before foreign publication wouldn't be unusual.
I wonder whether they'll use the time to take out grams and insert cups for the USA 'home cook'?

I hope they don't use the 2 months until the book will be published in the US to convert it to cups etc.

If they did, they'd also have to rewrite the paragraph on 'Precision' found on page 396 ...

I'm gonna wait until I find out if they turned it into cups (they do rewrite chapters to make them fit US measurements btw) ...

The book itself says (on page 396, Precision, under Using This Book)
"The best way of giving you the chance to reproduce these recipes at home, it seems to me, is to specify precise weights, timings and temperatures. That's why weights are given only in metric and not in cups. While cups might seem like a convenient system that's appropriate for a book on home cooking, it can be quite inaccurate, particularly with irregular solids." (The emphasis is mine.)

Strikes me that a gram-free bowdlerisation of the book would be contrary to the author's clearly expressed intent, and cause enough for an immediate return for full refund.

If they indeed do that (removing proper weights and putting in cup/spoon measures) I will be returning my pre-ordered book to Amazon and getting one from Amazon UK instead. I seriously doubt Blumenthal would agree to completely remove the metric weights though. Possibly adding cups and spoons is reasonable but not using that instead of weight!

[OliverB]

From what I hear the author has little say in what the publisher decides to use, otherwise Keller's books would be with weights, and many others where I read the author complain but not being able to run up against what the publisher thinks the sheeple out in the lands want. I sure hope this one stays in gramms, but I don't mind ordering from the UK either, might also do so if it's a nicer print/binding etc, sometimes they can be quite different, all the way to hard cover (BG) vs softcover (US) etc.

If they add cups they're just opening a can of worms in regards to conversion mistakes I think.

[coz]

I just ordered from the UK I'm in NY. I'm not sure if the US version will be the same but at least I'll get the copy in a week instead of the end of November. The price with shipping was about the same too.

[Honkman]

I did the same and ordered in the UK.