Food combinations

[SamanthaF]

Heston

Have you ever developed a combination of flavours/textures/temperatures that you thought were the dogs, but was often returned to the kitchen uneaten, and subsequently pulled from the menu?

If so what?

[Heston Blumenthal]

Hello Samantha

Thats a good question!

I find that sometimes a new dish will take a while to get going in terms of sales but if I really believe in it, I will persevere. In these instances, for some reason the dish then picks up in popularity.

Sometimes however, ther is no rhyme nor reason to what makes a dish sell or not.

We have been serving a hot chocolate dessert combining it with blue cheese, a fromage blanc ice cream and peaches. The chcocolate and blue cheese combination is made quite clear on the menu.

Because of the peach season ending, we have changed the dessert-keeping the hot chocolate and blue cheese cake but pairing it with an Harissa ice cream and a dried apricot and orange flower water puree.

Thinking that many paople will not know what Harissa is and knowing the fact that because the ice cream and the puree killed the taste of the blue cheese in the chocolate, we left the blue cheese out

Because of the fact that the dessert now read without the blue cheese, i thought that it would sell like hot cakes!

No chance-the first couple of days that we have hade this dessert on the menu, it has sold very little.

Give it a couple of weeks though and it will definately pick up