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"Heston Blumenthal at Home"


dougal

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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 (log)

"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch ... you must first invent the universe." - Carl Sagan

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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.

There is no love more sincere than the love of food - George Bernard Shaw
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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.

"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch ... you must first invent the universe." - Carl Sagan

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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'?

"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch ... you must first invent the universe." - Carl Sagan

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  • 1 month later...

Had an email yesterday from Amazon UK.

Its actually running early.

My (free, not fastest) delivery is expected to arrive before 1st October.

"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch ... you must first invent the universe." - Carl Sagan

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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.

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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).

DSC00663.jpg

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 (log)
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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

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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...

If when you die you get a choice between pie heaven and regular heaven, choose pie heaven. It might be a trick, but if not, mmmboy.

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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.

"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch ... you must first invent the universe." - Carl Sagan

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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 ...

"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch ... you must first invent the universe." - Carl Sagan

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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.

Nick Reynolds, aka "nickrey"

"The Internet is full of false information." Plato
My eG Foodblog

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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 :laugh:

"And don't forget music - music in the kitchen is an essential ingredient!"

- Thomas Keller

Diablo Kitchen, my food blog

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

Edited by Aman Adatia (log)

Aman Adatia

eat my LIFE

@amanadatia

Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. -Howard Thurman

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