Heston Blumenthal: BBC show

[bainesy]

Apologies if other people have pointed this out, but the BBC is airing a series (starting tomorrow, 31 October) with Heston Blumenthal In Search of Perfection.

It's quite possible the BBC might put it up as a streaming broadcast after each programme has aired.

[Andy Lynes]

Really looking forward to this series - at last something actually about cooking and not just a game show or lets-teach-the-ready-meal-addicted-moron-how-to-hold-a-knife. Had a very quck flick throught the book and it looks very interesting ineed - loads of text and not just the recipes so definately some bed time reading potential and not just one for the kitchen.

[martinwa]

My mate Paul got very excited about cooking a double rib of beef for 18 hours a la Blumenthal....he couldn't get his oven down to the required 50 degrees and so left the door slightly ajar to achieve it...he got up at 4 in the morning to check only to find that "someone" had switched it off....so reducing the cooking time to a mere 12 hours. My question is, would it have made the slightest bit of difference especially when at the end of the roasting period the beef is carved and then seared in a pan?

Haven't got the book yet so can't read the recipe.

[bandregg]

Is it really 50'C? That's only 122'F if I'm doing my maths right. That means a couple of things to me. First, it's being cooked to a temperature right in the danger zone for breeding harmful bacteria. Second, it isn't being cooked hot enough, now matter how long, for the intramuscular fat and collagen to melt into the meat. So, I'm not really sure what the point would be. I've definitely cooked beef ribs slowly, to an internal temperature of 195'F or 90'C (which of course means that the oven has to be at least that hot) which makes them meltingly tender and then seared them up for a nice crunchy outside. Delicious.

[jackal10]

A) He is cooking steak on the bone - ribeye, not ribs.

b) Some enzymes that break down collagen (Calpains) start working at 40C, others (Cathespins) at 50C. 50C is above the temperature where common bacteria grow, although not hot enough to kill them. The US FDA Food Code, is a simplification because pathogen growth actually starts at about 29.3ºF and stops, for all practical purposes, at 125ºF. The speed of growth depends on the temperature. The FDA codes appear to be based on a maximum of a 10x generations (doubling) of pathogens such as Listeria onocytogenes at 41ºF and Salmonella / Staphylococcus aureus at 115ºF. See

CALCULATING THE TOTAL GROWTH OF BACTERIA IN COOKED FOOD USING THE FDA CODE CONTROLS by O. Peter Snyder, Jr., Ph.D Hospitality Institute of Technology and Management

For these criteria I calculate the "safe" time at 50C is about 16 hours.

In my view 18 hours over tenderises the meat, and I prefer my ribeye steak cooked at 58C, for about 8 hours.. The FDA specifies safe cooking time of 28 minutes at this temperature. They specify times/temperatures down to 54.4C/112 minutes,

Edited October 30, 2006 by jackal10 (log)

[Lactic Solar Dust]

Apologies if other people have pointed this out, but the BBC is airing a series (starting tomorrow, 31 October) with Heston Blumenthal In Search of Perfection.

It's quite possible the BBC might put it up as a streaming broadcast after each programme has aired.

←

Is there any chance that a network in the United States would pick up the show and broadcast it in the United States. It would be fun to watch one of the masters.

Edited October 30, 2006 by Lactic Solar Dust (log)

[jackal10]

Previews are up now

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctwo/programmes/?id=heston_blumenthal