Heston Blumenthal's Twist in the Tail

I made Heston Blumenthal's Twist in the Tail recipe yesterday. Actually yesterday, the day before and the day before that too.

Because I have made a few of Heston's recipes before I pretty much knew what I was in for.

• Heston Blumenthal: In Search of Perfection: Reinventing Kitchen Classics
• Further Adventures in Search of Perfection
• The Big Fat Duck Cookbook.

I knew if I was going to that much trouble, I wanted more meat, so I grabbed 5lbs of 7 bone chuck steak on special for 99c lb, and 2 lbs of oxtail at $5 lb (no special there) for the oxtail's truly great flavor.

I bought some cheapo red plonk for $5 for 1.5L, so overall I was able to keep the cost down and the yield high.

I got these really great vegetables, leeks, tomatoes, mushrooms, and on and on. Chop em up, fry em, and add them all in.
And with a sinking feeling I realized that they were all going to be discarded. Sad.

The result? An absolutely insanely great stew. And that is what Heston is all about: insane, and great.

Another relative commented on the interesting and subtle sweet notes in the stew.
I tried to wave it off as being the sweetness of the cooked onions, but nooooo, that wasn't good enough!
So I was shamefacedly forced to reveal that yes, I had caramelized some turbinado sugar in a reduction of red wine vinegar.

There is no limit to Heston's excess!

When relatives pointed out that is really was rather nice of me to go to all that trouble for them, I had to explain that I did this recipe for myself, to see if I could do it.

If I had actually made this FOR someone, I would have exceedingly bitter and eternally hateful thoughts about that person for making me feel obliged to go through such extreme torture for a stupid meal.

Mushroom Ketchup and Mushrooms for Steak Recipes

Mushroom Ketchup Recipe
Mushrooms for Steak Recipe

The mushroom ketchup is from a recipe in Heston Blumenthal's In Search of Perfection: Reinventing Kitchen Classics.

Take a pound (.5kg) of button mushrooms, pre-sliced is fine, otherwise slice them similarly, and put them in a strainer over a bowl.


Measure out 25g (a bit less than an ounce) of salt. For measurements like this I use the Escali Primo Digital Scale which is very accurate, and can weigh up to 11 lbs. It also can measure in grams, which is convenient if you are working from European recipes.

Toss the mushrooms in the salt. Cover the strainer and bowl, and leave in the refrigerator overnight.

The next day you will have partially dried mushrooms and dark brown mushroom juice, which is going to be full of mushroom umami goodness and pretty damn salty to boot.

Reserve the mushrooms.

For each pint of mushroom juice, add 1/2 cup red wine, 1/4 cup of red wine vinegar, a dash of mace, 10 black peppercorns, 2 cloves, and 1 shallot (or 2 cloves of garlic, or a couple slices of onion).

Reduce the liquid by half, and strain finely, discarding the solid.

Return the liquid to the pan, and add cornflour slowly, until the desired ketchup consistency is reached.

The mushroom ketchup will keep for a month in a jar in the fridge.

When you are ready to prepare the partially dried mushrooms, simply saute them in a generous portion of butter, or for extra specialness, use the butter from the blue-cheese/butter infusion recipe here.

Review: Perfection

A review of
Heston Blumenthal: In Search of Perfection: Reinventing Kitchen Classics.

Yep, it's Alton Brown on steroids.

I am a big fan of Alton Brown, and now I have found an even greater hero: Heston!

Just one thing though - he scares the living daylights out of me - if he weren't in a kitchen the only safe place for him is a padded lockdown.

I've made about two (more now) of the recipes so far, and I am looking forward to doing more. I have already ordered Further Adventures in Search of Perfection and pre-ordered his (very expensive) The Big Fat Duck Cookbook.










On his Fish and Chips:
Alas, no turbot on the US West Coast. Maybe no-one understands me because I use the English pronunciation (like fillet) - pronouncing both t's, unlike the American/French with a silent 2nd t.

I used halibut - love halibut.
His batter method is unnecessarily long-winded. I used a 5lb CO2 bottle with a special adapter for a standard plastic soda bottle instead of a soda siphon, With this exception completed his recipe and found where the book's true value is:

It didn't work for me, but it allowed me to see where to improve my beer batter recipe that I have used for years.
I now use 2/3 beer, 1/3 vodka, (plus a large splash of lemon juice and paprika).

And now I make very small batter batches, don't wait for the every last lump to disappear, batter immediately, and straight in the fryer - all as fast as possible. It is a tangible improvement - thanks Heston!

His chips (french fries) again has what to my unrefined palette is an unnecessary step - the initial boil.
Instead I now extend my initial low temp (300F) fry to 10 mins, and cool completely in the 'fridge.
But I found an improvement - I use a little portable fan to blow over the fries to hurry along the dehydration process - all thanks to Heston!

I also tried the entire steak recipe which was 100% great, and the mushroom ketchup is to die for!

The recipe calls for the meat to cook at (exactly) 120F for 24 hours. Sounds dangerous? Well it hasn't been for me, and I've tried it three times (more now).
This lengthy warming allows enzymes to break down the other proteins in the meat, tenderizing it and adding flavor.

One of these enzymes is Glucuronidase.
Another is cathepsin. There are approximately a dozen cathepsins, which are distinguished by their structure and which proteins they cleave.
The Troponin protein tri-complex and the Actin, Myosin, kinase, Titin (largest), Dynein, Calcineurin and tropomyosin proteins are some of the muscle proteins that are broken down. For example, Actin starts to degrade as the meat passes upwards of 70F (20C).

The reason that Heston sears the meat before the long 120F slow cook (and I know because I did it) is that the Maillard reaction flavors from the sear spend that time permeating through the meat.
Do I care that his reasoning is off at a tangent? NO.
You know why? Because it is the best damn tasting steak I have ever made. Good enough?

And if he tests 5 varieties of potatoes to get the best roast potato, yet doesn't draw a sufficiently tight logical line to satisfy Mr J. Alt, I don't care either. The man has sufficient bone fides for me to trust his judgement and conclusions.
And you know why I doubly don't care? I can't get Maris Pipers in the U.S. anyway!

I used his method of trying every potato I could get my hands on and made my own judgement. *

Which is what any reader of these reviews should also do.

I recommend this book.

Kevin
* I decided on White Rose. Thanks yet again, Heston!


Featured:

Pizza Time: Margharita madness! The tomato prep.

OK it's time for a pizza.

Well, not right now. Since I like to take the longest possible time to cook anything, it'll be pizza time in 12 hours or so.
That's what happens when you base your recipes on Heston Blumenthal.

Buy some cheap tomatoes, roma are fine, any will do. Cheap counts, you want at least 7 lbs for all this fuss.

First step, prep the tomatoes. Take out the top part of the core near the vine and discard. Incise a cross in the side for easier peeling. Plunge into a boiling pot of water for 20 seconds (less if very ripe) then into an ice bath.



Keep half of the tomatoes for the sauce.

Halve them, and seed them out, then place on a cookie sheet. Save the seeds and juice for the sauce too.

Drizzle a little olive oil over them, and add a sprinkling of thyme and basil.

Slice up some garlic (I buy ready peeled - bad chef!) and place into the well of each tomato.

Add a powdering of sugar, and add fresh ground pepper and smoked sea salt.

Pop in a convection oven at 225F for 90 minutes, turn then 90 minutes more.


Featured:

Pizza Time: Margharita madness! The dough and the sauce.

Hehe, more Heston madness.

For the dough, have 500g (about a pound) of flour, I used all-purpose, but there is probably some super dough with exactly 12% protein content. Don't know, don't care. Flour is flour to me.

Mix with water in a water-to-flour 17:30 ratio (hey do the math!)
If you are really nuts, you can prepare 1/3 of the dough 12 hours ahead of time, if you can tell the difference, let me know.



[OK, OK.
For the pre: 1/3 = 167g flour, 17/30 = 95g water.
For the final: 2/3 = 333g flour, 17/30 = 189g water.
Jeez.
]
Divide the dough into 5 equal balls and let rest out of the fridge for 2 hours.

Meanwhile, take half of your peeled tomatoes, cut nearly in half, and squeeze out the juice into a largish stainless steel pot. You are going to boil them to a mush, so no need to be gentle. If the tomatoes came on the vine, put the vines in too - more flavor apparently.
Careful with tomatoes - they are very acidic - so don't put them in a copper pan unless you like the taste of copper and no pan.
Bring to a boil, set to a very low heat, and simmer for ages. Two hours or more. Be sure to stir frequently so the bottom layer doesn't burn. You want a soft mush like thick spaghetti sauce. Alternatively, buy a jar of spaghetti sauce and use that.

Take one ball of dough. Using your hands flatten it out into a perfect circle. If you want to throw it spinning into the air be my guest, I just flattened it out. The dough will be as perfectly circular as you are a perfect person, so try hard.

Take a spoon, or better a ladle, and put some sauce on the dough. Use the back side of the ladle to squish the sauce nearly, but not quite, to the edges of the circle.

Your pizza base is now prepared!

I can't wait for Heston Blumenthal's next offering:
Further Adventures in Search of Perfection and I've decided to splurge on:
The Big Fat Duck Cookbook.

The latter isn't coming out until November of this year, and at $150+ I will need all of that time to save my pennies. I'm going to get a 5% discount for pre-ordering, which counts for a lot at this price!