In search of Heston

There was a new series on BBC2 this week courtesy of Heston Blumenthal, part mad scientist, part alchemist and possibly part Bond villain. His hollowed out volcano is his test kitchen/laboratory where this week he experiments with pork and various components in his quest for the ultimate perfect sausage and sugar syrups for the pinnacle of treacle tarts.

He mixes his preferred pork with toast-flavoured water, bonfire cooked pork back fat, rusk, golden syrup and spices. For the perfect mash (now we're talking!) he oven bakes some potatoes and scoops out the fluffy middles and mashes roughly with butter and warm milk. He serves the sausages and mash with his ultimate onion gravy. Personally I don't like the gravy near my mash as it ruins its gorgeous purity. But that's just me!

Heston experimented with banana, figs, ginger and various sugars but settles for the most traditional recipe and adds a little nutty extra by sautéing the butter until nut brown. He also demonstrates how to make his perfect ice cream first by freezing the straight from the cow cream with liquid nitrogen and then he makes a slightly more home friendly version with dry ice.

It's about time Heston brought out a grownup book and I do have this book on order but I have seen it on the shelves and play.com are teasing me by not sending it. I guess it will be joining the collection next week though. I'm not sure if I'll be adding dry ice or liquid nitrogen to my ‘batterie de cuisine’ but I'm pretty sure it'll make very interesting reading. And if Heston reckons this is the most perfect mash I obviously have to check it out, it would be rude not to!