YOU CAN COOK LIKE HESTON
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nail porridge for supper? As seen in his recent Channel 4 series, How to Cook Like Heston, in Heston Blumenthal at Home, Heston turns his extraordinary skill and experience to familiar family recipes adding his expert touch to creating day to day dishes like shepherd’s pie, spaghetti carbonara, a Sunday chicken with the perfect roast potatoes (see last week’s epsiode), or fun, retro party dishes like a classic prawn cocktail and the cheese fondue below. In Heston’s hands a normal weeknight supper becomes an entirely different, and delicious experience. Heston Blumenthal at Home £30.00 / Hardback Cheese fondue with sherry and cloves Done well, fondue is a lot of fun – a communal free-for-all that doesn’t need a knife and fork. You want the cheese to be runny and stringy, not thick and stodgy, and the key to this is using cornflour and white wine to prevent the proteins in the cheese coagulating. One of the other factors that gives this fondue its character is the combination of sherry and cloves, which go so well together because of a compound they have in common called eugenol. In tandem they help produce a richly flavoured mixture that needn’t be confined to fondue. If it’s left to set the fondue can be sliced to make an amazing cheese toastie and it’s equally good on burgers, on toast, in Welsh rarebit, or for topping the bread in onion soup. Scroll Down for recipe
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A VERY HUNGRY FRENCHMAN We’ve been Raymond Blanc this week in his new series for BBC2, The Very Hungry Frenchman, in which he returns to France, each week exploring a different region and its dishes. Starting in Franche Comte, the Michelin starred chef cooked lunch in his childhood village with 89 year old Maman Blanc, before working out a special regional meal to be served in a local restaurant. The menu included Comté soufflé tart with swiss chard, braised rabbit with mustard (lapin à la moutarde) and Giboulée of cherries. Click here for more recipes and to watch the show Click here to download an extract from Kitchen Secrets Kitchen Secrets by Raymond Blanc £25.00 / Hardback
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Cheese Fondue continued... Serves 6–8 450g Gruyère cheese, grated 450g Comté cheese, grated 15g Cornflour 30g Manzanilla sherry 2 Sprigs of thyme 3 Cloves of garlic 500g Dry white wine
20g Lemon juice 5g English mustard powder Pinch of ground cloves To serve Cornichons Sourdough bread Crudités
Click here to sample more recipes from Heston Blumenthal at Home
In a bowl, mix the grated cheeses with the cornflour. Bring the sherry to a simmer in a small saucepan over a medium-high heat. Add the thyme and garlic, remove from the heat and leave to infuse for 10 minutes. Strain and allow to cool. Bring the wine and lemon juice to the boil together in a medium saucepan, and add the cheese, a handful at a time, whisking continuously until smooth and creamy. Add the sherry, mustard powder and ground cloves to the cheese and wine, and continue to stir until the fondue thickens. Transfer to a fondue pot and serve with cornichons, cubes of sourdough bread and crudités.