'How to cook like Heston' challenge: Rebecca Mine

Rebecca Mine

This week and the final episode, I knew what I had to do... the sextet. One dish from every episode making up one meal. Not one to do things by halves I was going to take Lovefood's challenge and increase it six-fold. That's the kind of person I am. Some recipes were instantly ruled out, I refuse to buy a product specially for a recipe (unless I'm sure I'll use it in other circumstances) so anything involving agar, dry ice or paint guns was a no.

Starter: Duck Consomme accompanied by smoked potato donuts and honeyed soy dip.

Main: Chilli con carne with jalapeno muffins and a side of cauliflower cheese.

Dessert: Lemon tart with chocolate truffle, raspberry and coffee.

Could these dishes really be THAT special, here's how it all went...

Consomme

I already had a great frozen duck stock so two days in advance I pulled it out of the freezer and into the fridge, why 2 days - it was one massive block.  Though I must confess it was no milk and wing party but as the flavour of duck is so much richer than chicken it seemed like it'd be all right. Defrosted over four layers of strong kitchen towel, I really must invest in some muslin! While I've no doubt chicken pairs with Jasmine, Lavender seemed more befitting of duck, so a sprinkle of dried lavender flowers it was!

The verdict: Crystal clear and nicely fragranced with lavender, the perfect accompaniment to the mini potato donuts! I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was.

Donuts

These took a surprisingly long time to make and I have to confess followed the recipe only loosely.

Tea smoked baked potatoes, check, potato glaze, nope, popping candy coating, nope. Tea smoked potatoes - I didn't want to buy wood chips for smoking but had previously encountered tea smoking on my travels in China.  Simpler than you could possibly imagine it involves combining rice, tea and sugar in a foil tray, placing that on the bottom of a wok, whack the heat up high put the lid on and then - do what Heston said!  The potatoes turned a beautiful smoky golden and you'll be hard pressed not to eat quite a few of the pieces before the rest make it in to the mash and the milk mix! A word of warning - smoking foods leaves strong smells unless you have really great ventilation and our kitchen smelt smoky for at least the proceeding 24 hours! 

Candy coating - I tried to crystallise potato sugar - ended up with toffee. I think it got too hot but I'd dirtied the thermometer so hadn't checked its temperature and didn't have time for a second attempt.

Potato Jam - I'll try it one day but instead and as I was serving this as a starter with duck consomme a honey and soy dipping sauce seemed more appropriate.

The verdict: crispy crunchy light and airy, I have only had fresh donuts once before in my life and that was from Krispy Kreme in America.  I loved those, but I think I loved these more!

Chilli

I love chilli, I have a recipe I love too so this was a battle - Heston's vs. mine. The lack of a pressure cooker was the first issue, in order to achieve a 'similar' effect I increased the water by half and doubled cooking time, cooking in our broken pressure cooker so that not too much moisture would escape, worked perfectly for the tomatoes but sadly burnt the beans a little, they still tasted great so we put them in anyway!

We love the spiced butter and will be making it all the time for with our bacon sarnies, eggs and whatever else takes our fancy. I almost forgot the jalapeno muffins; they got a huge thumbs-up from everyone.

The verdict: We enjoyed the chilli, glossy with a well balanced flavour - the end result was a little too oily for our liking but I'll definitely be making some tweaks to my own recipe, trying out the spiced butter as part of the seasoning as well as cooking the mince by Heston's recipe.  Heston's wins on flavour balance and overall depth but wasn't worth the huge amounts of extra time taken to make it.  The winner; well no-one actually!

Cauliflower cheese

A sauce to die for silky smooth and packed with flavour. The cauliflower trio - pickled cauliflower sweetly acidic and beautifully crunchy, the oil for the fried cauliflower must have been a bit hot because it coloured rather too quickly but was still tasty and the boiled - exactly as you'd expect!

The verdict: sensuously silky smooth sauce though we could have done without the cauliflower trio, the pickled one seemed a little out of place though the fried and boiled ones worked really well!  I will be using the sauce but sticking to plain boring old boiled cauliflower.

Lemon tart

This crust recipe looked fabulous! I've made sweet, savoury, almond, chocolate why lemon hadn't occurred to me before?  In fact I'd never made lemon tart and I'm always a bit scared of recipes that require quite so many eggs, it seems wrong.  Heston told me it would be the best lemon tart, so as a lover of all things lemony I simply had to try! My only quibble with this recipe - my thermometer, it ruined the appearance of the tart as it left an indented line where I had inserted it and had to keep it in for so long!

The verdict: The perfect lemon tart, never have we tasted a tart so delectable.  Despite the time and effort involved I will be making this again and again and again... light, lemony, luxury.

Chocolate truffles

I didn't measure out the chocolate or the cream precisely, I'd made truffles before so felt this was a bit of a no-brainer: The only difference - a sprinkle of salt. I should have measured though as my truffles turned out ever so slightly too soft.

The verdict: despite being soft they were creamy and the salt really cut through the dark chocolate making it far less acrid. I'll be incorporating salt in my future truffles without a doubt!

I couldn't have done it without...

My mum, ever the sous chef in her own kitchen or rather should I say glorified washer-upper and pot stirrer! My biggest problem was time. We would usually have dinner at six thirty to seven, that was my aim but we didn't start till just gone eight!

Would we do it again?

Yes, we had a lot of fun and I have no doubt the lemon tart will be in very high demand! I'd also be intrigued to try the agar out...

Thanks Rebecca, a huge effort. 

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