Review of Heston Blumenthal - In Search of Perfection - BBC2

_<span class="summary">This second series by one of the world's most cutting edge chefs is as whacky and entertaining as the first but the chicken tikka masala did not impress</span>_

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I’ll be honest, I think Heston is fantastic. I love what he does and how he does it. He tickles my engineering brain cells and my foodie ones at the same time. The location of the Fat Duck was the only reason we didn’t eat there for our ten year anniversary.

This series, like the first, has him trying to create the ultimate “X” each week. This week it was chicken tikka masala. He strangely went to India to start with when most people agree it was invented in the UK. He found two places doing something similar (particularly butter chicken) but neither was very close.

The spices catching on the back of his throat as he wandered around the market was interesting. I’ve had that effect when using chilli powder, not fun.

The key to great indian cooking appears to be the clay tandoors which reach temperatures nearing 400C instead of the usual kitchen ovens which max at 250C. What did he do? He built one in the car park of the restaurant in the ground! I swear I was tempted to try it too. His version for home cooks was a stack of bricks in a kettle BBQ surrounded by hot coals.  

His overall approach with the dish was not that crazy, just more precise that any of us would do. He had marinades analysed by MRI to see how deep they penetrate the meat. It turns out that the yoghurt is critical in getting the flavour deep into the chicken. I’m guessing it’s the acid?

Unfortunately as the dish progressed I thought it went further and further away from my idea of a tikka masala. In particular the use of coconut milk really seemed wrong. For me a great version is saucy but absolutely not like eating cloying sweet cream of tomato soup. His final result looked far too rich and overwhelming and he just kept adding bits. 

I’ll never attempt to cook anything he does but I’ll revel in watching the geek’s ultimate chef every week.

<span>Rated <span class="rating">5</span>/5 on <span class="dtreviewed">Oct 21 2007</span> by <span class="reviewer vcard"><span class="fn">Conor O'Neill</span></span></span>

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