Heston in da house!

If you have ever watched Heston Blumenthal (of Fat Duck fame)'s programme 'In Search of Perfection' you will be aware of the frankly ridiculous lengths he goes to in order to find the perfect dish of chilli con carne, peking duck, or whatever -

To achieve the perfect roast chicken, you must first take a bath, wearing the chicken as a shower cap - this really helps to keep the bird moist, as well as giving it that faint 'Head and Shoulders' whiff that really adds so much to a roast lunch. Next season the chicken by standing at the bottom of a stairwell and getting a mate whose name is either Bruno or Malcolm (other names don't work as well) to sprinkle freshly ground black pepper and salt (that you have crystallised from the waters of the Aegean sea that morning) from at least three floors up. Next turn the oven on by getting on your knees and doing it with your teeth (no one wants suds on the oven knob), before stuffing an onion that you have peeled and played cricket with and a lemon that is exactly 8.9cm in diameter up the chicken's rear end. Now you can start preparing the chicken....

That sort of thing.

But seriously, Heston, of whom I'm a huge fan, really drills home the idea that however good a recipe is, it can always be refined. As a home cook I just think you need to draw the line at where cooking stops being enjoyable, and starts being a complete nightmare.

Take chicken curry. I probably make this, in one shape or other (though usually just the one) about once a month. Standard, peaceful procedure. Grind a random combination of cumin, coriander, cardamom, clove, cinnamon, turmeric, ginger, garlic and chilli powder. Add it to sweating onions, add some coconut milk, tin tomatoes, chopped chillies and reduce. Liquidize if you can be arsed. Add chicken, cook, serve with rice. And I love it. It's really pretty good. But it could be so much better. I usually find that, while the sauce is the right consistency at first, the liquid leaking from the chicken waters it down, so I need to fart around taking out the meat with a slotted spoon and reducing it further. Until last night, that is...

Perfect chicken, lentil and butternut squash korma

This is a little hotter than your average korma. Deseed the chillies if you want it milder, but don't then rub your eyes. Or your balls.

Serves 6

5 large chicken breasts
20g fresh coriander
2 fresh red chillies
1 plump clove of garlic, peeled
Half a teaspoon ground cumin
Juice of half a lemon
A good slug of olive oil
A large onion, peeled and sliced
10 cardamom pods
2 cloves
2 teaspoons coriander seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seed
2 teaspoons ground turmeric
1 teaspoon hot chilli powder
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tin coconut milk
2 tablespoons tomato puree
300 ml chicken stock
100g lentils
A small butternut squash, peeled, deseeded and chopped into chunks

Chop the chicken into large chunks and place in a bowl. Put the coriander, chillies, garlic, lemon juice, cumin, olive oil and a little salt in a food processor. Blend thoroughly. Add to the chicken, stir well to coat the meat, cover and leave in a fridge for a couple of hours, or preferably overnight.

Preheat the oven to 210C.

In olive oil, sweat the onion in a large pan. Meanwhile remove the seeds from the cardamom and discard the pods, or save to boil with the rice. Grind with the cloves, coriander and cumin seeds, and add the turmeric, chilli powder, ginger and cinnamon. Increase the heat in the saucepan, stir the onions for 2 minutes then add the spices. Stir for a further minute then add the coconut milk, tomato puree and stock. Bring to the boil and stir in the lentils and squash. Season with salt and pepper, cover and simmer over a low heat for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.

After 20 minutes, tip the chicken and marinade into an oven proof dish and bake for 25 minutes. Check the consitency of the squash and lentil component and simmer uncovered until reduced, if necessary. Add the chicken, stir through and serve with basmati rice and a glass of cold beer or a punchy red wine (Shiraz would be good).

Sam's Marquess Chicken

I have never been a massive fan of sweet chilli sauce, finding it too much 'sweet' and not enough 'chilli'. It seemed to be the sort of sauce that people used to pretend they could make things taste good when in fact they were just shaking a bottle full of E numbers over a piece of meat and calling it 'authentic Thai cookery'. Until my flatmate Sam produced a bottle of Lingham's Sweet Chilli Sauce and cooked this delicious recipe of his Dad's last week, and my opinion was changed forever. Stirred into some homemade mayonnaise to go with chips or chicken wings, added to a curry paste or used in a marinade, Linghams is a far superior sauce to its Blue Dragon counterpart.

Serves 2

Two chicken breasts, boneless and skinless
Olive oil
Linghams sweet chilli sauce
Garlic, crushed
Soy sauce
Fresh coriander, chopped
Lemon juice
Salt and pepper

Slice the chicken breasts into diagonal strips and place in a bowl. Pour over a generous slug of olive oil and add the remaining ingredients to taste. Stir well together, cover and marinade in the fridge for a couple of hours. Get a non stick frying pan nice and hot and add the chicken and a hefty measure of the marinade. Fry until the chicken is cooked (5-7 minutes) and the marinade has reduced and is lovely and sticky. Serve with buttered broccoli and some boiled rice (or rice with sweetcorn, as pictured).

Beetroot and horseradish gratin

My apologies for the lack of posts lately. This is not due to any laziness or culinary inertia on my part, only down to the fact that we are yet to get internet in the flat yet, and so any 'blogging' is done in the library when I should really be doing more important things (like now). But Rabelais can wait. Last night we treated ourselves to roast beef (TIP - do your shopping on Sunday afternoon, when supermarkets need to get rid of things like meat and you get some seriously good deals), with which we had what I can only describe as the best vegetable accompaniment to beef I have ever eaten. If you think you have one better, send me the recipe and I'll add it to this.

Serves 4

750 g raw beetroot, washed and trimmed
150 ml cream
150 ml whole milk
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon of fresh thyme leaves
2 tablespoons horseradish sauce
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 200C.

Whisk together the cream, milk, garlic, thyme and horseradish, and season with salt and pepper.

Slice the beetroot 1/2 cm thick and lay a layer in the bottom of an ovenproof dish. Pour over a little horseradish mixture, then add another layer of beetroot. Continue just so until you have used all the ingredients, and bake in the oven for 1 hour until pink juices are bubbling at the sides and the kitchen is filled with a heavenly aroma of earthy beetroot, peppy horseradish and heady garlic. Serve with thin slices of roast beef.