Precision Temperature Cooking

As you may have realised I’m a huge Heston Blumenthal fan, really I am. I have a couple of his books, one I’m constantly diving into for tips, tricks and recipes, I’ve also spent a small fortune on a meal at The Fat Duck with his second restaurant Dinner high on the list of places to visit. However as much as his restaurants interest me, they don’t really interest my wallet, my visit was a single lone treat, what really inspires me is his cooking techniques.

His latest book, one I’ve covered before in a couple of articles, has so much information and advice, not just recipes, that I find it constantly useful. Its real benefit for me has been the us of thermometers to cook meat, I know this isn’t new and certainly not Heston’s invention, but it is a technique he’s helped me embrace. Of course I’ve got the Heston endorsed temperature probe, its sits in the meat through the entire cooking process so a constant measure of the temperature is possible.
 

This christmas we chose, for a change, to have a rib of beef for our dinner, the perfect task for a temperature probe. I seared the beef on all sides to produce a nice brown crust and slow roasted on gas mark 1 (about 100 degrees) until the centre was 55 degrees. I removed the meat and rested for 1 hour, allowing plenty of time to finish the roasties, yorkshire pudding, veg and gravy.

This precision cooking allowed for, in my opinion, near perfect meat, beautifully pink and tender on the inside, it’s a technique I’ve also used on legs of lamb, racks of lamb and chicken and all the results are great. So if you really want to improve your home cooking, for more consistent results then get yourself a temperature probe. It’s my new indispensable gadget.