Heston Blumenthal 'Koken met zout'

Heston Blumenthal describes a 'defining moment' in his career as a chef when he began to use science in his cooking and started to carry out experiments rather than follow the received wisdom. This occurred when he first thought to ask why salt is always added to the water when cooking green vegetables.

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Howto & Style

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• Heston
• Blumenthal
• molecuaire
• gastronomie
• koken
• recepten

[Slashbag69]

@metalacvi It does have something to do with the temperature of the water. Impurities in water raise the boiling point, so the water gets hotter before if evaporates.

[metalacvi]

It´s simply a question on the fact that you get small particles in there. Nothing to do with the temperature of the water.

[metalacvi]

The salt makes the water boil even more vigorously.Peter: People think it changes the properties of water ´cause when you throw a handful of salt into boiling water it appears to boil more rapidly. It has nothing to do with the salt in there. It´s just nuclear bubbles in there, it´s an effect of the powder going in. What happens is the fine powder makes bubbles nuclear so they come to surface and some steam coming out quickly.

[metalacvi]

You should get if you cook on a hots summer day as opposed to cooking on a cold winter´s day. The difference´s the day pressure ´cause pressure has a big effect on boiling point as well as adding salt. Blumenthal: So salt in the water definitely has nothing to do with seasoning, does it? Peter: Doesn´t have to do with seasoningBlumenthal: it had to be more of it, but if you throw your handful of salt into boiling water and then throw the beans in at the same time.

[metalacvi]

Blumenthal: Yeah, it was bizarre because every cook book it´s so much conflicting advising cook books, some tell you that salt raises the boiling temperature of water. Some cook books tell you how low it is. Peter: It does raise the boiling temperature. You check a handful of salt in a pan of water and the boiling pop and raise a fraction of a degree, sort of difference.

[metalacvi]

After some investigative work I managed to contact Peter Barron, physicist at Bristol University. And now we´ve become friends. Peter, you remember that first phone call? Peter: How could I forget? Would putting some salt in my cooked beans? Straight into the question, no messing around. Let things interested in tones, doesn´t it?

[metalacvi]

Right, I´ve said it. I´ve committed gastronomic heresy.A few years ago I could never understand this practice. I wanted to know why the salt kept the green colour of the vegetables. An old cook book said it fixed the colour, but for me that wasn´t enough so I did some more experiments myself omitting the salt. I was surprised to find that the green still stayed and I decided that I needed to find a scientist that wanted to work with a chef.

[metalacvi]

USING SALT IN COOKING

Let me tell you a story about salt and the one which is possibly the most defining moment in my career so far. You´re always told in every chef´s cook book in every classical cook book that you have to have salt in your blanching water to keep your green vegetables green. Rubbish, that´s complete nonsense.

[Thisnameistaken11]

I really like what he does with food, but his shows are unwatchably pretentious.

[ashburnhouse]

I wish I could translate this into Canadian. My mother is eefing English, and it is difficult to understand these fucking amazing dudes.