Hello friends

I woke up today with a mixture of feelings: relief that the first episode of my new series Raymond Blanc Kitchen Secrets seemed to have gone well, and trepidation to see what viewers – and reviewers – thought of it. Fortunately, the reaction seems to have been good!

It is actually a decade since I have cooked on television, and I was feeling anxious about how it would go. How would it be received, this old man’s programme? I had no idea how people would find it – it is just cooking: no-one is being abused, there is no fast food or cheating. Just engaging with food and showing how the creative process of cooking can be so rewarding.

During the last decade I have worked with and trained hundreds of British craftsmen and chefs, and seen many of them go on to great things – 23 Michelin stars between them! That is what I have enjoyed the most – passing on my knowledge, sharing my passion for food.

And this is what the new programme is all about – the love of cooking, the love of food. We have tried to make each programme very specific – working around one ingredient, and showing how to create dishes people can make at home: starting with something that everyone can try, and moving on to more complex dishes – perhaps for a special dinner party. Then, finally, something very challenging – this week, the chocolate coffee cup, which took me six months to develop and has now become a Le Manoir classic!  However, this is still something an enthusiastic home cook can do themselves – with some patience and expert tips.

I will be putting all the recipes from each episode up on my website, and they will also be on the BBC website. I hope you will have some fun trying them out, and that you will let me know how you get on.

I have to tell you: after a week of filming the chocolate episode, I was well and truly sick of the stuff, and could not bear to eat another morsel!

More words and more secrets very soon!

Best

RB


Since the new series is called Kitchen Secrets, here are a few ‘secrets’ about chocolate that I would like to share with you all:

1.    Chocolate is a natural aphrodisiac
The aphrodisiac qualities of chocolate are most often associated with the simple sensual pleasure of its consumption. More recently, however, evidences suggests that serotonin and other chemicals found in chocolate, such as phenethylamine, can act as mild sexual stimulants.

2.    Cocoa content
In the supermarket, 70% chocolate means 70% cocoa solids and the rest is added sugar to sweeten it. (It could also mean added cream, butter, milk and flavorings. But get to know your brand; you can still have 70% of a bad chocolate.

3.    Dark chocolate is good for you! It contains:

• Calcium - Important for bones and teeth
• Iron – needed for red blood cells
• Antioxidants
• Stearic acid & Oleic acid: fatty acids but NOT ones which raise blood cholesterol levels

4.    Making the simple Chocolate Mousse:

• Burning point of Chocolate – Chocolate is not as delicate as you might think. I have found that at 90 – 95C cocoa solids are cooking and solidifying, above 110C chocolate burns. The flavour will be acidic and inedible.
• Lemon Juice - Add lemon juice to your egg whites before you start whisking as this will prevent them from graining.
• Soup - Bake your chocolate mousse in the oven at 180C for 6 mins for a delicious melting chocolate soup.

5.    Chocolate Delice - some eggy tips:

• Fresh? - How do you know if an egg is fresh – Break it onto a plate, a fresh egg will have little water, and the white will be firm and tight around the yolk. An old egg when broken will fill the plate with a very loose, runny white.
• Yolk – The colour of the yolk does not determine if it is a good egg. It is a reflection of its diet. A chicken fed 100% corn will have a very pale yolk and be the best egg you have ever tasted.
• What do the markings on an egg mean?
• Lion stamp - The “Lion” stamp on British eggs shows you that the egg has been produced according to a set of industry standards, such as hens being vaccinated against salmonella.
• Best-before’ date on them (21 days after laying).
• Number: which identifies the way that the hens are kept – 0 for organic, 1 for free range, 2 for barn eggs and 3 for cage eggs.

6.    The Perfect Chocolate Fondant

• Part baking - your chocolate fondants for 5 mins will be just enough to form a crust, enabling you to remove the metal rings and to order simply heat though for 6-8 mins. This will take away all the stress of overcooking them.

   
7.    The Challenging Chocolate Coffee Cup - Tempering Chocolate:

• Once melted, the cacao butter contained in the chocolate cannot regain its original form without some help. It requires a crystallisation process which we call tempering. Tempering chocolate encourages enough stable crystals to help the entire crystallisation of the cacao butter during cooling. The result is a nice, smooth, cracking texture!
• RB’s quick method of tempering – Melt 2/3rds of your chocolate over a bain marie: once melted, stir in the remaining 1/3 of chopped chocolate. This will bring the temperature down to 32°C, the correct temperature to work with for this recipe.

Best