There is a little website called Sous Chef that could mean your Fat Duck Cookbook is soon as covered with flour (or Calcium Chloride) as your Delia circa 1994 is
We’ve all got at least one book in the cookery book collection that is for looking at ONLY. This is probably because it was written by Heston, or perhaps is a chronicle of the kitchen – like The Square Cookbook. These books are often inaccessible because you don’t have the equipment and moreover the ingredients are not stocked in Sainsbury’s or even Waitrose – hard to believe, I know.
There is a little website, though, called Sous Chef that could mean your Fat Duck Cookbook is soon as covered with flour (or Calcium Chloride) as your Delia circa 1994 is. Aimed at the ‘adventurous home cook’ (not to be translated as only young men, possibly after a few beers), the website stocks everything from dried mushrooms and sous vide machines to smokers and Sodium Alginate.
Pictured left: A sousvide supreme machine from Sous Chef
After a few minutes trawling through the site I am determined to resurrect my safety-specs from Chemistry lessons and get experimental in the kitchen.
I am also slightly concerned that I will shortly be parting with vast amounts of money as the website stocks some genuinely well-thought out‘sets’. For example, they have an essential ingredients pack for Ottolenghi’s new book, Jerusalem, containing Sumac, Tahini, Freekeh, Date Syrup, Za’atar and Pomegranate Molasses. Very sensible, extremely useful and almost irresistible.
Similarly irresistible is the pappardelle rolling pin and the most wonderfully named bit of cooking equipment in the world: the Excalibur Dehydrator. I don’t care that it costs £275 and I will never use it, I want Excalibur in my kitchen.
This is the perfect site for Christmas presents, general browsing and for finding those all too elusive ingredients Heston bangs on about all the time. I’m adding it to my bookmarks. And considering taking out a loan.
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