By Anne Shooter for the Daily Mail
Published: | Updated:
He’s the master of molecular gastronomy, she’s the trusty mistress of the stove.
But this week, Waitrose’s inspired pairing of Heston Blumenthal and Delia Smith was brought to an abrupt end when Delia was dropped from the supermarket’s ads.
So did they make the right choice?
Anne Shooter puts classic recipes from the two chefs head to head...
ROAST CHICKEN
Delia
She suggests you stuff your chicken’s cavity with garlic, tarragon and lemon slices, then season and rub with olive oil and stick it in a hot oven (230c) uncovered for 45 minutes.
You rest it for 20 minutes on a board while you make gravy with the juices by adding white wine and simmering to reduce.
Cost per serving: £2.87
Verdict: Who knew roasting a chicken could be this fast and easy? It’s delicious — juicy and flavourful. The lemony juices are quite zingy — right up my street, but too much for my children — but you can serve it without the gravy. 5/5
Heston
You have to cook the chicken for three to four hours in a very low oven (90c) until the internal temperature reaches 60c on a digital thermometer, with lemon and thyme inside the carcass and half a pack of butter smeared over the skin.
You also need to put six to 12 chicken wings or thighs in the pan to roast with it. Then leave it to rest for 45 minutes while you make a gravy with the wings or thighs and wine and stock, and put it in a very hot oven (230c) for ten minutes to crisp the skin.
Cost per serving: £3.88
Verdict: The chicken was deliciously succulent — but you need to have a reliable digital thermometer (guess what? At the back of the book, there is a full-page photograph of Heston’s very own version, which you can buy!) and a clear five hours or so to make what should be an easy family roast. Sorry, but life is just too short. 2/5
PUMPKIN SOUP
Delia
This took about an hour to make, but was a cinch — just roast the pumpkin while sweating some chopped onions, add stock and milk, simmer that with the pumpkin flesh, whizz everything up and season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Then stir in little cubes of Gruyere or Fontina cheese and pop creme fraiche, croutons, grated cheese and parsley on top.
Cost per serving: £1.43
Verdict: Utterly delicious. Tastes really indulgent — far more fattening than it actually is — and the melting cheese cubes and the crunch of croutons make it special enough for a dinner party dish. 5/5
Heston
This took about 90 minutes to make and is a right faff. Roast some of the pumpkin, and slice the remainder with a gadget called a mandoline (he assumes you have one), which you cook with chopped onion in 200g (that’s almost a whole packet!) of butter. Then you simmer milk with rosemary for 20 minutes, before liquidising everything together.
Add balsamic vinegar, cayenne, sesame oil and season. In the meantime, you need to make a hazelnut crumb from toasted hazelnuts and rosemary, ground together and then mixed with breadcrumbs, to go round the bowl as a garnish, and a red pepper oil, along with toasted pumpkin seeds and red pepper diamonds to go in the bottom of the bowl.
Cost per serving: 85p
Verdict: This involves a lot of effort and simply wasn’t worth it. The soup tasted overly sweet, though the red pepper oil tempered this to some extent, and the butter makes it unnecessarily rich and calorific. Not one I’d make again. 2/5
Shepherd’s Pie
Delia
This was easy to make — you fry onion, carrot and swede together. Then set aside and brown lamb mince, put the vegetables back in and add cinnamon, thyme and parsley, flour, lamb stock and tomato puree. Pile on mashed potato with a little butter added and top with sliced leeks and cheese.
Cost per serving: £2.09
Verdict: This was a bit ordinary. It was fine as family shepherd’s pie recipes go, but was uninspiring and the meat had a greasy film on top.
If I made it again I would drain the fat from the mince before combining with the vegetables. Also, because the leeks are not part-cooked before going in the oven they burn before they have time to soften. 2/5
Heston
Heston certainly puts the ‘wait’ into Waitrose with this one. It involves cooking lamb shanks in stock for an incredible NINE hours.
However, though it is time-consuming, the recipe is straightforward. You then dice the meat from the shanks, fry mince and vegetables (onions, mushrooms, carrots, celery) and then add red wine and half a star anise pod (which you remove before it goes in the dish).
Boil until the liquid reduces to a syrupy consistency then add shanks and peas and put it in the baking dish. Top with pomme puree (posh mash, basically) which has an incredible 300g of butter and 240g of whole milk to 1kg of potatoes — super rich.
Cost per serving: £2.83
Verdict: This is the shepherd’s pie of the gods. Utterly delicious and worth every minute of effort. Who knew shepherd’s pie could taste this good? Go Heston! 5/5
FISH PIE
Delia
For this you need four kinds of smoked fish, poached in milk, then flaked into a white sauce made with the poaching liquid. The sauce has hard-boiled eggs, gherkins, capers and parsley added and the pie is topped with mash, seasoned with creme fraiche and butter and sprinkled with cheese.
Cost per serving: £3.81
Verdict: This tasted yummy — it’s full of smokey flavour with little hits of piquant capers and gherkin.
Not all of the fish — smoked salmon, smoked haddock, Arbroath smokies and kippers — is available in all supermarkets. It’s not cheap to make, but Delia does call it her luxury smoked fish pie. Probably one for dining with friends rather than an ordinary weekday supper. 4/5
Heston
There’s a bit of extra effort (have you noticed a theme yet?) because you have to cure the salmon in this pie, by sprinkling it with salt and sugar and leaving it for six hours.
Make an onion confit (submerge chopped onions in oil and cook slowly for 15 minutes) and make a white sauce with more onions, garlic, vermouth and white wine, to which you add fish stock, milk and cream.
Use this as the poaching liquid for smoked haddock. Use agar agar (vegetarian gelatine — from larger supermarkets and health food shops) to thicken, then add prawns and salmon, confit onions, peas and herbs.
Finally, top with pomme puree seasoned with horseradish, mustard and Worcestershire sauce.
Cost per serving: £3.45
Verdict: Phew! Exhausting, even without ‘sand and sea foam topping’ — with the ‘sand’ made from Japanese panko breadcrumbs and the ‘sea foam’ from various strange ingredients including de-ionized water (available from garages, as you use it in car batteries), konbu seaweed sheets and soya lecithin among other things — that Heston suggests as a ‘fun’ extra.
But it was the ultimate fish pie, with layers of delicate flavours — and a combination of sweetness from the prawns, saltiness from the haddock and a combination of both from the salmon, all offset by the slight heat from the mash. Clever stuff. Worth it if you have people to show off to. 5/5
LAMB CUTLETS
Delia
This recipe seems too good to be true. Smear lamb chops with mustard, sprinkle with demerara sugar, grill for five minutes on each side and eat.
Cost per serving: £3.48
Verdict: Make this tonight. Seriously. You are just 12 minutes from one of the scrummiest, simplest suppers ever.5/5
Heston
Another ‘simple’ one from Heston . . . You pan fry lamb steaks for a few minutes on each side. Meanwhile, blend black olives, capers, anchovies, mint and basil to make a tapenade. Serve tapenade spread on the lamb.
Cost per serving: £5.75
Verdict: I can see what Heston is trying to do here: he’s always banging on about ‘the fifth taste’ (in addition to sweet, sour, bitter and salty) umami, which is prevalent in anchovies and olives and is supposed to bring out the flavour of lamb. In fact, this overpowers the meat. It’s not horrid, but needs to be used sparingly, more so than he suggests. And there is no way my children (or very many others, I’m sure) would eat it. 3/5
SEA BASS
Delia
The recipe involves grilling sea bass fillets and serving them with a salsa verde made with chopped herbs, capers and anchovies in olive oil. It’s easy as anything. but looks beautifully Mediterranean.
Cost per serving: £3.77
Verdict: A wonderful sunny dish, packed with piquancy and freshness. One to put on your regulars list, as it’s perfect for a quick supper or entertaining. 5/5
Heston
This dish is easy-peasy and takes no time. You mix vanilla seeds from a pod with butter, then shape the vanilla butter into a cylinder, so you can cut it into neat rounds. Pan-fry the fish fillets for 90 seconds on the skin side, and 60 seconds on the other and serve with the butter.
Cost per serving: £3.17
Verdict: Eugh! Not for me. The fish was cooked perfectly (note those precise timings!), but the vanilla didn’t work as an accompanying flavour. 2/5
TARTE TARTIN
Delia
First, make a quick shortcrust pastry with flour, butter and lard, which you can rest while you make a caramel.
This might sound scary, but Delia makes it as easy as anything. First, you put sugar and butter into a pan. Then you add peeled, halved apples. She tells you to then heat the pan very slowly until the butter and sugar have melted together, then gently turn up the heat and watch for the colour to change to a ‘rich amber’ colour after 20 minutes or so. Then top with the pastry and pop in the oven. Then, as Delia says, ‘it gets interesting’ as you have to bravely tip it upside down onto a plate.
Cost per serving: 88p
Verdict: Ta da! This looks amazing — a stunning French classic. The apples and caramel are yummy, but the pastry is slightly disappointing— it could do with a pinch of salt and some sugar, or I might do the recipe with puff pastry next time. 4/5
Heston
Predictably, Heston’s version is a bit more complex. He suggests a peach tarte tatin served with whipped cream and a caramel sauce infused with rosemary. It’s not great with out-of-season peaches flown half way across the globe (also making it pricey), plus the peaches seep a lot of juice which, when mixed with the caramel, turns the whole thing into a bit of a flood.
Cost per serving: £1.52
Verdict: To me this is gilding the lily. Tarte tatin is possibly my favourite dessert and I don’t want anyone messing with it unless they are going to make it better. Peaches and rosemary? Pah! 2/5
ETON MESS
Delia
This is a classic Eton mess with crisp but squidgy meringues, strawberries, whipped cream seasoned with icing sugar and a strawberry coulis.
Cost per serving: £1.09
Verdict: Lovely but one for summer when strawberries are at their best. And is it me, or has it become a bit of a middle-class cliche?
I hate to say it, but I am a bit bored of Eton mess. 3/5
Heston
This is a bit of a pavlova — not to mention a palaver — caramelising hazelnuts to make praline, and pan frying bananas which you then puree. You whip cream with lime juice and fold in the puree, followed by meringues, fresh banana slices and lime zest and, well . . .
Cost per serving: £1.30
Verdict: . . . Sorry, I am busy eating. I’ll talk to you when I have taken my head out of this bowl. Slurp. 5/5
The verdict: Delia: 33/40 Heston: 26/40
Overall, Delia does it. Of course she does, you foolish people at Waitrose!
She is the expert in straightforward, easy-to-make-food that we all want to cook again and again.
Heston’s recipes are complex, time-consuming and assume a level of knowledge not all home cooks have — though there are times when his recipes really have the wow factor.
