Raymond Blanc - Kitchen Secrets
Raymond Blanc is an inspirational French chef who owns Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, a two Michelin star restaurant, a hotel, cookery and gardening school, despite having never had any formal cookery training.
When I first got this book I did the usual thing of flicking through the recipes to see what looked good and plan what I would make. To be honest, on my first few times of flicking through, nothing really stood out. I picked it up and put it down several times and still nothing stood out, probably because I don’t often cook or eat French cuisine and much of it is French recipes.
When we moved I had a bit of a clear out of some books and at the time, this was one I pondered over. I love Raymond Blanc, he oozes positivity and happiness which are brilliant traits. Would I use it? But do I really want to get rid of it? So I thought I would read through it properly and then decide.
Once I got reading I was totally hooked. I love how the sections are laid out and the opening page for each is really interesting. I also really love how he explains everything, the technique, why things are done the way they are, things you need to watch out for and variations for each recipe. and recipes within recipes which you can take and use for other dishes. This is such a brilliant read and definitely a classic book that is worth reading and keeping to refer back to.
There are a few interesting things in the book which I read. Firstly, Raymond uses room temperature butter in his pastry as he says the distribution of butter is better. He also uses shop bought all butter puff pastry in his recipes - or at least suggests you can - which is great since many of us home cooks do the exact same thing a lot of the time. Yes you can make your own pastry but it is a real labour of love many of us don’t have time for at any time other than the weekend. Another thing he says which is at odds with what lots of chefs say, is how he explains why he would not use wine over £5 for cooking with. I have looked at lots of recipes that tell you to use wines that cost triple that for a good outcome, so this was refreshing.
I am going to do a Blog post of my experiments with butter and room temperature butter and expensive and inexpensive wines in a few weeks so watch this space for both!
There are so many wonderful recipes to try, some relatively simple, some quite technical, technical enough that I had to read and re-read the recipe several times over, it is quite simply just brilliant. This book really makes you want to delve into the recipes once you start reading them.
I turned my hand to the cep ravioli. I admit it, I was nervous, the recipe ran to several pages and I thought it might be quite complicated but actually it was easy to follow, the pasta dough the best dough I have ever made and cooked with. I couldn’t get ceps but do have cep powder and the variations say field or flat mushrooms are a good substitution and I thought it worked really well, honestly we all devoured them. The ravioli was so full of taste, deep and rich yet light and delicious. I often cook things and enjoy cooking them but maybe don’t love eating them as much as everybody else. This however was different, I thoroughly enjoyed every single mouthful. When we finished everybody was left wanting more which is surely a sign of a very good meal. It sounds obvious but one of the most important things about a cook book is recipes that actually work and these do. For me this is the stand out recipe in the book, the ingredients simple, full of technique and it works brilliantly.
Because many of the recipes are a little involved or have some advanced techniques or need lots of juggling, I think that this book is aimed at the cook with a little experience (or at least one that has a keen interest in cooking). The recipes do all have a lot of detail and explanations and are so beautifully thought through and explained with footnotes that have explanations, pit falls and things you must have or do. There are so many hints and tips that it is great for becoming more knowledgeable and getting better and more skilful.
The only negative is that unless you are very into French cookery then there may not be as many recipes you want to cook as other books on first look. For me it took a while and took me reading through it to get hooked.
Kitchen secrets is now on my shelf totally dog eared and scribbled all over with notes and is easily in my top 10 books. I absolutely love it. This is definitely one to buy, read and keep, I highly, highly recommend it.
Recipes 7/10
Readability 9/10
Knowledge learnt 10/10
Total 26/30