Slow Cooking Raymond Blanc: How to Cook Well

If you master the basic cooking techniques

you can build your confidence, cooking skills and repertoire.

Cooking is so easy once you understand the basics.

And there's no better teacher

than legendary Michelin-starred chef Raymond Blanc.

I feel like Picasso! Not quite.

He wants to share what he's learnt in his professional kitchen...

What is the Maillard reaction?

Gives flavour, colour and taste to the food.

..to help you achieve incredible results at home.

That's the kind of dish you will remember all of your life.

Raymond will reveal the secrets behind the simple techniques

at the heart of every dish.

If you go too high, you burn it.

If you go too slow, nothing happens, it goes beige.

Like English cuisine 40 years ago.

From baking to roasting,

poaching to frying,

barbecuing and slow cooking.

Oh, la, la. Oh, la, la! And I mean, oh, la, la!

And all in his own unique way.

# De dormir avec toi... #

Raymond Blanc taught himself to cook.

Now he will teach you.

What I promise to give you is a deep understanding

of what's happening in your saucepan, in your oven,

and these techniques will help you become a better cook.

I think slow cooking is such an important technique,

because what it does is make

very tough working muscles and fibrous ingredients

completely meltingly delicious.

Slow cooking is a simple culinary method from humble roots,

but when mastered, it has miraculous results

on a range of ingredients, from garden crops to meat

and even seafood.

It works beautifully with vegetables,

especially chewy, woody ones,

and they're a great place to start getting to grips

with this versatile technique.

You can take any vegetables you want to,

whether it is carrots, parsnips, turnips, onions, garlic.

Caramelise them, brown them,

and slow cook them at 120-degree temperature.

Today I have artichoke. What I'm going to do is just take the heart.

All I'm interested in is just the heart, that's what I'm interested in.

Voila. Bit of lemon juice.

A squeeze of lemon stops the artichoke discolouring.

Next, chop red onion, fennel and chicory.

OK, and I've got my garlic

that Adam has very kindly peeled for me this morning.

God, I love him. I love the man.

Years ago, that garlic was despised, was feared.

"Oh, my God, I don't want to taste of garlic."

Now everyone tastes of garlic.

Before they're slow cooked,

the garlic and vegetables are browned

to extract the sugars and intensify the flavours.

Temperature is everything.

If you go too high, you burn it.

If you go too slow, it's just...

Just nothing happens. It goes beige, like English cuisine 40 years ago.

That's better.

Voila. And already it is a beautiful browning process going on

cos there's so much sugar in garlic.

Nobody knows that, but there's so much sugar.

That's why it caramelises and browns very, very fast.

OK, I put my vegetables.

Now the herbs. Rosemary, bay leaf, sage.

A little bit of thyme - not too much, huh, be careful.

You'd be surprised how this little fellow here

can completely overtake the other flavours, so it's balance, remember.

Taste it, smell it.

Break it between your hands, all the essential oils are oozing out.

And then you understand, "Oh, my God, that little fellow has character!"

A lot of character. Let's be careful.

A splash of balsamic vinegar, then adding water

will create a braising stock to steam the vegetables

and keep them moist while they're slow cooking in the oven.

And make sure you place the pan on the lower shelf,

cos if you put it on the very top

the heat will reflect off the vegetables

and burn them and overcook them. Good tip.

An hour and a half of slow cooking at 120 degrees

will evaporate the water,

leaving the vegetables coated in a rich, silky glaze.

Lovely, beautiful colours.

Very rich, very simple.

So taste, of course, your bit of garlic...

Vive la France! Oh!

Little bit of jabugo ham. Delicious.

Tiny bit of olive oil, little balsamic vinegar.

Bit of seeds and my sage deep fried.

Here just to finish - Parmesan.

Voila. Beautiful.

This same slow-cooking technique used for vegetables

can be surprisingly effective for ingredients usually cooked quickly.

It's still one-pot cooking,

but not one-step cooking,

and it's vital to get each stage right for a good result.

This next recipe reveals how to slow cook perfectly tender squid

with smoky chorizo and a hearty tomato stew.

The best way to cook a squid is either one minute or one hour -

nothing in between. Otherwise it will be completely inedible.

The squid has got a very big flavour

that you actually don't see when you flash-fry it.

You only see it and taste it when you slow cook it.

But it's not just the flavour that's enhanced.

Slow cooking also improves the texture of the squid.

The tough collagen in the muscle fibres are broken down,

leaving the cooked flesh succulent and buttery.

OK, so, first, what we're going to do is to pull the skin off.

Put a bit of salt in your hands, that does help,

so you can grab the skin better.

Tres bien. Going to open it up.

It has this spine. Look at that.

It's a beautiful plume. I think I'll keep it.

Who is the chief here?

You know who it is, OK?

So, I'm going to score it now.

The whole idea is for the marinade to permeate beautifully

right through the flesh,

and also tenderising it as well.

First, make the tomato stew the squid will slow cook in.

Chop garlic and onion and fry off in extra-virgin olive oil.

Add thyme and a couple of bay leaves.

Then we're going to put a nice smoked paprika to give a lovely smoky flavour.

Oh, that looks so lovely. OK. So, now I've got my tomatoes.

Just slice it in big chunks. I can smell my onions, OK?

I can hear it as well, what's happening behind.

That takes a bit of experience - 40 actually.

No, not that long, is it? How time passed away.

Voila. So now I'm going to add my tomato puree.

Tres bien. So, my tomatoes in.

It's so simple. Anyone can do it in their home.

I'm going to bring you a bit of acidity.

Of course you think about lemon juice but mostly wine is the best.

Boil off some of the alcohol to get rid of the harshness.

If you don't boil it down, you will spoil your dish.

Of course, taste, taste, taste.

That one now is perfect.

Voila. Tres bien.

My chorizo.

That lovely smoky flavour, which will go so well with that squid,

and you'll see the miracle of the slow cooking.

I make those two totally strange flavours come together

and love each other completely.

With my potatoes here.

And then the squid.

You just simply mix all the amazing flavours.

This slow cooking not only allows the flavours to come through,

it invites them, it helps them to penetrate each other.

To give to each other, to create something extraordinary,

both in terms of taste and textures.

So, no boiling,

just one gentle little bubble maybe in one corner, c'est tout.

Not two - you would spoil it. Just one.

Barely pop, pop.

One hour. Not one minute more - one hour.

To add a contrasting texture,

flash-frying scored squid for one minute

gives this dish the very best of two techniques -

frying and slow cooking.

That's it, OK? That's about one minute maximum.

Look how beautiful it is. Barely cooked, transparent.

But very little flavour.

The flavour will be in the slow-cooked dish.

After an hour on the stove,

the slow-cooked squid in the stew will be beautifully tender.

Plate it very nicely, with lots of love.

The rest for the cook, always.

Voila.

Mmm.

The heat has broken down all the collagens, the textures,

into soft, gentle, tasty, delicious flavours.

The chorizo has taken the squid flavour a little bit,

the tomatoes have taken both flavours.

The potato has decided to remain potato. Completely.

Why? I don't know.

LAUGHTER I don't know everything!

Raymond relies on great ingredients for his kitchen at Le Manoir,

but best doesn't have to mean the most expensive.

He's travelling to London

to find out about little-known and cheaper cuts of meat,

which are perfect for slow cooking.

Nathan Mills is a third-generation butcher.

Meat has been in his family for over 100 years.

Not very sexy, is it, these things?

-You want me to straighten your collar up?

-Yeah, absolutely. What a mess here.

Most butchers will buy and sell only prime cuts of meat,

but Nathan is passionate about making use of the whole animal.

He only buys pedigree rare breeds.

Am I going to die here?

It depends if we get out before dark or not!

Wow! God, that's a pretty good stock you have.

The cold room holds up to 20 carcasses,

which can hang there for up to 60 days.

I'm the only butcher that does whole carcass butchery in London that I know of.

Hanging and ageing meat tenderises it,

so the tougher cuts, normally discarded,

become succulent when slow cooked.

So, this here is our forequarter,

so this is the front shoulders of the animal.

-I will do a shin, just slow cooked.

-A whole shin?

-Yeah, a whole one.

Very good.

So, let's get an aged one out, put it on the block

and do some butchery.

-That's a lovely piece.

-I've brought out a little Dexter.

-Small beef, huh?

-It is, it's very small. Yeah. Dexters...

-It's not much bigger than me.

-No, it's not!

This Dexter cow is the smallest breed native to the UK.

Its compact size gives intensity to the meat's flavour.

I'm going to show you

what I think is quite a cheeky little cut for myself.

-Cheeky? Hmm.

-Cheeky butchers' cuts.

You should come more often, you can hold all my meat.

-I've never seen it cut that way. Not across like that.

-We can see now.

-Beautiful.

-You can see that marbling through there -

that's just going to melt down as we slow cook it.

-So, I'll keep it for me, later.

-I just called them beef ribs.

-OK.

Nathan's nose-to-tail ethos means that nothing goes to waste.

The Dexter cow's forequarter gives him a third more cuts of meat

than the average high-street butcher.

Chin of beef is a great cut.

People rave on about veal osso buco and everything like that.

If we cut this through as the same sort of section, it's amazing.

Meat is muscle, and the harder the animal works it,

the tougher it becomes,

and the longer it needs to be cooked to become perfectly tender.

-We could cook this for six hours.

-Go to the pub.

-Go to the pub, have some wine, sit down, read your Sunday paper.

-Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

So, let's take this little muscle out.

Doesn't look like much at the moment, but when we clean that up,

you can see, we've got all of those connective tissues.

Look at that, look at that.

Many butchers don't know this bolar muscle exists.

Look, all this is the connective tissues will turn to gelatine later.

You cook it long and slow and it would be to the point

that you would just shred it apart with your fork.

-Can I have half of it?

-You can have half of it, yeah.

So, we've taken the humerus bone out.

I mean, the marrow fat itself out of the middle

people are mixing in to their burgers.

-Look how beautiful it is.

-So we're just going to remove this scapula bone here.

This is good for spanking Frenchmen's bums.

Frenchmen have got some response. OK? Here we are.

Let's take this off and we can expose just a little bit more.

We've got this tiny little fillet of meat that runs through here,

which is... The scientific name is the teres major.

-But can you find it in a retailer?

-No. No.

Not unless anyone's doing what I'm doing

and using the whole carcass and breaking it down from scratch.

Today I'm very happy because actually

I have learned how to cook three pieces of meat

which I didn't even know existed.

So, thank you very much. We'll have a little beer now. We deserve it, eh?

-Yeah, we do.

-We deserve it, OK.

-Yeah, you've done a lot of work.

Absolutely, yes! I feel exhausted - seeing you working!

-Why have I got a small one and you've got a big one?

-I'm Australian.

You're French, I'm Australian. That's the way it's meant to be.

It's all going wrong here. Eh! Come on, mate!

The cheap and tough cuts of meat Nathan has shown Raymond

can be tricky to cook well.

This next recipe perfectly demonstrates how mastering

the art of slow cooking can elevate a less popular cut

into one of the most impressive meat dishes around -

Asian-flavoured beef shin, served with papaya salad.

That is the toughest piece of meat you can find.

It's full of connective tissues, of collagens, of sinews.

You can see that, look. Look. Look at that. These tough things, OK.

And the slow cooking will not only tenderise that piece,

but make it a lovely, beautiful eating experience.

A bit of oil, I'm going to do a little bit of a massage.

Just rub it nicely.

I feel like a Japanese geisha!

Fry the oiled shin for four minutes on each side to brown it.

-This will add flavour before slow cooking.

-Voila, tres bien.

Next, the braising stock.

White onions, ginger, red chilli, garlic,

miso paste and a sprinkle of five-spice.

Sometimes the cook has got to wait.

The best way to wait is with a nice glass of pinot noir, OK,

from Burgundy, of course.

But not today!

Actually, it looks like an onion soup,

you could do a fantastic onion soup here.

All these ingredients here,

you can see they've caramelised beautifully.

OK, so we're going to add sweet and acidity.

Add honey for sweetness,

soy sauce for salt

and a splash of rice wine for extra bite.

And a lot of water.

500 grams.

OK. That's it.

Look at that.

The beef will be half covered, OK, with the braising stock,

so there will be moisture within the pot. The pot will also be covered,

yet it will lose half of its liquid.

It will take four and a half hours to cook.

But I found that 150 degrees is really the perfect temperature

to cook these very, very hard muscles.

To complement the Asian flavours, the shin is served

with a spicy Thai green papaya salad, mixed with a zesty dressing.

Just toast them very nicely.

Toss, yes. Toss them nicely, not toast them! Toss them.

Big difference!

Now I'm ready to serve.

Oh, mon dieu!

Look at that, sumptuous...

breaking away.

But what is interesting, look...

No pressure, it just sinks into the meat.

I'm a very happy cook.

Completely...melted.

You just move the bone, as simply as that.

Don't give it to your dog, it will be frustrated.

So the braising stock has become the sauce,

and the onions have melted down, caramelised beautifully.

Maybe a bit of coriander on the top.

Tasting, at the end of the day, is everything.

It's lovely.

All the freshness of flavours, are there.

Here you've got the robustness, the rustic-ness of a big dish,

big flavours, perfect.

Bon appetit!

If you're feeling confident about slow cooking,

duck leg confit is a French classic.

It's a challenging recipe but well worth the effort.

Confit is an ingredient cooked slowly and gently in fat,

so its consistency becomes rich and succulent.

A prime example of this technique is duck leg submerged in duck fat,

served with a white bean stew.

I am going to do a recipe which comes from the south-west of France.

And this dish will go a long way to explain the mystery of slow cooking.

Because here, we are going to slow cook in fat, in duck fat.

I'm going to show you three techniques.

Curing, slow cooking in duck fat,

then the pan frying to give a lovely, brown, crispy skin to that duck.

The first stage is to lightly cure the duck leg with salt.

The salt will penetrate the flesh, will dehydrate it,

suck out the moisture, OK, change completely the texture,

change the flavour completely.

Then add pepper, garlic, thyme and bay leaves.

Cover to prevent oxidation and leave in the fridge for 12 hours.

I want the minimum of air here, I want to prevent oxidation.

Oxidation is discolouration as well.

After the duck legs have been cured, time for stage two -

gently cooking them in duck fat at 85 degrees.

That looks horrible!

And some of you might say, "Oh, my God, what is he doing?!

"Is he going to kill us?" Oh, no, I'm not.

I mean, duck fat is probably one of the very best fats.

Duck fat is packed with monounsaturated fat, so a good fat.

So I remove most of the herbs and so on here,

because we don't need them any more, they have done their job.

Then... So just... Voila.

Voila, tres bien.

And of course, the secret is to cook them slowly, slowly, slowly.

It will take about one hour, one hour and a half.

Sometimes they are very big, it may take two hours.

But what's most important is the temperature.

The temperature is here 115.

You put all that cold mass,

so the temperature will come down to about 85 degrees.

While the duck leg slow cooks submerged in the melted fat,

prepare the cocoa bean stew.

Roughly chop garlic, add onions, olive oil and cloves.

Just two cloves maximum. Two little bay leaves, plenty, or a large one.

One sprig of thyme. I'll take the most beautiful one.

Put the beans...

Then I cover just with water, barely cover. Voila, parfait.

-To add a smoky note to the stew...

-A little bit of piggy!

This nice little belly here.

Beautiful little dices. Ohh!

If you want to, you can also put a few black pepper.

You can see, there's one little bubble, very slow cooking.

Gently, gently let that heat come through, then the exchange

of herbs, flavours comes through. It will be perfect, trust me.

With the bean stew simmering for 50 minutes,

two techniques are again combined, as the slow-cooked duck legs

are pan-fried to give a crisp, caramelised coating.

At this point, on the skin side,

that's when you're going to give some lovely colours and fantastic texture.

My beans are also perfectly cooked. I can see it. May I tell you why?

The skin, look. The skin is literally bursting out of the bean.

Now the very best moment.

Tres bien.

I've got my beautiful beans here...

A little bit of jus, that jus is absolutely delicious.

Full of the smoky flavours of bacon, the beautiful beans and the herbs.

That's chive and parsley. Just sprinkle them with a bit of colour.

So, then, my gorgeous duck is here.

That is lovely.

OK. Let's taste.

Oh, the crisp...

Oh-ho! Oh-ho-ho-ho!

Beauty.

It's slow cooked, it's absolutely beautifully crunchy outside,

completely melting inside, those flavours, so moist as well.

That's with the perfect slow cooking...

Sorry, I'm eating, too much food!

The technique of slow cooking is not only reserved for savoury dishes.

It can make a show-stopping finale to a meal, too.

It is an innovative approach for cooking fruit.

But it is exceptionally effective for varieties of apple

like the Braeburn or Cox, which will lose their tartness

and become deliciously sweet.

How to do it is shown in this

deceptively simple cooked apple dessert.

Now that we actually know about slow cooking,

we're going to do something slightly different, delicious,

showing you, really, all the mysteries, of slow cooking

and how slow cooking can do all sorts of little miracles.

The dish I'm going to do is a compresse of apple.

It's simply just apple slices which are cooked for three hours.

Of course, food, we all know too well,

is about complicated simplicity.

Picking the right apple for this technique is vital.

They must be firm. A floury apple will break down into a mush.

Varieties like the Cox and Braeburn are low in sugar

and high in the natural gelling agent pectin, making them

the perfect choice for a terrine.

I want eight or ten apples, according to size, OK.

But do you know, we laugh, but I always think, an apple a day keeps the doctor away.

But it's very important to get the right thickness.

That is the right thickness. It's about one millimetre, 1.5 maybe.

But not too thin because it will puree.

And not too thick because it will not stick together.

Voila.

I cut a bit of greaseproof paper, the size of my terrine.

Plain melted butter, dash of Calvados.

Don't put too much, you don't want something too alcoholic.

Just a little dash to lift the flavour.

That goes into my terrine very nicely, bit of butter, Calvados.

So, then, sideways.

It's like a builder's job, really, it's very simple.

You're just building a simple terrine with layers of apples.

So what is fantastic about it, no sugar but the apples,

their own fructose, OK.

The natural pectin in the apples is a jellifying agent. Very, very simple.

When you make jam, that's what you're doing. You add pectin

to strengthen the thickness of the fruit.

After slow cooking, the pectin will set the terrine as it cools.

So, two-step cooking,

where the first step will be to cook the terrine

and to lose minimum juice as possible.

Tres bien.

Double-wrapping the terrine will stop the juice evaporating.

It's all-important

as it will caramelise the apples as they slow cook.

That's the process of slow cooking,

which is going to break down the fibres of the apple.

The juices are going to come out.

Of course, the pectin is also going to break down as well, OK?

So, you place your terrine on a tray

in the middle of the oven,

pre-heated at 180 degrees centigrade.

It will take one hour and a half for the first cooking,

then you move your terrine out,

remove the paper and let the steam go away.

Look, the terrine has already lost about one quarter of its volume.

The apples are collapsing. And they are also browning.

I'm going to put it back in the oven for another one hour and a half

to finish the cooking, but mostly, to let the steam escape,

so the apple experience is even stronger.

For a professional decoration to accompany the terrine,

-a perfect apple crisp.

-I'm becoming a champion at apple-slicing, look!

Make syrup from 100 grams of water, 50 grams of sugar

and a dash of lemon juice. Pour it over the apples.

The syrup will part-cook them.

Drain, then bake them flat in the oven for 45 minutes,

for a restaurant-style trimming.

After its three hours in the oven,

the terrine needs to be left to cool,

allowing the apples to compress further and the pectin to set.

That's really wonderful, what I see here.

Really look how compressed the apples have been.

Then, very gently...

Place your little cake board right in the middle here.

And then, turn it around, voila.

Look at how gorgeous it is, already.

The slow cooking has melded the individual apple slices

into a stunning terrine, bursting with flavour.

And for a crisp base,

puff pastry cooked between two baking sheets to stop it rising.

What you have here is really melting, beautifully scented apples,

OK, over this very beautifully textured pastry.

Just...

..close.

Bit of caramel sauce. Just water and sugar.

Vanilla ice cream, home-made.

And then...

..voila.

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