In Search of Perfection - 2 ª Season

Before attempting to make what is arguably Britain's favorite dish, chicken tikka masala, Heston first travels to Delhi, India to sample the dish at two of the city's self-proclaimed best restaurants at making the dish. Initially, he comes away more confused as their chicken tikka masala is nothing like what he and Brits know it to be, but is actually closer to what South Asians call butter chicken. An important aspect according to the South Asian experts is the long marination of the chicken in yogurt and the spices. Back at home, Heston goes to school to test scientifically if the positive effect of yogurt in the marinade is myth or truth. He also replicates the South Asian technique of having the marinade better penetrate the meat. In cooking the chicken, he makes his own makeshift tandoor oven at home using a charcoal barbecue and bricks. The cooked chicken then has to marry with the tomato, coconut and ground nut based sauce. A good amount a ghee is used throughout the entire process. The dish is served with the perfect naan, baked on two diagonally placed pizza stones in a hot oven.

Heston travels to the birthplace of the American hamburger, Louis' Lunch in New Haven, Connecticut. In tasting their hamburger, he wants to ensure that his perfect creation does not stray too far from the fact that a burger is not refined cuisine. He starts with the meat patty, in which he uses a variety of cuts of beef, each important for the different quality they bring to the patty. The other consideration is how the meat is ground and formed into a patty to ensure a wide open structure. And in cooking the patty, he wants to replicate a rotisserie so that the outside caramelizes to produce flavor while the inside remains juicy. In constructing the burger, its overall size is an important characteristic, which primarily falls to the amount of the condiments and the size of the bun. The other consideration with the bun is to create one that has the soft texture of commercial hamburger buns but with a better flavor. With the choice of condiments, he wants to create something akin to processed cheese slices, and he makes his own homemade ketchup using what most chefs consider the waste part of the tomato. Mustard, mayonnaise, shredded iceberg lettuce, slightly blanched shredded onions, sliced tomatoes and pickles complete the creation.

In the quest for the perfect Peking duck, Heston first taste tests Peking duck from a local Chinese restaurant against a regular roast duck to see the best characteristics of each. He then travels to the city for which the dish is named, Beijing, where he finds that Peking duck is not just a dish, but part of a ritualized meal using the entire duck. His trip there also focuses his thoughts on the necessary components of the finished duck itself: a crispy thin lacquer colored skin, and a tender flavorful but not fatty meat. The first decision is which type of duck to choose. An important process in a traditional method of preparation is to separate the skin from the flesh before the entire bird is dried to remove as much water as possible. In the actual cooking, Heston runs into what looks to be an insurmountable problem of getting extremely crispy skin without drying out the meat. He resorts to cooking the flesh and the skin separately. Beyond the duck skin served with steamed pancakes, other components of his perfect duck feast include poached duck breast, a duck stir fry with shitake mushrooms, and duck consommé. A final aroma of jasmine completes his Chinese inspired meal.

Heston is dismayed at the state of fish pie in the UK, especially since being an island nation, fish is so abundant in the UK. He uses a combination of haddock and salmon, both of which are cured to give the cooked flesh a firmer consistency. Because white fish stocks in particular are becoming increasingly low around the UK, Heston turns to other more sustainable seafood products to add to the pie, most specifically langoustines. As stress negatively affects the taste of langoustine, Heston tests whether fresh or frozen langoustines taste better. He also wants to add a slight smoked fish flavor, but not the strong taste associated with most commercially purchased smoked fish, which means smoking fish at home. Heston recommends using anything but flour as a sauce thickening agent, flour which has a distinct unwanted taste. He uses both a liquefying technique and additional thickening ingredients - agar and egg yolks - to achieve a silky and sufficiently thick sauce which will hold up to the potato mash topping the stew. A final topping reminiscent of a sandy beach completes his perfect fish pie.

In the quest for the perfect baked Alaska, Heston first travels to the restaurant where it was first developed, Delmonico's in New York City. After tasting that dessert, he wants not only to maximize the hot and cold contrast between the baked meringue and the ice cream center, but to add an additional hot center inside the ice cream and to insert a textural contrast, neither of which are in a traditional version of dessert. The textural contrast is achieved by adding a hazelnut praline into a banana ice cream parfait, which will be the cold center of the dessert. The hot/cold interior contrast may be more difficult to accomplish. He first tests the insulating factor of different kinds of cakes to see which would be the best to use as the sponge base. Although he is able to make a more heat resistant ice cream, he may have met his scientific match in trying to heat some jam - his preferred center of the dessert - inside the ice cream. He also tests different types of eggs to see which whips up the best for the meringue. Regardless of issues with developing this recipe, the final baked Alaska will still have all the flourish of the flambé presentation.