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  • 2014-05-01T20:00:00Z on Channel 4
  • 45m
  • 3h (4 episodes)
  • United Kingdom
  • English
Professional chef Heston Blumenthal explores the historical secrets behind British cuisine as he encourages the viewers to cook them at home.

4 episodes

Season Premiere

2014-05-01T20:00:00Z

2x01 Pies

Season Premiere

2x01 Pies

  • 2014-05-01T20:00:00Z45m

Heston salutes the great British pie as he looks to find inspiration for a three-course pie banquet.

For the starter, he delves into the history of the 'surprise' pies of the 17th century, where ingredients were sometimes - bizarrely - alive.

He learns about Jeffrey Hudson, a dwarf boy who found infamy by jumping out of a pie at a grand banquet and alarming the assembled guests.

Heston makes a gala pie where the 'meat' is actually beetroot and horseradish ice cream, and the 'egg' is made from goats' cheese panna cotta, saffron and bacon.

The main course is a gothic pie inspired by Sweeney Todd, with body part pies accompanied by fake eyeballs, squid pupils, saffron veins, and fingers and ears made from cheese, Tabasco and chicken liver parfait and fig.

No British pie banquet would be complete without a nod to pie and mash. Heston sets out to make the lightest ever mash by trying to change the molecular structure of a spud by sending it into space, before making a pie, mash and liquor dessert.

He serves his pie banquet to a select group of British pie-makers, 100 feet in the air over the East End of London.

2014-05-08T20:00:00Z

2x02 Curry

2x02 Curry

  • 2014-05-08T20:00:00Z45m

Heston does his own take on chicken tikka masala, with whole poussins injected with tikka marinade and stuffed with tikka masala and accompanied by his own lager, 'beeryani' , infused with rice and pandan leaves.

Heston discovers that British curry house classics such as masala, as well as bhuna, vindaloo, phal and onion bhaji, were all invented in Britain.

He makes a lamb biryani with a Bombay mix crust. A giant poppadum measuring nearly a meter in diameter. And, as a final nod to the British curry house experience, Heston also makes a giant After Eight-inspired dessert.

All of this dished-up in a pop-up curry house on the outskirts of Bradford.

2014-05-15T20:00:00Z

2x03 Chocolate

2x03 Chocolate

  • 2014-05-15T20:00:00Z45m

Heston cooks a feast of British chocolate, aiming to bring all of the nation's rich history of chocolate making together in one supersized chocolate bar inspired by mint Aero, Mini Eggs, Flake, Milky Way, Twix and Caramel

Heston looks back at the earliest chocolate bar, Fry's Victorian Oxchocolate (chocolate and beef extract) bar, and makes a 'Moos bar', which is a combination of beef nougat, shortbread biscuit and beef and Guinness caramel.

He also makes a Black Forest gateau hot chocolate and a chilli gin and chocolate water cocktail.

There's also a unique range of chocolates in a beautiful edible box.

2014-05-22T20:00:00Z

2x04 Afternoon Tea

2x04 Afternoon Tea

  • 2014-05-22T20:00:00Z45m

Heston gives the classic British afternoon tea a few very special twists, conjuring something the Mad Hatter himself would be proud of.

Heston does his own take on the Victoria sandwich cake. Inspired by a visit to Wedgwood fine china manufacturers, he makes an edible cake stand out of sponge and adds some 'sandwich' cakes that look like smoked salmon and cream cheese, but are in fact sweet cakes made from Earl Grey sponge and blood orange pâté de fruit.

For tea, Heston brews a Darjeeling and hedgerow infusion and cucumber sandwich tea leaves.

There's also a sandwich casino inside a beautiful country house in Staffordshire, where the guests are able to eat the playing cards, casino chips and even the gambling table.

And there's one last surprise, with a chocolate teapot that pours Earl Grey chocolate tea.

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