Blumen’ awful! Delia Smith takes a potshot at Heston’s cooking technique-Tom Stichbury-Entertainment – Metro

Delia has spoken about how she’s not a fan of the ‘boys’ toys’ way of cooking (Picture: Supplied)

It’s a trendy cooking technique popularised by Heston Blumenthal and used by high end restaurants.

But Delia Smith says ‘sous vide’ – which is French for ‘under vacuum’ – produces unappetising ‘grey lumps’ of meat or fish.

The doyenne of cookery said TV chef Blumenthal, 56, invited her to his Michelin-starred Fat Duck restaurant to try the dish, where food is placed in a bag and cooked in water at a low temperature for hours.

But the 81-year-old was a no-show – because she and husband Michael Wynn-Jones are not fans of the method, which chefs say cooks meat perfectly all the way through.

‘I did say to Heston, “Sous vide is boys’ toys, isn’t it?” He said, “Yeah,”’ Delia told Noble Rot magazine.

She also explained what happens when she and writer Wynn-Jones, also 81, do when served slow cooked ‘sous vide’ dishes.

Blumenthal’s ‘sous vide’ method just doesn’t do it for Delia (Picture: REX)

‘We have become expert at disposing of it. I get out a tissue, Michael goes “now” and it goes straight in the tissue then in the dustbin,’ she said.

The celebrity chef, who has sold 21million cookery books, also appeared to criticise MasterChef by saying viewers don’t know how to cook after watching it.
She said the hit BBC1 show was ‘theatre on a plate’, adding: ‘It says on the menu “with a sauce” and comes out with half a dozen Smarties-size dots of sauce. All my cookery shows were filmed in real-time, unlike now. My mission wasn’t to be a great cook. I wanted others to know how to cook. That was my passion.’

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