Wondering if anyone has seen this show? It's quite remarkable the steps this guy (Heston Blumenthal) undertakes to create simple dishes like fish and chips, steak salad, etc. He's got a molecular gastronomy background and uses incredible labs to test out his preparations. Apparently, his restaurant "The Fat Duck" in England was voted best restaurant in the world in 2005 and 2006 (second in 2007 to El Bulli in Spain).

For example, last week they created Chicken Tikka Masala and he wanted to see if marinating the chicken in yogurt made any difference, in addition to his taste test. He took two different breasts into a lab and they did a CT scan (?) of a cross section and could see the difference between the two.

This is definitely not simple food, but his technique is amazing. It's shows like these (and another called Chef School) that make me realize how little I actually know about cooking.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: conscious,

Haven't seen that one, but it sounds interesting.

That's one of the reasons why I still watch Alton Brown's shows. He gets into the food at a molecular level and explains, for example, why certain sugar molecules bond with each other and why they don't with others; What happens to food during the browning process; the difference between fats and transfats, etc.
Very informative, and he does it in a fun way. Kind of like "Mr. Science" with food.