I'm actually in the middle of The Fat Duck Cookbook. Blumenthal's recipe for top-notch pub chips (large and slightly bulky, not thin like fries) even goes by the name "triple-cooked chips".
In the TV series, In Search of Perfection, he goes the extra mile to figure out a way to reproduce the recipe in reasonably well equipped home kitchens. One of the many tricks is that having salt in the blanching water is mandatory. It helps to create the porous surface. His recipe is so good I can make delicious chips at home even without access to a temperature controlled fat fryer.
(Incidentally, Jamie Oliver blanches whole skinned potatoes before roasting them in the oven. I've tried that too and it does make a big difference to how they come up.)
But the vinegar trick was something I hadn't heard before. I'll have to give it a try, because it would seem to give some extra leeway with timing. For a home cook, that is an important factor.
Pretty much everyone parboils potatoes before roasting them in the oven. (About 10 minutes in lightly salted water. After boiling them and draining the cooking water, put the lid back on the pan briefly and give it a good shake to roughen the surface of the potatoes. You'll get better crunchy outsides that way.)
Is that what Jamie Oliver recommends, or is it some further less standard trick?
Yes, and tossing them around gently in the colander is the ideal way to roughen the surface. This is also Raymond Blanc's method. If the water can be kept vigorously boiling, it's usually only necessary to parboil the potatoes for a few minutes: just enough to soften the outer 5mm or so.
By "in the middle", do you mean you are actually recreating the dishes as you go along? I have the book also, and it has some nice stories, but the recipes require not only a lot of skill and time, but also equipment. Also, eating at the Fat Duck was my best restaurant experience ever!
Good grief, no. The book is unapologetic in the extreme, and the recipes are practically impossible to recreate without a wide array of kitchen equipment. They really are the recipes used at the Fat Duck!
I'm reading it more as a slow story book. The history of the dishes, their evolution and particularly the failures are fascinating in and of themselves. Some of the nicer ways to cut the difficult corners (or in a way, "cheat") are the only things I can apply in my own cooking. Well... maybe some of the more unexpected flavour combinations might come in handy too. Haven't had the opportunity to try yet.
The main feature are the stories. After the history of any single dish it's interesting to see the final application of the procedures, and just how far the kitchen staff at the Fat Duck are willing to go. (eg. "Store in cool for five days to properly infuse the flavours.")
I have yet to eat at the Duck, though. Maybe sometime next year...
The whole process for all their dishes is fascinating. When visiting the restaurant, I managed to get a tour of the kitchens and the lab by one of the cooks. It takes from 6-24 months for a dish to go from idea to being on the table in the restaurant.
It's so much better to visit the restaurant with some knowledge of Heston's philosophy and the dishes. Having skimmed through the book and watched some of Heston's shows, eating there was much more exciting. If you are interested, [here](http://rafal.io/posts/the-fat-duck.html) is my write-up of my evening there together with some photographs. I definitely recommend you attend. Even though it's very expensive, I always prefer to spend money on experiences I'll remember, such as this one.
I think Heston Blumenthal at Home may be a bit more accessible. (It's also a really attractive book.) It still makes use of a fair amount of sous vide, pressure cookers, whipping siphons, etc. Sous vide equipment in particular is getting much more affordable for home cooks but it's still not something everyone had.
I'm sure his book is awesome, but blanching and parboiling are such rudimentary cooking techniques that they are described in virtually every cooking book that's not just a recipe collection.
