The Fat Duck Cookbook By Heston Blumenthal
The Big Fat Duck Cookbook cost more than HK$2,500. This modest edition of the same is more affordable - and it contains everything the original has, just in a smaller volume (although at more than 2.5kg, it's still quite heavy).
Heston Blumenthal, a proponent of so-called molecular cuisine, is known for making his diners use all their senses when eating his food, not just sight, smell and taste. A table at his Michelin three-star restaurant, The Fat Duck, in the pretty village of Bray, England, must be booked months in advance. Detractors like to focus on unappetising-sounding dishes such as egg and bacon ice cream (the full name of the dish is nitro-scrambled egg and bacon ice cream with pain perdu and tea jelly) and snail porridge. He gives recipes for these in The Fat Duck Cookbook but, more importantly, also explains the thought process behind each dish. He writes, for instance, that in France, one way that wild snails are purged of any poison they may contain is by feeding them oats (which become the porridge part of the recipe) while the dish makes use of flavours based on the classic French preparation of escargots in garlic-herb butter.
Only a few dishes in the book can be thrown together; not only do most require esoteric equipment and ingredients (such as methylcellulose SGA 50M FG and N-Zorbit M tapioca maltodextrin), but the number of components can be daunting. A dish of ballotine of Anjou pigeon has eight components, including pigeon and duck crackers, spiced juices, black pudding (which needs fresh pig's blood) and pickling brine. One of the simplest recipes is violet tartlet - a recipe I mean to try, as soon as I can some crystallised violet petals.
Blumenthal's recipes and text are supplemented by wacky and whimsical illustrations and stunning food photography and styling.