The Cook's Book
Edited by Jill Norman.
Available for HK$480 from Bookazine in the Prince's Building, Central, (tel: 2525 0218), Kelly & Walsh in Pacific Place, Admiralty (tel: 2522 5743) and at Paddyfield.com.
If editor and writer Jill Norman is associated with a cookbook, you know it's going to be good. Consider that highly respected names such as Ferran Adria, Pierre Herme, Ken Hom, Greg Malouf, Christine Manfield, Charlie Trotter and Marcus Wareing are contributing chefs and The Cook's Book should be required reading for anybody interested in food.
What makes it so appealing is that although the contributors are chefs of top restaurants (accounting for many Michelin stars), it's extremely practical for those with far less training. Yes, there's a chapter on foams (by Adria - who else but the man who 'created' the technique?) but even they are easy: all they require (other than the ingredients) is a siphon. Novices might want to skip that section and learn how to roast and carve a chicken (in the chapter on poultry and game birds by Shaun Hill); whip up bechamel, bearnaise and mayonnaise and 'fix' a curdled emulsion (in 'sauces and dressings', by Paul Gayler); prepare octopus, fillet and skin fish and cook seafood (Trotter) and make sable, brioche, croissant and puff pastry in the chapter by master pastry chef Herme (he also contributes a chapter on desserts). Malouf, who is consultant chef for Olive (on Elgin Street, Central) and Malouf's (in Elements, Tsim Sha Tsui), writes the chapter on Middle Eastern cooking, giving recipes for pigeon bisteeya (pie), labne (a yogurt-based cheese), stuffed vegetables and Turkish coffee.
The book is a hefty 647 pages but don't make the mistake of buying the cheaper, concise edition, which omits important information.