In the original dust jacket. Blue cloth binding with gilt title on the spine.

We provide an in-depth photographic presentation of this item to stimulate your feeling and touch. More traditional book descriptions are immediately available

• Note: This book carries a £5.00 discount to those that subscribe to the F.B.A. mailing list

For conditions, please view our photographs. Raymond Blanc, one of the masters of French cuisine, reveals the culinary secrets that can make you a successful home cook, by demonstrating how and why ingredients react in certain ways. Over 80 recipes reflect the techniques highlighted in the book and show the reader how satisfying good cooking can be when you know how and why. Blanc tempts the palette with such dishes as: marinated red mullet in tomato and basil dressing; asparagus with lemon sabayon; fillet of monkfish with herb crust and lemon butter; duck breasts with blackcurrants, apple, cherry and cinnamon sauce; roasted pheasant with bread sauce; and iced pineapple and kirsch biscuit with pineapple sunflowers and apple and calvados mousse. A range of sauces and stocks is included as a base to a variety of recipes which cover starters, main courses, breads, ice-cream and preserves. “Blanc Mange” also aims to be a practical reference book that offers sound advice and explanations for why some dishes can go wrong, and how they can be improved. Blanc guides the reader to a better understanding of ingredients and introduces basic food chemistry to clarify the processes at work. Many useful chemistry notes have been specially written by Professor Nicholas Kurti, a former professor of engineering science at Oxford University. Individual cooking techniques – such as roasting, poaching, and microwave cooking, as well as baking, mousse-making and souffle-making – are also explained; Blanc goes on to point out how the size and thickness of cooking utensils and the variety of ovens can affect cooking times and end results, suggesting how to overcome these variables.

RAYMOND BLANC is renowned for his passion for seasonal, sustainable and organic produce. When sourcing food for his two Michelin-starred restaurant, Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, he makes sure to know everything about its provenance. With his gardeners, he has cultivated herb beds, a two-acre vegetable garden, a mushroom valley and heritage orchard. Raymond champions an ethical approach to cooking with sourcing and seasonality at the heart of it. He is involved in many movements and is honorary President of The Sustainable Restaurant Association and Vice President of Garden Organic. THE ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS, KEW is a world-famous scientific organisation, holding an unrivalled position for its outstanding collections of plants and fungi, artefacts and art, world-class Herbarium as well as its expertise in plant diversity, conservation and sustainable development. From its beginnings as a small physic garden in 1759 it has grown to become a top international visitor attraction and UNESCO World Heritage Site. Kew’s 132 hectares of stunning landscaped gardens and iconic glasshouses make it one of the world’s best-loved gardens, a paradise for plant lovers, offering a wealth of ideas and inspiration to all.

This book is from the library  gathered by the famous Cambridge Don, computer scientist, food and wine connoisseur, Jack Arnold LANG. Jack founded the Midsummer House, Cambridge’s paramount restaurant. This dining experience is hidden amongst the grassy pastures and grazing cattle of Midsummer Common and perched on the banks of the River Cam. The Midsummer House experience is imaginatively curated to delight and amaze, so our surprise set menu changes regularly and is our playground to showcase our reverence for purity of flavour and natural seasonal ingredients.