Dani García is a young Andalucian chef and one of Spain's crop of rising stars. He recently became executive chef at the Gran Meliá Don Pepe hotel in Malaga, but wrote Técnica y Contrastes, his first cookbook, while he was still head chef of the Michelin-starred restaurant Traga Buches.
The book means García finally steps out from the shadow of his former mentor and employer Martin Berasategui. Like Berasategui's, García's philosophy is all about taking traditional, regional dishes and presenting them in a more contemporary way.
García, however, is far more revolutionary. He dedicates, for example, one whole chapter to liquid nitrogen. This is the first insight into liquid nitrogen I've come across in a cookery book and it's very helpful, with notes on how to store it. Another chapter is given over to gellan gum and what ratios to use it in.
As you may imagine with modern Spanish cuisine, there are lots of foams, jellies, savoury sorbets and ice-creams - oyster sorbet with apple, for example. Of the most striking recipes, a clever reconstruction of an After Eight dessert mint stands out, far more exciting than the original. A foie gras yogurt with orange powder is rather intriguing as well.
Recipes are broken into separate paragraphs for each part of the dish, making translation far easier (the book is available only in Spanish at present).
The book has all the usual hallmarks of a contemporary Spanish cookery book: close-up photography, recipes composed on black glass, bold titles heading each well laid-out page. And its garish pink cover makes it easy to find in the dark!
Marc Wilkinson, chef-proprietor, Fraiche, Oxton, Cheshire
Tcnica y Contrastes
Dani Garca
Libraria Gastronomica
ISBN 84-7212-108-9