Speaking to the Isigny Sainte-Mère chef Ivan Vautier about his jazz concert performance with Andy Sheppard earlier this year, he was clear that he wanted to turn out recipes that would be impossible with a conventially-equipped domestic kitchen. His recipe for galettes, topped with a 65 degree egg and laid out on a cappucino of foamed camembert is a case in point.

It is currently heading up the recipe section on the French side of the Isigny Sainte-Mere website but don’t be put off by that, enjoy the picture at least.

Take it from the top and you will see a cooked but runny egg yolk atop the small pancake-like galettes. Now this is the yolk of a 65-degree egg, which is possible thanks to the discovery by INRA scientist Hervé This.

He found that because egg proteins set at higher temperatures than egg white, it is possible to cook an egg at 65 degrees (Centigrade) and have a cooked but runny yolk embedded in a firm white. The co-founder of molecular gastronomy, This shared this knowledge with his friend the chef Pierre Gagnaire, who has been one of a growing number of chefs around the world to develop recipes and applications for this unexpected phenomenon.

The key to all this clever stuff is the ability to control the cooking temperature to within a fraction of a degree. Ivan Vautier uses an oil bath to buffer the temperature, but without an accurate thermostat and an even more accurately controlled heat source, the yolk will set solid before you can utter the words ‘thermal inertia’.

So the 65 degree egg is likely to remain the territory of professional chefs for some years, since temperature management like that is closer to a laboratory environment than a kitchen one.

The truly theatrical part of this complex dish is the foaming cappucino foundation, made from a melted Camembert, sieved for the purpose. Ivan uses a soda siphon, which he fills with the liquid cheese.

Fitting a carbon dioxide cartridge, he smartly inverts the siphon to deliver a mass of foam like some sort of gastronomic fire extinguisher. The effect is dramatic and not usually seen by the diners in a restaurant environment, although on stage it is as compelling as it is startling.

Previous generations of restaurateurs relied on spirit lamps and flaming chafing dishes to provide excitement and theatre for their diners. Today’s molecular chefs work with a battery of rather more sophisticated tools at their disposal, because they know that modern diners are looking for something subtle, original but above all, challenging.