10 Showstopper Dishes from Chef Corey Lee's 'Benu'

Yahoo Food is proud to present a new weeklong series called “Master Class.” Throughout the year, we’ll visit with some of America’s top culinary talents and share a behind-the-scenes look at the worlds they’ve created. First up, the country’s most revered chef, Thomas Keller of The French Laundry and Per Se. We asked Chef Keller to pick our Cookbook of the Week; he chose Benu by Chef Corey Lee, which will be published April 20.

Benu is a cookbook that’s not really meant to be cooked from. As Corey Lee, its author and the chef of Benu restaurant in San Francisco writes, “It is meant to archive and share with you something that our team works so tirelessly to execute every day. Food is an ephemeral form of expression, and I want to document some of our hard work.” That hard work, which Lee learned from his mentor, Thomas Keller, translates into Okhotsk sea cucumber stuffed with shrimp and homemade fermented pepper sauce — which has, in turn, been made with homemade shellfish stock. That's just one example. Click through this slideshow to see more of Lee’s wildly inventive — and wildly presented — Asian-influenced dishes.