Gordon Ramsay's Fast Food by Gordon Ramsay
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Book Reviews of Gordon Ramsay's Fast Food
Book Review: Fancy Food Fast
Summary: 5 Stars
This shouldn't be your first -- or your only -- cooking book. It just ain't a comprehensive everyday kind of tome. But it is a great book for people that want to create high-end food that is fresh and modern -- and do it quickly. I've already cooked several of the recipes, including breakfast eggs, dinner lemon chicken and spiced pan-roasted apples/pears. All have been a real treat. Using fresh ingredients and quick cooking you end up with real tasty stuff. Many of the recipes have a long-ish list of ingredients, but none are very hard to prepare. You will impress anyone you are cooking for with this book.
Good stuff: Covers large range of meals, soup to seafood to meat to vegetable sides to amazing fruit desserts. Excellent photographs. Clear directions. Quality of the finished products. Lack of TV star chef fluff. Originality of the dishes. American kitchen measures. For cooking several of the recipes together as an integrated dinner he includes a really useful timeline listing what to do in what order to make the whole dinner. Brilliant!
Not perfect: Would like more of Gordon's wisdom in picking out the best fresh ingredients. Gordon is British and trained in France, so some things slipped through US editing, like using crème fraīche or Calvados. This is not a diet book.
Overall: Yum! Fancy dishes sure to delight. Cooked Fast. Tasting Fresh. All the better because they are real cooking. I'm off to make sautéed scallops with corn salsa followed by caramelized banana split. It will all be ready in 40 minutes, guessing half an hour the second time I do it . . .
Book Review: Unique, Refreshing, and Accessible
Summary: 5 Stars
The single most benefit I have found from this cookbook is learning new and unusual flavor combinations that I would never have thought of. This isn't a technical manual for cooking, meaning that you should be somewhat experienced with cooking. For example, some recipes call for you to simply "cook" the meat on both sides until golden brown; it's up to you to determine the heat setting and length of time. That being said, I'll go into my likes and dislikes now.
Likes:
*Great and unique methods of combining just a few simple ingredients to make restaurant-quality meals.
*Most of the recipes take 30 min. to an hour (including prep time).
*Some of the recipes use many of the same ingredients and go well together so that you don't end up buying a large package of some ingredient just to use a little bit and throw the rest away.
*There's a full appendix on how to make your own sauces and stocks.
*He has provided both individual recipes and full-length menus for various seasons/events/themes.
Dislikes:
*The only things I don't like are the recipes calling for creme fraiche--something I can't buy where I live. I will try to make my own, though, so I won't get discouraged. And although some of the other ingredients in the book may seem exotic, many can be found at smaller ethnic markets around town.
Conclusion:
If you're comfortable with basic elements of cooking (e.g. sauteeing, deglazing and reducing a pan to make a sauce, etc.) then you will love this book.
Book Review: An EPIC 30-45 minute cook book.
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the 2nd book I purchased of Gordon Ramsey's and is the predecessor of "Healthy Appetite". It is just so well written, the food information and his personal approach about food and the level in which he approaches it is the best of the best. Still easy to cook and I do about 90% of the "Chef Cooking" as my older teen kids call it.
I am not about putting in a 2 hour shift of preping and cooking dinner, I use all fresh herbs, veggies, meat, fish, poultry. Start to finish is 30-45 minutes and on the table. Through the book it has extremely helpful information on types of foods, spices, herbs and stocks to help get you set up and ready in your kitchen for your 'Dinner Service' as he states. I have taken the time to learn and study to be more prepared to get to 'Cheffing it up" as my wife says.
I have found an amazing passion about food that I thought never existed in me, I have watched countless Food Network shows with my wife...yawn! Mr. Ramsey shows up and I am off cooking and plating from another world!
Have trouble getting your kids to eat? So did we... for years! I start "Cooking this food at home" as he says and Their plates are clean, seriously! They call me up in the middle of the and ask what is for dinner, then take pictures of the food on the plates with their phones and send it to their friends.
The experience has been life transforming for sure and I am completely enjoying this book!
Book Review: Genuinely fast, genuinely good food
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is going on my shelf with the half dozen or so cookbooks I intend to keep till I'm carted out of the house feet first.
With a few storecupboard exceptions such as canned beans, canned tomatoes, and bottled ready-roasted peppers, all of the main ingredients for the recipes are fresh. The recipes are indeed easy and fast, and really, really appetising. Unlike my experience with most cookbooks.
Like most English cookbooks, there is a reasonable number of seafood recipes, which I guess reflects the high proportion of coastline to land area in the UK, and that fact that transport of fresh fish inland is quick (and the fish therefore reasonably good) because of the short distances involved. However, there are twice as many 'main' recipes based on meat, poultry, cheese, eggs, vegetables or grains, so even if you don't like fish or can't access very fresh seafood, there's still plenty of choice.
There isn't a high proportion of esoteric ingredients required - this isn't one of those books where every single recipe seemingly requires another few exotic ingredients to be bought.
The recipes are suitable for home use and for entertaining.
Book Review: Simple yet sophisticated
Summary: 5 Stars
The book is packed with great recipes, none of which take more than an hour to make. I actually taught my girlfriend how to cook using this book. I love watching Kitchen Nightmares and from what I've seen of Gordon Ramsay, I would expect nothing less than what's in this cookbook. The book has become a staple for us as the recipes are simple, always taste amazing,and are also basic enough that modifying them and substituting ingredients is very easy. With just a bit of cooking knowledge, you can easily personalize any of these recipes.
To all the people complaining about the ingredients and to whom the food is catering. Good food needs fresh ingredients. Most of the dishes don't require expensive ingredients and I have never had a problem finding anything that I've needed for a dish. I will admit, I live in Philadelphia and 3 blocks away from a Whole Foods and a Super Fresh. But except for things like venison and better cuts of meat, I have never had to go to Whole Foods for one of these dishes. However, having grown up in a small town in Missouri, I can tell you that I would have been able to find all the ingredients there too.