Gordon Ramsay's Secrets [Paperback]

Roz Denny (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 21, 2004

Gordon Ramsay is the most celebrated chef working in Britain today, with a well-deserved reputation for fabulous food. Here, he reveals how he transforms ingredients into the sublime dishes for which he is so justly famous. Much more than a collection of his superb recipes, this inspirational book passes on many of the secrets of his cooking techniques, knowledge and skills. Recipes are presented in a straightforward and comprehensive way with detailed descriptions of Gordon's special techniques, his innovative short-cuts, and other culinary hot tips with close-up photography. With recipes for fish and shellfish, poultry and game, meat, vegetables, salads, fruits, breads and pastries, as well as flavourings, stocks and dressings, this unique cookbook is destined to become a classic kitchen reference book.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

New York City Cookbooks from Wiley
New York is one of the world's great food cities; it is also one of the most culinarily diverse. Check out these great cookbooks from some of the stars of the New York food scene, as they make their great recipes accessible to the home cook.

Fiamma: The Essence of Contemporary Italian Cooking A contemporary spin on classic Italian cuisine for home cooks from New York’s acclaimed Fiamma restaurant.

At Home with Magnolia: Classic American Recipes from the Owner of Magnolia Bakery Known for recipes evoking a homemade, uncomplicated era, Allysa Torey, the owner of New York’s renowned Magnolia Bakery, expands her repertoire with 93 great recipes for appetizers, soups, casseroles, main courses, vegetables, and, of course, desserts.

The Soul of a New Cuisine: A Discovery of the Foods and Flavors of Africa Marcus Samuelsson, award-winning chef/owner of Restaurant Aquavit and Riingo, takes his formidable culinary talents and curiosity to Africa to bring the continent’s diverse cultures and cuisines alive for home cooks in this beautiful book with more than 200 recipes, 250 photos, and fascinating stories of his journey.

Artisanal Cooking: A Chef Shares His Passion for Handcrafting Great Meals at Home Terrance Brennan, the chef/owner of two acclaimed restaurants, Picholine and Artisanal, brings to life his passion for simple yet flavorful cuisine in this wonderful cookbook.

Go Fish: Fresh Ideas for American Seafood Celebrated chef Laurent Tourondel of New York's BLT Fish and BLT Steak, reveals how creating elegant, mouthwatering seafood at home can be marvelously easy–and faster than you might think.

Gordon Ramsay Makes It Easy International superstar chef Gordon Ramsey, owner of the forthcoming New York hot spot "The London," reveals all, from techniques and short cuts to clever cooking tips.

---

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Review

"'Full of excitement and inspiration' Daily Telegraph Weekend 'A very rare thing, a book by a professional which helps cack-handed amateurs to do something more than just dream on' London Evening Standard; 'Utterly Inspiring' Scotland on Sunday"

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Quadrille Publishing (May 21, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1844000974
• ISBN-13: 978-1844000975
• Product Dimensions: 10.4 x 8.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,436,919 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

141 of 159 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Artfully organized and carefully described recipes. Buy it!, May 21, 2005

By 

B. Marold "Bruce W. Marold" (Bethlehem, PA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: In The Heat Of The Kitchen (Paperback)

`In the Heat of the Kitchen' by London chef Gordon Ramsay, the host of a Fox TV culinary show, `Hell's Kitchen', which I have not had the pleasure of seeing. Ramsay is the partner and executive chef for three restaurants in and around London and his writing is entirely different than his two countrymen, Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson. Both Oliver and Ramsay are professionals down to the tips of their asbestos-conditioned fingers, but where Oliver revels in simple dishes a la River Café and the Mediterranean cuisines, Ramsay is very much a French influenced chef.

Before I get too far afield, I must say I think this is an excellent book on cooking, even if some of the recipes may be just a bit impractical for the casual amateur cook.

To explain, cookbooks can be divided into at least seven different categories and the criteria for judging a book depends on the category into which it falls. There are:

Textbooks such as the CIA's `New Professional Chef' and Jacques Pepin's `Complete Techniques'

Great Collections such as the `Joy of Cooking' and `James Beard's American Cookery'

National or Regional Cuisine Collections such as Julia Child's `Mastering the Art of French Cooking'

Restaurant `haute cuisine' such as Joel Robuchon's `Simply French' and Thomas Keller's books.

Entertaining cookbooks such as Martha Stewart's classic `Entertaining' and Gourmet magazine books

Special Subjects such as Alice Waters' `Chez Panisse Fruits' or Rachael Ray's '30 Minute Meal' books

Moneymaking Cookbooks promoting a person or an organization. Local fundraising cookbooks and non-chef (Patti LaBelle, Al Roker, etc) books fall into this category.

Celebrity Chef / Restaurant cookbooks from people such as Emeril Lagasse, Tyler Florence, Jamie Oliver, Rocco DiSpirito, and dozens of others.

The last category generally provides value by including the virtues of at least one or more of the other major categories added the cachet obtained by being able to say you are cooking a recipe from Babbo or Café Boulud or Lespanisse or Sara Moulton or Ina Garten.

Ramsay's book is certainly a member of this last category with a strong grounding in the `haute cuisine' category. Ramsay makes no pretensions that his dishes are easy to make. His primary influence is clearly French and Spanish, primarily Catalan (Barcelona) techniques plus the rich range of American ingredients. His book is the perfect example of the kind you would want in a library by your best armchair, where you want to read it carefully for ideas in creating your own recipes. The first thing which comes to mind as I read the book is Bob Kinkead's statement that he owns about 1200 cookbooks, but he has never followed the recipe in any of them, step for step. Rather, he reads and `digests' their ideas that become ideas he puts into his own recipes.

The first thing I like about Ramsay's book is that it has chapters based on ingredients. I have seen several books recently with all sorts of whiz-bang chapter titles that mean practically nothing when you pull the book off your shelves and glance at the table of contents. Some of these books are good, but their organization is not to their credit.

Ramsay's chapters are:

Shellfish, with an emphasis on American blue crabs plus oysters, clams, langoustines, and scallops.

Fish, with red mullet, cod salmon, tuna and a few unusual species such as skate and monkfish.

Poultry and Game Birds, where he addresses the perennial question of how to deal with different cooking times for white and dark meat. I recommend you give his solution a try when roasting chicken.

Meat, with a very nice selection of recipes for braised pork, filet mignon, stuffed roast lamb, tomatoes stuffed with chili, veal and foie gras, and a new perspective on sauteeing calves liver.

Pasta and Rice, with an emphasis on risottos, stuffed pastas, and spatzle (German pasta / dumplings)

Vegetables, with several recipes for soups and salads. First time I've seen a fondue of lettuce!

Eggs, one of my very favorite subjects, which Ramsay does to a tee. Perfect omelet and fried egg recipes. Since all recipes are organized by primary ingredient, many of the dessert recipes fall in this egg chapter and the following chapter on fruits.

Fruit with sorbets, sherbets, gelatins, walnut cake, great pain perdu (French toast) with peaches and berry kebabs.

Flour, with breads, pastries, and cakes. I invariably give good scores to general cookbooks that have a good chapter on interesting bread baking. While his nibs Jamie Oliver does the easy Italian stuffed breads, Ramsay goes for things a bit more complicated but more interesting with a great sun-dried tomato fougasse (French for focaccia) plus a very nice recipe for a vanilla flavored pate sucree. Unlike the flaky style of pastry Americans use for pies where the butter must stay cold and the dough must be handled with kid gloves, this dough is less delicate and fussy.

The last chapter on stocks, sauces, and dressings has all the usual stuff, including a very nicely simple recipe for chicken stock. I really respect those who simmer their stock for half a day or overnight, but I personally prefer this simpler three-hour recipe.

Ramsay has a reputation for being very demanding in the kitchen, and his recipes benefit from his eye for detail. Many recipes are easily within the amateur's abilities and while there are a few which need more expensive and rare ingredients, you can trust that Ramsay is giving you some of the very best techniques for dealing with them, as he is for his egg and flour recipes.

This is an excellent book for cookbook readers and people who like to perfect simple dishes and try their hand at dishes that are both classic and just a bit unusual.

Very highly recommended.

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Exact Replica of 'Secrets', November 4, 2006

By 

F. Munro-smith "Trixie" (UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: In The Heat Of The Kitchen (Paperback)

Whilst Gordon Ramsay is an excellent chef and I have enjoyed many of his books, I am was very disappointed when this book arrived this morning to find that it is an identical copy of his 2004 book 'Secrets'. So, if you already own 'Secrets', DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK!!!

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Book with Delicious Results!, January 7, 2008

By 

L. C. Jones (Pinckney, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: In The Heat Of The Kitchen (Paperback)

I bought this book after seeing all the Gordon Ramsey TV shows. His food sounded so good I simply had to try it. True to his creed on his shows, his food is (mostly) simple. Some recipes take a little more effort, but certainly are not difficult. The extra effort is due to the complete refusal to use short cut ingredients and pre made anything. His recipes require fresh ingredients, no surprise.

The results, frankly, are more than worth it. WOW! The simple joy of eating a gravy which is by itself a varied taste experience is worth it. (People were coming over repeatedly to visit and asking if there was any leftover gravy practically every day!)

After cooking and eating this way, one wants to kick themselves for having accepted lesser quality. It also makes you wonder how so little extra convenience could have been worth the jump to a lower standard of food found in today's cooking. Another bonus; I found I understood more of the finer complexities of ingredients ability to intermingle and what goes well together. This is helpful when you take your recipes off plan to please your own pallet.

I would compare the book to Julia Childs Mastering The Art of French Cooking; much easier recipes, results less complex, food tastes just as good if good food is what you are after. (Taking nothing away from Julia Childs book, which is excellent, but far more complex)Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume One

Buy it! Cook with it! Enjoy eating the results!