Top Chef: The Quickfire Cookbook [Hardcover]

By the Creators of Top Chef (Author), Padma Lakshmi (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 30, 2009

The much-anticipated follow-up to the New York Times best-selling Top Chef: The Cookbook is here! Drawing from all 5 seasons of the show, Top Chef: The Quickfire Cookbook features 75 of the best recipesfrom Spike's Pizza alla Greek to Stephanie's Bittersweet Chocolate Cakeculled from the Top ChefQuickfire Challenges. Everything the home chef needs to assemble an impressive meal and channel the energy of the Quickfire kitchen is collected here, including advice on hosting a Quickfire Cocktail Party and staging Quickfire Challengesat home. Best of all, this book is spilling over with sidebar material, including tips for home chefs, interviews with contestants, fabulous photos, and fun trivia related to the chefs, dishes, and ingredients that make Top Chef a favorite.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Antonis Achilleos is a New York-based photographer.

Padma Lakshmi is host of Top Chef. A former model and actress, she is the author of two cookbooks.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Chronicle Books; 1St Edition edition (September 30, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811870820
• ISBN-13: 978-0811870825
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 8.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #65,071 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A new favorite, November 18, 2009

By 

Noah Cole - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Top Chef: The Quickfire Cookbook (Hardcover)

I have many cookbooks in my collection, and at this point I only buy books I know I'll cook from. I'm a big fan of the show, so I made an exception with this book, thinking I wouldn't really cook from it. I was happy to find that the first recipe I tried, Sambar-Crusted Butterfish with Chorizo and Corn, was easy and delicious. I made it for a dinner party last weekend with black cod and everyone was impressed. The quickfire is all about fast, improvisational cooking, and this recipe from Radhika (Season 5) was a total success!

17 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing as a cookbook, October 30, 2009

By 

Kate (Illinois) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Top Chef: The Quickfire Cookbook (Hardcover)

Huge fan of the show, and was excited to see this book. However, the selection of recipes is not all that exciting. It would have been really nice if we could have had it arranged by all quickfires and have had the top couple of recipes from each. Instead, it's all over the place, not in any particular order (they try to categorize recipes by quickfire theme, i.e. time based, ingredient based, but when you find different recipes from the same quickfire in different categories, it's obvious the categorization doesn't really mean anything difinitive), and many middle-of-the-pack or "least favorites" are actually included in here. Why would I want to bother with something that was panned on the show? All in all, there were very few recipes in here I was actually interested in trying.

If you're a die hard fan of the show, maybe you'll enjoy the biographies of all the contestants and other features that are included. It is pretty rich in these areas. However, I am more interested in the show for creativity and innovativeness, and really don't care about individual chef quotes, behind the scenes info, or multi-page spreads on how to plate.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Be a Top Chef, quicklike!, November 18, 2009

By 

A. Whitney (Silicon Valley, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Top Chef: The Quickfire Cookbook (Hardcover)

This quickfire book is a fun gift for Top Chef fans, especially those who are short on time. It's part cookbook, part yearbook and will be appreciated by series-long fans. For dyed-in-the-wool TC fans, the chef profiles, quizzes and "games" peppered throughout the book will be of interest. But for a casual fan, some of the entries (especially the "We ♥ Padma")were a little over-the-top. The cover is impressive with its shock of orange and a stainless steel-look spine.

I am gluten-intolerant so not all of the recipes apply to me, but several are already GF and many can be easily adapted. I am planning on making Lia's Pork Tenderloin with Artichoke Tart with a GF rice pizza crust. I'm also planning on making Hun's Chocolate Pie with Bananas. Looks delicious.

Food photography is appetizing. Each recipe has prep/cook time, the season & show # that it came from and the actual challenge that it fulfilled.

This will make a good holiday gift, especially for those who love the show, or those who want to get into cooking and may find this a fun introduction to cookbooks.