Gordon Ramsay's Fast Food (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "A well stocked pantry is essential to fast cooking..." (more)
Key Phrases: anchovy fingers, few thyme sprigs, black popper (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Throw out the frozen dinners and takeout menus. Who better to show readers how to cook real food, real fast and make it really tasty than Gordon Ramsey, three-star chef and TV celebrity? Gordon Ramsay’s Fast Food includes over 100 delicious recipes that are super-fast and easy to prepare. The book is divided into short sections: 15 feature fast recipes classified by group, such as starters, soups, fish, meat, pasta, working lunches, and desserts, and 15 more sections contain great menus for everyday and entertaining. Many of the dishes can be prepared and cooked in as little as 15 minutes, and none take longer than half an hour. The menus provided take 30-45 minutes from start to finish, each with a timing plan. There’s also advice on essential ingredients to keep in stock for speedy cooking, plus lots of great ideas for shortcuts.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Key Porter Books (March 28, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1554700647
• ISBN-13: 978-1554700646
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 7.7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #83,867 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

106 of 109 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fancy Food Fast, April 24, 2008

By	Dave English (Arizona, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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 fraîche 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 . . .

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Genuinely fast, genuinely good food, May 22, 2008

By	annie.nz - See all my reviews

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.

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unique, Refreshing, and Accessible, June 10, 2008

By	Jonathan - See all my reviews

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.