Summary of Gordon Ramsay Cooking for Friends Cookbook

Cooking for Friends is for me one of Gordon ramsay\’s best cookbooks. A wide variety of recipes to suit every palate and cooking ability, it really is a fantastic investment. The book is also perfectly place together with incredible photos that will make your mouth water.

From the front cover flap:-

\’Away from the high-octane energy of the professional kitchen, Gordon\’s home is a relaxed family affair, where cooking s fun and everyone gets involved in preparing food for family and friends. The food Gordon cooks here embodies his strongly held views: use in-season, fresh ingredients at their peak; support local producers and farmers\’ markets whenever we can; and celebrate our food culture and its many influences…..

…\’Cooking for Friends\’ is full of Gordon\’s best-loved versions of classic British dishes…..and contains more than 100 of his favourite recipes, which he likes to cook and eat with friends and family – uncomplicated recipes but with Gordon\’s remarkable feeling for flavour and his technical know-how.\’

From the introduction:-

\’As a chef, I work at a thousand miles an hour, but when I\’m at home, I want to slow down. I leave my chef\’s jacket at work, and I walk into a domestic setting, where everything is completely different. At home, our kitchen is family-run, and it\’s a relaxed place. A lot of people see cooking as a chore, but we bring an element of fun into it……….\’

269 high quality matt pages split over 9 chapters:-

Hot and cold soups

Pasta and grains

Fish and shellfish

Meat and poultry

Pies and tarts

Vegetables and salads

Puddings and ices

Chocolate and coffee

Basics

sandwiched between a 9-page introduction and a full index, which is enhanced with finished-dish illustrations shown in italics.

Each chapter opens with some relevant notes and a list of the recipes contained within, for quick reference.

Each recipe is clearly laid out with a bold title and relevant text, along wiith the method, the number of servings and the list of ingredients. The page numbers are on the edge of the right hand page, which aids quick flicking!

The book is interspersed with illustrations of the finished dishes, although these are rather fewer than expected, in my opinion…..(hence my four star rating)…… along with on-location shots of GR, his family and friends.

My favourite pud is no particular secret, and, as I share Gordon\’s passion for the caramelized apple flavour and texture in an Apple Tarte Tatin….. his recipe for \’Caramelized Apple Pie\’, from page 207, really hits the spot:-

\’I like the flavour of caramelized apples in a tarte tatin, and this is a way of bringing that flavour into a classic apple pie.

Also, because the apples are pre-cooked, they won\’t shrink during baking and make air pockets inside the pie.

I like to serve the pie while it\’s still warm with either a small pouring cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream.\’

A tasty twist which makes the finished product taste divine, and following on from G\’s \’Lamb Shank Cassoulet` served with sautéed savoy cabbage and chunks of malted grain bread….simply SUPER to share, after an October stroll in the woods with all our friends!

Which… of course….is what this book is all about!

A taste of other recipes within:-

Asparagus velouté

Conger eel bisque

Crayfish chowder

Farfalle with bacon, peas and sage

Grilled vegetable lasagne

Gordon\’s posh kedgeree (video feature above)

Wild mushroom barley risotto

Fish curry with lime and coconut rice

Grilled herrings with harissa

Fisherman\’s stew

Poached rabbit legs with gremolata

Pork fillet stroganoff

Home-made bangers

Classic mixed grill

Angus beef olives

Sweet potato and duck rösti with fried duck eggs

Honey roast ham

Shepherd\’s pie with Branston pickle

Cornish chicken pie

Fish pie with oysters and scallops

Roast winter vegetables

Spicy cauliflower stir-fry

Mixed mushroom salad

Pickled onions

Autumn fruit salad with thyme and ginger

Custard tart

Lemon meringue pie

Chocolate swirl cheesecake

Chocolate and coffee pots

Dark chocolate marquise

All in all, a \’homely\’-type book, which is clear from the GR notes throughout, e.g.:-

From \’Pasta and grains`:-

\’At home, we don\’t just stick to rice and spaghetti. Tana has begun to feed the kids a vegetarian meal once a week, which means being creative in combining pulses, grains and pasta with a variety of vegetables.

The kids like it when she experiments.

When the weather is cold we use a lot of barley, adding it to soups, stews, and winter salads. Barley can even take the place of rice in risotto.

The brilliant barley risotto here has featured many a time on our restaurant menus…………\’

Reviews of Gordon Ramsays Cooking For Friends

Here is a summary of reviews for Gordon Ramsay\’s Cooking for Friends. On average the book scored very highly with fourteen of eighteen reviews on Amazon in the UK scoring it 4 or five stars.

“Gordon Ramsay is a FANTASTIC chef – but sometimes his recipes can be too complex for the enthusiastic amateur like myself.

But, this book is just right – in that the recipes are brilliant and there is some fantastic stuff in here but, most importantly, the recipes are well written and simple to follow.

I reckon this is perfect for those who want to cook quality dishes for dinner parties but not spend several days in the kitchen preparing for it!!

Highly recommended. ”

“This book is full of inspiring and simple to follow recipes, tasty photography and lots of personal touches and anecdotes which make it a \’real\’ book. I like the way the dishes are made using accessible ingredients as sometimes celebrity cook books are full of ingredients which are hard to come by or expensive. In fact I like the ancient fashioned and \’simple food\’ element, but above all the recipes are for \’proper\’ excellent food, ideal for family meals and social gatherings without days of worry and preparation beforehand.

A must have for everyone who likes to cook excellent food with simple, quality ingredients. ”

“I have about 20 cook books, but this is the one in most use. I have bought it for a few friends, so this speaks volumes. I cannot recommend this book enough!”

“It\’s probably the most often-heard gripe in reviews of cookery books, especially celeb-chef ones. “There aren\’t enough pictures”. How are you meant to know what it looks like when it\’s finished? What are you aiming for? Even for a simple recipe, it\’s nice to have a picture. Besides, it\’s often the pictures of the recipe-made-meal that inspire you to have a go at making it yourself.

If this is something that irks you, perhaps steer clear of this book. Although rather handsome, I\’d say only about a quarter of the meals have accompanying pictures. This might not be such a terrible thing if there weren\’t dozens of completely irrelevant pictures taking the place of potentially useful ones. We are treated throughout the book to images of Ramsay sitting down, of Ramsay resting his head between his hands, of Ramsay sitting at the table outside with lots of friends, of Ramsay sitting down at the table with his friends, again. If you buy the book, you\’ll already know what \’Chef Ramsay\’ looks like, and probably don\’t give a crap what his friends look like.

There are also lots of pictures not of meals, but of ingredients. Instead of the finished dish, you might get a few mackerel on a worktop, or a swede chopped in half, or two eggs on a plate with a feather. It\’s pointless and often slightly infuriating.

This somewhat major annoyance aside, it\’s a pretty nice book. The recipes inevitably do taste nice, for example the fisherman\’s stew. The ingredients lists can be a small extensive – it\’s not a book to be used every day – but most of them are things that are at least readily available. Too many cookbooks call for things like toasted goblin eyes or strained dreams of ocelots.

This book won\’t make you a three-starred chef, and the cooking for friends moniker is a small unjustified as there\’s no reason why these dishes should be made exclusively for large groups; they can be made for any amount of people. But it does feature some genuinely nice meals to make, which is after all the purpose for a book like this. You\’ll just have to assume that what comes out of the oven looks the way it\’s meant to. ”

“I bought a signed copy from an independent seller on Amazon, and I was very excited to receive it. So far I have made the Shepherd\’s Pie with branston pickle, and the lamb and prune casserole and both were superb. I can\’t wait to try some more recipes, as I am sure they will be just as excellent. The book itself is really nice quality with some lovely photos (unlike most people reviewing this book, I quite like a few pics of Gordon!)”

“There seems to have been a shift in Chef Ramsays style of books recently, since the launch of 3 * Chef he has went back to more basic home cooking. And for all keem home cooks thats a excellent thing. Although hos previous books were gorgeous to look at and filled with gorgeous recipes they were costly & time consuming to make.

Cooking with friends is a real back to basics, quality cook book, one to have by the stove all the time.

As usual well presented with fantastic pictures, hints & tips from the fantastic man and some pretty excellent dishes too. It\’s the sort of food you want to cook and eat on a regular basis things like chicken pie, Broccoli soup, blue cheese tarts etc. Real quality home cooking. The book is well layed out with sections on:

1. Hot & Cold Soups – Inc Roast Chestnut, Parsnip & Apple, Curried cauliflower & cheddar, oxtail, chilled cucumber

2. Pasta & Grains – Linguine with lemon feta & basil, Kedgeree, goats cheese lentil & beetroot salad

3. Fish & shellfish – fish curry, Red mullet, Devilled mackerel

4. Meat & poultry – Rabbit stew, Honey roast ham, Duck wit port & cherries,

Pies & tarts (my favorite bit!) – Raised Game Pie, Chicken pie, smoked salmon & horseradish cream tarts

5. Vegies & salads

6. Puddings – Apple pie, lemon meringue, Trifle

coffee & chocs, – dark chock cake, coffee & choc pots

A fantastic book that will keep your testbeds pleased for a very long time ”

“Full of quick and simple recepies that even someone with the most basic knowledge of cooking would find simple to follow,full marks for amazon for a fantastic price.”

“I bought this for my brother who is an accomplished chef in his own right, we both found it entertaining and simple to follow and gives a excellent insight on how to prepare and cook dishes in a new variety of ways. A excellent buys for even the intermediate culinary operator.”

“Gordon Ramsey\’s recipe books have never particularly appealed to me and I didn\’t own any until I was given this as a gift. As mentioned by other reviewers the emphasis seems to be mainly on Gordon, with loads of photos of him sitting on tables etc, but that\’s not entirely surprising as I reckon he\’s one of the most over-exposed personalities on TV these days. He didn\’t even deign to be photographed demonstrating a recipe for this book.

Having said all that, I reckon the recipes in this book are very excellent and the few I have tried have been lovely. I was quite shocked to learn that they were written by Gordon\’s number 2 Mark Sargeant, but maybe that\’s what being a celebrity is all about. Gordon\’s name sells, I doubt I would have been given this book if it hadn\’t had the well-known man on the front.”

“This book is full of inspiring and simple to follow recipes, tasty photography and lots of personal touches and anecdotes which make it a \’real\’ book. I like the way the dishes are made using accessible ingredients as sometimes celebrity cook books are full of ingredients which are hard to come by or expensive. In fact I like the ancient fashioned and \’simple food\’ element, but above all the recipes are for \’proper\’ excellent food, ideal for family meals and social gatherings without days of worry and preparation beforehand.

A must have for everyone who likes to cook excellent food with simple, quality ingredients. ”

“I am usually not impressed by Gordon\’s “rushed” which he calls “high-energy” approach to cooking. Nevertheless his recipes are usually simple to follow and as tasty as it gets – if that\’s what you are looking for you won\’t be disappointed. Cooking books do not need anything else than that – so why have I rated it as 4 stars only? The simple answer is I do not like his non-cooking, not recipe related introductions and the title. On one occasion he\’s ranting about Delia\’s “cheat approach” which led him to donate all his Delia cooking books to a charity shop. My second “favourite” is the revelation that his wife has started to cook something vegetarian for the kids once a week. These statements are not only unnecessary they distract from the subject which is food. I do like cooking and fantastic food but hey in the end it\’s food not world peace so stop ranting, argueing and self-praise. In my humble opinion the only absolute in the world of cooking is to COOK YOURSELF and avoid quick food/ ready meals. So it does not matter if you are using cheats and cheap ingredients if this makes the basic conditions to make you cook.

The other annoying point is the title. Nothing in this book relates to “cooking for friends”, it\’s just a selection of recipes, which are suitable everyday and anytime.

To summarise: A decent cookbook with a misleading title but a excellent selection of very nice recipes written by a chef with an attitude.”

“I have all Gordon Ramsey\’s books and this one is ideal for people who reckon everything he makes is expensive

This book deals with things like Oxtail soup which is a simple recipe and simple to make

I really recommend this title for everyday cooking with the Ramsey touch ”

“I\’m a huge fan of Gordon\’s cookbooks and I reckon this is the best yet. I agree with the other reviewer that the recipies are much simpler to follow that from the other books I have, and I reckon that I\’ll really use more of them because of it.

And I like the look of the insides more that the other books too. It\’s not as cluttered and is very smart–but I reckon I\’ll add a few of my own splashes from the hob.”