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 GREAT chef - but sometimes his recipes can be too complex for the enthusiastic amateur like myself.
However, this book is just right - in that the recipes are excellent and there is some great stuff in here but, most importantly, the recipes are well written and easy to follow.
I think 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 easy to follow recipes, delicious 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 difficult to come by or expensive. In fact I love the old fashioned and 'simple food' element, but above all the recipes are for 'proper' good food, ideal for family meals and social gatherings without days of worry and preparation beforehand.
A must have for everyone who loves to cook good 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 creating 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 bad 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 little 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 little 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 good. 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 moved back to more basic home cooking. And for all keem home cooks thats a good thing. Although hos previous books were beautiful 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 great pictures, hints & tips from the great man and some pretty good 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 great book that will keep your testbeds happy for a very long time "
"Full of quick and easy recepies that even someone with the most basic knowledge of cooking would find easy to follow,full marks for amazon for a great price."
"I bought this for my brother who is an accomplished chef in his own right, we both found it entertaining and easy to follow and gives a good insight on how to prepare and cook dishes in a new variety of ways. A good purchases 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 think 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 think the recipes in this book are very good 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 famous man on the front."
"This book is full of inspiring and easy to follow recipes, delicious 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 difficult to come by or expensive. In fact I love the old fashioned and 'simple food' element, but above all the recipes are for 'proper' good food, ideal for family meals and social gatherings without days of worry and preparation beforehand.
A must have for everyone who loves to cook good 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 easy 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 love cooking and great 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 fast food/ ready meals. So it does not matter if you are using cheats and cheap ingredients if this creates 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 good 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 think everything he creates is expensive
This book deals with things like Oxtail soup which is a simple recipe and easy to make
I really recommend this title for everyday cooking with the Ramsey touch "
"I'm a big fan of Gordon's cookbooks and I think this is the best yet. I agree with the other reviewer that the recipies are much easier to follow that from the other books I have, and I think that I'll actually 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 think I'll add a few of my own splashes from the hob."
Chief Plonker at The Plonker Club
The Unofficial Gordon Ramsay Fanclub
http://www.theplonkerclub.com
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