Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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91 of 99 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
'Whether you've cooked before, or it's your first time, I wanted to give you a smidgeon of our Fifteen cookery course.', 18 Oct 2006
Essentially a great first book for the new cook, but contains sufficient to keep the more experienced busy, too!
From the rear cover :-
`ps By the way, you should feel good about buying this book because every single penny made from it will go towards training and inspiring young kids from tough backgrounds all over the world to have a career in food through the `Fifteen Foundation'.
So on behalf of them, thank you.'
In hindsight, a note that maybe should have been on the front cover of the book, to deter some folk from getting the wrong impression and thinking that this is just another Jamie Oliver book (his 7th to date )....... and one claiming to `make you a better cook'!
As Jamie, says `it's the biggest book I've ever done', and that is no understatement - it is a weighty tome of 447 high quality pages, making it a little on the heavy side for bedtime reading! However, if you do need to keep your place, the book has a lovely braid fabric bookmark!
The book is split over 6 main chapters:-
Salads
Pasta, Gnocchi and Risotto
Meat
Fish
Vegetables
Desserts
along with an intro, `thanks`, a section called 'Bits and Bobs' (safety, freezing, chopping techniques, herbs and spices) and a full index, clearly highlighted with vegetarian recipes.
`Welcome to my 7th book.....In a way I feel this should have been my first cookbook, where I take you on a journey through the basics of food, shopping and cooking with great ingredients, a bit like the Fifteen students when they start on day one of their course.....
Each chapter opens with helpful notes about the subject, e.g.:-
`Salads' includes `What makes up a salad?', understanding flavours , recipes for `dressings' and `mayonnaise', before the recipes themselves, which are clearly laid out with ingredients and method plus a photo of the finished product.
`Pasta' includes a guide to making your own fresh.
`Gnocchi' - ' literally means `lumps' in Italian, and there are a few different ways of making them'.
`Risotto' includes a basic recipe.
`Meat' includes notes:- `All About Meat' and how to be a better meat shopper, how to cook it and there are useful two-page spreads showing the different cuts of beef, lamb, pork and chicken (including cute black and white drawings of each animal, which may prove interesting to younger children, when they put two and two together - but, hey, cooking IS education, albeit a tad understated these days!)
Other of Jamie's favourite meats follow:-
Duck, rabbit and turkey.
`Fish' includes notes on types, flat and round, how to be a better fish shopper, cooking filleted fish, cooking whole fish, scallops, mussels and clams, prawns, crab, lobster (inc. how to prepare a live one) and squid.
A Taste of the Recipes within:-
Cole Slaw
Jools' Favourite Saturday afternoon Pasta
Macaroni Cheese (a twist on the old-school frumpy Anglicised dish)
Fantastic Fish Lasagne
The Best Stew with Potato and Rocket Pasta Cushions
Asparagus, Mint and Lemon risotto
Melt-in-your mouth Shin Stew
Lovely Lamb Shank Pie
Overnight Slow Roasted Pork
The Best Roast Turkey
Perfectly Cooked Crispy Duck with Spiced Plum Chutney
Poached Salmon Steak
Steamed Thai-style Sea Bass and Rice
Whole Fish baked in a Salt Crust
Prawn Cocktail (tweaked!)
Southern Indian Crab Curry
Scotch Stovies
Slow Cooked Leek Soldiers with Bacon
The Best Onion Gratin
Whole Baked Cauliflower with Tomato and Olive Sauce
Classic Victoria Sponge with all the trimmings
Tea Party Fairy Cakes
My Nan's Lemon Drizzle Cake
Basic Meringue
Eton Mess
Proper Custard
Homemade Ice Cream
The Best Shortbread in the World
Fifteen Chocolate Tart
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35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Delicious Food Made Easy, 9 Feb 2007
I bought this book as my new years resolution was to learn to cook. Who better to turn to than Mr Oliver? To start with, there are absolutely loads of recipes to try out, you could spend a very long time trying to decide what next to cook! Its always good to have variety, and Cook has this in spades. My first recipe attempt went disastrously wrong (sausage fusilli) but whether this was because we broiught the wrong sausages or because its not a great recipe i dont know, but we werent very keen! However, everything else we've cooked from this book has been a success. The meatballs were delicious and nicely spiced, the fish wrapped in bacon was yummy and surprisingly filling, and the home made custard is beyond words. Its so good and so hard to stop eating- calorific but the nicest thing i've eaten in a long while! Every recipe has a mouthwatering picture and there are tons of tips from shopping for meat to how to kill a lobster. If you want to learn to cook then this is a must buy-simple recipes that taste very very good!(apart from the sausage fusilli!)
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105 of 116 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best, simplist book of Jamie Oliver so far, 25 Oct 2006
All though all of Jamie's books are good, there were all complicated to follow. There were to many this and that's and the ingredients were expensive. But now, as the book says; this helps you become a better cook. The ingredients are easy to get; they are simple things like common vegetables and meats that are not too expensive. The book is easy to follow, the foods are simple yet different in their own little ways, and still lovely.
Maybe some people that have loved Jamie's past books will be slightly disappointed with this one, but I wouldn't have thought so. This book is for new coming cooks that want to prepare a meal for any number of people. Jamie concentrates on everything in this book, loads of different food types: meaty main courses, desserts, veggie meals and even how to make simple fruit and veg better to eat.
I am now third of the way through this book (I haven't cooked everything) and all of the meals that I have followed in this book so far are excellent. The really important thing is that the recipes turn out just like the pictures provided, they are that simple to follow that they are always just like what they are supposed to look and taste like.
I would recommend this book to ANY inexperienced cook, or even a experienced one. This book is fantastic, even though the recipes are simple, and the food is not expensive, the meals are brilliant. This is to improve your everyday food, and there are even some tips on the techniques of making the food. This book is one of my best cooking guides. A must buy.
9.5/10
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