In the Heat of the Kitchen

I am a big fan of Gordon Ramsay, and his cooking is really inspiring for me. As an aspiring chef, I found this book very inspirational. Gordon's approach to cooking is to keep things relatively simple, without too many components on the plate, and to use the best quality, seasonal ingredients. It really resonates with me, because this is exactly the kind of food I want to cook. Some of Gordon's books are geared toward home cooks, and others are written more for chefs and foodies. I found this one to be somewhere in between. The food in this particular book isn't as "fancy" as that in some of his other books, like Three Star Chef, but some of the ingredients may be a bit too expensive for "everyday" cooking at home. If you're looking for a cookbook you can use for general use at home, you might want to take a look at some of his other books. This one, while not geared toward extremely high-end chefs, is more for special occasion cooking for the most part. Some recipes would be fine for everyday meals, but most of them require a bit more time and money than the average family would expect to have available for everyday meals. If you're an aspiring chef or a foodie, this is a fantastic book!

I bought this book after seeing all the Gordon Ramsey TV shows. His food sounded so good I simply had to try it. True to his creed on his shows, his food is (mostly) simple. Some recipes take a little more effort, but certainly are not difficult. The extra effort is due to the complete refusal to use short cut ingredients and pre made anything. His recipes require fresh ingredients, no surprise. The results, frankly, are more than worth it. WOW! The simple joy of eating a gravy which is by itself a varied taste experience is worth it. (People were coming over repeatedly to visit and asking if there was any leftover gravy practically every day!) After cooking and eating this way, one wants to kick themselves for having accepted lesser quality. It also makes you wonder how so little extra convenience could have been worth the jump to a lower standard of food found in today's cooking. Another bonus; I found I understood more of the finer complexities of ingredients ability to intermingle and what goes well together. This is helpful when you take your recipes off plan to please your own pallet. I would compare the book to Julia Childs Mastering The Art of French Cooking; much easier recipes, results less complex, food tastes just as good if good food is what you are after. (Taking nothing away from Julia Childs book, which is excellent, but far more complex)Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume One Buy it! Cook with it! Enjoy eating the results!

I tried some recipes in this book. The Blueberry Muffins and the baked Strawberry Cheesecake turned out just lovely. Gordon Ramsay is a Brillant chef

Gorgeous full-color photography of mouth-watering creations illustrates In The Heat Of The Kitchen, a collection of top- notch recipes by Gordon Ramsay, acclaimed chef, restaurateur, and host of the hit television show "Hell's Kitchen." Exquisite dishes include Herb Brioche Crusted Mussels, Chicken Fricassee with Peas and Fava Beans, Wild Rice Jambalaya, Chilled Plum Soup, Passion Fruit and Orange Tart, and many more. Peppered with cooking tips and tricks - such as separating the legs from the breast of a bird one is about to cook, in order to avoid overcooking one part or undercooking another - In The Heat Of The Kitchen is a superb collection of inventive and delectable treats ideal for intermediate to advanced chefs.

`In the Heat of the Kitchen' by London chef Gordon Ramsay, the host of a Fox TV culinary show, `Hell's Kitchen', which I have not had the pleasure of seeing. Ramsay is the partner and executive chef for three restaurants in and around London and his writing is entirely different than his two countrymen, Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson. Both Oliver and Ramsay are professionals down to the tips of their asbestos-conditioned fingers, but where Oliver revels in simple dishes a la River Café and the Mediterranean cuisines, Ramsay is very much a French influenced chef. Before I get too far afield, I must say I think this is an excellent book on cooking, even if some of the recipes may be just a bit impractical for the casual amateur cook. To explain, cookbooks can be divided into at least seven different categories and the criteria for judging a book depends on the category into which it falls. There are: Textbooks such as the CIA's `New Professional Chef' and Jacques Pepin's `Complete Techniques' Great Collections such as the `Joy of Cooking' and `James Beard's American Cookery' National or Regional Cuisine Collections such as Julia Child's `Mastering the Art of French Cooking' Restaurant `haute cuisine' such as Joel Robuchon's `Simply French' and Thomas Keller's books. Entertaining cookbooks such as Martha Stewart's classic `Entertaining' and Gourmet magazine books Special Subjects such as Alice Waters' `Chez Panisse Fruits' or Rachael Ray's '30 Minute Meal' books Moneymaking Cookbooks promoting a person or an organization. Local fundraising cookbooks and non-chef (Patti LaBelle, Al Roker, etc) books fall into this category. Celebrity Chef / Restaurant cookbooks from people such as Emeril Lagasse, Tyler Florence, Jamie Oliver, Rocco DiSpirito, and dozens of others. The last category generally provides value by including the virtues of at least one or more of the other major categories added the cachet obtained by being able to say you are cooking a recipe from Babbo or Café Boulud or Lespanisse or Sara Moulton or Ina Garten. Ramsay's book is certainly a member of this last category with a strong grounding in the `haute cuisine' category. Ramsay makes no pretensions that his dishes are easy to make. His primary influence is clearly French and Spanish, primarily Catalan (Barcelona) techniques plus the rich range of American ingredients. His book is the perfect example of the kind you would want in a library by your best armchair, where you want to read it carefully for ideas in creating your own recipes. The first thing which comes to mind as I read the book is Bob Kinkead's statement that he owns about 1200 cookbooks, but he has never followed the recipe in any of them, step for step. Rather, he reads and `digests' their ideas that become ideas he puts into his own recipes. The first thing I like about Ramsay's book is that it has chapters based on ingredients. I have seen several books recently with all sorts of whiz-bang chapter titles that me