Jamie's Dinners: The Essential Family Cookbook

I wasn't sure about getting this cookbook, but WOW is my stomach grateful that I did! Straight off, being that fish and chips are my favorite, I tried his "Fish, Chips and Mushy Peas"...minus the mushy peas...(they scared me a bit, being with mint?!?! and all)...it was deluxe, restaurant-ish, lick-your-fingers-and-enjoy-your-guests-praise-nonstop-throughout-the-whole-meal-GOOD! I tried lots of fish and chips recipes before by hoo-ha chefs, all over-complicated, disappointing messy and not-tasty muck, but this one by Jamie was SIMPLE (3 ingredients for the batter) and tasted like perfection! (p.s-try it with a tartar sauce with mayo, mustard, lemon-juice, pickles, onions and a freshly crushed garlic clove...Y-U-M) After trying the fish, I had a drive to try out some of the others so I tried his "Roast chicken with lemon and rosemary roast potatoes". Now... I make a great variety of roasted chicken dishes, complicated and simple, all BIG hits, and I really thought there was nothing new in the roasted chicken world, until this!!! Wow! My husband and I gorged the whole dish ALONE while quickly abandoning the fork and knife for our hands, licking our fingers every trip to the mouth! The recipe includes stuffing the chicken with garlic cloves and a pierced boiled lemon oozing it's juice...OH MY...speechless is the word! I recommend to eat this dish alone or with the hubby/wife, because it's too good to share with guests! It's our new favorite chicken roast (p.s-stick with fresh herbs, you'll taste the amazing difference!) After two amazing triumphs with Jamie, I went on to "The ultimate burger and chips". Had it with the hubby and a friend. This burger should have been on that show Oprah had, where her friend explored the top 50 burgers to eat before you die! B-L-I-S-S! This recipe calls for a pestle and mortar, which I never owned and was weary about, but I got one and I am loving it (bye-bye aggression!)We added fresh avocado slices to the bun, besides Jamie's other recommendations..."druel-icous"! This one makes the "junk food/snack" reputation of the burger vanish and become 100% Meal! The only danger with Jamie's cookbook is that you can forget about all conventional table conversation period...the eating experience becomes only EATING THE FOOD...AND TALKING ABOUT HOW GOOD IT IS...and having a very sudden urge to be thankful to God for food! (shouldn't that be the correct way anyhow, if you're cooking like you should...or could with Jamie?) This is my idea of an eating-lifestyle one must experience before they die! Life is too short to just eat to fill! It is so refreshing to come across a chef who does all the normal meals we all know and love, but has a deep-food-loving twist that makes it feel like it's the first time ever eating the meal, and who has such a passion for food that you can taste with every bite! Plus, I gotta hand it to him for sticking to the fresh veggies and herbs as opposed to all the dried, frozen and over processed jun

This is my first Jamie Oliver cookbook. His TV shtick never appealed to me, but when I read about his really admirable work at improving school lunches in the UK and providing training for school-leavers at "15," his London restaurant, I decided he merited some support. Besides, we definitely needed to widen our repertoir of home dinners. I've been very favorably impressed by the book. I've made about seven or eight things out of it now, and all have turned out to be excellent. Unlike some reviewers, I didn't mind the lack of precision in some recipes (I've always relied more on just using a "lug" of olive oil than measuring it, anyway), and I've learned to deal with the occasional editing lapse--if you read the whole recipe before starting (good advice I don't usually follow) you discover the "beaten egg" called for in the Spanish roast chicken isn't actually part of the recipe anyway. So I recommend this book very highly. I should mention that although there are a number of recipes that the author describes as hits or favorites of his children, we've yet to find recipes in the book that will enchant young and old alike. (I don't rule out that this is only because he prepares them better than I do.) But I'm happy to keep plugging away at it, because literally everything has pleased the old, and that's who's doing the cooking!

Jamie Oliver writes cookbooks I look forward to reading and this fifth volume from the Anglo wunderkind chef fully satisfies my expectations. Julia Child, Marcella Hazan, Paula Wolfert, James Beard, and Diana Kennedy write great cookbooks from which I always learn something. Thus, it is always rewarding to read works from these writers. But, Jamie Oliver's books belong to a very select few which are not only educational, they actively make you want to put down the book and go to the kitchen and start cooking. The select group of writers who can do that for me is lead by Jacques Pepin and has recently been joined by Tony Bourdain along with Peter Reinhart, Chris Schlesinger, and his nibs, Jamie Oliver. Even my culinary idols Mario Batali and Alton Brown can't evoke my passion for cooking as well as Messers Pepin and Oliver. Appropriate to this grouping of writers, Oliver's latest effort, `Jamie's Dinners, The Essential Family Cookbook' is a perfect companion to Jacques Pepin's latest work, `Fast Cooking My Way'. Both books highlight the way the two chefs cook at home, with the focus being as much on simplicity and readily available ingredients as on speed. As I rarely cook with the intention of being done quickly, but I do appreciate a simple dish with high rewards on the palate, Oliver's book promises AND delivers on exactly the kind of book I like to go to on a regular basis, just like Jacques' work. The theme of Jamie's last book was wrapped around his effort to train 15 deserving unemployed young people and staff a restaurant, `15' with his graduates. This book is based on a similar socially active theme of improving school lunch meals. Jamie states that he has been doing a documentary on school food programs and how they may be improved. The book gives little information about this film, but it does have a lot of material on food appropriate to school lunches. The first third of the book is devoted to unconventional material and presentations of recipes. The first chapter gives us recipes for Jamie's `Top Ten' dishes: Sausage and Mashed Potatoes with Onion Gravy; Burger and Chips; Baked Lasagna; Jacket Potatoes (stuffed potatoes for us Yanks); Apple Pie; Roast Chicken and Roast Potatoes; Fish, Chips, and Mushy Peas; Chicken and Sweet Leek Pie; Tomato Soup; and Chicken Tikka Masala. Jamie often likes to offer some dishes as `the best'. And, I have never been disappointed with any of his `best' dishes. Many are now part of my standard repertoire. But, whether many are `the best' may be a matter of taste. His `ultimate' burger for example includes cumin, coriander, Parmesan cheese, mustard, and raw onion mixed into the burger patty. I am perfectly happy staying with my classic Julia Child recipes incorporating nothing more than sautéed shallots into the patty. But, I am sure that Jamie's version is `a tasty burger'. Even these simple dishes offer interesting techniques. The chips, for example are not fried, they are parboiled, then baked. Th