Product Description

Each week in the television series Cutting the Mustard, a struggling restaurant receives the Gordon Ramsay treatment. His personality is forceful, to say the least. His reputation for explosive outbursts and sharp-tongued confrontations is matched only by his ability to create truly spectacular food in his restaurants. With only a couple of weeks to turn around a restaurant's flagging fortunes, nothing is sacred. There’s no time for polite small talk as Gordon reveals a few home truths to the exhausted, emotional restaurant owner or manager and embarks upon his mission to turn things around. Cutting the Mustard is a unique combination of practical insight and compelling entertainment. It offers an intriguing look at the ins and outs of the restaurant business, using the troubleshooting format to explore the secrets of success for running a profitable eatery. By turns exciting, moving, surprising and inspiring, this is a series that explodes the myths surrounding personal and professional ambition, success and motivation whilst revealing that even the most disastrous situation can be turned around with a bit of imagination and a lot of elbow grease.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #253685 in Books
• Published on: 2004-04-27
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Never mind the b*****ks, here are the true gems that place Gordon Ramsay at the apogee of contemporary British cuisine. In Kitchen Heaven, Gordon's a man with a mission: to give back to the industry that has given him so much. And if he can impose his excellence into our home kitchens, so much the better.

His beautifully illustrated book includes many of the recipes he uses in his TV series, Kitchen Nightmares, to replace tired and misguided fancy food with hearty fare focused more on local produce and fresh, good-quality ingredients simply presented. Don't be intimidated by Ramsay's reputation for three Michelin star perfection. The man whose previous book, Gordon Ramsay's Just Desserts, includes a recipe for a roasted rhubarb and apple crumble (an easy and warming comfort pudding), is surprisingly accessible as a creator of cookbooks for anyone's kitchen. He is a master of great classics such as bouillabaisse, fish pie, Caesar salad and a stuffed loin of roast suckling pig with crispy crackling that you'll be calling your mum about. Aware that any kitchen needs to be aware of the bottom line, he revels in the possibilities of a rich, intensely-flavoured braised oxtail in beef tomatoes and a braised shank of lamb that falls off the bone onto a soft parsnip purée. In kitchen heaven, kids are always first to the table to enjoy friendly and healthy fare such as lamb stew with parsley dumplings and young carrots, or for a more grown-up palette, pheasant baked with ceps. And the aforementioned crumble may have to make way for calvados rice pudding with caramelised apples, while his reinvigoration of black forest gateau will spoon away any bad memories you have of the sweet trolley. For the unbelievers, he even builds bridges between himself and vegetarians, demonstrating how seriously he takes vegetarian food with recipes such as baked asparagus and parmesan loaf and braised lentils and Swiss chard, turnips and parsley ravioli.

Ramsay's tips on how to create ambience and write a good menu is all fantastically useful whether you are running a restaurant or having a dinner party, with interesting insights on the techniques, processes and personalities that have contributed to his success. If the horror stories turn your stomach, Kitchen Heaven is divine intervention indeed. --Fiona Buckland

About the Author
Gordon Ramsay is considered by many to be the best chef in Britain. He began his colourful career as a professional footballer for Glasgow Rangers. A dramatic change of course took him to work for three years as Marco Pierre White's sous chef at Harvey's restaurant after which he worked with Albert Roux, Guy Savoy and Joel Robuchon. At the age of 26 he launched his first restaurant, Aubergine, which gained two Michelin stars. In September 1998 he opened Gordon Ramsay which was awarded three Michelin stars and was named the second best restaurant in the world by a Restaurant magazine poll.

Customer Reviews

A glimpse of kitchen heaven, complete with the odd 'X'-rated word in the narratives!
'As seen on Channel 4', over 100 brand new recipes.

For the large part this is a useful recipe, and reference book where 'tweaked' old favourites e.g. 'Burger and Chips' and 'Black Forest Gateau' mingle with the less well-known 'Puff Pastry Pizza' 'Smoked Haddock Soup with Quail's Eggs' and 'Pheasant baked with Crepes'.

255 high quality, shiny pages split over 9 main chapters:-

Salads
Things on Toast
Vegetarian
Soups
Fish
Meat
Puddings
Vinaigrettes & Dressings
Sauces, Stocks & Basics

sandwiched between an introduction, 'Essential Techniques' including:- 'How to Poach an Egg', 'How to Dry Salad Leaves' and
'How to Fillet, Pin-bone and Skin Fish', a two page glossary and a concise index.

Each chapter opens with a helpful tip, e.g.:-

Salads - 'The thing to remember with salads is not to fuss over them too much and always use the best, freshest ingredients you can get hold of.......and GR's experiences from the TV programmes:- 'Caesar Salad' is a great test for any chef to make properly as it really doesn't need much messing with......
After seeing the mess they made at '...........', I gave the chef this recipe, which is my interpretation.'

A recipe for the 'Ultimate Caesar Salad' follows.

Opening the 'Vegetarian' chapter is a quote, with the typical GR attitude, we have come to either love or hate:-

'I was mis-quoted a few years ago, so I want to set the record straight: I absolutely love vegetarians, adore them, and enjoy eating vegetarian food myself......

or ....
....ahead of the GR 'Cottage Pie' recipe:-

'This has to be my all-time favourite comfort food dish. My wife, Tana, and I go out and have dinner once a week, by ourselves. We usually go to the Ivy and I always order the same thing - 'Caesar Salad' and 'Cottage Pie'. The waiters there think I am boring because I always have the same, but I just love it.
I'll sit there with a dinky bottle of ketchup and one of Worcestershire sauce and that is just it for me.
Nothing more, nothing else, just my cottage pie.....'and GR goes on to recommend using Desirée potatoes in his version.

Throughout the book, each recipe is clearly laid out with the title and ingredients list in dark red type, followed by the method, in black type. Each also has a relevant opening note.

'On-location' photography with pictures for a large percentage of the recipes..... but not all..... which may prove slightly negative to those of us who like to see what we are aiming for on the plate, particularly in a less obvious to picture dish, e.g. 'Lobster Roll'!

The book is interspersed with the aforementioned 'narrative sections', entitled:-

Being a Waiter
Turning Your Restaurant Nightmare into a Dream
Putting Chefs on the Spot
Too Much Sleep
and
Making Mistakes

Other recipes include:-

Smoked Salmon and Cream Cheese Croque Monsieur
Baked Asparagus and Parmesan Loaf
Crispy Duck Salad
Warm Oriental Marinated Chicken with King Prawns and Posh Prawn Toasts
Daube of Squid
Venison Pie
Baked Pumpkin
Minestrone
Grilled Lobster and Chips
Marinated Duck Breasts
Turnip, Marrow and Potato Soup
Whisky Bread and Butter Pudding
Lemon Confit
Taramasalata
Brown Chicken Stock
Calvados Rice Pudding with Caramelized Apples

My favourite recipe, to date.......tried and tasted...... is:-

'Braised Lamb Shank with Parsnip Purée'

the latter making a sweet and pleasant change to potatoes....and......the complete dish is cooked on the hob, giving my oven a rest for the night!
With some healthy steamed greens, for a colourful presentation.....'served', as they say!

The only cook book that has actually got me cooking
This is a fantastic book for lovers of Gordon Ramsay and for people who just love good food. I've really enjoyed watching Gordon on his Kitchen Nightmares series so I was fascinated to see if his perfectionism could help me out in the kitchen - and it has. It's not quite as good as having him there to shout at me but so far I've made 4 dishes and my wife and friends loved them all (and they can't quite believe their eyes that I'm in there cooking). This is a f***ing good book as Gordon might say.

5 Michelin Stars
A thoroughly enjoyable book to accompany the excellent series.

The recipes are 'something for everyone', including a vegetarian section with easy to follow recipes so no vegetarian guest would accuse you of not caring!

There are some nice, amusing comments throughout the book from the Top Man, which make flicking through, selecting a meal an absolute pleasure.

Gordon may seem an ogre in the kitchen, but he appreciates food and what you can do with good, fresh produce, His love of creating wonderful dishes shines through and makes you understand how important it is to do your very best and you will eat the very best.

There are none of his infamous expletives in the book, so even your nan would appreciate unwrapping this one on Christmas day.

Fabulous!