Product Description

In his outstanding new cookbook, Gordon Ramsay teams up with Mark Sargeant to showcase the best of British cooking. Packed full of sumptuous and hearty traditional recipes, Gordon Ramsay's Great British Pub Food is perfect for relaxed, homely and comforting cooking. Pubs were once a place where you could always guarantee good, simple, cheap food and a great Sunday roast, but when the steak houses and fast food chains arrived the good home cooking from the pub kitchens was replaced with tasteless, defrosted meals. Then came the gastropubs, which weren't much better, serving mediocre food at restaurant prices. That's why when Gordon Ramsay and Mark Sargeant set up the Gordon Ramsay pubs in London they wanted to produce the sort of simple but delicious British classics that warm the cockles of your heart and to serve them at affordable pub prices. Dishes like rich, hearty Chicken and Smoked Bacon Pie, mouth-watering Gloucestershire Sausages with Grainy Mustard Mash and Red Onion Marmalade and indulgent Treacle Tart - classics that have stood the test of time. Now Gordon has gathered his favourite British recipes into one sumptuous collection so you can invite your friends round, serve some good, English ale and cook the best in traditional pub food classics in your own home.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #277 in Books
• Published on: 2009-03-05
• Released on: 2009-03-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

Review
'With purse-friendly ingredients and easy-to-follow recipes, this is perfect for anyone trying to eat in more.' ***** Heat magazine 'Relaxed, homely and comforting'. Foodies magazine 'It is an undeniably British creation, with nearly every recipe a dish of our heritage cleaned up and presented for the 21st century pub, with a quirky and colourful vibe.' Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine

About the Author
Gordon Ramsay's radical career change at 17 years old led him to London and to huge success as chef, restaurant-empire-builder and TV star. Gordon has published ten bestselling recipe books and has starred in the hugely successful television series Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, Hell's Kitchen, The F Word and Gordon Ramsay's Cookalong Live. In 2006 he was appointed OBE. Mark Sargeant first worked with Gordon Ramsay at Aubergine before spending three years as Sous Chef at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea. He left there to open the highly acclaimed Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's where he is Head Chef. Most recently, Mark has been overseeing the opening of Gordon Ramsay's pubs The Narrow, The Devonshire and The Warrington, which opened to excellent reviews and press coverage.

Customer Reviews

Buy this F***ing book big boy!
This is a fantastic book of British favourites with the Ramsay touch. It has easy to follow recipes for everything from crisps & pork scratchings (Michelin starred pork scratchings???)to roasts, with tradional comfort food like hotpot etc, steak in ale pie, pates etc. I've only had the chance to try one recipe so far in my first 24 hours but it has turned out wonderfully.

I have quite a few Ramsay cookbooks and would reccomend this one to anyone. Whereas some (like 3 * chef) are almost "food porn" - looks great but little chance of doing it at home, this is easy to follow with everyday ingredients, no special equipment but great wholesome food.

The print is clear, some great photos of the food and of Ramsay & Sarge, a nice retro feel to some of them too.

I don't have a Ramsay pub within about 100 miles so this is the next best thing. Buy it, read it, use it to make something to impress your family and friends, you and they will be glad you did

You can pull me a pint anytime, Gordon
Love Gordon and love this new book. There are some real classics here which I'd sort of forgotten about but never should have. It's a real celebration of good, honest, simple food which is what any good pub should focus on. Good bangers and mash will beat hand-massaged Iranian goose burgers with a side of organic kale roasted by monks any day of the week.

GR returns with another book
and between the covers, old favourites such as 'Gammon Steak with Pineapple and Fried Egg', 'Toad-in-the-Hole' and 'Hake in Beer Batter with Mushy Peas' mingle with the lesser well-known 'Pork Cheeks in Spices with Bashed Neeps', 'Rabbit Hotpot with Perry' and the intriguing 'London Particular'!

Initial impressions and a quick flick through this publication - 'a tribute to British pub food' - one could be forgiven for getting a slightly confused impression of what this book is aiming at.
A lot of the recipe titles certainly have that 'chef spin' on them which suggests something more 'up-market' for want of a better way to put it - i.e. the more 'posh restaurant-side' rather than the 'bar-side' of what I know as the 'traditional pub'.....perhaps.....which could limit appeal.
Having said that, all is revealed with a quick read of the dust-jacket flap!

'.....I believe that simple, delicious British food should be found in that great British institution - the pub. However, all too often pub owners think they can get away with serving tasteless, defrosted meals. The gastropubs aren't much better - to my mind many gastropubs sell mediocre food at restaurant prices.
When my friend, Mark Sargeant and I set up the Gordon Ramsay pubs in London, we wanted to produce the sort of simple but delicious British classics that warm the cockles of your heart and to serve them at affordable pub prices.
Dishes like rich, hearty Chicken and Smoked Bacon Pie, mouth-watering Sausages with Mustard Mash and Sweet and Sour Peppers and indulgent Treacle Tart - classics that have stood the test of time.
That's why I have collected my favourite British recipes into one collection so you can invite your friends round, serve some good, English ale and cook the best in traditional pub food classics in your own home.....'

A touch of gold colouring outlines the raised lettering of the title as GR peeks over a dish, on the dust-jacket....... although..... both disappear off the durable hardboard cover which opens to 256 thick matt pages, split over 11 chapters:-

(1) Bar Food
(2) Savouries with Toast
(3) Soups and Broths
(4) Starters
(5) Catch of the Day
(6) Pies and Savoury Tarts
(7) Comfort Food
(8) Grills and Sautés
(9) Weekend Roasts
(10) Puddings
(11) Basics

sandwiched between an introduction and an index.

Each chapter opens with a double title page showing the list of recipes which follow, on a traditional pub blackboard type layout.

Each recipe is clearly laid out with the title, an opening note, the number of servings, the list of ingredients along with suggested accompaniments and the method, presented in the usual GR style.

A small taste of the other recipes contained within:-

Scotch Eggs
Prawn Cocktail
Homemade Pork Scratchings
Scotch Woodcock
Cock-a-leekie Soup
Grilled Kippers
Somerset Fish Casserole
Roasted Bone Marrow with Caper and Herb Dressing
Cornish Pasties
Steak and Kidney Pie
Black Country Beef Stew
Lancashire Hotpot
Rib-Eye Steak with Chips and Sauce Choron
Pork Chop with Champ
Roast Chicken with Gravy and Bread Sauce
Christmas Roast Turkey infused with Truffles
Roast Beef with Red Wine Gravy
Summer Pudding
Jam Roly-Poly
Queen of Puddings
Stocks
Roast Potatoes
Custard
Pastry

This book is interspersed with a fair number of illustrations for a book this size - including some of GR and 'on-location' - as usual - but the number of the finished dishes is still on the light side, in my opinion, which may prove negative to some who like to see what they are aiming for on the plate, e.g. 'Potted Hough' ('Hough' is Scottish for 'shin' (of beef on the bone), incidentally)!

From the introduction:-

'........This book brings to you dishes that have become pub classics.
It offers simple, reasonably priced recipes that you can cook at home without fuss or complication. This is the food that has brought the British pub on to the culinary map.'

Although I am a BIG fan of Mr Ramsay, I do question whether this publication will appeal to the market the title initially suggests it is aimed at, and that is part of the reason why it has taken me a good few months to try, taste and.......ponder.
Without doubt, there are some great recipes and my overall favourite is:-

'Honeyed Pork Stew', (pages 164/165)

which panders to my 'one-pot' preference when nobody knows what time they are getting back for dinner!
The opening note of this tasty recipe hints that it is the 'perfect winter warmer' and, at this time of the year, I can certainly endorse that! The recipe makes great use of a relatively inexpensive piece of boneless pork belly and a load of vegetables, and slowly simmers away on the hob in my favourite Le Creuset 'pot'!
The recipe makes great use of a relatively inexpensive piece of boneless pork belly, and a load of vegetables, and slowly simmers away on the hob in my favourite Le Creuset 'pot'!
'Done'.......
'Served'.....
as the big boy says!

However, coming in at just under the four-star mark, I have to admit that Great British Pub Food is my least favourite of the increasing number of GR books available to date....... but........I guess......you can't please all of the people all of the time?