Happy Days with the Naked Chef by Jamie Oliver (1/3)

his salads are amazing

Last week when I was in New York, I met the editor who discovered Jamie Oliver. He says Jamie's one of the most genuine guys you'll ever meet. Somehow, I'm not surprised by that comment. I love his cookbooks. The recipes are hard to mess up. A couple glugs, handfuls, and pinches and you're good to go.

Browsing this book in early 2002 caused a revelation - cooking can be fun! And you are not required to be funereal and solemn! You can have a glass of wine while you wait for something to boil! Hallelujah!

I don't (and never will) cook 3 times a day, but when a bout of domesticity hits, this is a book I turn to. Pot-roasted chicken with sweet and sour sauce is an all-time favourite.

I love the way Jamie wants to make everything excessible and flexbile. I think those are fantastic traits in a chef. i also love how he writes his recipes, he does it in paragraph form...
That said, there were only a few recipes I was actually able to apply to cook at home. And there is A LOT of BUTTER in EVERYTHING.

Jamie and Nigella were two of THE celebrity chefs of the new millennium so if you love making delicious food at home that has an extra edge, then you probably already have one or more of their cookery books.
This is one of my favourite Jamie Oliver books although Jamie's Dinners is also excellent, and of course his original Naked Chef is great.
10 years on and Jamie and Nigella now irritate as many people as they delight, but their recipes remain fantastic.
They work, they are not long and overly-complicated and they pass the taste-test. Don't knock them till you've tried them!

This may be my favorite of all of Oliver's books so far. The things I loved about his earlier books (gorgeous photography, personable narrations of the dishes) are still here, but the recipes are focused on simple meals to make at home with family, all very doable and tempting. I would tag this one as the "must have" Jamie Oliver cookbook out of them all.

I really enjoyed this cookbook, and use several of the recipies in it as staples inmy family, most notably the chicken in milk and the sweet and sour pot-roated chicken. There are a few recipies that are not worth the effort, such as the rock hen in dough, but overall I' d say it's a lively book which really appeals to my desire for easy, "fancy" dishes. I'd say this isn't for some beginners becasue not every ingredient is measured exactly but I don't really think it would be much of a problem. The pot-roasted pork with fennell is AMAZING. The pictures are great, too, as I've always preferred cookbooks with pictures of every dish.

i don't know why the british get such grief for their cooking/cuisine... yes, it is true, that if you hang out in london, most of cuisine is imported (in december, i had the most amazing Indian at The Red Fort and the most delectable Sichuan at Bar Shu -- both in SOHO) but even the traditional foods get me excited.... i love sandwiches made with crusty bread, black currant tea, high tea with all those cucumber and egg sandwiches, clotted cream, Digestives, fish & chips.... and i love jamie oliver. this is his only cookbook i own, but i hope to add more. my favourite recipe is pot-roasted pork in white wine with garlic, fennel and rosemary...

He is a little too vague at times with his cheeky Brit terms, baking containers (sizes), and measurements. I never follow recipes word for word, so I kind of like the vagueness , that is until I used a totally wrong "pie dish." All in all, great ideas, beautiful cooking and I'd still like another one of his cookbooks. :)

I haven't looked at the other Jamie's books yet, but I'm definitely going to now. This one has quite a few ideas that I liked in it - baking stuff in foil "bags", several easy salad dressings, different variations of bread based on the same basic recipe... What's even more, there is an air of lightness and happiness that this cookbook has about it: nice photographs, laid-back tone of the recipes - it's more like reading a good blog in a paper format than a "proper" cookbook. I think it would make a great present for a Jamie's fan, or for someone who is just beginning to cook (like me) and needs some ideas and techniques for inspiration.

Why only three stars then, you ask? Well, it might be just my expectations conflicting with reality, but Jamie has A LOT of meat in this book. Basically all the main dishes are based on either meat or fish and virtually every side/veggie dish calls for bacon or panchetta - to spice things up, I guess. And those that don't have bacon have butter or creme fraiche as ingredients. Come to think of it, many have both butter and bacon... Now, I'm not a vegetarian, but I don't think that every.single.meal has to have meat in it. Seriously. And how 'bout trying to reduce fat intake, Jaimie? A more balanced collection of recipes would be nice, but then again, I haven't seen any other of his cookbooks, maybe this is an exception.

Happy Days with the Naked Chef by Jamie Oliver (3/3)