Nigel Slater's Quick and Delicious Meals from Real Fast Food, Season 2

The Weany: Anything by Nigel Slater is going to be excellent and this is no exception.

United Kingdom on Oct 07, 2023

P d: Promotes free range meat. Very good! Too much emphasis on fish for today. In my opinion fish should be completely off the menu. Some good salad ideas. Will purchase Nigel's recent book as he's a genuine good person and cook

United Kingdom on Feb 05, 2023

Simone Green: I guess I should have reviewed this better, but I’m very disappointed to find that this has no pictures. Have not tried anything yet.

United Kingdom on Sep 21, 2022

JennLJennL: A must-have cook book. Great, easy recipes packed with flavor. The recipes are so simple that the directions are quite short, yet each also comes with a paragraph or two packed with info and quick tips on other simple combinations. It is an entertaining cook book to sit down and read through. Each category comes with an introduction with some insight into tasty combinations with each topic. Nigel Slater clearly has a passion for cooking and his recipes not only give you instruction on a meal but education to become a better home chef.

United States on Nov 05, 2019

Mr. Stephen Hendry: It is an amazing book. The recipes focus on fresh ingredients and meals that can be made (mostly) in half an hour or less. I borrowed Real Fast Food from a friend and found myself entranced by the straightforward writing of a man who enjoys food and knows that simple, speedy cooking is a boon to many households. I particularly like the fact that his recipes are often for 1 or 2 people (ingredients can of course be multiplied for more eaters). I have often cooked just for myself and recipes usually provide quantities more suitable for a family than one person.
The book is divided in to easily digestible sections including Eggs, Fish, Pasta, Meat and Vegetables & Salads. This content is light on meat - the author says this is because he believes eating habits are changing and people eat less meat than they used to. He does, however, devote a section to Chicken which he believes is "the most versatile meat for the quick cook".
Real Fast Food was originally published in 1992 - the edition I have used was republished in 2006. It is great to see a book without the glossy pictures which are so common in cookery books nowadays. The writing is dense yet light, imbued by personal...

United Kingdom on Mar 11, 2016

samontgomery: After 2 years I had to come back & edit my review because I didn't rate it high enough the first time around! I absolutely ADORE Nigel Slater and his refreshing attitude about food, cooking, and the entire social experience of sharing a meal. I first looked into Nigel after reading a blurb by Chef Gordon Ramsay; how fortunate I was to have I read that blurb. This cookbook is brilliant in its simplicity. Two years later, I'm still trying recipes and appreciating the book as much as the first time I read it; I've enjoyed at least 85% of the recipes. The people who give it a bad review must have been expecting a sit-down dinner for four. Nothing is better, easier or faster for the busy person, and I have kicked the drive-thru habit because of it. Who would want processed meats, deep fried potatoes and preservative laden garbage when you can make poached eggs with herbs and pan fried tomatoes instead? I recently made Nigel's "rich person's answer to fish sticks," Breaded & Pan Fried Scallops with Parsley & Lemon, and my kids were thrilled. Like Nigel, often the perfect dinner for me is nothing more than mopping up some melted Gruyere on decent bread with a pear and a...

United States on Oct 18, 2011

Andrea Smith: I found this languishing on my bookshelf from a previous cookery book spending spree, its spine perfectly intact, and I thought I would give it an airing. I picked it up resolving to get through as many of the recipes as possible to get my money's worth. After all, it promised 'real fast' recipes, and I am one of the time poor who can ill afford to spend more than 30 minutes (on a weekday) preparing a meal.

Whilst Nigel Slater tries to assure us that these meals are quick and easy to prepare, he gets off to a rather shaky start by berating any of us who dare to make stock from a cube (Heaven forbid), buy ready packed ham instead of one lovingly shaved off a joint (guilty as charged), or buy fish anywhere else but our local friendly fishmonger (I would love to but he is closed by the time I get back from work). He then proceeds to say that all herbs should be fresh and that dried herbs are basically useless unless you're slow cooking. I was somewhat dismayed at this as I have a substantial collection of dried herbs in my cupboard, and fresh herbs are also expensive when you're cooking for one.

Anyway, I was somewhat cheered by the mouth watering descriptions of the...

United Kingdom on Jul 16, 2011

Ed N: Although most of the recipes in this book are quick to make, don't count on having most of the ingredients at your house! Slater uses many things that I don't normally have in my cupboard (maybe American vs British shopping?). As a matter of fact, there have been a few ingredients I can't find even in the store(kipper filet? potted shrimp?). Some of the recipes are excellent (chili-chicken pita, broiled salmon w/basil butter), while some aren't so great (avacado w/ warm bacon vinaigrette...ugh). Still very nice for expanding my cooking horizons!

United States on Apr 06, 2008

Douglas Brown: I am not a great cook - I have a gourmet quality wife who loves to cook for relaxation - but for 8 months we were long-distance commuters. I lived on a very small houseboat - meaning everything had to be carried in, water was at a premium, and there was a limit to the amount of electric stuff I could use at the same time. With a 2-burner hot plate and a copy of Real Fast Food as my primary reference, I was able to cook a fair number of the recipes to produce a most impressive meal with minimal trouble.

It is by no means a health-food diet - if you don't like butter and olive oil, this book is not for you. But if you like to make a good showing from time to time with food that tastes great and is not that expensive to prepare - reach for this book first.

United States on Mar 19, 2006

B. Marold: `real fast food' is one of the English culinary writer, Nigel Slater's early books, which in many ways is much more friendly to American audiences than many of his later cookbooks, right down to the silly conceit of putting his title in all lower case instead of the way we were taught in fourth grade to capitalize titles of things!

Two of the more obvious Americanizations are the presence of Jamie Oliver's blurb on the cover that `Nigel is a genius' and the subtitle saying that the book contains `350 recipes ready to eat in 30 minutes'. This puts the book in almost direct competition to Rachael Ray's latest offering, `365:No Repeats' which was published after Slater's volume, so one may say that Rachael is cribbing from the Brits this time. One less obvious but very gratifying change is the fact that all of Slater's recipes in this book are done using Imperial measurements rather than metric measurements. That is, everything is in spoons, cups, ounces, and pounds rather than in grams, kilograms, and milliliters.

The very best thing about this book is that the qualities which made his other books so good, it was worth puzzling through all the metric units are still...

United States on Feb 06, 2006