A Chef For All Seasons – Gordon Ramsay with Roz Denny

Gordon Ramsay's A Chef for all Seasons is naturally broken down into four sections, a good introduction to each season being accompanied by a well laid-out compilation of Ramsay's favourite seasonal ingredients with appropriately informative descriptions.

The recipes are clear and co-author Roz Denny, who assisted with the writing of both of Ramsay's previous books, supplies help with the trade explanations. It's here that the book wins, because the format helps it to straddle both domestic and professional book markets. Ramsay isn't going to let his two-Michelin-star standards drop and there are enough morels, cèpes, scallops and sweetbreads to keep the most adventurous chefs on their toes.

A good 30% of the recipes require fish, vegetable or chicken stock in one colour or another (there is not a veal stock in sight), and a number achieve the feat of being straightforward and spectacular at the same time. Gressingham duck with chicory tarts, rib-eye of beef with watercress purée, and salmon cucumber salad with wilted lettuce and tomato butter are three examples.

There are similarities with Ramsay's previous books. One or two recipes are familiar, though they appear, here, in different guises; and, as in the past, there are good step-by-step preparations at the back. The photography by Georgia Glynn Smith is clean, simple and stunning.

For me, this is the best of Ramsay's three books and the one I enjoyed reading the most. And I hope, Gordon, that you keep the promise - given in the acknowledgements at the back - to start cooking Sunday lunch for Tana, Megan and the Tweenies.

by Paul Heathcote, proprietor, Paul Heathcote Restaurants, Longridge, Lancashire

A Chef For All Seasons, Gordon Ramsay with Roz Denny. Quadrille, £25.
ISBN 1-902757-19-X