Why do Jamie Oliver's recipes never work for me?

[driggle]

Watching his new Christmas show. Everything looks lovely. I bought Ministry of Food on the back of the great recommendations it gets on here but I could never get anything to taste half decent or sometimes the timings would be completely wrong. Now I'm a competent cook. Give me a Mary Berry recipe or one from BBC Good Food and they always come out tasty and as I expected them to. Apart from Jamie's rogan josh curry in his 30 Minutes book, I've yet to get one of his recipes to turn out as I expected it too. What am I doing wrong? Is there a knack to adjusting his timings? Do I add less or more of what he suggests? Someone teach me his ways. I really want to like the MoF book but the 5 or so things I've made haven't been met with much enthusiasm in this house. And DP and DC will eat anything.

I like Jamie Oliver's stuff but what I do is just get ideas and do things in my own way. Never stick to a recipe strictly, it often doesn't work.

I just don't think he's that good. It's all a bit emperors new clothes. His gravy recipe is terrible! I'd just try different recipes from someone else.

He always seems to add too much liquid so I generally ignore any instructions to ‘fill tomato tins with water and add’. Would that help?

He uses a lot of Pataks curry pastes doesn't he? They are all a bit samey to me, bit meh and no depth of flavour.

I have MOF book and use the stew recipe, they are very basic recipes imo.

@Magmatic80 I think that's where I went wrong with one of the soup recipes. Against my better judgement I added the water as instructed and it didn't reduce much so it was more like eating stock than a soup!

Agree about too much liquid in the Ministry of Food recipes.

I have that book and am a competent cook so know that you don't need pints of water to make a ragu, or whatever the recipe was, but the beginner that the book is aimed at probably wouldn't know that, neither would they know that if you boil the fuck out of it simmer it down with the lid off you can usually get rid of excess water.

I also generally take recipes as ideas/suggestions rather than gospel and do things my own way and am surprised how poor the recipes in published cookbooks can be sometimes.

I love Jamie but it's absolutely true about the excess liquid.

I tend to follow a recipe to the letter first time round then adjust next time, unless it's blindingly obvious it's not going to work first time. Maybe I need to trust my own judgment more.

Because he isn’t very good IMO. I’m not a bad cook, but I like a Delia recipe. They’ve clearly been tested to buggery because if you follow them they always work.

All this bish bosh Jamie shizzle is rubbish.

He has some good ideas about combining flavours but agree that the method is often imperfect - timings are off and completely agree about the excess water - what's that about?!

Also agree that Delia's recipes are excellent in terms of method; BBC usually reliable but they have some odd ideas about ingredients. The best, most reliable recipes that I find always work and taste like I want them to are the Good Housekeeping books.

Did you make sure to add 3 bottles of olive oil when he says a dash? ;)

Dh made JO's beef stew with porcini mushrooms and it was revolting. Delia knows what she's on about.

One Jamie book I do like though is Save With Jamie, just because it's so easy to find recipes for leftovers from a roast (recipes for roasts also given) - there are several for each kind of meat, and some of them are very tasty, together with recipes for cheap cuts that taste good. It does what it says on the tin - it's a book about eating well on a budget and it has some genuinely useful information about that.

The beef stew in the ministry book is good. But I add mushrooms, and an oxo cube!

Yes, JO heart in the right place but he's been supremely lucky. And, not to take away from him, he seems to work very hard and heart in right place. But the recipes? Use them as a guide rather than step by step guide, always too much everything, especially chilli. Can't fault Delia for learners.

I like to think of myself as a good cook, but recently gave my Jamie Oliver books to the charity shop. Never found a recipe that I thought I would make more than once.
It's all bish, bash, bosh on the telly, but in real life his recipes use every utensil in the kitchen, require an internet shop to find the ingredients and taste a bit meh.
I watched his Christmas show last night and it was OK but the recipes weren't anything to write home about.

Stick to Mary at least she doesn't cook withthe ingrediants of companies that sponser him at the time of minestry of food it was a curry paste company. Another book/series was a well known rice brand,

Yeah, his recipes are rubbish if you follow them to the letter - you have to adjust timings, water etc. all over the place. Bloody Nigella is the same grr.

Anything I’ve tried to make following a Jamie Oliver recipe has gone wrong too!

They just aren’t very good recipes. I doubt many of them have ever even been made by him, let alone tested and refined. They’re just ideas, and mostly not even very good ideas.

I haven’t tried Ministry if Food but I have some of his early books and everything akways turns out well.

On the other hand I have never ever been able to get any Nigella recipe to work.

What Delia book do you recommend? I bought one from eBay a while back. Looked very modern on the cover on eBay but when it arrived it was an 80s tome with recipes for liver and tripe and other things my family wouldn't contemplate. Not looking for anything for beginners as I am a good cook despite my JO mishaps, just normal everyday recipes. I usually go to Mary Berry for that sort of thing. Love her Absolute Favourites book

Do you think he actually makes up his recipies to see if they work or is his tv programmes all smoke and mirrors? My mum tried his turkey and gravy 1 christmas the poor woman was on her kneesby dinner time muttering under her breath about effing jamie oliver

@NonaGrey see, Nigella always works exactly for me. Her chocolate chip cookie recipe in Kitchen is perfection. Her latest books have been pants though.

The one I do like is Jamie’s dinners. It is quite basic but it’s got some good ideas. Then again, I’m not a follower of the recipe to the letter kinda cook....