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'm a good cook, but it's only at the age of 41 that I've been confident enough to think "nope that won't work, I'll change it!"
I do find Nigella difficult, her banana, cherry and coconut loaf is always spot on, but savoury stuff can be hot or miss.
I use delia and the hairy bikers a lot, and good food is my go to when I lack inspiration.

I completely agree about Nigella’s baking recipes not working.

Such is my distrust of her now I can’t even really agree with the above article about her changing food writing - Nigel Slater was writing similarly before her. Though they are clearly both steeped in the same style.

I did love reading How to Eat when it came out - it was so lovely and confessional in tone - but the failure of so many recipes in How to be a Domestic Goddess overshadowed it for me. Maybe I will go and dig it out again and revisit it.

And yes Ina’s and Mary Berry’s always work for me too - though so do Jamie’s, but I only have his early books.

You are so right about chefs XiaoXiong - fags, takeaways, leftovers and booze rule.

Jo's beef in ale stew from the Ministry cook book is rank. Also, his minced beef wellington produces so much grease that it just soaked through the pastry. Looked nothing like his photos!

I've found Hairy Bikers, Delia and Good Housekeeping reliable.

I also have an old out of print US cookbook I love with Italian (/American!) recipes. I'm not surprised Ina's recipes work she's too efficient to put out low quality work..but surely they are just full of butter!

Earlier this week I made the JO 'make ahead gravy. A real time consuming and messy experience, I was disappointed with the end result and think I will have to add a gravy powder to flavour it come Christmas day!

I regularly go back to baking and other recipes from the River Cottage Family Cookbook. I wouldn t say I particularly like the book but the things I have done have worked!

I've found JO's new Italy book good - although 8 egg yolks to make pasta!!!!! Rick Stein - eleventy billion ingredients, Tom Kerridge - prep 6 days ahead, hairy bikers FAB!!!!

I cant bear Nigel's or Nigella's writing style, they 're both too over effusive for me. I've also never forgiven Nigel Slater for interviewing Kathy Burke in her home and snarking about being surprised she had lemon olives to offer him. As if he'd mistaken her for Waynetta and expected a packet of fags and a can of cider. Made me irrationally annoyed.

Jamie's beef in ale stew takes about an hour longer than the time he recommends. It's pretty good then.

The thing with Jamie Oliver is that he's obviously a professional cook and tends to cook with approximate measures and times. Someone then has to try to change that into a recipe that an average person can follow with exact measures.

The only consistently good cook book for me is the usbornes cooking with kids book!! It's even got drawings for each stage so I'm not left guessing at any point. I'm not the best cook ever in case you didn't guess....