Bobby Flay's Throwdown!: More Than 100 Recipes from Food Network's Ultimate Cooking Challenge: A Cookbook

Celebrity chef Bobby Flay delivers a stunning "one-two punch" in his latest book, "Bobby Flay's Throwdown". Based on the cooking challenges from his Food Network show, this book not only contains 50 classic American recipes, like Southern Fried Chicken, Philly Cheesesteak, Muffuletta, and Mac n' Cheese but also Chef Flay's take on them. It's like two cookbooks in one!Bobby Flay is well known not only for his restaurants, cookbooks and T-V shows, but also for his New York cockiness (does anyone remember his first appearance on the Japanese version of Iron Chef when Bobby infuriated Chef Masaharu Morimoto by striking a victory pose while standing on his own cutting board?) which makes him an unlikely candidate for a show that most chefs would avoid like two day old sushi. In the series Throwdown, Chef Flay surprises cooks that are famous for a particular dish and challenges them to a one-on-one contest on that very food, using local judges to determine the outcome! Sounds like a recipe for failure and Bobby does lose most of his contests (and loses in style, I must add), but it makes for great culinary entertainment.The book includes recipes gleaned from 7 seasons of the television show and details the cook or cooks featured, their specialty and both their and Chef Flay's dishes with the recipes for each. Every dish is photographed by my favorite food photographer, New York's Ben Fink. Good food photography is not only rare but it's also expensive, and the publisher spared none when he commissioned Mr. Fink for the studio shots of both the featured cook's dish and Bobby Flay's version.I really like having two recipes showing variations of the same dish. Some of Bobby Flay's recipes in this book are inspired, some seem a little contrived (as if he was making his dish different just for the sake of being different by using exotic ingredients), and others are somewhere in-between. I have made several of the recipes in "Throwdown" and find myself "mixing and matching" the ingredients, using some of his and some of his competitors. For instance, I used his choice of bread but his opponents filling when I made the grilled cheese sandwich featured in this book.The only complaint that I have is with the design of the book itself. Each "Throwdown" is shown as a dossier of sorts, with a manila file, a label-maker style title and candid photos (that look like they were taken with a Polaroid SX-70) laying on top of each other. The food featured here and the people that made it deserve a classier presentation than they received with this book's design.I would have purchased this book for the classic recipes alone and to get Chef Flay's interpretation of them doubles the value for me. Even though I don't like the layout of this book, I give it 5 stars for it's content.

Bought this for my cookbook club and it's a pretty great one. Of course Bobby's recipes tend to be more complex and intensive, but still mostly manageable. It can be tricky to get some of the ingredients called for in these nationwide masterpieces, so expect some substituting. Most of Bobby's recipes are online; as far as the other people's recipes, not sure, but it's neat to have two professional versions of a great food in my library. I made Bobby's coconut cake—oh my, people, you've got to try that!!! Then there's a meatballs recipe that was a total hit, good meatloaf entry, yummmmmy pot pie—lots of great variety in the book. Can't wait to try more.As far as design, the recipes appear in the order that the episodes aired...I kind of don't think that was necessary, as it adds to the total randomness of the book. Of course we're used to apps, drinks, breads, main dish, dessert—order by category—but this is only ordered under category of order of the throwdowns. I think nothing would have been hurt to mix up the order to be more linear by food than by episode. The design and the table of contents :/ I wish I could have tossed in a few pointers about cookbook publishing before it went to print! Food Network might have taken a bit more pride in it, but hey, the world is fast sales. But anyway, publishing snob here. ;) The binding/glue of my hard-cover spine cracked so now the book falls open to page 97 always, so good thing I have a cookbook holder to keep other pages open where I want them open. But it arrived in good time and typical book packaging and I'm overall happy with it.

Would have preferred more recipes and less stories, but great, unique, varied recipes overall

My g/f and I love to watch Bobby Flay's Throwdown show. However, we're always left hungry at the end and dreaming of eating at the places he challenges, knowing that we probably won't get to eat at any of them. Lo and be hold! This book solves that conundrum.When I first saw this book at a book store, I was excited for it hoping to make Bobby's recipes. I was even more excited when I saw it had the challenger's recipes, too! I don't really care about the backstory and recap of each show that they give, but that's just me. I care more about the recipes themselves. Well, so how are they?Simply put: delicious!! They taste even better than they look on TV. Some of them require a lot of ingredients, and some of those ingredients aren't the most common. But that's OK. You can get those for a special treat or there are plenty of recipes that use common ingredients most who love to cook will have. What we like to do is to make one dish on one night, then make the competing dish the next night and have our own little "competition". Honestly, I don't know how the judges do it. Each time the dishes are amazing in their own right.Even if you're not a fan of the show or don't watch it, this is still a great cook book with some amazing recipes (the chicken wing recipes - both of them - are simply to die for!!!). So do yourself the favor and get this cook book or get it for someone you know who loves cooking. Its a welcome addition to any cookbook collection.

I really like this cookbook. Not only is it Bobby Flay (isn't that enough!) but it's also a good size.It's got lots of real recipes that I actually have the ingredients for.Big photos, easy to read recipes and fun photos and articles from Throwdown make it a great addition to your collection 👍

I'm very pleased with the publication (hard copy) quality is good and recipes are many and great. What I'd like to know is that I was supposed to purchase the Kindle edition and the price was jacked up close to four dollars compared to the hard copy, only to come back down a day or two after I bought the hard copy!!!!! In the end I am still happy!

Bonne recette assez facile à suivre.

A wonderful collection of recipes. My father loved it as a Christmas present. If you're a foodie, this is highly recommended.