Not Very Accurate Recipes

I bought both volume 1 and 2 of this cookbook along with a few others in a package deal directly from The author's website. I regret wasting my money.

Many of the recipes look good and the recipes I've tried tasted ok for the most part. But none have tasted very much like the original. But the books are advertised as allowing you to make recipes that taste just like the originals and after reading the recipes you'll see that this just isn't possible with many of them. The problem is that they are just too vague. For example: The recipe for the, "Whopper" hamburger leaves out a very important step and that is how thick to make the beef patty or even the fat content. Why is that important? Because The thickness of the burger and the amount of fat in the meat directly affects how the entire sandwich tastes. If you just guess at the fat content and make the patty sized to fit whatever size bun you have then it definitely will not taste the same. The same goes for his Big Mac recipe. He doesn't give you any details for the hamburger patties other than you need 2 of them and they should be 100% beef. Well DUH! But one of the keys to making the Big Mac taste like a Big Mac is that the patties have to be a certain size and thickness. You may end up with a sandwich that you like as much as or better than the original Big Mac but you will NOT end up with one that fools anyone.

The Olive Garden Lasagna is another example of a recipe that is lacking in instructions. It calls for 12 lasagna noodles. Ok. Now what? The next step is to start layering them with the other ingredients. Are the noodles supposed to be boiled first? It doesn't say and there are plenty of lasagna recipes available elsewhere where the noodles are layered without cooking them and they cook in the sauce in the oven. So, which is it? And it also calls for, "Marinara/Spaghetti sauce". What kind? What flavor? There are drastic differences in flavors between nearly every brand and every homemade recipe. Since the only place in the recipe where the sauce is used is at the end, poured over the top, the difference in flavor will have a big effect on what the final dish tastes like. He also leaves out whether the ricotta cheese if part skim or whole milk. This will have an effect on the final outcome so why not just include it in the recipe?

Another example is the Popeye's Fried Chicken. The ingredient list includes several prepackaged spice mixes as well as crushed corn flakes. Uh, I don't think that will do it. I've eaten at Popeye's. I've tried this recipe. Two completely different fried chicken recipes. There are plenty of other examples like this throughout both volume 1 and 2. Several recipes call for, "Chili powder". Is that the blended kind with several different spices or just ground chili? Try 3 different brands of the blended variety and you'll have 3 different flavors. The same goes for, "Enchilada sauce". Cajun spice blends all taste different and that will have a big effect on the taste of the recipe. Yet there are no details for the Cajun spice brand or exact blend of spices. Some are very salty, others are not. That will make a difference in how the final product tastes. If you're writing a cookbook about copycat recipes why not take the time to figure out the proper blend of spices or at least get close. If nothing else he could've given the brand name of a Cajun spice blend that tasted right.

There are so many vague ingredients and cooking methods that I can't possibly list them all. If you just want a cookbook that might allow you to make something similar to the original recipe then some of these will do the trick. Some may even get very close. But the author suggests that, "...if you follow these instructions you won't be able to tell the difference." I'm sorry but the only people who couldn't tell the difference would be people who can't tell the difference between a Whopper and a Jumbo Jack. Yup, similar ingredients but different flavors. Unless you're just not very picky about how accurate you want your recipes to be, don't waste your money on these books. The companies that developed the original versions of these recipes have spent a lot of time making very specific changes and adjustments to make them taste just how they want them to taste. Changing the brand or style of an ingredient will make the final product taste different. So will changing the cooking method. This book seems to, (For the most part) ignore that fact.

If you want a bunch of, "Copycat recipes" it's easy to find plenty of them for most popular brand name recipes for-word from Todd Wilbur's, "Top Secret Recipes" book. No credit given at all. It doesn't seem to bother Ron Douglas as long as it's not one of the recipes from his books. One common recipe request on the website is for the original KFC chicken recipe. The answer is always, "Buy the recipe book from Ron Douglas". Ok. He's in it to make money and that's fine. But he doesn't seem to mind when recipes are stolen from other authors' cook books. The funny part is that the recipe in the book produces chicken that doesn't taste much like the chicken from KFC. It's just a commonly shared recipe that you can find in a few dozen other recipe sites on the internet. I have tried the recipe word for word and even used a pressure fryer, (That's the key) and it wasn't any closer to KFC's chicken than the fried chicken from a grocery store deli counter. I guess he figures that if people try this KFC recipe before they buy his books they will quickly realize that the results from the KFC recipe are typical of many of the other recipes in his books.

These recipes really worked

I've tried a bunch of the "secret restaurant recipes" from this cookbook and my friends can't believe I made them myself. They taste just like the restaurants! Last night I made the Applebees Fiesta Lime Chicken and there were no words spoken at the table - only the sound of lips smacking :-).

I highly recommend this cookbook and their Volume 2 version is well worth the money as well.

Recipes Similar to Top Restaurant Favorites

I was curious about this cookbook, so I got in touch with the author - Ron Douglas. He began putting together his collection with a web site RecipeSecrets.com and then self published this book and a follow up.

After talking with Ron, I got his books. They are really great. There are recipes to make things like Boston Market Macaroni and Cheese, KFC Honey BBQ wings, and Applebee's Baby Back Ribs. These recipes are developed and then tested out on the web site, so they are very close to the real thing.

The recipe book is small and has around 100 restaurant recipes. There aren't any photos, but these are dishes most people would know from eating out.

I've been enjoying making some of my favorite dishes from restaurants. I showed the cookbook to my Mom, and she wants to try out some dishes too. Many of them are Southern favorites. I asked Ron about that. He is from New York. His Grandma grew up in the South, so that's how he came to especially like Southern cooking.