HK7, ep. 5
The summary of the prior episode starts with Nilka doing a fine job on getting entrees out.Siobhan gets too much unwanted advice from Autumn and Autumn later even took over her station before Ramsay ordered her back to her own. Dinner service turned out unbelievably well. Nilka and Salvatore as best of their teams got to nominate one individual each. She nominated Autumn and he nominated Scott. Autumn called it a personal vendetta and was correct. Ramsay agreed with that analysis, so he decided to keep them both and used up the one week of normal-schedule flexibility (gained from Andrew's unexpected departure).
The challenge took place at a local pig farm. Each team had to have each of its members catch 3 pigs with pork products labeled on them and 3 pigs with other ingredients labeled. The Red team started behind but went ahead and finished slightly ahead. The next step was for 3 sub-teams of 2 for each teams would cook a dish using two of the ingredients and other pantry items. The resulting combinations set up by Ramsay assigning the pairs of sub-team to compete were:
Fran/Nilka (blood sausage w/ prunes, quite an unusual combination that's unlikely to do well) vs. Benjamin/Ed (pan roasted pork loin w/ bok choy) - Blue 1 Red 0; note that Nilka did not know that blood sausage needed to be pricked before heating to give the juices an escape route. Scott knew this but failed to want her.
Holli Siobhan (fennel-crusted pork tenderloin with sweet and sour apple and mustard sauce) vs. Autumn/Jason (honey/mustard dish with glazed bacon and honey slaw which lacked the mustard Autumn had wanted to use but was overruled by stupid Jason) Blue 0 Red 1
Scott/Maria (Sweet potato soup and ham hock garnish) vs. Jay/Salvatore (Latin rubbed pork loin chop served over pinto beans) Blue 1 Red 0 after the usual cliffhanger before a commercial break; note that Ramsay criticized Maria for not following directions and making a pork dish. What happened to her teammate Scott when this critique was applied?
The total is Blue 2 Red 1, so Blue won this challenge. Their reward is a trip to Glen Ivy Hot Springs for an afternoon of pampering. They got to swim in mud, shower, swim in a warm water pool and ogle the beautiful (whether in a bikini like here or anywhere else) Autumn. If looks alone could win TC7, then they could give all the rewards to autumn right now. I suspect she wants to earn them based on her culinary ability and she rightfully expects to do well.
Punishment for the women is catching these squealing pigs again and then cleaning them. I think they are going to become a Menu item, if not that night then soon. They then had to prep both kitchens. Ramsay announced with 3 hours to go in prep that he was doing a new menu, for the first time ever a fine dining Barbecue with barbecue, corn on the cob, fried chicken, kabobs and beef burgers among the items added to the menu. The Red team would cook for 2 hours beginning at 5pm first service and Blue would wait and serve. There was an unstated one hour break to clean and reset the dining room, then Blue got to cook for 2 hours while Red waited and served.
At about the same time frame (3 hours before 5pm), Nilka had started frying chicken and had a large amount of it already cooked. Ramsay was aghast at her lack of knowledge, stating that even fast food joints do not cook their fried chicken that far ahead. he reminded her that Hell's Kitchen is a fine dining mecca. Another interesting tidbit is that Ramsay learned that Salvatore never took the opportunity to go to school when he should have. Salvatore has built up his "street smarts" and culinary education without any formal education. I find that impressive and I hypothesize that Ramsay did too. He pitched once again the value of teamwork.
Dinner service started and the first major mistake was by Maria with raw crab. Fran was alone of Appetizers for Red but doing a fine job. Scott's fried chicken was burned, so he had to redo it ASAP to avoid the other items ordered by that table from getting out of time sync. Autumn in the dining room was doing her best to encourage diners to send as much food back as possible, but those diners as FOX extras were trained in what to do in that situation, which is that a few do allow it and most firmly reject Autumn's encouragement. Autumn's attempts to sabotage the Red team mostly failed. Red made a concerted push to get all their orders out by the close of their kitchen at 7pm, but they failed by a small amount. I want to interject here that Siobhan criticized Autumn's unwanted bossiness, with Ramsay supporting Siobhan and sending Autumn back to her station. Fran criticized Autumn too.
Hell's Kitchen reopened with the Blue team cooking. The Red team did not have much experience with front of the house functions, primarily as servers and were having trouble writing orders and doing their job right. Holli and Fran both attempt to handle table 33, resulting in a double order that had to be taken out of the cooking flow. Diners next were getting food other that that which they had ordered. the chaos of the Red team has to be brought under control. Jean Phillippe did his best to accomplish that. Autumn's first ribs go to the pass ice-cold. She has to refire them. Maria screwed up again. Jason had problems with cooking chickens. with 1 minute left he asked for 3 minutes to finish cooking them. Ramsay is a vigorous in ignoring him and closing Hell's Kitchen. Since expectations have risen with the really good performance in the prior episode, Ramsay is not shy about classifying it as "the worst service" (I'm sure he meant for season 7 and not the entirety of Hell's Kitchen. The red team's poorer performance earned them the loss, with Fran as Best of the worst to nominate two individuals for potential elimination. she picked Maria (the obvious and correct choice) and Nilka (a ridiculous political choice since NIlka got no criticism the entire night. It is clear that Scott's logic has been accepted and caused her to make it Nilka and not him. Ramsay, however, is having none of that. He ordered Scott to some up to join the other 2. My, how quickly Scott has dropped i the overall esteem for HK7 chefs. He will be fighting to stay in this competition for the rest of the episodes. NIlka is judged not a s bad as the other two and got sent back into the lineup. Ramsay tells Maria she lacks pride, dignity and passion. Maria got the boot and Scott barely escaped. Ramsay told Fran to just follow her instinct to get the nomination decision right (which she had not achieved).
The elimination of hapless Maria was the right decision by Ramsay. He said that she had failed to handle the Garnish station. Scott may become a Phoenix rising from the dead.
HK7, ep.6
The usual reprise of the prior episode starts us off. The Creative Pork challenge was grabbing pigs to get a favorable mix of 3 pork-based ingredients with 3 side ingredients to pair up into one from each category to compete with a sub-team of 2 from the other side to cook one dish each. Red lost this. During Barbecue dinner service, the women were disorganized and acting as if they hated each other.
Ramsay asked 5 chefs to name one of the five “mother sauces”. The respond with Hollandaise, tomato, béchamel, demi-glaze and veloute. Now, my information on mother sauces are that they are not primarily to be served as=is, but they are to combine with other ingredients to make specialized sauces for specific purposes. However, my source says that the 5 are white sauce Béchamel, the light stock-based Velouté, the brown stock-based Espagnole; the two basic emulsified sauces, Hollandaise and Mayonnaise; and the oil and vinegar-based Vinaigrette, with tomato frequently recognized as a 6th mother sauce. Who is right? Do we care, as all these sauces are great to eat except maybe for mayonnaise where its health implications could outweigh its fabulous taste.
The Challenge is for each team to prepare 5 dishes using one each of his list of mother sauces and combine them with 20 ingredients with all used and used only once by a team. They have 30 minutes. Ed and Autumn work together. Autumn says that there is a camaraderie that male chefs have and if they let you in on it, it’s special. He asked two people with a great influence at the Savoy, his wife Helen and his wife Tana, to judge.
Tomato – Fran (fettucine fra diavolo w/ oysters and lemon) vs. Salvatore (squab, eggplant, red peppers) – Ramsay calls Fran brilliant and clever for her risky use of the oysters successfully; Tana called blue overcooked and gave the point to Red
Hollandaise – Siobhan (butterfly Cornish hen - Ramsay corrected her that it is a pigeon and the blood all, over it makes it raw and untastable); Ed (pan-seared duck breast); Tana said duck raw and his sauce bland; No points was awarded, which annoyed Ed because :I had the better dish of the two)
Veloute – Holli (she said halibut; Ramsay corrected her to tuna); Ed/Autumn (pan-roasted sea bass with mushroom) – both are judged very good; the point goes to Holli although she undoubtedly lost points with Ramsay due to her lack of knowledge of fish.
Demi-Glace – Nilka (pan-seared steak w/black pepper and mushroom) – Helen called it first-class vs. Jason (strip steak w/ rosemary and potatoes)but again the Red team won and led 2 to 1.
Béchamel - Benjamin (John D’ory in lemon w/ roasted potatoes) – Tana said a little dry and lacked a little seasoning vs. Scott (roasted duck breast on bed of sweet potatoes and eggplant) – Helen hated it; Blue wins this and ties the score at 2 to 2.
Holli accused Scott of being “the worst cook in Hell’s kitchen and so ***** cocky. Ramsay decided to break the tie with a special dish of this competition. That was Jason’s because it would have won against any dish except Nilka’s and so the Blue team won as a result. The Red team got to clean up the kitchen floor, the ovens, the burners and both kitchens before prepping both kitchens. Scott claimed to have prepped enough potatoes but he is challenged on that. Do I anticipate a problem which will happen during dinner service? You bet. The Blue team got to ride a Red double-decker bus to a British-style pub, Ye Olde King’s Head. They had lager from the tap and pub food. There was a strategically placed photo of Ramsay before he broke his leg in his soccer-playing days on display on a wall. There is a prize for closest to the mark in a darts competition, which was Autumn, and also the same Demeyere cookware for every member of the blue team. Siobhan was allergic to some of the cleaning chemicals and had to visit the medic. They had to cut her cleaning uniform off of her.
With 3 hours left before the opening of Hell’s Kitchen Ramsay announced that it would be Family Night with a special children’s menu of Caesar salad, fish fingers, spaghetti and French fries. Ramsay told teams that she must not embarrass him by forcing him to chew them out in hearing of the kids in the dining room. Ramsay asked who is cooking the spaghetti and reluctantly Siobhan and Scott admitted it was them. Ramsay told Siobhan that the basic of cooking pasta are to use boiling water. Savatore made a mistake by lying about the risotto, bringing the wrath of Ramsay, who criticized him: “how dare you?” Nilka is also criticized that her risotto has insufficient lobster in it. Jean Phillippe told some of his kid customers that they need to appreciate that some of the words that Chef Ramsay uses in public are not repeatable. Ramsay told Ramsay that her scallops were rubber. Jason undercooked chicken and upset Ramsay. Scott did not have more than one beef and Wellingtons ready because he had not prepped them. Ramsay went beserk that the Wellington was raw and stone-cold in the middle. Benjamin proved that he was the leader of the Blue team. Ramsay brought chicken and beef for the Red team to touch, because it was done so badly that there was no hope. He ordered the entire Red team to “get out.” Ramsay, Andi and sous chef Scott complete the Red team’s service. Scott is accused by his team for beginning it down. All Blue entries are served within one hour from that point. Ramsay called the red team back to do desserts since all entrees had been served.
The Red team lost and the Red team had the most disorganized service ever. He asked for 2 nominees. You know that the knives were out for Scott, who had many mistakes. He claimed that he had lots of experience and was “Mr. Know-It-All” but could not perform for the Red team after basically getting booted off Blue. Scott was nominated for his 2 bad dinner services and “a lot of talk by no results.” Fran was the second nominee but she said it should be Siobhan. Ramsay asked Nilka to explain. He asked “who is the best chef on the Red team?” Scott said it was himself, but the others on his team totally scoff at that. Nobody ended up answering that question but I think it’s Holli.
Ramsay tells Scott, Siobhan and Scott to all step forward. Scott said “this isn’t culinary school. There is a lot of knowledge and experience needed to succeed.” He goes on to claim he is not only the best cook on the team but also the best leader. Ramsay said he kept waiting but it did not happen. “Scott had the credentials but no performance. If Scott could cook as well as he talked, then he would win Hell’s Kitchen; however, he can’t perform.” It appears that Scott's Phoenix has been burned on a Hell's Kitchen jacket hook.
Ramsay then made a surprise move to send Benjamin to the Red team to avoid the blue team having 2 more members. Ramsay charged Benjamin with “run it and get it to perform.”