I hate to break it you, but I don’t have all that much to say about this episode of Hell’s Kitchen. I thought the minute that Barbie undercooked the fish again, she would be the one uncerimoniously lambasted and booted from the competition. But not so. It was Briana, whose pasty face has melded with the wallpaper until now, taking the long walk of shame when all was sauteed and done.
As my Gordon said? She lost a battle with that cod during dinner service. Geez. Last week, it was scallops causing all the problems. This time around it’s cod. Fish just must be completely easy to mess up.
I’ve never attempted to cook fish myself. The closest I’ve ever come is tossing some tuna in a bit of mayonaisse and calling it a day. But I will advise anyone thinking of trying out for this show in future to spend the time preparing by cooking fish for your entire town. Bake it. Cook it in oil. Wrap it in parchment. Fry it. Broil it.
And when you’re done? Start all over again. Because fish has been the ruin of many a poor chef in HK.
Between daydreaming about drinking champagne with my Gordon on a private jet (as the women who won the first challenge were able to do) I was taking copious notes, however. And I came to the conclusion that Barbie really should have been sent home. I’ve already mentioned her screw ups of last week, and this week Gordon had to throw her off the pizza station. She does sloppy work, and has no timing or communication with her fellow teammates. (She does do a good wide eyed “Who me?” sort of stare though.)
The reason she didn’t, and probably won’t get her apron set fire to for awhile though, is simple. As one of you told me in the comments section last week … she is evil. So Chef Hottie will keep her around to stirs things up for a bit. At least until his vocal chords are in danger of bursting.
There’s one in every season.
Otherwise? I’m liking Patrick for showing some spunk and stepping up to lead the men. Royce is still a mosquito bite in the middle of my back that I can’t reach to scratch. Tiffany kept “crazy” under control tonight, but it’s only a matter of time. And Roshni continues to dodge bullets.
My Gordon has a lot of weeding out to do. As he said during elimination? He could think of six people worthy of being sent home.
Let’s see what happens Tuesday night!
Clacked by Tara Shrodes
on Jun 11, 2012 @ 23:52 EST5EDT
Fish is tricky because the only way to really tell if it’s done is either practice until you know exactly how it’s supposed to look and feel OR flake a little bit of it up with your fork, which is fine when you’re at home but that just doesn’t cut it when you’re serving it to guests. Scallops, on the other hand, are not that hard because they cook relatively quickly, so not sure why they struggled with that last week.
Probably the easiest thing to cook in seafood are clams and mussels in the shells because the steam opens them up for you. Of course, you need to scrub the outsides, check for dead ones (because you never know how long the dead ones have been dead) and pull off the “beards.”
And there’s a little fish education. I’m so glad I got to use that culinary degree that I’m still paying off but not using in my career anymore. ….