CHAPTER ONE
HELL’S KITCHEN: WHERE CHEFS SET FIRE TO THEIR PASSIONS
IN 2005, A HOT NEW TELEVISION SERIES HIT U.S. AIRWAVES AND QUICKLY BECAME A TOP-RANKED SHOW. BASED IN LOS ANGELES AND HOSTED BY CHEF GORDON RAMSAY, HELL’S KITCHEN IS THE PLACE WHERE ASPIRING CHEFS FROM ALL OVER THE COUNTRY COME TO SET FIRE TO THEIR PASSIONS AND PROVE THEMSELVES AS AMERICA’S NEXT GREAT CHEF.
EACH SEASON, A DOZEN OR SO DRIVEN, HUNGRY HELL’S KITCHEN HOPEFULS ARE SELECTED OUT OF THOUSANDS OF APPLICANTS TO PUT THEIR KITCHEN SKILLS TO THE ULTIMATE TEST. THEY COME FROM ALL WALKS OF LIFE AND EVERY POINT ON THE CULINARY SPECTRUM, FROM THE PRISON CHEF TO THE WAFFLE-HOUSE COOK, LINE COOK, AND ALL THE WAY UP TO EXECUTIVE CHEF. IN TEMPERAMENT THEY RANGE FROM THE WILDLY AMBITIOUS AND CRAZILY COMBATIVE TO SURE AND STEADY AND COOL AND COLLECTED. WHETHER THEY’RE FROM THE WEST COAST OR FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE COUNTRY, WHAT BRINGS THEM TO HELL’S KITCHEN IS VISION AND A BURNING DESIRE FOR SUCCESS. THESE HOPEFULS HOLD ONE THING IN COMMON: THEY THINK THEY HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO WIN. AND IF THEY DON’T MEASURE UP, THERE’S HELL TO PAY.
Over the past decade, some of this country’s most determined and passionately committed chefs have come through Hell’s Kitchen. The competition extracts the best from the contestants—if they can stand the heat. It’s culinary school on steroids, a dueling ground for those with heart, determination, and an obsession with perfection. As the season progresses, the anxiety and excitement builds with hell-raising meltdowns and tempers running wild. The stakes are high, with the winner taking home the opportunity of a lifetime: a head chef position at one of the most acclaimed restaurants in the United States, which comes with a salary of a quarter of a million dollars.
Hell’s Kitchen is a phenomenally successful cooking show. But it’s more than a show; the set consists of two state-of-the-art kitchens and a restaurant seating one hundred hungry and demanding guests. Though it can come off as a spectator sport, it’s the real deal for a diverse bunch of seriously dedicated cooks looking to reach the top of their game and win a prize that can change lives forever.
This hard-hitting, sweat-it-out-in-the-kitchen, real-life competition adds up to a show with staying power, one that has been going strong for more than a decade. And each and every season is better than the last!
BECOMING A CONTESTANT ON THE SHOW
Do you have what it takes to become a culinary great? You’ll be separated from your friends and family for weeks on end. You’ll be bunked with a group of the fiercest competitors you’ll ever know. You’ll work long, hard hours, be subjected to punishments from KP duty to cleaning toilets, suffer rejection and humiliation—face tough love to the max, and be pushed to the absolute extreme to reach perfection. If you can handle that, then Hell’s Kitchen just may be for you.
Since 2005, casting has been open to outspoken and compelling women and men ages twenty-one and up. Prior cooking experience, a fiercely competitive streak, and nerves of steel preferred.
NOW SHOW US WHAT YOU’VE GOT: THE SIGNATURE DISH
The signature dish is our first introduction to the contestants. The chefs each make something that represents what they’re all about—the best of their best, whether it’s big robust flavor or something a little more delicate, it’s all down to that one dish.
You can tell so much about each chef from their signature dish—how adventurous, creative, and skilled they are. Some contestants demonstrate genius from the start; many are horror shows, their first attempts deemed edible at best and spit out if they don’t pass muster. The reviews can be exhilarating or demoralizing, and it’s with the signature dish that we get our first impression of the talent of these aspiring chefs.
HELL’S KITCHEN IS OPEN!
With dinner service approaching, the heat is really on, and it’s time for the chefs to up their game. In Hell’s Kitchen, every day is judgment day and any moment could be your last. Cooking on your own can be relaxing and rewarding, but cooking in a brigade with a dozen or more chefs to feed a hundred guests is a completely different ballgame. Hell’s Kitchen gives us a bird’s-eye view into the running of a live, fully equipped, phenomenal restaurant.
Each week the chefs display their skills, how they work as a team, and how they stand up to pressure. The competitors perform fantastic feats of stamina and talent they had no idea they possessed in order to stay in the running. As the season continues, the best chefs are separated from the failures.
RED VS. BLUE: A BATTLE OF THE SEXES
At the start of the competition, each contestant is given a personalized Hell’s Kitchen chef’s jacket—women on the Red Team and men on the Blue Team (though chefs may be reassigned to an opposing team later in the competition). With each team working in their own state-of-the-art kitchen, their first task is nothing less than dinner service in a crowd often peppered with food critics, celebrity chefs, and show business notables.
Chefs on each team are assigned to a station on the line and endeavor to work as a well-oiled machine to crank out award-worthy meals consisting of an appetizer, entrée, side, and dessert, including challenging plates such as risotto, seared scallops, and beef Wellington. Each team is assigned a sous chef to help them achieve exacting standards, and the floor is managed by a maître d’ who keeps everything running smoothly.
Hell’s Kitchen’s standards are uncompromising; the kitchen is shut down rather than being allowed to send out mediocrity. If one plate isn’t ready, the whole table will have to wait, and if one dish isn’t perfect, the entire order will be sent back and all meals will be prepared from scratch. When you’re used to the best, nothing less will do, and the phenomenal successes that eventually come out of Hell’s Kitchen make it all well worth the effort.
THE COUNTDOWN TO THE PRIZE OF A LIFETIME: OPENING THE DOOR TO YOUR FUTURE
Every challenge in Hell’s Kitchen is another chance for contestants to prove their worth. But as the competition progresses, the pressure increases, and eventually just five or six hopefuls remain. At this point it’s no longer women versus men but every chef for her- or himself.
The fortunate few swap their red or blue chef’s jackets for black and cook in a single united team while still competing solely for themselves. The competition continues, with tougher challenges including running the kitchen themselves and examining every dish of a dinner service, keeping a close eye out for mistakes, which are purposely committed by the sous chefs to test the competitors’ knowledge and palate.
When just two chefs are left in the competition, the next and final challenge is a face-off in the show’s finale, the most important service in the contestants’ lives. Hell’s Kitchen is again divided into two restaurants, with each finalist running their own kitchen. Finalists determine their menu, coming full circle from the signature dish. This time it’s a whole dinner of signature dishes with no second chances remaining. The two then lead a team of their former competitors through a full dinner service. After this dinner service, the season’s winner is crowned and a life is changed forever.
This cookbook brings home the recipes we’ve fallen in love with over the past decade of Hell’s Kitchen dinner services and varied culinary challenges. Whether you’re a Hell’s Kitchen hopeful, a beginner home cook, or somewhere in between, this book is for you. For starters, you’ll get your kitchen ready, outfitting it with all the necessary equipment, then stock your fridge and pantry so you’ll be ready to create your private Hell’s Kitchen, and you’ll be poised to turn out one fine restaurant-quality meal after another.
Hell’s Kitchen opens with starters, from king crab capellini (here) to cioppino (here), and just-right risotto (here). The main course offers the butcher’s best, from veal cheeks (here) to tenderloin (here) and beef Wellington (here), and you’ll find some of the finest seafood dishes you’ll ever eat. Leave room for your sides, as you’ll love how Hell’s Kitchen elevates potatoes (here and here). You’ll form a zucchini fry (here) habit and go over the moon for truffle mac and cheese (here), a Hell’s Kitchen take on the ultimate comfort food. Desserts to live for—from classic crème brûlée (here) to coconut cake (here), and a variety of tarts and pies—and unconventional sweets such as white pepper ice cream (here) and chocolate empanadas (here) are the crowning touches. The book finishes with twenty-five uniquely Hell’s Kitchen menus, with themes ranging from Hell’s Kitchen Craps to Black-Tie Charity Night, Modern South, Eclectic Ethnic, and Catch of the Day. It’s time to set up your personal Hell’s Kitchen!