After the decleration of no winner of last week’s dinner service, the chefs of “Hell’s Kitchen” returned with a mission to get back in the good graces of Gordon Ramsay.
This week’s challenge was a “road trip across America” with chefs guessing ingredients that were written in alpha numerics (like a custom license plate). Once an ingredient was correctly guessed, they could be assigned out to one of three proteins (lamb rack, pork chop and Atlantic cod) on both teams.
Since the red team has one more chef than the blue team, chef Lisa Rivera opted to not include her lamb rack as she was unsure about its cook.
Points were earned by the red team’s Cara Marie Hall and Alexandra Jones for their cod as well as Chris Faison and Anthony Leonard from the blue team. For the pork chop dishes, Henry Johnson of the blue team, and Cydni Stickney and Ellie Parker from the red team. As for the lamb rack, only Jada Vidal of the blue team scored a point — tying up both teams. The tie-breaker was decided by what Ramsay thought was the best dish, which was Johnson’s pork dish.
Out of curiosity, Ramsay asked to taste Rivera’s lamb rack. He exclaimed that it was cooked well and would’ve earned the red team a win in the challenge.
For their win, the blue team earned time at the private driving range at the Lake of Isles golf course in North Stonington as well a set of OXO cookware. Meanwhile, the women had to handwash gold carts and pick up golf balls by hand.
Contestant Cara Marie in the “Cook For Your Life” episode of “Hell’s Kitchen.”
Courtesy of FOX Media LLC
As the teams returned back to their dorms, Ramsay called everyone down to the dining room to announce his surprise — there would be no dinner service that evening.
Instead, the four chefs who had scored the lowest in challenges up to that point — Hall, Parker, Faison and Jayden Canady — were asked by Ramsay to “cook for their lives.” They were each given 45 minutes to cook whatever dish they wanted to in order to impress Ramsay and secure a spot in the remainder of the competition.
Parker made a pan-seared salmon, charred fennel and tomato broth, braised fennel and butter confit marbled potatoes, which earned her the first spot to remain in the competition. Canady’s pan-seared salmon with a citrus beurre blanc, pomme purée, roasted tomatoes on the vine, grilled prawn and blueberry vinaigrette with bacon and shallots also secured him the early approval of Ramsay to remain in the compeition.
The last two were Faison with his scaled halibut with sunchokes and Asian-glazed carrots and Hall with her Italian halibut with guanciale-rendered, fat pomme purée. Ultimately, Ramsay chose Faison to stay as he felt Hall’s purée was too “gummy” — effectively ending Hall’s run in “Hell’s Kitchen.”
Episode nine airs on next Thursday and will stream on Hulu starting Nov. 21.
