HK: Family and Screaming.
Aka – just another day in the Kitchen of Gordon Ramsay. Jen’s gone, and everyone is giddy and happy to have seen the end of her. We’re down to the best of the best, and they are in for a surprise. Ramsay has flown in their families for a meal, and there’s loads of tears and squeals of joy. Ramsay personally whips up a meal for everyone, but doesn’t bother to tell the distracted chefs that they should be paying attention as that meal is part of a challenge. After they they’ve eaten, he tells them to recreate the meal with only a sample to taste and no other hints at all. Christina is the only one to think there will be more to it, and tells her parents there’s always a twist and she and her parents talk about the dish and what is in it. Her mother says cream in the sauce, Christina says egg yolks, her mother says cream.
They find out about the challenge, and they are off to try and recreate it within 45 minutes. Petrozza and Christina pick venison, while Corey selects Buffalo. Christina makes white bean puree, Corey goes with parsnip puree, and Petrozza forgets it completely. They all go for red wine reduction, and they get their dishes down just in time. Corey’s sauce is perfect – but used the wrong meat, Christina should have listened to her mother because there was cream in there, and Petrozza forgot the puree. In the end, though, Christina wins out because she remembered the puree – else Petrozza would have won. For her reward, she and her family dine out with Ramsay, while the other two break down blocks of ice.
At dinner, each of the chef’s get a chance to run the kitchen. Gordon gives them a lesson in yelling at their underlings, and Petrozza is surprisingly good at it, and Christina is only as intimidating as a cheerleader which she finds insulting and she pulls it off the second time, and Corey just can’t bring herself to yell at Ramsay and thinks you don’t have to scream to be a good executive chef. Maybe.
Service starts with a bang with appetizers are flying out quickly and they move on to entrees. Petrozza is in charge, and since things are going so well, Ramsay has his sous chef’s start deliberately messing up to see who notices when peas are missing in the risotto, or the potatoes are lumpy. Petrozza fails that test, missing the fact that the peas were missing, Meanwhile, Christina is bombing the fish station and trying to get her act together. Corey steps up to the hot plate, and misses an entree from a ticket, but she steps it up – her other mistake was not realizing that a sauce was wrong until after she’d poured it all over the Beef Wellington – too little too late. When Christina takes her turn, she has a lot to overcome in order to make up for her mistakes on the fish station. She annoys the hell of her teammates with her voice, but she does do an excellent job, and catches the seasoning mistake on the potatoes. Yay!
Service ends successfully, though Ramsay doesn’t think anyone did an outstanding job taking over the kitchen. They each nominate one person for elimination – Corey and Christina throw each other under the bus, and Petrozza also chooses Christina. Chef Ramsay bases his decision on total season performance and not just that night, and thus outsts Corey from the competition, but tells her to hold her head up high as she’s done bloody well and should be proud. He encourages her to follow her dream, tells her well done, and she is off.
We are down to two – Petrozza and Christina. Who will com out on top?
