The Most Useful Cooking Tip Alex Najar Learned From Gordon Ramsay - Exclusive
Part of the challenge of competing on "Hell's Kitchen" is facing the intimidation of cooking for Gordon Ramsay. He's one of the most accomplished celebrity chefs in the business, and anyone who's watched his show knows he means business in the kitchen. But as current and former contestants of the show will tell you, part of the experience of "Hell's Kitchen" is the chance to learn from Ramsay and improve your skills under his expert guidance.
Alex Najar, a contestant on the most recent season of "Hell's Kitchen," says he walked away with nothing but respect and admiration for the chef after his time filming the show. And as Alex Najar told Mashed in an exclusive interview, he also learned a thing or two from Gordon Ramsay in the kitchen. In particular, Najar recalled one particular cooking lesson that totally changed the way he's approaching seafood as a chef. For all the home cooks out there who have struggled to serve up perfectly prepared seafood, read on for Ramsay's go-to, fail-proof methods.
Gordon Ramsay's top tips for delicious seafood
Alex Najar says one of the most valuable techniques he picked up from Gordon Ramsay while filming "Hell's Kitchen" was no doubt "the way he does fish." Like many of us do with a filet of skin-on fish, Najar says he "always cooked it skin side down," but he learned a new method from Ramsay.
Najar says Ramsay's fish "technique [is to] sear it on both sides," before quickly removing it from direct heat to allow the fish to "chill out for a little bit on a hotspot." Directly before serving the fish, Najar says that Ramsay tosses a generous amount of butter into the pan to melt, basting the fish in the rich sauce that forms. "It turns the fish almost like Jell-O. It's perfectly cooked," says Najar.
Watching how Ramsay prepared lobster was another "iconic" learning moment for him. Beyond Ramsay's masterful methods for cooking lobster, his tips for preparing the shellfish and utilizing as much of the luxurious meat as possible are valuable lessons for any budding chef or home cook. There's so much more to lobster than the tail and claws we're used to dipping in warm butter.
"A lot of people don't realize that there's a lot of meat inside lobster," says Najar. And as Ramsay shows the "Hell's Kitchen" competitors, there's a technique to neatly removing every juicy piece of it. "The way he extracts all of that stuff out of there, I would never think to do that," admits Najar. It's yet another example of what makes Ramsay the revered chef that he is.
Catch new episodes of "Hell's Kitchen: Battle of the Ages" every Thursday at 8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT on Fox, or stream episodes on Hulu.