Is Gordon Ramsay's Masterclass any good?

so I can guarantee you that at some point in your YouTube browsing career you were hit with this ad right here for Gordon Ramsay's Master Class they must have spent some serious marketing money considering there's like 24 million views on this video and 100 comments and the trailer is great but I always did wonder if there was actual value in this course for a home cook like myself or any of you so I decided to sign up for master class and become a student of Gordon himself and in this video I'm going to be giving you my full breakdown and honest review of this entire Gordon Ramsey masterclass all right so section one is just Gordon sitting there chatting about his come up as a very young Chef so young Gordon Ramsay just peeling potatoes and onions getting bited around in restaurants by chefs a classic sort of European style Journey that you hear about with those intense French culinary traditions and I would say overall it's nice to hear about Gordon's Journey but this did feel a little bit more like something you would see in a chef's table episode since this is a class I would have liked a little bit more knowledge like give us some information that could help us as young cooks or young chefs and something else that would have been really nice for this section is just a little b-roll I want to see a few pictures of young Gordon during this time or some pictures of the chefs that he talked about that he worked for I think a little bit of extra overlaid content here would have gone a long way to make this section just a little bit more entertaining in general so this next section clearly we're in Gordon's beautiful home kitchen and he starts this section off by explaining why he didn't want to do the course in one of his many restaurants and he wanted to do it at home yes this kitchen looks incredible but that for a moment don't get wrapped up with how things look Gordon Ramsey comes from a traditional food TV setting where you've got big Productions a lot of people on set I guarantee they're 10 to 15 people on this set right here and their job is to make everything just run absolutely to Perfection so I think just telling people to it don't think about any of this right now that we're just cooking at home to me is a little bit dishonest and he spends the first half of the section talking about why he specifically designed the kitchen he's in which I didn't really find that helpful wanted space an openness with light mountains Sunshine I've got the kids' names on there and then the second part of the section is him going over essential kitchen gear but he kind of just like flew by the CL classic so to me there wasn't that much valuable information and again a little bit of b-roll like when he's mentioning say a pairing knife this little baby little pairing knife let's see that pairing knife in action I think that would have gone a long way also I found it very funny that outside of all the essentials that he talks about which are pretty standard pots and pans knives cutting boards he brings up two additional gadgets a blowtorch little Smoking Gun if you want to show off for a dinner party you want a salad of smoked heel to be finished and you just you know get this incredible Apple chip this I don't relate to as a homecook there's so many additional gadgets that could be helpful whereas I've used a blowtorch and a smoke gun maybe a combined like five times in my life so he talked about the kitchen layout and the gear now he moves on to a section about vegetables which is pretty much him just kind of ranting for like 15 minutes which honestly I kind of like because as cooks and chefs over the years we all pick up different techniques and methods on ways to prepare vegetables but for me it's these little cooking tips that he slips in that I think are the biggest takeaways every time I see a young cook peel a hon carrot or a baby carrot that's the goodness the goodness is in the skin they just need to be lightly brushed we should look at herbs almost like that spray of perfume that lights up the room and in section four we're moving on to cooking for the first time and right away I'm like okay this is the Gordon Ramsay that I'm used to it almost throws you off a little bit to see him in that toned down state just sitting there explaining things I think G Gordon has a very frantic energy and it works very well when he's cooking and talking at the same time and Gordon's teaching us how to make poached eggs in this section which is fine I rarely make poached eggs at home but you know it's Gordon Ramsey he wants to teach you those classic Chef skills and I do think it's good to know how to make a proper poach de and then he ramps things up a little bit by rendering some bacon fat sautéing some mushrooms in there adding a little butter but right here is something I do disagree with he takes this delicious mushroom fatty mixture and then he just drains it off onto a paper towel now right away I know he's throwing that in the trash which for me is kind of forbidden in the kitchen you've got a mushroom infused bacon and butter fat right there just pour that into a little side vessel take out a cup or right here I've got just extra fat pour it off and store it right on the counter you will use that up in the next day or two but of course that's not how things always work in a restaurant on setting and I think you kind of see that come out in moments like this but overall great technique I mean obviously this looks incredible that is a poached egg to die for now we're moving on to a knife skill section which probably isn't going to help me because I have good knife skills and I know how to sharpen things and all of that but I will say the beginning of the section I think is probably more scary for the standard student than inspiring to start cutting things if that board slides once we're cutting completely slice your finger off if you're cutting a button up squash and the board slips bang off comes the finger I mean how many fingers getting chopped off has this guy seen in his restaurant days that's kind of terrifying but restaurant kitchens are a lot more stressful than home kitchens so I do think you are seeing a lot more injuries and I think Gordan is kind of Preparing People for that which is certainly one way to go about it obviously you want to be very careful when you're using a knife in the kitchen especially when you're starting out now overall I think it's a very hard task to create a video section on knife skills because they are so based on field but I think the most important thing Gordon did is throw in those little tips that someone can easily take away and really remember moving forward top and tail them take off the top take off the tail push that aside when you start chopping keep your board clean start off the thin end and work your way up to the big end start off with your big end it's much harder to control I personally didn't notice start a zucchini from the small end and work your way down to the big end which makes perfect sense and now every time I cut a squash or zucchini Gordon is going to pop up in my head so little skills in the course like this are so valuable now he picks a butternut squash to do a little demo on because it's an awkward veggie which I I think is a good idea he goes from talking about cutting off the skin perfectly so you preserve all that inner flesh but then he does something weird he doesn't just chop it in half and take out the seeds that you would normally think would be the preparation for butternut squash he leaves in the seeds as you can see here and slices off just a few pieces on the end now there's no way with this preparation right here that some squash isn't getting wasted so that felt a little contradictory unless I'm missing something comment in below if you think I I've got something totally wrong here so we started off with the poached egg now in this next section we are moving on to scrambled eggs or an elevated scrambled eggs which does not surprise me in a Gordon Ramsey Master Class when I think about Gordon's career like at whole over the last decade or two the first things that come into my mind are scrambled eggs Beef Wellington and emotionally abusing people on camera off you you fat useless sack of yane tanky D but as he's going along on this recipe I'm kind of into it you know it's his unique elevated scramble and then the guy whips out sea urchins and white truffles look at this recipe list right here five sea urchin tongs I have never once cooked with a sea urchin in my entire life as a homecook chances of me going into my kitchen on like a Sunday morning and whipping up some scrambled eggs with sea urchins in them served like this are so rare it's just never going to happen but I am interested in the actual technique just for scrambling the eggs so I actually tried this same egg technique from Gordon many years ago but I wanted to give it another shot where I actually follow along with this detailed tutorial which was basically cracking a bunch of eggs into a cold pan with a little bit of butter and slowly bringing that pan up the temperature while constantly stirring the eggs while moving the pan often on the heat so you don't overcook the eggs and then at the very end you hit the eggs with a little sour cream some chives and you season them and to serve up these eggs I had some pizza dough from the night before so I just made a quick little seasoned flatbread and I destroyed this entire serving I think it was five eggs in one sitting so it was very delicious but it was also a reminder of why I haven't made this dish in like four or five years it's super unique and very tasty but also pretty damn intense ensive and for me there's plenty of other egg techniques that are much quicker that are going to be a more go-to method at home so this next section is funny cuz right away you're just staring at like a massive fish so you kind of know what's coming you're going to get a few sections in a row on protein and this specific section is all about breaking down a whole chicken which I think is vital for any home cook or chef and there are a lot of different methods and techniques to go about breaking down a whole chicken and I will say that Gordon's technique is the exact way that I do it myself it's my favorite version I think this section Gordon really shines you can feel his passion you can feel his experience which I think is so important I mean this guy has broken down a lot of birds and you combine that with just great cinematography you got the multicam and you are going to be picking up techniques cuz again it's like knife skills you got to do it yourself you got to get in there but he's got a lot of great tips in there and I think there's just a enough inspiration to at least get you started on that Journey which is the most important thing so now we have our first big cooking section it's 18 minutes long and he's taking some pieces from that chicken breakdown and pulling together like a full-on main course and he decided to go with the chicken breast or suprem he calls it which is the fancy French term for it he starts off by showing us a really interesting veggie preparation where he takes a bunch of herbs in a sheep pan and piles on these veggies wraps it with tin foil and throws it over the Open Flame to give it a little smoky aromatic flavor and then he throws it into the oven which is a really cool method I don't think many home cooks are going to be taking their sheet pans and throwing them over the Open Flame but I will say he blessed me with one of the best tips of this entire course right here whenever you use tinf fall shiny side up dull side in the dull side insulates the heat so much better now he hits us with another very cheffy technique for this chicken breath it's the classic butter basting situation that you see with steaks for me I think it's cool to know this type of technique but personally at home I never do this like when I'm cooking chicken breast I just want to sear it get that crispy skin and then perfectly cook it through on the inside so it's tender and juicy but of course we're getting a lot of Gordon's French culinary influence it's just ingrained in that man's soul and the final dish looks amazing like this is a great $35 to $40 entree at a restaurant if you're looking to really impress for a dinner party or a date could be a good option not something that I'm making very often if ever but really good techniques in general in this section and we're moving on to Seafood in this next section and we knew it was coming first thing he whips out is that massive fish from earlier which is probably like a 30 or 40 lb King Alaskan salmon and I'm kind of laughing to myself at this point like is that what I need to learn about right now now I know Gordon is passionate about this and he's prepared many of them but that is the last thing I'm ever going to buy at the fishmonger but outside of that I will say that Gordon's knowledge of seafood I mean this man could have been a marine biologist in another career you see this hook underneath the lip is where the Salmon's burrowing in and out of the rocks and trying to feed these things move throughout the sand and they open and close and they pulsate to get to the territories where they feed and this section is very similar to the veggie section where he's got a bunch of product in front of him and he's just kind of going for it he's just spewing knowledge and I think for someone who is new to Seafood even someone like me who cooks Seafood but I'm not cooking it as much as Gordon Ramsey was in his restaurants for many many years you're going to get some good tips and knowledge on Preparation on buying Seafood on certain ideas on what to do with sea food so good stuff here you can really just feel his passion when it comes to preparing seafood and next we have a little interstitial section here on Gordon's journey to becoming the Master Chef that we all know him as the three Michelin just beast in the kitchen and we are blessed with maybe the best line of the entire class I was I like a dog with nine dicks I was I was ready to go it's kind of like Gordon has these different personalities that he can turn on for different situations and I wish you would have turned that one on just a little bit more in this course I think it it would have added to the uh entertainment value a little bit but I get it we're getting teaching mode Gordon so in this next section we are breaking down that big old salmon and you can tell just like the whole chicken butchering this is a man with experience of filling fish so you're going to get some good skills tips and information in a section like this but I would prefer if he was just doing this on something more relatable like a smaller whole fish something that I would buy at the store before I could practice on salmon literally I had to go through thousands of Macer I think that's most people watching this master class we want to learn on a smaller fish as well and work our way up until we feel confident to buy a few hundred massive fish are not super relatable but you get the entertainment value it's like one of those bone app videos where you know some master is breaking down like a $10,000 tuna really cool to watch never going to do it so in this next section of course it makes sense to make a salmon dish with one of those filets that Gordon just broke down and right when he's explaining the recipe I'm like a little bit checked out already I think there's three or four different types of seafood in this one dish which to me again is like a $40 50 main course at a restaurant but at home I'm cooking the salmon one night and I'm cooking the muscles or clams another night but outside of the recipe if you're new to cooking fish you're getting great tips here on how to properly prepare like a little filet of fish we do run into another technique that pisses me off a little bit he takes these base aromatics rough chops them up steams them with the shellfish for like 1 minute until they're cooked through and look at these beautiful steamed veggies right here just kissed with that shellfish Aroma I understand if you're cooking veggies in like a stock for multiple hours they're going to lose most their flavor you can throw them out you can compost them whatever but don't throw these out just use them in the soup they're perfectly steamed great texture great flavor that's not what Gordon does he brings in all new veggies to create this soup this minone that the salmon the crispy salmon C on so no wonder he calls this million dooll broth next he moves on to homemade pasta by hand that is and at first I'm like ah I would probably benefit more if he was teaching me how to do it in a food processor or a stand mixer but as he got into it I was starting to got really engaged and the reason for that is Gordon lived in Italy at some point in his career and he tells us how he used to beg these ladies making handmade pasta in restaurants to show him a thing or two and they finally agreed and you can tell this guy is very passionate about making pasta from scratch like the traditional Italian style and to me I feel that passion and you get hit with gems like this little tips that are so great when you're making dough when you take your pulse it's the same kind of texture that you're looking for on that pasta and then we move on to a section on rolling out that dough and I think this is the first time in the entire course where Gordon kind of admits you're allowed to mess up times where I've been thinking this thing's it's not working it's a mess it's not coming together stop you take a a step back and you breathe and you go back in and you you figure it out my philosophy on cooking is like messing up and just learning intuitively from your screw-ups in the kitchen but Gordon generally you know he takes a different approach to cooking that is disgusting now I know a lot of that is just the Gordon ramsy show that's the TV personality but I do personally think this can scare people away from the kitchen sometimes and Gordon talks about making mistakes not getting things perfect I kind of let my guard down a little bit and I find it more inspiring to maybe get in there and try it myself and in this section Gordon finally brings in the first guest of the show which is his assistant to help him roll out pasta and right away he just starts tearing into this guy like truly roasting him this is Justin my assistant he's got the best job in the world he's the busiest and the most sought after individual on Tinder they're hairy arms can we focus on the pasta well you didn't tell me the arms are so hairy so the next dish is Gordon making one of his most popular signature dishes from his restaurants which is a lobster rioli another very fancy dish that you can learn some techniques but something I most likely will not be making at home and then finally in the last section you knew it was coming Gordon enors with the beef wellington which is something that I've seen him make many times on his channels and also other creators have like recreated the Gordon ramsy Beef Wellington so I've seen this dish so many times if I was going to make it at this point I would have but it's just so complex there's so many elements not something that I'm really interested in making it home and that kind of sums up this whole course in general overall there were some good takeaways like I learned a few skills and just interesting tips and techniques throughout the course but all of the recipes from this course were things that weren't very relatable for me as a homecook they were super high-end fancy and appetizers that you would find at his restaurants which is fine but it would have been I think helpful knowing that going into this course and it's funny because the second course he produced for masterclass which I think came out recently was called Gordon Ramsay restaurant dishes at home or something like that which is the marketing that I think would have helped me going into this course that is very specific that makes sense I know what I'm signing up for but I kind of had to learn that along the way in this course so that is my full review let me know if you enjoyed this type of video I would love to do another masterclass like a Thomas Keller and give you my full review I think Gordon was the first but now they've got some more chefs on there so let me know

Channel: Pro Home Cooks

Views: 281,208

Keywords: mike g, mike greenfield, pro home cooks, masterclass, gordon ramsay, kitchen nightmares, hells kitchen, beef wellington, lobster ravioli, elevated scrambled eggs, poached eggs, how to, review, thoughts, opinion, instructional, home cooks, restaurant recipes, salmon minestrone, chicken supreme, protein, kitchen layout, breaking down fish, breaking down chicken, handmade pasta, pasta from scratch, michelin star

Id: LtTQCYZWHas

Length: 19min 9sec (1149 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 07 2023