Hell’s Kitchen Recap: It’s Salmon Ashley

It’s the penultimate episode of “Hell’s Kitchen,” and all three chefs are willing to show Ramsay they belong in the finale. They first must get through Ramsay’s usual sabotage.

After the intro, Kristin and Ashley were planning on sabotaging Ariel. That’s pretty low on these semifinalists.

The next day, the chefs once again met Ramsay outside for their next challenge. Here they were greeted by an armored car with four secret service guys with briefcases handcuffed to their hands exiting the said truck. The first case had $250 thousand dollars. Each chef had to choose a case. Inside.

The other cases had steaks: Ariel had NY strip, Ashley had a fillet and Kristin had rib eye. Their challenge was to make a steak dish and two sides since one of them would be the head chef of “BLT Steak.” To help judge the competition was the executive chef of ‘Wolfgang Puk’s” and “cut,” Ari Rosenson. Despite all three dishes being excellent, Kristin won this challenge. Her reward was lunch at “Cut” with Ramsay joining her. Also, Kristin’s parents joined her. Typical reward for a challenge this late.

Ariel and Ashley spent the day washing the armored truck and prepping for dinner service. That’s pretty much all there is to talk about since the first half of the episode went by lightning quick. It’s pretty standard for a penultimate episode to do that.

At dinner service, all three chefs got a turn at the hot plate. First up was Ariel. She failed to identify that risotto had carrot puree instead of squash. She said she doesn’t really watch “Hell’s Kitchen” as much as the other chefs.

Next was Kristin. She spotted that one of the Wellingtons did not have duck duxelles and Marino’s improperly written ticket. Also, Ashley burned the snapper she brought up. She stopped talking after that. At this point, no chef should do that.

At Ashley’s turn, Ariel stopped communicating and made an undercooked risotto. After a talk with Ramsay, Ashley did spot Ramsay’s sabotage of replacing he bean puree with garlic puree. She, however, failed to notice the Arctic char was actually salmon.

In all, all three women did well. However, Ramsay told all three of them to choose one chef who does not belong in the finale. Ariel and Kristin chose Ashley and Ashley chose Ariel. The two chefs going the final are Kristin and Ariel.

All three of these chefs were tough competitors all throughout the season. It’s no surprise that Ariel and Kristin made it to the final. The episode itself seemed to just go through the motions, especially the first half. Besides that, the finale should be pretty intense.