Before diving into the details of Gordon Ramsay’s MasterClass, a little background on the site itself might be helpful. MasterClass is an online learning platform with instructors that are experienced, skilled and recognized in their fields. It offers more than 35+classes on different subjects such as photography, poker, cooking, producing, writing etc.
The lectures are video-recorded in which the instructors follow a lesson plan. With each lesson, different assignments and workbooks are available. MasterClass allows you to do these assignments at your pace and convenience, but following the lesson plan will help you learn better.
Gordon Ramsay has returned as an instructor on MasterClass. For people who don’t know, Gordon Ramsay is a British restaurateur, chef, author and television personality. He has judged many cook-offs and cooking competitions, such as MasterChef and others. His restaurants have received a total of 16 Michelin stars.
His TV fame has made him one of the most influential chefs and celebrities in the mass media. Gordon launched his online cooking class on MasterClass before and received positive response, so now he returns to MasterClass once again.
Unlike last time, Gordon doesn’t start from the basics and doesn’t hang on to the essential ingredients, methods and recipes. Instead, he focuses more on developing a professional touch in your cooking.
In his second class, Gordon will teach you how to make your home-cooked meal look like it came straight from a Michelin star restaurant. He shares his tips that will save you time as well as help you elevate your cooking taste and presentation.
Gordon stands in his well-equipped kitchen and teaches you 13 restaurant dishes to cook at home. He doesn’t focus on only one part of a meal. He includes everything that makes for a complete meal, like appetizers and desserts.
The lesson plan for Gordon’s MasterClass is comprehensive with 15 lessons that span almost four hours in total. Through these lessons, Gordon teaches you how to cook some of his finest dishes.
In his introductory lesson, Gordon first tells you why he has returned on MasterClass and what he intends to do in his second online class. He shares his plans for his second MasterClass that involves giving your home-cooked meal look and taste like restaurant quality. He also mentions his new recipes that are available in his restaurants and the ones that are among customer favorites.
After the introduction, Gordon teaches you two techniques that are essential for his vegetarian course, that is, how to sauté and purée the right way. He doesn’t forget to share tips on how to save time and how to prepare your dish's ingredients beforehand.
In his third lesson, Gordon teaches his pupils to cook a perfect crispy duck by cooking it in its own fat. Later in this lesson, he also shares his techniques to bleed out endives, as well as how to caramelize them.
In his next lesson, Gordon focuses on the method of making the smoothest purée and how to infuse it with the cream to get that creamy texture. But this time, he chooses potatoes as the ingredient and prepares Pomme purée. There is a lot of thinking that goes in picking potatoes for this purée. Gordon opts for waxy potato and potato ricer.
The fifth lesson is titled The Cauliflower Steak and peaks the interest of the viewers. Gordon turns an ordinary cauliflower into a delicious steak. This dish is perfect for vegetarians when paired with olives and mushrooms.
First time in this class, Ramsay cooks a non-vegetarian dish i.e. a lamb and teaches his students to search a lamb and then oven-roast it. With this lamb, he shares his updated version of the traditional mint jelly and mash.
Moving forward to the seventh lesson, Gordon teaches his viewers how to get rid of eggplants' bitterness and cook it in its own skin. By incorporating Turkish spices, he creates the perfect dish with eggplants as the main hero.
The second half of Gordon’s class is mostly for non-vegetarians. He teaches three techniques to cook chicken, that are Szechuan Chicken Breast, Hoisin Chicken and Szechuan roasted whole chicken. Each of these dishes is paired with a different side-dish including Udon Noodles and Pickled Daikon.
Not only chicken, the second half includes different seafood, from the plain old tuna to baby leeks. Gordon grills baby leeks and serves them in miso, giving them a unique umami flavor.
In the second-last lesson, he teaches you ‘the science of soufflé’ to help you make the best raspberry soufflé you’ve ever made.
Lastly, Gordon ends his class on an encouraging note where he tells you to keep practicing your culinary skills if you want to perfect them and to never give up.
Now that you know what you will be learning from this class and have decided to sign up, here’s how to do it. MasterClass offers two access passes, one is the single-access pass and the other one is an all-access pass.
Single-access pass costs $90 and allows you to access only one MasterClass. All-access pass costs $180 per year and let’s you access all classes on MasterClass.
You might be wondering if it is really a good idea to spend $90 on Gordon’s cooking class. There must be some hesitation in your mind whether this MasterClass is really for you or not. Gordon's class is for everyone who knows their way around the kitchen and isn’t a beginner. But even if you are a beginner, you’ll still learn a lot from this class.
So if you want to improve your culinary skills and cook dishes like a professional with eye-catching presentations, then signing up for Gordon’s MasterClass is the best decision you’ll ever make in favor of your talents.