Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I Take fresh ground chuck, and pinch off small pieces to make the bottom half of the burger, toss on some sea salt and FGP then flatten out all the little pieces into a burger shape. Them, take about a tablespoon of unsalted butter and divide it up into small 8 pieces and distribute them on top of your half-formed patty. Continue pinching of small pieces of beef and adding them to your burger until it is the size desired.

Your burger should have air, salt, pepper, and butter in all the little crevices and spaces that were formed by piecing it all together. Don't mash it all together(and squeeze out all that air), or else you'll get a moist hockey puck that tastes good. The butter and air pockets will help cook and baste the inside of the burger while it cooks. Dee-lish!

Yes! I walked by it today, and it was totally closed. Don't know the story?

In SO FL, where the Latino population is quite large, almost any sandwich you order from an authentic place has commercial potato sticks on it as a matter of course. This is NOT true for the traditional Cuban sandwich, but for pretty much any other kind you get potato sticks. Kobey's (sp?) is one popular store brand here, but the quality varies dramatically from can to can. Sometimes they are fresh and a tiny bit under-cooked, pale and tasty. Many times they are over-cooked and and darker and lose that fresh flavor for one that is slightly, well, flat with a distinct aftertaste. So, the burger-with-chips is not at all unheard of idea.

couldn't disagree more... love Hell's Kitchen and find Ramsay to be more "passion" than bully (he grows on you). i'm not just a fan of this show, but also his F-Word show on BBC America. the more you watch him the more you realize that he has a sincere love of food and his "edge" comes more from being frustrated when others don't treat the craft with as much care and respect as he feels it deserves.

back to Hell's Kitchen, though... i find it to be diverting, fun and entertaining. characters make interesting viewing, and the rag-tag group of people they select (some admittedly with little or no culinary skill selected only for their "entertainment value" as true incompetents) make the show interesting to watch for me. admittedly this show isn't so much about cooking as, say, Top Chef, but that said, i find Hell's Kitchen way more entertaining. a guilty, guilty pleasure, i know...

The show was mildly entertaining the first few seasons with the obvious head cases and reality show wannabes populating the show. (Dewberry still remains a family favorite with his Scarlet O'Hara-like wilting and getting the vapors.)

Now, it's just profanity laced shouting and dumb posturing. Curious that anyone watches considering the current job situation in the country and Ramsay as the tyrannical boss. Who needs that?

it's nothing but entertainment don't you people get it. you watch rachele, paula, and alike they are not chefs they are celebrity's that sell cook books. they can't cook anything without being taught how on camera. carey jones don't watch any more hell's kitchen because you don't get it because your a total ass hole NOW PISS OFF.

While I have watched his show in the past,I don't any longer for the simple reason that his vocal rants are getting more and more frequent, more intense and more personal. You can only tell some one that they are stupid, dumb or to piss off so many times before they reach the breaking point. As each season progresses, the verbal barrage gets more intense and belittling. Usually with no outward rationale for it (as far as we can see) on any given show one particuar chef is in the line for fire for that particular day, sometimes for several that follow depending on that chefs reaction to the ire of GR.The pattern seems to emerge that he takes a disliking to one chef or another and then rides and berates them until they crack and end up leaving the show. Tell me to piss off once, maybe twice, I'd blow it off; call me stupid and criticise my skill set without telling me why; I'd chalk it off because of who it came from but to do it week after week?? Sorry, but my redheaded, Scots-Irish temper just might get the better of me and I'd wind up giving GR a set too like he'd not seen before. THEN I'd hand him my jacket and run, not walk out the door and not give it a moments pause of regret beyond the fact that I allowed my self to get into that situation in the first place. No one, regardless of their skill set deserves to be belittled and treated the way he treats those contestants, no one.

Watching Hells Kitchen has also become very painful for me. I could literally feel my blood pressure rising during the show. It is a sad statement when GR feels that this is the sort of reality tv that Americans want to watch....and he is probably right about a good portion of the population. I missed the first season of HK, caught it a few months ago on the Reality TV cable station....it's amazing how much more laid back GR was....not as much screaming and insulting.....kinder, gentler and nicer. I guess Fox told him that's not what Americans want to see.

Not sure if this has been addressed in prior posts, but, yesterday (7/26/09), the New York Daily News ran an article about Danny Veltri, last year's Hell's Kitchen winner. Seems Danny does NOT have his own restaurant in the Borgatta. He is currently working as a sous chef for Stephen Kalt in a restaurant in Atlantic City, NJ. Instead of building a new restaurant for Veltri, the Atlantic City landmark turned to master chef Stephen Kalt and asked him to take some existing space and turn it into a new eatery. Fornelletto opened earlier this month. And Veltri was hired as one of Kalt's SOU-CHEFS.

I enjoy Hell's Kitchen. I'm not a fan of the vulgarity, fake drama, and bad cuts. I like the show because of the contestants. There are always a few strong cooks, normally silent until they have to speak out, that are worth watching.

Hell's Kitchen is skill based. But it challenges the contestants to do more than just cook. They have to prove they can cook, can work at any station in a brigade, they can work with anyone, they can run a brigade, they can create their own dishes, and finally they can run a brigade serving their menu. They are given very little support. The victories tend to be time away from the kitchen, while the punishments revolve around the boring, hard, and repetitive tasks in the kitchen.

If you're stuck with network as I am, I'd much rather watch a show that's kinda about cooking that yet another cop/lawyer drama or the soap opera spinoff of a soap opera about doctors or reruns of eveybody loves raymond...

You seriously need to watch Masterchef (goes large), Masterchef Pro, and Masterchef Australia. What's amazing is how the Australians can stretch Masterchef into 72 episodes in a season, and yet keep it interesting and food centric. The first few episodes of Masterchef Australia are weak, but once the contestants are chosen it smooths out.

All of them are FAR FAR FAR FAR better than any incarnation of Hell's Kitchen, of which the latest USA one is the worst.

You can find Masterchef Australia here Masterchef Australia

The UK Masterchef can be found in assorted other places (unfortunately none of which include any American stations).

hate this show as well but i still kinda love Gordon. That being said, what I mean is that I love watching him on BBC America. I love Kitchen Nightmares as well as The F Word. It might have a lot to do with the producers or directors there vs. here because he comes off different. Yes he's still vulgar and arrogant, but somehow sexier........its so weird that he doesn't translate - I totally blame the producers.