Esquire is a Network I found while channel surfing in a motel one time. I ran across this show where Chefs cook meals using Mystery Ingredients. The prize, as Chef Ilan Hall of The Gorbals restaurant reminds us in the opening credits, is Bragging Rights.
There was a brief moment in my life when I wanted to be a Chef. It may have been shortly after I read Kitchen Confidential. I applied to a couple of schools and even visited a couple of campuses. But it wasn’t really my cup of tea. Too much yelling and too much work. I do a bit of cooking, but I’ve given up on the dream o winning Hell’s Kitchen. I do like watching these kinds of shows though.
Knife Fight pits two Chefs against each other and the clock as they have one hour to whip up two dishes from three random ingredients. This is the fun bit. It’s a rare set of ingredients that I recognize all three, and pretty much every episode has something I have never eaten or even thought of eating. They also have access to the Gorbals pantry and kitchen where they can use anything they find. They do a lot of sous vide cooking and a lot of pressure cooking. They also do a bit of pan frying and baking. It is interesting to watch these Chefs work.
It’s also fun, and educational, to watch the three Judges as they talk about each dish. They spend a lot of time talking about Balance. Too much this, not enough that, they should have cooked it longer or not quite as long. They paired this well with that. The presentation was bad, but it tasted good. And so on and so forth. All great stuff, if you happen to have ambitions about being a better cook or just want to hear what a Chef thinks about while tasting something.
Knife Fight is a fun show and one that makes me want to be a better cook.
