How To Master 5 Basic Cooking Skills _ Gordon Ramsay

First, how to chop an onion. This is the root. That's absolutely crucial. Leave that on there. If you cut that off, the onion will start to bleed and you'll start crying rapidly. Slice going forward. Let the weight of the knife do the work. Three fingers, one in front, two behind. And this part of the knuckle is going to guide the knife. Fingers on top of the onion, point the knife towards the root and try to get as close to the root as possible. Nice, long stroke. And then push the onion back together. Push the knife halfway in to the onion. Slightly tilt the knife down. One at the top. And then gripping the onion like a tennis ball, holding it together in place. With the weight of the blade to cut through that onion to get to the base of the root. Again, turn it round. Up and down motion. And that's what we left there. No waste, just the root. And look, there you've got a really nice finely chopped onion. Basmati rice. The king of all rice. It's light, fluffy, delicious and I'm going to show you how to cook it perfectly. Now, start off with 400 grams of rice. Rice in. Spot on. So what I'm going to do now is just rinse off the dust and the starch. Cold water, always. And just rinse the rice. That stops the rice from becoming clumpy in the pan and allows it to become really nice, light and fluffy once it's cooked. Rice into the pan. Now, to make a plain, fluffy rice exciting, we're going to infuse it. Three cardamom pods. And just get the pods and just pierce them so it allows all that flavour to come out. Cardamom pods and then star anise. Now, these are beautiful. Whole star anise. It makes it really nice and fragrant. Salt and pepper. A lot easier to season the rice now than it is once it's cooked. You start to break it up when you season it once it's cooked. Now, it's basically one part rice to one and a half part water. 600ml. Always start it off in cold water. Cold water in. Onto the gas. Lid on. Bring it up to the boil as quick as possible and turn it down and let it simmer for eight to ten minutes. And that's the secret behind cooking great rice. Allow it to steam as it's cooking. Do not lift that lid up. Lid off. Mmm. It smells aromatic. Basically, all the water's absorbed. The rice has doubled in size and is nice and light and fluffy. Take the star anise out. The cardamom pods. They all should have risen to the top. Pods out. Take your fork. Fluff it through. Basically, it just sort of starts to open everything back up. Once you've forked it through, it becomes really nice and light and fluffy. And there. That is perfectly cooked rice. This is basically a filleted side of salmon. It's been taken off the bone and now skin off. Pick up your knife. A really nice, broad, flexible filleting knife. A little sharpen. Lift up the base of the tail and then just nick a little bit at the end there. Twist the knife almost as if it's horizontally underneath the salmon. Pull the skin and you slice the salmon underneath. And let the knife do the work. Now, get your skin. Flip it back over and check you're not leaving too much salmon on top of the skin. Pull it back nice and slowly. Get the skin. Wrap it around your fingers. Pull the salmon towards you and then just all the way through. Lay that down. One nicely skinned salmon. Just like a perfect snake skin. Get your knife and just run the knife down and then with a pair of tweezers. These are fish tweezers but you can use normal tweezers. Look for the head. Up and pull. And with the skin being removed from underneath the salmon, the pin bones come out a lot easier. And the pin bones only go to just basically halfway along the fillet. One nice fillet of salmon. Beautiful. It's far harder working in the kitchen with a blunt knife than it is with a sharp knife. The secret behind keeping a sharp knife, sharpen it before and every time you use it. First, grip the steel. Feel really comfortable about holding the steel. Imagine you're holding a tennis racket or you're playing squash. You've got to be really comfortable with it. Now, 45 degrees. Confident grip. Confident grip with the knife. This is the butt of the steel. Really important you keep your fingers behind that. You never grip a steel with your fingers over that because if the knife comes back in, you've just lost a finger. Always grip behind. Nice long strokes so we get the whole of the blade over the steel. Stroke. And we start from the bottom to the top. So there, across. There, across. Slow strokes over the top of the steel and then come back underneath. Then back underneath. It is so dangerous working in the kitchen with a blunt knife. You can cause so much damage. Working with a sharp knife is ten times quicker, more efficient. Now, that's ready to start chopping. It can be easily undercooked or overcooked. Here's how to do it properly. First, water in. Nice large pan to make sure the pasta's got sufficient room to cook evenly. Nicely seasoned. Absolutely crucial. Olive oil in. That stops the pasta from sticking together. Bring it up to the boil. That's a rolling boil. The secret there, it stops the pasta from sticking together and it gently rolls it around. Now, this is angel pasta. Nice thin pasta. Takes three and a half to four minutes. So, into the pan. As it hits the water, it melts and then you turn it around. Tongs. As that starts to melt, gently twist that into the pan. Bring it back up to the boil. If you're bad at timing, then set a timer. Beautiful. To test it, lift a little strand. You can actually feel it with your fingers. It's still nice and firm. Mmm. Al dente. Not a bite, not a strong bite, but just really nice and firm inside. Definitely not crunchy. And then, into a colander. Drain the pasta. In. A light seasoning. Salt and pepper. A tablespoon of olive oil. Mix that through. That stops it from sticking together. And look. There you go. Beautiful pasta. Al dente. Mmm. Cooked perfectly. Let's give them a little rinse. OK, and let's get cooking them, shall we? There's a big one.