Thomas Keller MasterClass Review:
Kickstart your Cooking Skills

Content and Structure of the Thomas Keller MasterClass

Thomas Keller’s MasterClasses is made up of three installments, each serving as a course of its own. In every installment, the award-winning chef teaches different cooking techniques.

First course: Vegetables, pasta, and eggs
Second course: Meats, stocks, and sauces
Third course: Seafood, sous vide, and desserts

The first two are over 6 hours, and the third is just under 5 hours. The number of lessons totals 75 with varying lengths. They average 10 and 20 minutes, but some are much longer, at around 25 to 30 minutes.

Thomas Keller shows the cooking techniques in great detail, from making the perfect pasta dough to cooking eggs. There’s no doubt you will understand them, which makes it a practical cooking class. However, practice is necessary to get the most out of the course. I highly recommend pairing each installment with its class guide and practice sessions. 

Below is an overview of what you’ll find in each of Thomas Keller’s MasterClasses.

Cooking Techniques I: Vegetables, Pasta, and Eggs

In the first course, Thomas Keller makes a thorough introduction. Chef Keller explains the optimal kitchen setup and displays the essential tools and ingredients every kitchen must have.

Before getting into the fundamental cooking techniques, Chef Keller also discusses the importance of sourcing ingredients and his preparation techniques.

Preparing and Cooking Vegetables

Chef Keller covers a lot of cooking tips for vegetables. He shares various ways to prepare and cook them. In these lessons, Chef Keller teaches peeling, pickling, baking, and blanching, which equip you with enough techniques for dealing with all kinds of vegetables. 

My favorite lessons in this part were making mashed potatoes and big pot blanching asparagus, as the cooking techniques taught apply to blanching in general and purees of other kinds.

Making Boiled Eggs, Scrambled Eggs, and Poaching

From there, he introduces Thomas Keller eggs recipe that takes your scrambled eggs to a new level. In these lessons, chef Thomas Keller also teaches how to make mayonnaise and hollandaise sauce at home. 

The lessons on cooking eggs were incredibly insightful despite their simplicity, especially the Thomas Keller omelette. It was straightforward yet full of techniques that will boost your cooking skills instantaneously.

Pasta Dough, Classic Pastas, and Gnocchi 

Chef Keller then moves to homemade pasta after teaching you how to beat and make scrambled eggs. Although Thomas Keller’s expertise is in French cooking, he shares his love and appreciation for pasta by making the perfect pasta dough he learned from an Italian grandmother. 

Chef Keller demonstrates various ways to use pasta dough by making classic pastas, like Spaghetti Aglio and fettuccine. He also makes potato gnocchi with Pomodoro sauce in this part. The Thomas Keller pasta recipe videos are a must-watch for any cook that wants to make pasta at home from scratch.

With these lessons, the first part of Chef Keller’s MasterClass ends. Before signing off, Chef Keller explains how you can use his principles for success and cooking philosophy to become a professional chef.

Cooking Techniques II: Meats, Stocks, and Sauces

The second course of Chef Keller starts with a brief overview of the cooking techniques he will teach. It was a short but cinematic introduction that really hyped me up for what Thomas Keller had to show.

Meat Cooking Techniques

Chef Keller starts this part of his MasterClass by going over meat cuts and explains the marbling, dry aging, and different grades of meat. Although this may come off as he’s only talking about lean meats, he also details cooking poultry.

The lessons afterward cover various ways to cook meat, which go on until the 14th lesson out of 22 in this installment. 

Chef Thomas Keller teaches how to saute, fry, pan roast, oven roast, braise, and grill ,for those who love grilling, I also recommend checking out the Aaron Franklin MasterClass review for a full BBQ experience, while covering which cooking method is best for what type of meat. These lessons on cooking meats are very detailed, and I recommend taking notes, especially on the techniques used. The class guide also includes the essential techniques you must follow for each cut of meat covered.

Stocks, Broths, and Sauces

Throughout the earlier lessons, Chef Thomas Keller mentions you can use scraps for stocks and broths. Following the 14th lesson, he explains what cookware to use, what cut of meat to keep for stocks, and which bones to use for broths. Although you won’t see much of Chef Keller’s technique in these lessons, they are as valuable as stocks and broths are flavorful.

In just six lessons, Chef Keller explains how you can make flavorful stocks, broths, and sauces without using restaurant-grade equipment. However, some of the lessons in this part are very long. The Brown Chicken Quick Sauce and Sauce Chasseur lesson is almost 40 minutes, for example.

Cooking Techniques III: Seafood, Sous Vide, and Desserts

This MasterClass is where Chef Thomas Keller takes things a notch up. It’s more for experienced cooks. If you’re a trained chef, the lessons in this one out of all the Thomas Keller MasterClasses will interest you the most.

Buying, Preparing, and Cooking Fresh Seafood

Thomas Keller starts this final installment of his MasterClass by detailing how to tell if seafood is fresh. As with other ingredients covered in the MasterClass, Chef Keller discusses various ways to check the freshness of seafood.

Following this, Chef Keller shows how to cook various seafood. Similar to the cooking meats lessons, he shows different ways of doing this, from sauteed salmon to poached lobster. The Thomas Keller lobster mac and cheese was by far the most intriguing lesson for me. I was surprised how easy you could make it! Chef Keller also covers cooking fish sous vide style later on.

Sous Vide Cooking

Chef Thomas Keller welcomes you to one of the staples of classical French cooking, sous vide. He touches on the importance of cooking sous vide at a consistent temperature. Chef Keller teaches what you need to start and cooks carrots, asparagus, and fennel.

Although he uses restaurant-grade equipment in the lessons, he ensures a practical way to sous vide at home. It only takes a standard pot filled with hot water, kitchen film, a thermometer, and ice! It’s an incredible lesson where you’ll learn Chef Feller’s technique to one of the fundamentals of classical French cooking without fancy gear.

Pots de Crème, Lemon Tart, and Apple Pie

Ready for some Thomas Keller apple pie? I certainly was, and looking forward to Chef Keller’s lessons on making patissier-quality desserts at home! 

Chef Keller starts by breaking down how you can master French cooking by making pots de crème, a small yet very rich dessert. Since desserts like this require a lot of technique, I recommend taking notes.

Chef Keller then moves to more classic desserts with lemon tart and apple pie. He shares that lemon tart is one of his favorite desserts and reveals that his recipe remains unchanged since the 1980s. Chef Keller then instructs how to make a pine crust for lemon tart and covers every detail of making apple pie in the following lesson.

Fast-Track Lesson Plan

Thomas Keller’s MasterClasses total is 17 hours and 50 minutes in length. If you don’t have as much time to invest and want to get the best out of the course skip the following lessons on each part of Chef Keller’s MasterClass.

Finish Part I in 5 hours and 1 minute by skipping:

No.	Lesson	Duration
3.	Kitchen Setup: Essential Ingredients	09:08
9.	Peeling: Tomatoes	07:18
13.	Puree: Parsnips	07:20
16.	Baking: Beets	11:31
17.	Eggs: An Introduction	06:24
19.	Hollandaise	17:39
20.	Custard: Creme Anglaise	10:37
21.	Meringue	13:19
29.	Agnolotti with Peas and Bacon	12:03
30.	Spaghetti alla Chitarra and Cavatelli	09:53
34.	Gnocchi with Pomodoro	12:21

Finish Part II in 3 hours and 32 minutes by skipping:

No.	Lesson	Duration
3.	Sauté: Chicken Paillard	13:02
8.	Pan Roasting: Côte de Boeuf	21:42
10.	Oven Roasting: Blowtorch Prime Rib Roast	11:19
12.	Braising: Pork Shoulder à la Matignon	28:21
13.	Braising: Red Wine Braised Short Ribs	40:35
21.	Brown Chicken Quick Sauce and Sauce Chasseur	38:55

Finish Part III in 3 hours and 49 minutes by skipping:

No.	Lesson	Duration
3.	Sauté: Dover Sole With Pommes Château	23:19
11.	Sous Vide Cooking: Turbot	06:13
14.	Desserts: Lemon Tart With Pine Nut Crust	21:25
17.	Bonus: Sous Vide Cooking: Varying Time and Temperature	11:27

Engagement and Retention of Thomas Keller MasterClass

Chef Keller teaches fundamental cooking techniques in an engaging, easy-to-understand way. It’s super easy to follow the chef. Although experienced cooks may find his teaching style dry at times, it shouldn’t be a problem. My experience finishing the entire three-part series was overall positive.

However, there’s a lack of screen graphics. Chef Keller makes up for this with his teaching style, but it can pose difficulties nonetheless.