Contestants are walking into the kitchen – turns out today is a team challenge. I guess it will be one of those relay / socially distanced team challenges.
Today in superstar week we have Yotam Ottolenghi joining …..
on telepresence. Jock tries to make a few jokes about Yotam being here but not
being here. He’s not here, Jock – we are all quite clear about this.
Yotam talks about his new book – the very specifically named
“Flavour” which apparently is all about vegetables. A whole book about
vegetables? Why would one do such a thing? Yotam confesses that even his kids
hate vegetables. Yotam gives parents everywhere the hack that if you want to
make your kids eat vegetables, the best way to go is the deep fry them and
screw all the nutrient value because who eats vegetables for that?
I guess the judges and producers have realized that just
having a person on screen is not enough – and the contestants need to get to
interact with the chef. Else they may as well just mail it in. Sabina puts up
her hand and asks her question – “what is the last thing Yotam would eat before
he died” – his ‘death row meal’ so to say. Everyone is appalled with this
morbid and inappropriate question especially in the middle of a pandemic and
the contestants question asking privileges are immediately rescinded – well
done Sabina. Surely the post popular person in the house now.
Today’s challenge is for 3 teams – they have to cook a 3
course meal with each course using one of Yotam’s flavor bombs - numbing oil,
chipotle peanuts, and fenugreek marinade.
Andy earns his salary for the day by making the teams –
Brown, Orange and Grey. Why would you have Brown and Orange together on TV –
they look so similar. This is what happens when you try to be too different and
end up fucking things up. Was the colour of the aprons really that important a
thing to change from simple primary colours?
Anyway – here comes the bomb - the worst team goes into an
elimination tomorrow! What the actual fuck?! Three eliminations in seven
episodes? In the last season, the first elimination happened in Episode 6!
Seriously seems like they are trying to have a super truncated and, therefore,
mostly useless (for the cooks) - season.
The challenge will be a sort of relay with 2 teams of three
cooking one after the other. First 3 people start off on the 3 courses and then
the other 3 take over after half an hour. The captain cannot cook (!) and has
to ‘lead verbally’. Because everyone knows people come in to MaterChef to work
on their leadership skills.
On top of this one team has an extra member – why not do
this after the next elimination when you have 21 people left? This concept of
one person sitting out and hoping the team doesn’t fuck up makes no sense.
The teams pick their leaders – Elise puts her hand up saying
she is a control freak (apparently everyone agrees that this is a good thing)
and takes over the brown team. Aaron seems to have lost the vote and has the
captaincy of the Grey team thrust on him. Conor seems quite happy to captain the
Orange team.
Okay, turns out Yotam is also cooking – at least he has
something to do. Though I am pretty sure that this was done to ensure he
doesn’t have to talk to the judges for too long.
Conor feels the best way to impress Yotam (who will not be
judging anything) is to have a fully vegetarian menu. Elise is also thinking What Would Yotam Do –
again kinda pointless since Yotam is not going to taste any of your food, and
you will get feedback from the same 3 idiots you normally get it from.
The judges are pleased with themselves for their idea of the
non-cooking captains as they are ‘building skills as head chefs’ – maybe get
people ready to be sous chefs first?
The teams decide their menus – Brown team has Eric and Tommy
so well-of-course Eric decides to make pork and mushroom dumplings (Tommy is
Asian so must know how to make dumplings, right?), Kishwar starts off a pumpkin
curry and Amir starts on their ice-cream sandwich.
The grey team’s starter is crispy eggplant, chicken skewers;
a chipotle peanuts jaffa type dessert. Aaron their captain who didn’t want to
be a captain, is chill maxx – not really
bothering with giving any instructions. Very quickly he is transformed by his
team into helper boy and is mostly running around to get equipment and
ingredients. Poor guy.
Therese says she wants to make a ‘wow dish’ to impress Yotam
(who, will not only NOT be tasting the dish, he won’t even know what they’ve
cooked as he will have even left the call by that point). Her idea of making a ‘wow
dish’ evidently seems to be to screw up her ricotta and not have any component
featuring the peanuts at all.
Orange team’s full veg menu – Justin starts off on the
Middle Eastern style honey roasted carrots; they have a cauliflower with tahini
main, and a chipotle peanut ice cream that Wynona is working on. Conor’s plan
seems to be good – Brent will come in and finish off the entrée and Depinder
will finish off the dessert. Jock asks Conor if he is sure that Depinder will
be able to add ideas to the dessert because every chef is expected to read
minds and know a person’s entire cooking repertoire based on 4-5 days of interactions.
Yotam tells everyone what he’s making – and mentions tofu
wrapped in lettuce as one of the dishes. This dish in one hour would totally
get the contestants yelled at and into a sureshot elimination but Yotam is
making all three dishes himself in the same time so we will cut him some slack.
Jock then follows this up super cringe moment of the day
where he says he loves tofu and acts like a child going “mmm I love tofu” – the
cognitive dissonance of this is too much to handle for the camera man and he
runs away at full speed, leaving Mel and Jock to continue their pointless
conversation.
We are nearing the swap now, and the full focus is on the
Grey team which seems to be all over the place. Aaron could not be doing a
worse job as leader and Therese has not only done nothing to fix her ricotta,
but has also done nothing to add peanuts to the dish i.e. hit the brief.
The teams swap now – the first teams head up to the gantry.
For the brown team Tommy takes over from Eric on the
dumplings and confesses that despite being Asian he doesn’t really cook many
dumplings.
Aaron, instead of telling his team what to do, is looking
for skewers. Tom has received no instructions and Therese is watching this fuck
up from the gantry and for some reason continues to smile like elimination
seems like a fun prospect. Tom is exasperated
that Theresa has missed the brief entirely – and decides he needs to go into terminator
mode again to save the day.
For the Orange team, Brett is confident with Middle Eastern
flavours, and Depinder has come in and added a few toppings to the dessert quite
effortlessly (so suck it Jock).
Therese is now jumping up and down and yelling – as if her
monumental failure in the first 30 minutes somehow isn’t the cause for this
clusterfuck in the Grey team.
Pete seems to have taken over mains (the chicken skewers) and
duly fucks it up immediately by putting the oily skewers straight on the
hibachi which - as would normally happen with oil dripping into hot coals –
leads to fire everywhere.
Pete seems to have time to be the only person in history to
use the words “dainty little box” to describe a hibachi while a literal fire is
burning their chances of survival. The outside is cooked (burnt) and now to
cook the inside, he puts the skewers in a hot pan.
Now we are in the last 5 minutes and Tommy has to make the
dumplings, which he doesn’t really know how to make. Of course, Andy choses
this moment to come and ask idiotic questions. Eric out-shouts Andy and gives
him advice from the gantry and Tommy pulls through.
Yotam is done – and looking smug while the poor contestants
try to pull together their dishes. The judges are fully pre-occupied with Yotam
and are totally ignoring the teams.
Mel asks “How good are team challenges” trying to distract
us from the fact that no one is actually working together, its just 3 separate
people, cooking 3 separate things.
Poor Tom is trying to salvage the Therese’s fuck-up while Therese
is telling him that her ricotta has to be whipped like somehow it’s his fault
that it’s bad. Aaron of course is
totally unhelpful. Finally the team
wakes up and realizes that the chicken has been kept in a hot pan for the last
15 minutes.
Yotam shows his dishes – which are basically tofu wrapped in
lettuce with numbing oil thrown on top, 5-6 prawns cooked in the fenugreek
marinade (how is this a main?? Anyway, never mind) and a peanut pandan dessert.
Of course no one can taste anything. Mel says it’s wonderful to learn from Yotam
, and then remembers that Yotam is supposed to be there for the contestants so
adds that as an afterthought.
The poor contestants are forced to cheer for a totally
useless interaction on what could have been a zoom call.
Coming to the tasting.
Brown team is up first. Immediately we get a quick reminder of the
judges’ capabilities.
On the starter, Jock comments on how the pork and pork fat
helped shape the flavor profile of the dumplings and brought out the numbing
oil. Andy says he really liked how the team took the numbing oil out of the jar
with their own hands and transferred it onto the dumplings so expertly (because
as you all know, using a spoon is one of the toughest techniques in cooking). Mel
is impressed by how there are 6 dumplings which are not empty shells, but
filled. Profound words.
Anyway, everyone likes the idea of using roast pumpkin to go
with the fenugreek marinade. The ice cream sandwich has good flavours but has
gone a bit soft. The team seems safe.
Grey team up next.
The crispy eggplant has turned out nicely and compliments
the Yotam’s flavor bomb well. Chicken skewers are overcooked. Andy says
something totally nonsensical about how they have a hero which was the chicken
where they heroed the flavor bomb, and the chicken was not the main component.
No-one understands this and ignores him.
The dessert is a disaster, Therese’s ricotta is bad and to
make things worse, the judges say it wasn’t even required on the plate. Tominator
could have saved them!
Coming to the Orange team.
Mel says that baby carrots can be the basic bitch of bistro
world – but this dish was thoughtful and well executed. Andy makes the
observation that the carrots were the star of the dish featuring carrots.
Jock has had enough of vegetarian food for today and the
double cauliflower is too much for him. He hates it. Everyone loves the chipotle
peanut ice cream.
On the results – Grey team is clearly the worst and is in tomorrow’s
elimination.
Aaron is gutted and seems to be surprised at this
outcome - I mean who could have forseen
this considering the way the cook was so organized with everything went according
to plan?
Mel tells the team to not be disheartened – take lessons and
keep them with you – because one of them is going to get no more lessons from
here on as it is apparently critical to throw 3 people out in 7 episodes.
Mel ends the episode by making a pointless mention of Therese’s
immunity pin since she doesn’t have to make a decision to use it until well
into the cook. At least that’s what any
reasonable person would do.
That’s it for today – Cheers and see you in Episode 7.
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