Today’s episode is an all-in elimination. Dan says he’s really enjoyed not meeting any celebrity chefs and seeing contestants go home and doesn’t want this week to end.
There is no big screen today, and the judges announce that
today’s guests are Masterchef alumni. The contestants lose their minds at the
prospect of having someone other than the judges to talk to.
The guests today are Reynold, Callum and Poh – probably three
of the most successful chefs to come out of Masterchef Australia over the
years.
Poh’s business JamFace has done very well since she left
MasterChef last year. Callum has opened up a restaurant in the Barossa valley
called Eleven and Reynold’s Koi is expanding.
The challenge today is to choose one of those restaurants
and cook a dish that would fit on the menu of that restaurant. Since none of
our participants are mind-readers, the judges ask the guests what the hell does
fitting on the menu mean.
Poh says it has to be yummy, be the kinda food your mom or
grandmom would make, pack a punch, and have simple flavours executed perfectly.
Callum says he wants the food to be modern, sophisticated, and
something that respects the produce the way it tasted before it was cooked. I
would make some raw fruit salad in this situation and be safe.
Reynold wants something is layered and technically
perfect. But he’s brought such scary looking
dishes that I doubt if anyone will cook a Reynold dish.
Kishwar, who seems to have not slept at all, says that the 3
restaurants are all different in a desperate bid to prove that she is awake and
paying attention.
Therese, Elise and Wynona all have immunity pins which they
can use at any time during the cook. So obviously all of them are idiotically taking
huge risks because why keep the pin for a challenge you have no control
whatsoever over like a pressure test?
So Therese is going to cook dessert in Reynold style, Wynona
who has put up some amazing savory dishes that would walk onto Callum’s menu is
also doing some super complicated dessert. Elise is making a basque cheesecake which
normally takes at least an hour in the oven and then sometime after to cool and
set. A side note here that – even *I* know Elise is going about this cook like
an idiot using whole proportions and not thinking smart like Chris from last
year who made his basque cheesecake very easily in the allotted time by making
small portions. Perhaps the ghissu thinks its cheating.
Aaron is going for Callum’s restaurant as he is also from
South Australia and Adelaide in particular. He has certainly shown in the last
few cooks that he has a special talent …… sucking up like anything. His dish
sounds good, but he has no clue whether it is sweet or savoury.
While the contestants are fighting for their place in the
competition, the judges are stealing food from the samples brought by Poh. No one
dares to touch Callum or Reynold’s beautiful dishes.
Jock is laughing with Reynold saying who would be insane
enough to cook any of Reynold’s dishes? Reynold, who lives on validation, is
sad that no one wants to cook his food and going around asking people why they
hate him.
Scott is super excited Poh is in the kitchen and is making a
ginger fluff cake. He is using an old family recipe which is called ginger flop
cake because it always flops. He has literally never been able to make this
cake properly before. Seems like a totally smart move to cook this today.
Therese’s idol is Reynold and she is cooking the ‘Apple’ she
showed the judges during the audition. Mel embarrasses her in front of Reynold,
but in fairness, she is anyway uncontrollably giggling so Mel didn’t do much
damage.
Pete who is now bored out of his mind on the gantry has
started talking to himself and says “Therese is smashing it” to no-one in
particular.
The judges and the guest are bonding and joking around. Andy,
who is an expert at reading the room, reminds everyone that they should be
extra happy that they will be sending someone home today. Everyone is now
super-serious and Andy is both, very pleased with himself, and also confused
why people are serious now that he’s mentioned the most fun part of his day.
Tommy is cooking salmon in a Japanese style he picked up
when he was in Japan. Callum doesn’t have any major Japanese stuff on his menu –
but surely that shouldn’t be a factor if the point is around clarity and local
produce.
Elise is sticking to her insane idea of the basque cheesecake
– but since she wants to emulate Poh – impossible dishes in times that make no
sense are on point. Now she has come up with bright idea of using blast chiller
to get the cheesecake to set in 1/20th of the time. I have a bad
feeling about this.
Wynona is making something for Reynold’s menu. Unnecessary
risk when she could have easily made a pork dish that could have sat nicely on
Callum’s menu. Anyway, she’s worried about all her set components ….setting.
Maja is doing mille feuille. The judges think this is a crazy
idea as Poh already has mille feuille on her menu, and it is a well-known international
law that says you cannot possibly have TWO mille feuilles on your menu. Andy and Jock are fully confident that she is
not going to put up a good dish – and they show her Poh’s perfect mille feuille
and then Jock eats it in her face, and tells her it’s really good.
Meanwhile, Pete who is bored out of his mind, says Maja is a
surgeon. For some reason.
Minoli is making sous vide steak with yuzu gel and pickled vegetables
for Callum’s menu. Mel is inordinately upset at this and is saying why would
you sous vide when not cooking for 50 people – she could simply pan sear it. Y’know
because there is exactly one way to cook beef and no respectable chef has ever
sous vide anything ever. Minoli holds her ground and says she says she likes
the texture of the meat when it is sous vide. Callum doesn’t care about the
sous vide[1],
but has a more legit concern about the balance of 5-6 competing bold flavours
which may over-power the meat. Now she’s
also doing a pan seared steak but has done nothing about the balance of
flavours (i.e. she has taken the wrong person’s advice and totally deserves to
go home on this).
Kishwar is making Bengali beef patties with tomato and
tamarind chutney. She meets Poh and somehow
controls herself from bursting into tears. For some reason she has kept the
cooking of her pastry to the last 20 mins and wasted time making her salad and
chutney which could have waited and be done in parallel - and now she is truly paying tribute to Poh –
by staring at the oven praying the food comes out cooked.
By now, Aaron’s tomatoes have come out of the oven and he is
sure this is a savoury dish – he’s happy and everything has gone exactly to
plan.
The camera focuses on Poh who looks disgusted at what Maja
is doing with her mille feuille. No one says anything though – so this is not looking
good for Maja.
Therese is working on making her mirror glaze super red. Reynold
comes over and she, in a misplaced sense of over-confidence, throws her back up
tuiles away ….while her original batch of tuiles are still in the oven.
Scott is still praying that his ginger fluff cake is rising.
Now they all do the Poh and look at the oven – he takes out the cake and it
seems to have worked out well. His insane gamble seems to have paid off.
Now it is Wynonas turn to stare at oven in despair – but she
seems to be in good spirits and says she’s ‘doing a Poh on a Reynold challenge’.
Elise’s Basque cheesecake is out of oven and into the blast chiller
where she expects it to fully cool and set in 6 minutes.
Andy goes to Maja and tells her she has only 6 mins only and
freaks her and himself out.
Tommy is a bit worried about the cooking of his salmon. Minoli
tastes everything together – she now realizes that she forgot rule no. 1 in
this kitchen which is to simply ignore Mel and Andy. She took Mel’s advice
instead of Callum’s and now sees that Callum was right and there are too many flavours
around could overpower the streak. She still does nothing about this and keeps
her dish as is. WTF is she thinking??
Elise is very happy with the colour of the basque cheesecake
– but since this is not a primary school science experiment to show how things
change colour when heat is applied to it, this is meaningless since the cake is
too warm and has not set. She now puts it back in blast chiller for the last 1
minute as if that is going to help. Elise then has a full blown panic attack and
wisely decides to use her pin.
Wynona is piping her raspberry gel – it’s not set and
running all over her crumb. She sees Elise using the pin and she uses her pin
as well. This was totally avoidable. Sigh.
Now everyone is super worried as the odds have gone up for
elimination – clearly no one had any faith in Elise and Therese to put up some semblance
of non-garbage dishes.
Tasting
Only the 3 judges and the guest chef the contestants have
chosen will taste the dishes. Poor Reynold has now realized that he will not
get to eat anything – just 2 dishes – since Wynona also backed out.
Aaron says he cannot wait to present his dish to Callum, but
then takes the slowest walk of all time to get to the judges. Everyone likes
the dish and Callum tries to hire Aaron. So moral of the story kids – suck up
to figures in power. It always helps.
Scott’s ginger fluff cake is good. Poh says it would nicely
fit on the Jamface menu. Mel doesn’t care about the food as usual and says she likes
it because Scott is ‘radiating the good stuff’, whatever the hell that means.
Jock says he loved that it seemed like a recipe out of Women’s Weekly in the
1980s. Let’s assume that’s a compliment as I don’t have the cultural background
to comment on that one, and move on.
Tommy brings his dish. On brand of rating himself very
highly, he thinks he has made a very good dish, and has used his time
well. He has made a salmon ochazuke –
grilled salmon with dashi tea. Callum says he probably would not have a dish
this exclusively Japanese – but would use some of the elements from there. I
hope they don’t eliminate this guy for not hitting the brief because there is
no way one could tell this from what Callum said earlier – he didn’t mention
any cuisines. Also if cuisine is a concern, then Callum really should have
mentioned this to him at the beginning of the cook. Mercifully, the fish is
totally overcooked and they have a better excuse to eliminate him now.
Maja brings her mille feuille. Andy says the flavours are perfect – but the
puff wasn’t perfect. Jock says it’s crazy she’s done this when Poh has a mille
feuille on the menu. Which really makes it a perfect dish for the menu – would surely
fit on the menu – but anyway she’s screwed up the pastry so it hopefully won’t
come down to “how dare you suggest we have 2 variants of mille feuille on the
menu” at the time of elimination.
Brent has made chargrilled octopus with corn, Depinder
brings a massive cake – and by now Jock is feeling bad about hogging all the
food and gives Reynold some cake.
Therese brings up her Apple. Finally Reynold gets to eat
something. Therese is worried that the
apple is not a perfect apple shape, but looks more like a tomato. Lol. Sis, one
guy has overcooked fish, and one lady has screwed up the pastry on her pastry
dish. You are safe. Anyway - Reynold loves it – and even gives her some advice
on how to fix the shape next time.
Conor’s tiramisu has the right flavours – but it is very
cakey and the Italian in Jock is angry because it’s dry. I am assuming – even though
this is a screw up, Conor won’t go home because of the lack of coverage in the
episode so far.
Minoli’s dish is a disaster as expected. Callum says the
dish lacks clarity and that yuzu was not the right sauce for this dish. Jock
says yuzu says its jarring with the pickles, and he can’t taste the beef at
all. This looks really bad for her.
Kidhwar’s beef patties have turned out very well. Poh loves
everything about the dish – and Kishwar starts tearing up. Then she straight up
announces she wants to cry – and the judges who have had enough of this shit in
every single episode, let her go immediately.
The bottom four are Conor, Tommy, Maja, and Minoli.
Unfortunately Minoli has to go as she missed pretty much all the marks and
there was little positive about the dish today. Sad to see her go and hope she
is successful as a cook later on in life – for she truly has a super inspiring
story.
That’s it for today – Cheers and see you all in Episode 11.
[1]
Considering that he himself has cooked meat this way last year when Gordon
freaking Ramsay told him not to, that would be super hypocritical
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