MasterChef Australia - S13E13 - Boring-est Mystery Box of all time

 The contestants are super happy since it is a Mystery box today and for once no-one is going home. 

The contestants pick up their boxes and find that the pantry staple ingredients are the ones they have to work with. This makes me very happy as the judges will basically have to eat either cake or pasta or plain bread with eggs.

Sadly, the judges have figured out that just the pantry staples will not taste good at all – so they have allowed the contestants to pick 2 ingredients from the garden. The top 5 dishes go into tomorrow’s immunity challenge.

The contestants run out and get their ingredients from the garden.

Sabina has taken lemon and thyme and is cooking a dessert today because yesterday’s trauma wasn’t enough. On a serious note, this is exactly when one should work on weaknesses because of low chances of success and relatively low consequence cooks. She is making ricotta doughnuts.

Linda and Eric have both done full paisa vasooli and brought in the biggest thing they could find in the garden.  

Aaron has brought bay leaf and lemon. He is also experimenting with a dessert. Conor is going Greek and making something with lemon, fig and olive oil.   

The judges discuss what they would do and Andy asks Mel what she would get from the garden. Mel gives generic gas about getting an aromat or a vegetable that you can use all of – so that narrows it down to a mere 200 odd possibilities.

Scott wonders why is it is so hot – and he and Conor have a far too detailed conversation about how much both of them are sweating.

Dan likes fusion food and thinks he is good at this. But now he is going simple – so he has brought basil and garlic. He is making ricotta for his pasta and plans to use the whey to make a broth. Not going to lie, this sounds absolutely disgusting. He shows this off to Tom who tries to say something positive.

Tom is saying this is the best challenge ever - because what could be more interesting than cooking with plain flour? He has brought sunrise lime and native mint from the garden. He gives a long monologue to the judges about how he plans to cook what and the judges seeing that they cannot force any drama on Tombot, slink away dejected.

This plan of getting the contestants to show what they can do and be inventive has worked out perfectly because everyone is making ricotta.  

Elise is unsurprisingly making a pasta dish (have a feeling she will end up as the new Laura) with zucchini and society garlic.  The judges call her out for her constant inappropriate winking at Jock and Andy.

Depinder is making rosemary ice cream with poached apple and rosemary tuile. Jock says when he meant get anything from the garden, he didn’t mean the apples because they are kinda fuck all. He says he’s worried that the apples are too acidic and that he wouldn’t eat those. Andy is randomly making agreeing sounds without saying anything.  Depinder totally ignores the judges and has faith in her abilities so she sticks to her guns.

Now the contestants are openly mocking Mel about not being a chef.  

Kishwar is making basil pasta with pesto and tomato broth.  Therese is making roti with chili caramel with basil ice cream. Andy has no clue that roti can be added to a dessert, and tries to have a conversation with Jock about it who ignores him and walks away.

Cringe moment of the episode:  Mel asks Andy whether he does this in the house – “Five minutes to go”. Even Andy is embarrassed and refuses to answer. It is probably the most awkward moment I have ever seen in Masterchef. It’s funny in a ‘Salman Khan claims he is a virgin’ kinda way. 

Now Tom is showing off to Jess how good his stuff is. She is not bothered at all and doesn’t care. He is now telling Dan and Dan is also showing off what he has done.

Jock says the 2 ingredients from garden are just support act – which is odd because the words at the beginning of the challenge were that these ingredients were there for flavour as just pantry staples would taste like shit.

The Tasting

Therese -  Andy says that sweet roti would go better on a curry but he likes it, Mel says it was spectacular, Jock says it was one of the best rotis he’s eaten. She seems to have done super well.   

Depinder next. They are all worried about the apple. Jock has taken pre-emptive precautions and thrown in half the bowl of caramel. Everyone agrees that the dish works well – Depinder is vindicated for ignoring the judges. 

Tom’s dish is cloyingly sweet, Elise’s dish is confused and has no balance, Aaron’s ice cream is great, but his granita is too sweet and this tuile is too salty. 

Dan has cooked a ricotta ravioli with whey society garlic broth. Jock is confused about who is imposter is who can cook non-fusion food. He tells Dan to his face that he hates Fusion Dan and it would be a good idea to kill him off permanently. Mel who has in the past told Dan how she loves fusion Dan – agrees wholeheartedly. Dan asks Jock if he can consider Scottish fusion, Jock tells him to stay in aukaat and fuck off back to his bench. 

Kishwar now gives a very long explanation about why she choose this dish. On positive side, she is not crying. Mel is super impressed that Kishwar was clever enough to pick up literally the most common ingredients ever seen in Italian cuisine.

Conor’s dish is awesome. Mel had gone to him earlier and said there is nowhere to hide, and he didn’t need that because everything is great. 

Sabina brings up her ricotta doughnuts with ice cream and lemon curd. Jock and Mel steal all the Lemon curd and Andy is left scraping out the leftovers lol. Everyone agrees this is a great dish.  

The top five who play for immunity are Therese, Conor, Depinder, Kishwar, and sigh … Dan. Poor Sabina, I really thought she had it with this cook.

Cheers and see you tomorrow at the immunity challenge.