Third episode of the Beat the Brigade week.
People are pumped because its their home ground which of
course gives them a HUGE advantage as we have seen multiple times in the last
few seasons. Mel starts the episode by rubbing into the losing teams face that
they will be in the elimination tomorrow. Dan is visibly dejected with good
reason.
Today’s team to take part is Kishwar, Aaron, Tom and Brent.
Quite a solid team in my opinion.
Aaron says this is a good team because “Tom is a dessert
specialist and Kishwar is good with her flavours”. He then goes on to add how he thinks this team
with 3 white guys has “great diversity”.
Today we have the team from a restaurant called Lucy Liu. Jenna
North is the head chef and she’s here with her team Khanh , Dane and Zac. Jenna
immodestly says everyone is a gun in her team – somewhat setting up a sureshot
loss.
Today’s choice is that of Eastern vs European pantries. Each
team will cook with a different pantry – why would you do this? Fairest if both
cook from the same pantry – like they’ve done with the previous two challenges.
This just gives more room for arbitrary decisions from the judges.
Anyway, Lucy Liu wins the coin toss and given that they are
an Asian restaurant – they choose the Eastern pantry. This means the
Contestants will have to utilize the European pantry.
Brent has put up his glorious beard hand as captain
for the team today. They are doing stuffed zucchini flowers for their entrée, a
oxtail curry which Kishwar defines as “North African” for some reason when it
is very, very clearly South Asian. She justifies this with how there are no
fresh ingredients and then rattles off a hundred spices which are available in
the European pantry. Tominator is going
nuts and making a 7 layer berry entremets.
Jenna’s strategy is keep it smart and simple – in other
words – “Kinda boring”. Dane is doing sashimi of coral trout with kombu
dressing. Their main is a Korean version of san choy bow, and their dessert is
a carmelised condensed milk and chocolate dish.
Jenna is pretty confident she is going to win and her
biggest worry is how to scale this down to just 20 people – which is
another sure shot sign that they will fuck this up.
Mel says EVERY team that has won so far has done so on their
home turn – which is accurate since this has happened only once before and that
team has happened to win.
Jock and Andy are worried about Jenna’s dessert- and
particularly whether it will have time to cool down and set. Also she has just 3 elements and all are
quite simple – but they will let her go through with all this without telling
her she may need to do more.
Particularly compared to Tom who has completely lost it with ambition.
Ghissu Elise is, as always, worried about the rules. One
good thing to come out of her ghissuness is that Jock has now been forced to
admit that they don’t need to make a European dish or an Eastern dish – they
just have to use the pantry. So we probably won’t see too many “did not Mexico
this as much I wanted this in my head to be Mexico-ed” kind of idiotic
judgements.
Jock goes over and checks on the contestants. For some
reason he tells Tom that his dessert comes down to perfect execution (like
literally any other dish today) and says “Don’t let it be your dish that sends
you into elimination (because producers have decided you are the great white
hope who will go a long way this season)”.
Jenna is now thinking maybe she went overboard with the
confidence as they struggle to find the right brand of soy sauce.
Brent and Aaron are done helping to get the oxtail into the
pressure cookers and are now fiddling with getting the zucchini flowers stuffed.
Brent tells Andy they plan to do 1 flower per plate, and Andy is like “Even I
know that’s a terrible idea”. So now
they are doing 2 flowers per plate.
Entrée tasting
Lucy Liu’s Coral Trout Sashimi with kombu dressing - Andy
loves the dressing – but finds the shiso very over-powering. Even Jock agrees
that’s too much shiso. They are almost certainly losing this.
Contestants’ Scampi stuffed zucchini flower with tarragon
mayo. Weird criticism of the presentation which is “retro” – because there is
exactly one way in which all restaurants serve all dishes.
But Jock says the dish was delicious, Mel who has stopped
smiling, tells us she cannot stop smiling and Andy says the execution was
perfect.
Back in the kitchen, Kishwar is reinforcing that she is NOT
making a South Asian dish by making roti and adding it to her very obviously
South Asian curry. For some reason she
is now making rotis all by herself. Good-est guy Zac has come over to help her
roll out rotis. Kishwar shows her South Asian origins by completely missing the
point that they are in trouble and this guy is doing something unimaginably
nice by helping the opposition – and is “very proud that a professional chef is
asking her about how to make rotis”
Jenna’s condensed milk has caramelized – now she has to hope
it sets. This doesn’t look very promising.
Mains testing
Lucy Liu’s Korean San
Choy Bow – Mel says “beautiful generous plate of food” which doesn’t tell us at
all how it actually was. Jock says the wagyu was lovely and Andy says he
wouldn’t change anything about the dish.
Contestant’s Oxtail Supposedly-North-African-But-Very-Much-South-Asian
Black Curry with flatbread roti.
Jock continues to show he has no experience with this side
of the world’s cuisine and is “saving bread” and eating his dish with a fork
and spoon. They all agree that there was a lot of flavour in there and Jock
says it was a mic drop situation. Pretty sure the contestants are winning
this.
Back in the kitchen, Tominator is struggling to get his
dessert out of the pan – it’s stuck. He turns it over and scrapes the side and
now it comes out easily. He is worried it may be too complex now and his
biscuit at the bottom is a lot thicker than he wanted.
Jenna’s dessert is not set as much as she wanted – but she says
it tastes good and they have classic flavours so it should be okay.
Dessert Tasting
Contestants’ Berry Entremets – Jock says the mousse was nice
and tasty but the biscuit “was bulletproof”. Andy says they should have gone
for fewer components.
Lucy Liu’s Caramelised condensed milk, mandarin granita, and
biscuit crumb – Andy says the flavour was nice and Jock also agrees. Mel says she
is disappointed that this is a dish that has come from a professional team
which is totally unnecessary in this kind of setting. Sure she is not welcome
to Lucy Liu again.
Side note, this is why all such immunity tastings should be
blind.
Results
Entrée – As expected the Contestants win. This was the only
real shock for Jenna and team – they thought their entrée was great. Perhaps it
just didn’t match the palates of Jock and Andy.
Desserts – Again, with Tom’s bullet proof biscuit, Lucy Liu is
a clear winner.
Mains – The judges say both phenomenal but since they have
to choose one dish – they will give it to the contestants.
So now these 4 have also won immunity. I am just glad some
of these guys who are good cooks won’t go home this week.
Brent also points out that their safety is more important
than Lucy Liu’s reputation in a nice end to the episode.
Comments
Post a Comment