MasterChef Australia - S13E24 - Immunity Challenge - Stokehouse

 Fourth and thankfully final episode of Beat the Brigade week.

Today Amir, Pete, Justin and Sabina will be cooking against the team from Stokehouse.

Amir states the obvious and says they are definitely at a disadvantage today since they are cooking in Stokehouse. In other words, they don’t get the massive unfair advantage the two teams that played in the MasterChef kitchen get and are sure to lose.

The Executive Chef Jason Staudt introduces his team today – we have Mark (his head chef), Brenden (the sous chef) and Ashley (their pastry chef).  

Mel says today’s theme and therefore the choices the teams get is …. colours. This is absolutely idiotic. Now they have choose and “hero a colour”! No one ever says that they are an expert at cooking things that are yellow or red – everyone has strengths in terms of ingredients or cuisines and techniques. Which makes this challenge completely pointless – and makes it even more impossible for the contestants to win.

Andy is sad that this is his last coin toss – he was getting rather good at it. The Contestants wins the toss – and are happy about this for some reason because none of this matters at all, and it gives them no advantage whatsoever.

They choose green for dessert, Stokehouse choose red for the entrée and the contestants choose yellow for mains because Pete has just remembered that both corn and turmeric are yellow. 

Sabina has chosen to be captain today as it is a zero-pressure environment and they are 100% sure to lose this challenge.

They have decided to do prawn in a red sauce as their entrée. Best is to simply make ghee roast prawns again and easy win. Justin is going to work on this. 

They are going to do corn and fish for the mains. Frankly this combination does not inspire confidence.  They should have been smart and gone orange for the mains since most curries end up that colour anyway.  Pete is on this dish for some reason and not Sabina (who is a bit of fish goddess).

Dessert is a cucumber something I don’t care about because I’ve had my fill of cucumber based dishes this season. Amir is stuck with this because no one else volunteered.

Jason from Stokehouse explains that his team works amazingly well together – to the point they don’t even need to talk to each other. 

Mel says amazing week. They try to show it as some sort of competition saying that masterchef teams won big when they had the huge home advantage, and the restaurant team won they had the huge advantage. Now Andy wants to see “if” home advantage has anything to do with this. Jock who seems the only one who cares about the idiotic brief (makes me think it was his idea) says this challenge is harder than it looks. 

At the Stokehouse kitchen, we have Brendan working on the entrée. They are making a classic smoked beetroot beef tartare + warm crumpets.  

For their main they have a blue eye with vichyssoise which will have saffron added for colour reasons. These guys are playing smart.

For dessert, they have a pistachio white chocolate mousse, a tarragon apple sorbet, and a matcha tea crumble. They seem to chugging along nicely – this is not even remotely difficult for them. 

Jock now comes over and says to Sabina that the prawns look orange and not red. Justin insists that it is close enough and, in any case, he thought they cared more about the flavour rather than argue about exact pantone specifications of the dish. How wrong he is. Jock won’t let it go – says go get a carrot and a tomato. The marinade is quite close to red, but Jock says it looks closer to carrot. So they will not “hit this brief”.  Justin is understandably exasperated and – for some reason stressed. Clearly the thing to do here is to simply throw in some colouring and get on with it. 

He now adds in Tomato paste – and the colour edges more towards red than orange.

Now Jock has gone to fuck around with Stokehouse. He tells them that beetroot is not red, but purple. Like WTF! And insists that unless they make the dish “RED” they will not hit the brief.

Now it is Jason’s turn to be exasperated because he was really confident about this dish. So now they are adding capsicum. He is worried that in this idiotic obsession with what exact colour the dish is – they might change flavour dynamics.  But clearly Jock doesn’t care – so Jason is now just focused on making it red.

Now everyone is coming and is finding it very amusing that Sabina is being a good team leader -  and every one is making fun of her. Classy move. How encouraging.  

The diners are already here – 30 minutes to go. For some reason, the contestants have started filleting now! Andy comes  over and asks how they are going. Pete and Sabina are trying to work it out. Andy is constantly interrupting and not stopping talking. For good measure, he also rubs in that the professional chefs have done a better job at this that they have.

Now poor Jason has seen the Contestants’ dish and is not sure if their red pepper emulsion is red enough. And in desperate act that he will surely be trolled for a long time, they are adding red flowers to the dish.

Justin is again expressing frustration that the immunity and therefore everything they do in life in food, depends on the COLOUR of this sauce.  

Sabina is happy that their prawn dish is red. While Jason is worried that his dish is merely “reddish”.

Entrée tasting

Stokehouse - Beer tartare, red pepper emulsion, herbs. Andy asks Jock if his highness thinks the dish is red enough. Jock is not very sold, but now finally realizes this is a totally idiotic brief and passes the judgement that it is red enough. Andy, despite this offers criticism about how the dish is “not the reddest dish” he’s ever seen. They should have served raw tomatoes. Mel actually talks about the food. Jock says it was a really nice dish – but the smoky element was missing (because he made them remove the beetroot) which is why this dish is beatable.

Team – Prawns with red sauce -  Jock says its very red. He first talks a lot about the colour, and now says the dish itself is delicious. Mel describes the dish as one with 3D flavour a “multidimensional celebration of red”. Because that is exactly what Justin was going for when he said, “yeah lets chuck in some tomato paste to make this sauce redder”.

 

Back in kitchen, Pete is looking stressed. They are done with the corn puree and the charred corn – now they are poaching the fish. Sabina says they should poach it in the oven, and somehow Justin finds himself in charge of the fish. He is not sure about this at all – not sure why Sabina is not taking this over at this crucial stage. They are struggling a bit to use the commercial oven, but finally the fish is perfectly cooked. They have gone full yellow – the fish, the corn and charred corn are all yellow. 

Stokehouse on the other hand has one white piece of fish on their plate – but they are convinced it is yellow because they have already threatened the producers to never come back given how stupid this challenge is.

Main tasting

Stokehouse – Steam Blue Eye with Saffron Vichyssoise – Jock says it looks yellow enough. He loved the dish – says the fish was perfectly cooked. Jock has accidentally revealed that they are giving this to chefs no matter what the contestants do. 

Contestants – Poached Red Emperor with Corn – Jock says the dish is unquestionably yellow. Andy says it was a decent effort – but the corn was too sweet. Mel says it’s evident that Pete has made this which is why it is terrible. Really tough feedback on a guy who you describe as a master saucier. Jock says needed some spice, acidity, etc. They have surely lost this one.   

Back in kitchen, Jock has come NOW to tell the contestants that their dessert is not great idea – because the cucumber tea will melt the yogurt. It is a huge AF hint to leave the tea off as the dish is generally green enough. But they don’t listen. Now Jason and co are cleaning the bench for the contestants because they are looking stressed – whattay nice guy.

For some reason, the desserts have received no coverage at all this episode. Stokehouse has made a very good looking dish and has already sent out everything. Now they come over and help the contestants with their rochers. Supremely good guy move.  

Dessert tasting:

Stokehouse -  Pistachio white chocolate mousse – this looks so much better than the contestants. Andy says he loved it but felt the lime insert was icy. Jock doesn’t care what Andy’s opinion is and says the flavours were great. He is particularly happy it is green. Now Andy says the contestants will have to bring absolute belter of dessert

Constants - Cucumber sorbet, Greek yogurt – Undeniably green again. Jock says he really enjoyed it – but the yogurt looks horrible. Andy says he wishes the cucumber tea wasn’t on plate as Jock had told them earlier.

Results

Not too surprisingly the contestants win the Entrée, and Stokehouse easily wins the other two courses.

Shockingly the professional chefs in their home kitchen have come through just showing how stupid these challenges all were. Also, I suspect they needed to have the team lose to make tomorrow’s challenge meaningful.