Here we go with the pressure test. Scott says he has never done a pressure test before – but he loves recipes and cookbooks so maybe this will play to his strength. A sureshot sign that he is not going to have a very fun cook.
Andy asks the four contestants how they are feeling – and everyone
for some reason says they are feeling good. Eric is wearing his lucky pants and
well of course this is something that has to be commented on at least 200 times
in this episode.
Andy says “What’s under the cloche has never been seen in
this kitchen” which means this is surely going to be some idiotic take on a
pressure test.
Today’s guest is Clinton McIver[1]
who has worked at Vue De Monde and Mugaritz. Now he has a restaurant called
Amaru. He describes the food as “delicious and sensory” which means it is going
to have a lot of pointless elements on there.
He opens cloche to reveal a blindfold – there is the stupid
take on the pressure test. The contestants don’t get to see the dish they are
cooking. They have to taste it blindfolded and will be judged on how it looks.
Like - what is wrong with your usual super hardcore, scary dishes that contestants do not have the skills to make?
Now that all the contestants are blindfolded, Clinton
reveals the dish for the other judges and the contestants on the gantry. The
dish is called Aged Lamb with flowering legumes. He mentions there is a onion
gel, sauces and muntries.
As if this idiotic challenge isn’t enough pressure (on top
of being an elimination), Jock rubs it in saying “What a beautiful delicate looking
dish (WHICH NONE OF YOU CAN SEE HAHAH)”. And Clinton makes it worse and says he is very
attached to how the dish is presented. Even the usually sadistic Andy thinks
this is too much.
Now they have to feel the dish to figure out what the hell
it is.
Bring out your bingo cards
/ take a shot depending on your preferred game for Brent has made a reference
to his big fat tradie fingers. You’d think he’d get past the self pity after
some one third of the people are eliminated but nope. Sabina is not sure what the berries (that he
clearly told everyone were muntries) are.
The contestants are feeling their way through a two-hat
restaurant dish with their fingers and mauling it – as revenge for this challenge. Apparently "feeling skillz" are very important in a professional kitchen.
The cook has started – and everyone runs to their benches to
write down whatever they can remember from the tasting. Sabina has even written
herself some tips and motivational quotes.
They start off with their onions – Brent has put waaaay too
many onions and got off to a great start.
Meanwhile, Jock is exceedingly pleased with himself for this
challenge. Andy says it’s a tough challenge (to protect themselves from the
cooks post this challenge). Now the judges are looking at this super secret, not
to be seen dish. Jock is even picking it up to his eye level to see the …..flowers?
The contestants are on to trimming the meat. Brent has done
a very good job of it. Eric is not sure about how to cut the lamb – the recipe says
trim off excess fat, and now he has taken off ALL the fat. Immediately he realizes
that he has fucked this up. Screwing up the lamb cutting in a lamb dish in
barely the first half an hour – surely no way back from here.
Jock who seems to have a 6th sense for misery
these days, shows up to put more stress – but Eric is so distraught that Jock
thinks of TRPs and has to be nice to him and be actually helpful.
Eric is in tears. He talks about the sacrifices he has made –
he has missed a whole year of medical school and his final clinical exam for
this show. Now I get why he doesn’t want to go home so desperately – surely his
parents are looking to kill him as soon as he steps into the house. Dropping medicine
for a cooking show? Worst. Asian. Ever.
Sabina is butchering the rest of the lamb bones with some
serious savagery and really enjoying it. Surely she is imagining the judges’
faces there.
Sabina, Scott and Eric are done with onions. But Brent now realizes
he has cut 6 onions instead of 3 as per the recipe. So they are not remotely as
caramelized as the others.
Scott shows off how he has close to 350 cook-books. Not sure
why he is putting this pressure on himself.
Mel asks Scott how much he relies on his visual senses – in other
words does he like to have functioning eyes. Scott says he does like to have
functioning eyes and seeing things is really nice. Mel now says it will come
down to details (which they have not seen at all) making this conversation
kinda pointless.
All that said and done, Scott seems to be most comfortable
following a recipe.
Jock reiterates that they need to read the recipe, and Clinton
says it comes down to intuition. Why do people always come and put this
outright lie in every pressure test. These tests are most accurately described
as “blindly follow the recipe or go home”. What intuition? They should tell
everyone to focus on planning, and time management instead.
Brent has now realized his onions are not caramelized enough.
He has decided to restart the onions. He now gets a much more caramelized set
of onions and has put those into the sous vide machine. As Sabina says, this is
a whole lot of trouble for a bit of onion.
Everyone takes their bones out of the oven, and now has
started on cooking their lamb.
Clinton openly says that since Eric has taken almost all of
the fat off his lamb, it is practically impossible to come back from. Just end
this torture and let the others go at least?
Eric is now cooking his skin separately – which everyone is
super impressed with. Except it does nothing to fix his lamb.
Brent, Sabina and Scott have all got on with their lamb.
No no-one’s surprise, Eric’s lamb has already reached the
required 52 degrees before even going into the oven. Andy feels this is the
right time to put value add and explain the super science-y concept of “thin
lamb = cooks faster” to the medical student who literally explains how
tempering of chocolate works at a molecular level in an earlier pressure
test.
And now Andy says take a breath and go on – as if that is going
to help or that there is anything left to salvage.
Scott was going so well upto now but has now, with 10
minutes to go, left his onion gel on the stove and is looking at his lamb. His
gel is rubbery and just won’t blend. His end product is super grainy.
Brent is back on his onions – he seems to have figured out the
gel now but has left plating to literally the last minute. It doesn’t help that
he doesn’t consult any of his notes and just randomly starts throwing stuff on
the plate. For some reason, which can only be good common sense, he has not put
most of the flowers on the plate but has got his lamb and sauce on.
Tasting:
Mel is also super happy with this mindbogglingly stupid idea
of a blind pressure test – though this should surprise no-one at this stage.
Sabina has killed it. Her dish looks almost exactly like
Clinton’s dish. Andy says it’s a solid effort and the muntries are pickled
perfectly. Clinton agrees the crust on the lamb was fantastic – to the point
that he would give her a job.
Brent’s plating is nothing like Clinton’s. He doesn’t seem
to have enough of the legumes (which are apparently integral to the dish).
Clinton says the lamb is cooked quite nicely. Jock says sauce was nicely done.
But he missed out a few flowers – so that’s a big issue. It’s a good thing for
him that someone has literally screwed up the lamb in the lamb dish.
Scott is somehow he is still smiling. It looks quite close
to Clinton’s dish. Poor guy – hope he doesn’t go home because of the gel. Lamb
was nicely pink and cooked well. Jock says visually close. He seems safe.
Eric’s dish is a disaster. It looks nothing at all like Clinton’s
dish and his sauce literally looks like puke. He is also clearly delusional at
this stage as he thinks his dish looks similar to Clinton’s. Jock says its very
far from the original dish - Lamb is not even cooked in some places. Surely
going home.
The results don’t even need to be discussed. Sabina is
clearly safe. The others all had meh cooks – but Eric is clearly going home.
[1] Do
they get paid by some native Australian ingredients lobby for every chef they
bring on who specializes in these ingredients?
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