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MasterChef Australia - S13E29 - Chilli Immunity Challenge

 Here we go with this week’s immunity challenge. Everyone is excited for the challenge. Pete says to Dan “Lets get that immunity” – he seems to have completely misunderstood how this works.

Jock says they are turning the heat up in the kitchen because this challenge is all about the hottest chillies on the planet. He adds that this has never been done before which is totally false because this challenge is pretty much the same as one that happened in Season 6. 

Andy – this season’s spice intolerance comic relief - is already nervous as Jock and Mel reveal the chillies. We start with Orange and White But Jolokia.

Linda is worried because she’s never seen ANY of these chillies before – like chill its literally the second chilli so far. Kishwar on other hand grows bhut jolokia so this is totally fair for all.

The other chillies have fun names like God Stopper, Hurt Berry etc.

The contestants don’t get to choose the chili which makes this equally tough for most (assuming Kishwar doesn’t get bhut jolokia). They choose via random number tokens.

Dan gets the Orange Bhut Jolokia – he thinks it tastes south east Asian ….. because it kinda is from a very similar geography. He is thinking about how to get leg up in this challenge which means he is surely going to go overboard.

Pete gets the ominously named Hurt Berry while Elise gets the Lemon Burst (which sounds like the name of a candy, whoever named this was a total sadistic asshole).  

Linda gets the God Stopper which she says is nice and floral which totally crushes the poor chilli’s fragile ego.

Kishwar gets the Chocolate Trinidad Scorpion. Jock asks if you can taste chocolate. Kishwar tells him this is a really stupid question because the Chocolate part is because of the colour.

They get cooking:

Elise is doing prawn pappardelle with a lemon burst chilli oil, while Linda has started on a barbecue eye fillet with the chilli all over the place.

Now the judges are trying the chillies. Jock seems to have a very high tolerance to chilli. Mel also gives a loud but mostly okay reaction, and Andy seems like he is dying. Andy feels like his teeth are sweating which I gotta say is a nice way to describe the feeling.

Pete is doing a Caribbean pasta with a hot sauce inspired from one uncle (Papa Joe) in his family who refused to share the recipe. This seems like an airing of personal grievances in a very public forum.

Jock asks Elise if the dish will be balanced if you just throw the chilli oil on top afterwards since it is literally her only chilli element. He really drives this point home by saying “even he” would struggle to do it, so there is no hope in hell that Elise will be able to manage it so she may please kindly stay in aukaat and do something else. She is now thinking of a plan B – but eventually settles on the obvious plan A which is to add the chillies to the sauce itself.

Andy, btw is still struggling with the chilli. He is stuffing his face with yogurt. I have no clue how he is going to get through this tasting.

Kishwar, shockingly, is doing a curry. And not just any curry, the mud crab curry that she wanted to do yesterday. Now she has added half a scorpion chilli to her paste for the sauce and finds it not very pleasant to eat.

Dan is doing something insane. He is doing a dessert only because everyone else is doing savoury. This apparently will help him stand out. He is making a chocolate chilli ice cream with a bunch of other things.   

Linda is making kohlrabi salad with Laotian dressing and barbecue eye fillet. She is adding the chilli to the dressing of the salad as well. It seems like she had the chilli in every element of her dish. Pretty certain she has had enough of Andy and wants to get rid of him for good.

Pete has mostly finished balancing his sauce and is happy with it. Judges come over to Pete’s bench and try the sauce. Jock asks if there is any chilli in that. Mel says she wants it to hurt more. So basically his well balanced sauce is pointless – he just needs to throw in more chillies. He is visibly frustrated with this stupid feedback and says that since Jock is a maniac, he is adding a whole chilli into the sauce.

Kishwar’s sauce is now finally tasting pleasant but is not hot enough – so now she is adding a little chilli over time since the judges want to “taste the chilli” and they “want it to hurt”. Mel comes over and tells Kishwar to make the dish how she wants to make it, and now how the judges want to eat it.

WTF! They literally told Pete to fuck up the sauce he was happy with so that they could get more chilli and they tell Kishwar the exact opposite thing?

Pete has realized that he has badmouthed an uncle on national television who is probably not going to forgive him lightly and mentions for the 100th time that he is “doing this for Papa Joe”.  

Kishwar has started crying again because ….. it’s her signature curry. Sigh. I have no words.

The Tasting

Starting with Kishwar’s Mud Crab Bengali curry. Andy is worried as fuck that she has used 5 chillies in this dish. He seems to be eating with a tweezer lolz. Jock says curry is delicious but somehow doesn’t comment on the overcooked meat, which is super strange. Mel and Andy both say that the claw was overcooked – but body of work is deeply impressive, so you never know, the way this nonsense season is going, she may still win immunity with overcooked crab.

Elise’s dish is dispatched quickly by Salt Nazi Jock who feels there isn’t enough on the dish.

Linda’s Andy Killer dish up next.  Andy is amazed that all the orange stuff on the side is chilli – he is horrified as he realizes Linda’s plan. He tries a bit and is choking back tears, he seriously seems to be having a hard time, Sadistic Mel is laughing as he struggles. Andy has to give compliments for the attempt on his life and says it was so spicy but so good. Mel says it’s a firecracker of a dish. Jock says amazing thing is balance – he loved the dish.  

Pete’s Papa Joe Dish. Jock says he took the sauce to right reduction which was fantastic, but would have liked more fruitiness of the chilli. What does this guy have to do to win one of these things?!

Dan says the fact that he is the only one doing a dessert is playing on his mind – this is after saying he wants to stand out by doing a dessert. This is why I don’t think this guy. Mel says it was a tropical delight – Andy says didn’t need meringue there and there was too much going on.  

Results are quite unanimous – Linda wins immunity! I’m glad for that dish did look great through I am sure I would be in the same boat as Andy if I tried that.

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