MasterChef Australia - S13E30 - All-in Elimination - Game meats

 All-in Elimination challenge today. Mel isn’t here today – just Andy and Jock which means we will see a lot of idiotic puns.  

Andy says today will literally test them – about game meats. The first round is to name as many as they can from a bunch of game meats. And the bottom 5 will cook with the game meats.

Tom is pescatarian so normal meat itself is out of his comfort zone. Aaron loves games meat but he’s never seen them in these forms before.  

Ghissu Elise’s boyfriend is a hunter – and their freezer is full of game meat. So she has already mugged for this test like anything. Kishwar apparently lives on a farm where she is familiar with game meats.

Pete has no clue whatsoever about game meat and describes everything as varying sizes of quail. Surely one of these has to be a duck right?

Tommy is sure he is cooking because he never uses any of these things in usual cooking.

These kinda challenges always favour people with more “Australian” life experiences.

Ghissu Elise has topped this exam. Dan and Scott are also through which, to be honest, is a bit surprising.

Mercifully they are not giving all scores and embarrassing everyone.

The very bottom of the pile are Kishwar and Tommy. Next in are Tom, Pete and Aaron who has screwed up the order on two of the meats. Any quizzer who has missed qualification by doing this in the elims surely knows his pain.

Okay, TIL that goat, buffalo, quail count as game meat. There is some genuinely random stuff there like wallaby, camel, crocodile etc.

Aaron is cooking kangaroo with native Australian ingredients to suck up to Jock. He did cook kangaroo in his audition as well so decent choice. But in the 2^nd round audition, he cooked a duck so perfectly that he was the first person through to the top 24 from that set. So not sure why he isn’t going with the duck.

Kishwar is worried about this cook. Not sure why – because goat is a no brainer for Bengali cuisine. She can make any of hundreds of amazing bong mutton dishes. She is doing a rezala which is a sweetish curry ……..aaaaaand she has started crying. Apparently she is crying because she wants to make this work so bad.

Andy and Jock who have no clue what to do other than push sympathetic cry-er Mel forward in such situations, run away as fast as they can and discuss what they would cook. Jock says he would do either the wallaby or the quail. Andy says he would do the squab. Jock would be most worried about using crocodile meat because you have almost cure it in brine, else its terrible.

And we cut to Tominator who is cooking…..crocodile. This is a pescatarian who has no clue about meats and he chooses literally the most difficult and most unfamiliar meat to cook with. What could go wrong? He is experimenting with the crocodile and for some reason is confident that he will magically be able to cook it by the end of this cook.

Tommy is cooking the pheasant – he is making a play on Vietnamese salt chicken with a bunch of dipping sauces and veggies. Given that its Vietnamese, we know its going to be delicious – only worry is the cooking of the pheasant.

Pete is cooking spatchcocked quail with cabbage and a fruity sauce. He seems to be cooking totally based on research. He says he sees everyone confident to cook, and wonders what is wrong with him. Maybe he is the only person taking this elimination seriously!

As expected, Andy and Jock are competing with each other on who can make the most number of stupid puns on the word game - has serious game, bring your A game, the name of the game, its game time etc.  etc. which we will not be revisiting anymore in this post.

Kishwar has put her goat into the cooker and Aaron is now getting on to cooking the kangaroo.

Meanwhile Tom is still experimenting with crocodile – and all his experimentation proves conclusively that he has no fucking clue how to cook, he needs to give up and switch to something else.

Andy even tells him straight up to just change the meat – because he is surely going home like this – not sure he realizes the gravity of this.  Tom says he won’t change because the rest of his dish “won’t go with anything other than crocodile” – this guy literally has never tasted crocodile in his life!  Total suicidal behaviour.

Jock and Andy come over and make the observation that Kishwar is better mood wise now – and she promptly starts crying again. They run away again.

Tommy is making peasant sauce – to go with his pheasant. I’ll forgive his terrible puns because he makes amazing food.

Tom is super confident that he “has everything in place” EXCEPT THE FREAKING CROCODILE THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT OF THIS CHALLENGE!!!

Andy and Jock come over to Pete and taste his sauce. He describes it as “interesting” and they ask if that’s the word he wants to use – without actually giving any inputs on what they think. Pete changes his answer to “I like it” and basically tells them to fuck off.

Andy thinks Aaron’s kangaroo is a bit tight and he turns out to be right – the kangaroo is a bit over. He now does another batch of the kangaroo – but this time he won’t be able to rest it as much.

At the end of the cook, Kishwar is crying again. Now she is emotional that the judges get to taste a Bengali dish. Because that is totally not what she has done in every single cook this season.

Tasting

Kishwar says she didn’t take the safe route today – and cooked a Bengali dish which she has done many times with a very familiar meat. Yup- totally out there risk-taking sis.  And now she’s crying again – this has got to be some sort of world record for crying in a single MasterChef episode. She bribes the judges with Bengali sweets for good measure before leaving – and the judges, who have no clue how long it takes to make most Bengali sweets, might just buy this crap. Anyway, Andy says it’s a powerful plate of food and very rich. Jock accidentally reveals they have already decided that she will reach the finals – because that was so not obvious with the judging in the last few episodes.  

Aaron’s dish is actually nice despite the lack of resting. Jock says he enjoyed it and that the kangaroo is still tender. Flavour on the rub is delicious. Andy says it’s a solid plate of food, he is not going anywhere.

Tom up next. Jock asks him why he choose crocodile and Tom replies that he felt it “looked approachable”. What kind of psychopath finds crocodiles approachable?? Not surprisingly the crocodile is terribly cooked – somehow he has managed to overcook one part and undercook another. So worst possible case of meat cooking. If this wasn’t bad enough, the rest of the dish is also judged to be “half baked” and Andy says even the garnishes are not good.

Tommy’s dish is unsurprisingly amazing. He has nailed the cooking on the pheasant and he is surely safe.

Pete is visibly emotional, and Andy feels this is a great time to ask him whether he thinks his daughters, who he hasn’t seen since the start of the season, are missing him (like WTF bro!).

Jock says there are few issues just to make this interesting because there is no way Tom is surviving after that cook on the crocodile. Jock says the sauce is sweet and not fruity enough. Andy says the sauce is too fruity. Clearly one of them forget their lines lulz. Anyway, all this is pointless because the quail is perfectly cooked.

As for the results – no surprises whatsoever. Tom is going home.