MasterChef Australia - S13E55 - Fast and Fancy Elimination

We are at the end of this godforsaken season now – finals week. So pretty much every cook will be an elimination.

Today’s challenge is called “Fast food, fancy food”.

In round 1 – they have to choose a hero ingredient from the pantry for a fast food challenge. Top 3 dishes are safe. The bottom 3 go to round 2 – they have hero the same ingredient in a fancy food dish.

They go to the pantry and start picking ingredients

Sabina goes for Kingfish. Justin and Kishwar go for the chicken. Elise goes for sardines (??), Pete goes with potatos (WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK PETE?!), Tommy has chosen beef.

Tommy has to go all out for this one – since he is not super confident with fancy food. He is doing a classic vietnamese street food dish called bo la lot.

Justin is making chicken tacos – he is going with a green Indian curry marinade, he is putting a LOT of chillies. He’s done tacos very well, twice before, so don’t see him screwing this up.

As a side note - Andy is in a weird black turtleneck and a fully black suit, either in solidarity with the contestants or the costume guys were just trolling him. Most likely the latter.

All the judges are worried about what the hell Elise is going to feed them – because they all hate sardines. 

Kishwar – please hold to your seats everyone – is NOT making a Bengali curry. Wow – only took 55 episodes. She is making khao suey.  

Pete hasn’t cooked any fast food this competition so he is surely out of his comfort zone. He is making patatas bravas. Jock says that typically the hero in this dish is the sauce – so Pete is going to put more potato than sauce and manage his proportions. I still can’t believe he got freaking potato as his core ingredient.  

Elise is doing sardines on the hibachi – she is claiming this is fast food for sicilians. But I don’t believe her.

Sabina is making a thai style sour curry with the kingfish. Again don’t see her stuffing this up.  

Tommy has tried his beef and he feels he needs to add more salt. He proceeds to add a fuckload of salt into his dish. Jock comes over and asks if this clearly beefy dish, heroes the beef. Tommy says it does. Jock tries the meat and says it was super super salty. And this is not just usual salt nazi Jock, this genuinely seems like crazy salty.

Kishwar’s noodles look absolutely disgusting – but pretty sure that won’t matter. But I gotta give her props for making something different today.

Tommy has fixed his meat by adding more mince and now is working on all her other stuff.

Elise is happy with her pesto – and is confident she is going to make it.

Pete says he has to produce the best patatas bravas the judges have ever tasted – not sure why he has this expectation in his head.

Justin is stressing the fuck out but Jock for some reason is sure that he is on top of it. Its like he has decided Justin has to be safe, and also that chicken tacos is a super safe dish compared to the others here.

Andy now is telling Jock that sardines can be terrible if not done right. And of course, at this moment, Elise’s sardines are sticking to the hibachi. She is struggling to get 3 good ones for the plate.

Round 1 Tasting

Kishwar’s Khao Suey is described as “pure luxury” by Andy. Jock says he would rate this 11 out of 10. For once, can’t grudge her for this. Good effort. Andy for this 50^th time this season, says this was the best dish Kishwar has cooked in the kitchen.

Sabina’s fish curry is perfect in its balance and Jock says the harmony between the fish and the sauce was perfect.

Justin has predictably aced it. So now it is pretty clear who the bottom three are going to be.

Pete’s dish is described as good but not exceptional. Jock says its not enough spice for a patatas bravas. He’s surely in round 2.

Elise’s other elements are good but the sardines are not caramelized. Jock says this one thing will see her in round 2.  

Tommy has given a long speech about how good his bo la lot usually is. Mel says super delicious, very fun to eat. Beef had great flavour – but the texture wasn’t smooth. Andy says the beef was a touch dry. Jock says beef is over-worked. Looks like the end of the road for Tommy.  

Clearly Elise, Tommy and Pete are in round 2.

Round 2

Tommy is playing to his strengths and going Vietnamese – but fancy-ing it up.

Pete is comfortable in this situation even though he has chosen the potato as his hero ingredient.

Andy is suddenly realized that it is insane that they are sending one of these 3 home – and are going to be stuck with pedestrian cooks like Sabina, Justin, Linda and Kishwar in the final week.

Tommy is making bun bo hue (which Mel describes as her favourite Vietnamese soup, and also calls it BBH), but a fancy version. He is making a consommé instead of a usual broth, and rice paper roll instead of noodles.

Elise is making a very complex pasta dish with a lot of elements. Jock straight up calls her ‘captain run out of time’ – she needs to ensure she gets everything done today.

Pete is making a dish inspired by a Christian Puglise dish. He is trying to make potato puree, buttermilk , caramelized buttermilk, and salted olives. Jock says this is an incredibly complex dish, and that this is a very ballsy move. He also says he has actually eaten the original dish by Christian – there is bound to be a direct comparison. This is actually very scary.

Pete is going full out “Madman Pete” – but usually the more insane the idea sounds, the better it turns out for him. So I think he will pull this off.

Sabina is helpfully telling Elise to “move really fast”. Elise is making aqua pazza – she is adding aniseed myrtle and some bitterness from bush tomatoes. She wants to really go for it today. Andy gives long monologue about finishing the dish which Elise has completely ignored instead smartly focusing on actually finishing her dish.

Tommy has put Vietnamese mint on his rice roll – it is actually looking really good now. Could Tommy pull off a fancy dish?

Pete is now making his potato puree – his hero is potato puree so he is naturally terrified. This seems to working for him. With 6 minutes to go Andy is telling him he needs to move faster – as if that has ever helped anyone in this kitchen.

Elise is happy with her broth and his over-compensating for the lack of carmelization on the last rendition by blow torching the sardines.

Tommy has gone by instinct on his beef – he says he wants it rare. But I don’t have a good feeling about this. His consommé comes out of the pressure cooker and is truly great – like Tommy going “Damn son” great.

He cuts into his beef – it seems super rare. But tommy is happy with it as it will go with the consommé. I think he’s a goner unless Elise has fucked up her Sardines.

Round 2 Tasting

Pete – Jock says its very modern, very Pete, that it epitomizes fancy food. Jock continues his monologue to say that Pete is unnaturally talented at this cooking thing. I genuinely don’t see how anyone else could possibly win this competition.

Elise -  The judges are trying to put full emo scenes and trying to make Elise cry – but she is not Kishwaring. She is actually staying super positive and giving them her dorky grin. Jock says the cook on the sardines is perfect and every mouthful was delicious. Jock’s only negative is that he would have liked a thinner pasta. Ooh – could they send her home for something like this? All comes down to Tommy’s beef.

Tommy as usual is praising his own plate of food. Jock cuts into the beef and says its blue. The broth however is extremely good, the aromats are singing and then there is another punch of the aromats from the rice noodles. Mel says the problem with the beef is that it was steak served in a consommé and should have been thinly sliced to be “more beefy”. Jock has a slightly different interpretation that THE BEEF WAS NEARLY RAW – and that cooking the beef brings out the flavour.

Coming to the results, nothing one can do about undercooked meat – Tommy’s gone.

Mel is crying that they are stuck with Linda, Sabina and Justin and Kishwar, when they could have had Tommy.

But in fairness, Tommy was super entertaining and all that, but he was very unidimensional. So I’m not particularly surprised that he is elimination, if anything I’m surprised he lasted this long.