MasterChef Australia - S13E59 - The Semi Final

All the contestants are back to cheer – everyone is kinda dressed up but Pete has shown up in pyjamas. Elise has started crying for some reason as has Sabina (perhaps both are lamenting the drop in standards of this show). Turns out there are going to be 3 people in the Finale – only one person gets eliminated here.

So they have to make a 3 course fine dining menu for 20 diners + the judges. They have to showcase the food they like to cook and eat. (Given the brief, I don’t have much scope to make fun of Kishwar today) They have 4 hours to prep. I’m surprised no one is there to help them with the service – normally some famous chef would come to run the pass.  

Justin is making cauliflower taco with mussels emulsion for his entrée. I am 100% sure this is going to be a problem for the judges since this is just a taco – not particularly fine dining either. His main sounds impressive – a lamb backstrap with a curry flavoured sauce and carrot puree. For the dessert he is making a brie ice cream with confit apple.

Elise’s menu has Italian themes + native ingredients. She is making Agrodolce Lentils with mushrooms for entrée, venison with blackberries and beetroot for mains and a parsley semi-fredo with figs and birdseed brittle for dessert.  

Kishwar is going slightly fusion in her entrée – a kingfish cerviche with “green water” which she describes as basically water with spices and coriander. The rest of the menu is fully Bengali– a nalli nihari for mains and a take on paan (betel leaf, fennel ice cream, toasted coconuts etc.) for dessert which seems quite interesting. With 4 hours to prep – I don’t see any way in which she is going to lose this challenge unless she screws up her entrée monumentally. Nalli nihari cooked over 4 hours is sure to be epic.

Andy and Jock are both worried about how Justin is going to make tacos for a fine dining challenge – and especially make them semi-final worthy.

Andy is giving Elise good advice about streamlining her processes – and not doing idiotic things like wrapping 23 beetroots individually.

Elise has explained she is making a semi-fredo because she is in the semi-final. This seems like a terrible strategy.

Meanwhile Pete here for mandatory bro-out and pep talk with Justin.

Kishwar has spent a full 90 mins on the mains. She is now moving on to her dessert.

Elise has not chopped her parsley before making her puree so when she has mixed int eh cream it has whipped itself into butter. Now she has washed it with milk and put it in the mixer again – and now its just water. Its not working. She is now changing the flavour of her semi fredo to pistachio as she feels this goes well with the other flavours on the plate. 

Kishwar is making her nawabi naan. She still hasn’t even started her entrée. I mean it is just raw fish with a “water” but surely she needs to prep something.

Kishwar and Justin both seem to have finally started on their respective entrée – Justin has put the cauliflower in the oven and she has just started cutting her fish. She has to still make her sauce – but that is just going to take 3 minutes to blitz. That is how simple her entrée is.

Justin is just throwing on his cauliflower and emulsion for his supposedly fine dining tacos. It looks rustic even for a normal restaurant, let alone fine dining.

Elise’s has basically served dal on plate with mushrooms. Her dishes also don’t look fine dining at all.  

Kishwar is way behind on the entrees – she has started slicing her fish NOW after Elise and Justin have already started sending out plates. She is now cutting and plating side by side so she gets at least some plates out.

Entrée tasting

Justin – Everyone agrees this is not a fancy taco at all. Worse, Jock says it was bland and there was no flavour at all. Mel also has a problem with the cauliflower being cut too big – because what if she dropped it on her dress.  

Elise – Jock says the plate is disjointed because the lentils and mushrooms were cooked separately – and the mushrooms haven’t been able to suck up the flavour. Mel says the dish looked the part, but didn’t feel the part.

I think finally the judges are realizing that they’ve made huge mistakes on the judging through this season – that they have to eat these fuck all dishes with the likes of Depinder and Tommy in the gantry.

Kishwar amazingly has the most fine dining of all entrees. They like the green water – said it packs a punch and surely now Kishwar is in the lead on account of cooking the only entrée that wasn’t garbage.

Mains Tasting

Justin – The lamb is perfectly cooked. Jock says the marinade was a highlight – solid seamless, delicious piece of lamb. Carrot puree was nice, but the spice sauce was phenomenal.

Elise is struggling to peel her beetroots individually – it is taking forever.  She has started service and found that some of her meat is not evenly cooked.

Elise – Mel and Jock’s meat was very well cooked, they liked the juice and the beetroot. Andy also says the dish was technically sound, except for the technical mistake on the meat on his dish – it was slightly overcooked. Andy also says that he found the overall dishes a bit too sweet to go with the venison. Jock says it was not a bad dish – but questions if it is good enough for a semi final. Two on two misses for Elise.

Again, Depinder and Tommy look on at these idiots from the gantry.  

Kishwar – Not sure how they are able to justify a giant bowl of curry with a nawabi naan meant to be eaten with hands as fine dining, but lets overlook that. As expected a 4 hour slow cooked, Bengali mutton dish was brilliant. Jock says the flavour was super rich and concentrated. She surely is through to the final now.

Desserts tasting

Elise’s semi-fredos are set in time. She says it suits the flavour profile. She has sent out her desserts which really look very good.

Elise – Jock says the semi fredo is very nice, the texture and flavour was quite good, but he struggled to find the pistachio after the bird-seed brittle. Andy also says the semi-fredo is drowned out by the other big flavours on the plate and she needed to hold back. She is definitely out now. Three misses.

Justin announces that his ice cream is too hard and super icy. Poor Depinder is exasperated looking down from the gantry at these idiot amateurs as they fuck up nearly every single dish.

Justin – Andy finds the apple and the crumb delicious, but no doubt that the ice cream was icy. Jock says he enjoyed it as well – but the same issue with the ice cream texture. Mel likes the fact that it was inspired by his fiancée (#facepalm) because that is really relevant today in this semi-final.

Kishwar serves up her paan inspired dessert – it genuinely looks good and quite inventive. She has served betel leaf with toasted coconuts, cut dates, fennel ice cream and candied fennel on top. Properly mimicking a “meetha paan”.  

Kishwar –  We have an hilarious moment when Mel says she thinks the dish feels romantic with the betel leaf being heart shaped. Not what anyone intended or was going for – this is what happens when you have judges who don’t know enough about food.  Jock said that was an exciting dessert. All of them call this a “dinner mint” because that is what Kishwar has called it on her menu. I’m genuinely amazed that none of them have heard of paan before. Seriously what kind of judges are these?

Results

Kishwar is clearly through. She is the deserving winner today. Two brilliant dishes and one dish that did not suck.

They are saying it is close between Justin and Elise – I am not sure exactly how it is close since every one of Elise’s dishes was a miss. She didn’t even put up one dish they liked.

The logic they give is that Justin’s entrée sucked more than Elise’s, but Justin clearly had the better main. And his dessert also sucked less than Elise’s – so Justin is the winner.

Ok – I was wrong to think Elise was the best of this lot. She’s creative for sure – but no doubt that she fucked up this challenge beyond measure. Deserved to lose this one.

We now go into the traditional fun episode of the “last masterclass”. I am not writing about this in detail as its mostly time pass – but just want to point out that I was super impressed by Jock being a stud and sipping tea in the middle of his cook. Andy saying he is not worried at all about his fish sticking to the grill, and then his fish sticking to the grill was most enjoyable. As was him leaving a bone in the fish and losing embarrassingly to Jock.

Not particularly nice to watch was how badly these judges took the contestants banter and trolling – with constant jibes at their mistakes in the kitchen. Like you are a fucking 3 hat chef, let the home cook have a joke at your expense for this light hearted episode.

Jock ribbed Tom about being eliminated, Andy told Justin to remember who the judges are tomorrow, and the entire gantry about how they all have careers to worry about in food (as if he is some kingmaker in this industry).

Just goes to show that this set of judges simply don’t have the class or the capability to hold a candle to Matt, Gary and George.

On the bright side, only one more episode to go in this godawful season, and also only one episode to go for this blog to finally end.