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.
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