MasterChef Wed – Margaret River team challenge

This episode’s setting is the beautiful Leeuwin Estate Safari Club in Margaret River. Guided by head chef Dan Gedge, our contestants will battle it out in a team challenge.



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Bolders

Sheesh how many times has Larissa said ‘ice cream’ this season?
Almost makes me miss the ubiquitous parfait from seasons past.

Littlepetal

As usual Tim likes to chuck in as many elements as possible

brain dead dave

“Chuck ” and Tim go together well.

Rox

Yay Anushka! Gorgeous dessert. Tim actually came up with a good idea: a drizzling combination of wasabi & um, a green herb – was it coriander, I can’t remember – to add final pizzaz to Tessa’s scallop etc entree. Larissa said she will use her pin if in tomorrow’s elimination pressure test, so will Staged Smile Simple Simon be sent home for his sins or will Christina come a cropper?

Littlepetal

At this stage of the competition, the judges didn’t think much of the entrees or mains. Only Anouska dessert was a standout.

Sara

Was going to say that George eats like an animal, but my dear cat ate beautifully like the lady she was. Did no one ever teach them how to hold a knife and fork.

Von

Why, when planning their menus, do they never consider the time it takes to clean or prepare or cook the vegetables or protein? It’s infuriating to watch each team hover over a piece of butcher paper, exclaiming how beautiful every single idea is, without one thought of time involved before running to the stove. The judges are still giving advice on basics this late in the game, like telling whosie she needn’t peel those vegetables. Far fucking out, this lot drives me nuts.

lulu

Yeah, and she got the credit for stopping peeling them and getting the ‘dark puree’ – but she had to be told! Pretty pathetic.

lulu

A quick and deserved dismissal for green, but how come Anushka didn’t get accolades for her dessert, which was the best dish? She was almost completely ignored.

It was obviously cold, and everyone was rugged up – except for Christina, who went for a low-cut top and a push-up. Apparently, this helped with her scallops being cooked … purrfectly. Hope she goes back to her kids tomorrow.

Poor Simone. Started off so well – in the forest … at one with nature … looking lovingly at the trees … because they’re his brothers and sisters. Sigh.
Perhaps if he’d cut and washed his greasy strands, he may have noticed the twelve empty plates, for which he was responsible.
Oh dear, Nirvana can be so tricky.

Littlepetal

Why are they both using the same main ingredients for the entrees and mains

ozswede

Ha, ha … karma catches up with Simple Simon. He was all stroppy with Tati missing where the bread was in the picnic team challenge and snapped at her that it was in the “open your f**ing eyes section” (when he’d put it up high, out of her sight and reach). And today he misses plating half of his mains. How can you miss not serving 12 out of only 25 plates? Surely Simon prepared enough pumpkin and meat for the correct number of people, so he must have had a LOT left over and you’d think the big pile of lamb and pumpkin left might have been a clue. But he remained clueless.

It appears that in every team challenge Simon makes a mistake, for which he never takes responsibility, merely declaring that “one of our elements didn’t work”, not mentioning that it was HIS element that failed. Then he squeaks by in elimination and someone else ends up leaving. So I guess Christina is going home tomorrow. They can’t have Tim as the last male, surely!

As it was a forest challenge, I was a little surprised by them choosing scallops. I didn’t know they had them in forests. And Tessa produced the “blonde moment” declaration that these were “beautiful local scallops from here in Shark Bay” when Shark Bay is over 1,000km north of Margaret River. Not really very “local”.

Then the chef tells them that at his restaurant “we don’t over complicate things”, so Tim goes right ahead and does just that and knowing it’s too much declares “I’ll just use it all and hope for the best”. He doesn’t understand that less is more in fine dining establishments. He cooks as though it’s Sizzler or the local RSL club.

I’m really surprised that Mr Vegan Smokehouse did not know that you don’t need to peel Jerusalem artichokes and he left Christina to it. There’s no way at this stage of the competition that Gary should have given them that kind of help. If it had been Anushka, he’d not have said a word, only mentioning it to George out of her hearing.

Considering it’s nearly finals week, the food from both teams was unimaginative and well and truly below par (apart from Anushka’s dessert). Wow – red wine jus with lamb and pumpkin – these contestants are really pushing the envelope [where’s the sarcasm font when you need it?] It would also have been more interesting if the teams cooked with different produce instead of all the same thing. They are not worst cooks in Masterchef history (that would have been those in the disastrous Season 5), but they’re very close.

The only amusement tonight was Tessa giving George the best death stare when he questioned her decision to pan sear scallops for 25 people. It was enough to strip paint.

brain dead dave

I think Christina is going home, too. Though Gary “helped” her with the artichoke skin peeling tip. Two out of three blondes ain’t bad, said Meatloaf. They’ll keep slimy Simon, the gender balance comes before hygiene.

I remember Sizzler. They did big business before poker machines came to SA. Tiny plates , so pensioners would load up their handbags with salads etc. You gotta eat. Sizzler quickly became a fizzler.

brain dead dave

Off topic just for once. Btw I voted in the poll, thanks Juz.

(O M F G ~ one of them gels on the upcoming Bachelor is called ” Chelsie”. Guess , like , it rhymes with “selfie”. Oarsome. I just seen it during the Neighbours “encore” .Cringe.)

ozswede

Is Sizzler gone? I used to sometimes take the kids to the one on Greenhill Road – they liked the cheese bread and the serve yourself icecream and sprinkles. I think their tastes have somewhat matured since then, unlike Tim’s.

I also think they will keep Slimey Simon and I tip him to go to the final two, though I hope they don’t let him win.

Brussellsprout

I LOVED Tessa’s death stare to George. Far out that man is not pleasant.
Totally agree if Anushka had peeled artichokes they would have left her to it and hoped it bought about failure.
Boring challenge with uninspired cooking. Lamb and pumpkin SO WHAT. Scallops and puree. SO WHAT. Ice cream. SO WHAT.

The only thing that did look interesting was Anoushka’s forest floor dish. I can’t help remember a forest floor dish I ate years ago at Sepia in Sydney which had similar AILMENTS (have we noticed that they are getting even shiftier with their enunciation lately?) and I think was featured in a recent masterchef.
https://www.goodfood.com.au/video/video-food/video-good-food/up-close-with-sepias-forest-floor-20160808-4izgm

But this takes nothing away from Anushka who definitely should have been given some praise!
My excitement – and I frankly admit to not being a terribly kind person – is seeing GreaseMan in elimination. Yes, I realise he will probably skate through, but still. . . I have a whole day to dream of not seeing his maniacal laugh (the one that doesn’t reach his cold dead eyes) while he regreases his floppy fringe again. That’s MY food dream right there.

ozswede

I loved it when George said that you could “cook these scallops on my head” and Tessa looked at him as though to say “Don’t tempt me!” He’s such a knob.

Yeah, if it was Anushka with those artichokes, we’d see the stooges talking to each other outside about how worried they were about them and how she ought not peel them. I like Anushka’s no nonsense attitude and her eminently sensible comments, with no gushing. But I bet the producers want MORE DRAMA, so she will get the flick after Christina. They were probably hoping she’d be on Larissa’s team, but had to resort to Plan B.

Slimey Simon has a history of sending his team into elimination and then getting the other person eliminated, so I think it will follow the same pattern again tonight and he will attempt to look humble and grateful that he survived.

Smythe

Guess the members of the green team don’t know how to count or could it be that a member of the production team hid the dishes? How could they miss almost 1/2 the diners? Did the stooges get the servers to give them those 12 dishes so they could gorge themselves?
The green team’s entree would probably have been late if Gary hadn’t provided Christina with the info that the artichokes did not need to have been peeled.
Once again, dishes that, for the most part, lacked imagination and creativity. Both teams cook lamb and pumpkin, both teams cook scallops. At least the desserts were different although another ice cream and another sorbet.
Sad that the stooges did not praise Anushka directly although maybe they did and that was edited out but it shouldn’t have been. She probably had the dish of the day.

Brussellsprout

DONE instantly. . . It’s survivor, baby.

Carole Morrissey

Well I’ve never eaten artichoke let alone cooked so would have had no idea if you peel it either.
I wondered what was going on. One minute the judges are saying lets get the desserts then net minute George is in the kitchen yelling at the green team ‘are you doing the dessert?’. Then they realised they had missed those 12 servings. Who got the plates out when they started serving up? Didn’t they count them? They knew how many diners they had to feed. Didn’t they notice they had food left over? We knew then & there that the green team had lost & Larissa would be using her pin.

Littlepetal

Its very suspicious that they missed 12 mains.

Simon prepared 12 lamb backstraps and each cut into 5 pieces. He also servedb2 pieces per plate.

Thus where have all the lamb backtraps gone? Sabotage by the producers because that want to make sure green team goes into elimination and Larissa uses her pin.

daffydill

Exactly! I have noticed in seasons past also, that the person who wins a pin, very soon after is in the group who is sent to elimination and they usually relinquish the pin. They don’t seem to hold it for very long.

Littlepetal

Also when Christina took out the plates from the oven, there were only 9 plates, not 12!

lulu

Nobody does attention to detail better than littlepetal!

Beef Rendang

Tim cooks a bad dish again but is through to finals week anyway because the other team couldn’t count how many dishes they had sent out.

The cooking just hasn’t been good this season, lack of creativity and too many stuff-ups.