MasterChef – Mon, July 25 – Three cooks enter, two cooks leave

The final three contestants vie for a place in the Grand Finale in this service challenge. Each contestant must prepare a main and a dessert for 20 guests plus the three judges.

Here we are at the MasterChef house and Intense Matt, Growing Elena and Harry are competing to see who’s now the tallest, because it’s all about growth in the MC boxing ring – ahem – kitchen, and rounder tummies do not count.
Matt Preston has worn his tartan-iest navy and purple suit for the occasion; he seems to save his pink numbers for the “away” challenges.
“This is going to be the hardest day you have ever spent in the MasterChef kitchen,” Gaz warns the trio. I dunno, Gaz – there was that one jaffle challenge …
They each have to serve a main and a dessert for 20 guests plus the three judges. They have four hours to prep. Blah blah … destiny .. blah blah … journey .. blah … deliciousness. The last being, George says, the main criteria of the judging. Umm, surely that’s beetroot, George?
Shannon is there to mentor them.
Oh god, we’re eight minutes in and they haven’t started cooking yet because it’s all about the dream. And then George makes them do the “yes, George”.

IM is cooking confit duck with harissa pumpkin and baby beetroot (BINGO!) and a brioche doughnut with orange and coffee. Yum! Winner! He’ll get points for his desert technique and not doing an Asian dish, which is his strength.

GE is using native Australian ingredients (we usually get a native challenge but didn’t this year – maybe because Jock Zonfrillo was on another netweork?). She’s doing an Aussie nicoise salad and for dessert, apples, bickies and cheese. This must be the dish with the perfect apple batons they showed on the preview. The apple component is a green apple sorbet. She is hard boiling a massive pot of eggs – I guess one per person. Her dishes will take forever to plate up.

Harry is showing different skills by doing European instead of Asian. He’s making lobster cannelloni with a smoked custard and a twist on a tiramisu. “This is something I’d want to see in a three-star restaurant,” he tells the camera of his dessert. Classic Harry. He’s obsessed with layered desserts, having missed out on serving a trifle that day Brett went rogue.

IM is getting a lot of “at home” shots. Building the winner edit? Harry’s delivery seems a little flat – and his enunciation is worse than usual – so perhaps he’s the goner.
GE has 16 elements to complete and has calculated she needs to do one thing every 15 minutes. It would take me that long to peel just seven eggs, so good on her. But, uh oh – they took her twice as long as she anticipated.


Now she has to cut up the world’s biggest piece of tuna and she starts freaking out a little. Don’t get stuck in the Mimi and Elise brain freeze trap, GE! Serenity now! At least you have the lovely Shannon Bennett there to try to calm you down.
IM is showing off his mad butchery skills, chopping up 14 whole ducks.
Harry is chopping up kingfish for his cannelloni filling and Shannon expresses concern about the fattiness of the fish. Harry listens – a bit – and ups the ration of lobster to kingfish.
GE is talking a lot about how far behind she is (and Shannon points out using unwashed potatoes is just adding to her workload). No doubt she will triumph on the end.
IM is starting to panic a lit and pops butter in the microwave … in a metal bowl! On the gantry a horrified Trent starts to clap his hands to his mouth and someone – it sounds like Chloe – yells out to him, luckily before there’s an explosion.
With 90 mimnutes to go Shannon gives them the “dig deep speech”. More from GE about being behind (she’s just completed a wattleseed crumb and a fennel gel and is simmering spuds in saffron). Shannon goes through all the steps she has yet to complete.
The gantry is whooping and clapping on cue – I wonder if they get to sit down in between whoops? IM revs them up by flaming his duck with madeira.


“I think he’s just amazing to watch,” Heather (sans headband) tells the camera.
Harry is prepping artichokes for his dish, which will take forever to do. It’s the skewered prawns all over again. After a while he tells Shannon he’s going to ditch them, but Shannon points out the word artichoke is on the menu, so he needs to lose something else instead. Harry decides to bulk things out with some brussels sprouts so he doesn’t have to do as many artichokes.
IM’s duck is looking pretty good – they haven’t alerted us to any potential mistakes yet. He is a machine.
Someone has shown Shannon George’s cue card: “It’s crunch time – push, push!” He tells GE she needs to speed up by 10 per cent. She’s stresed out but hasn’t yet cracked.
Harry is happy with his lobster reduction but he hasn’t made enough – aargh – how many times have we seen this (most notably with – jew-ess Heather).

Service starts and GE is still cooking her tuna. Shannon tells her she just needs four plates to start with.
IM gets four out quickly. “I’m really liking the presentation,” says Shannon.

The judges taste


IM’s duck: The judges are drooling just looking at it. Gary tilts back his head in ecstasy. “I’ve got nothing negative about this dish .. thank you Matt for being in this competition. He brings us so much joy every time he cooks,” says George. Gaz admires the French techniques used. He would drive 100km to eat this duck.


Harry’s kingfish and lobster cannelloni: “I really don’t taste the lobsert,” says Gaz. George and Gaz are confused there seems to be no soz. George heads to Harry’s bench to taste the soz and reports back it’s delicious. They yell out to Shannon to bring the soz over and drown their plates in it, so they can see what they missed. So a lot of diners will be missing out on it altogether. The kingfish was the wrong choice of fish for the dish.


GE’s Oz Meets Nice (Aussie tuna nicoise): And just before she serves it we hear her say it should have more sauce but she’s worried about keeping the diners waiting any longer. Not again! The judges notice, too. But she’s cooked the tuna well and they like the bush tomato sauce and tempura samphire. So she’s ahead of Harry.

Dessert time
From the gantry, Nicolette (wow -she’s a distant memory) gets to yell out George’s lines: “Good job, Elena – push, push, push!”
IM’s doughnuts look fab and he’s doing his curd in the microwave, but it’s not behaving itself. He chucks butter in thinking that may help but Shannon gives him the bad news that he’s just stuffed it by doing so. It’s the first sign of trouble for IM but he’d have to drop dessert on the floor, scrape it off and still serve it to not be put through.
Harry is using some fancy techniques, spraying his dessert with a melted chocolate and coconut oil mix (aka Ice Magic) and Trent gets a talking head to say how coll this is.
Luckily IM’s second go at curd works.

The judges taste


IM’s doughnut with orange and coffee: They look even ore excited than they did for his duck. “I haven’t seen a doughnut look that good for as long as I can remember,” says Gaz. They taste and are in heaven. “Can’t get enough of that,” Gaz says. George says it’s a restaurant quailty dish. “Those doughnuts could be coming out of a food truck with people queuing round the block to get them,” says Matt. (Well, he is a former barista, so a coffee and doughnut truck could be a goer.”


GE’s Apple, Cheese and Bickies: “How modern and exciting does this dish look.” says George. They all love it. “I love the fact it’s real – nothing’s mucked around,” says Matt. He actually prefers this over IM’s doughnut.


Harry’s espresso bavarois with marsala ice cream: (It looks good on the dark plate – much more refined than the desserts Harry and Elise served last night. and, to his credit, he did a good job after no doubt being rattled by George coming to his bench to taste the lobster soz.) The judges like that it’s not what they expected – fooled by the sprayed chocolate coating. Matt says it’s sophisticated and fun. George says he’s pulled out all the stops.

The judges decide
They pretend it’s going to be a tough decision but it’s obvious IM is going through. And surely GE’s only transgression of not enough sauce on the main far outweighs Harry using the wrong fish and serving only a skerrick of soz on his.
First up Gaz raves about two flawless dishes, and of course they belong to IM. He’s through! And starts crying and laughing. Good on you, IM! Winner winner, duck dinner! Pity they weren’t finale dishes.
George gets the talking stick and raves about GE’s and Harry’s desserts but says both their mains were too dry. Harry’s choice of kingfish was wrong. So GE’s through. More tears and Harry, to his credit, is grinning and clapping away.
“How do you feel about being in the finale?” George asks GE. “Pretty bloody stoked,” she replies (channelling a bit of Elise, there). “Matt and I sat on the first table on the first day of auditions, so it’s especially cool to be there with him.”
Hooray – the result we here at Talking TV have wanted for weeks.
Good luck, Harry – go find a great mentor to channel that energy in the right direction.


Tomorrow night
Heston is back. Well, that’s a surprise. I hope it’s not just two hours of recreating a Heston dish, as usually the finale has three different challenges. But since they did the service challenge tonight maybe it will be all Heston. Will he be able to muster up more enthusiasm for this latest appearance?



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MasterChef – Sun, July 24 – Who will be final three?

In this quarter-final mystery box challenge and invention test, contestants cook off for a place in the semi-final using ingredients chosen by their loved ones.
Let’s hope Harry, Intense Matt, Glowing Elena (why I didn’t call her Serener Elena I’ll never know – maybe because the judges sometimes pronounces her name Ell-en-a) and Elise had a chat with their loved ones before MasterChef started and teed up lots of parfait ingredients, seafood, chilli and vegies.


We start with everyone getting ready back at the house and they are all so close to achieving their dreams, yadda yadda yadda.
The eliminated contestants are up on the gantry, applauding the frizziness of Harry’s fringe. Three people are missing – hard to tell who.
There are two rounds and the winner of round one is straight through to the semi final. One person from the three in round two is eliminated.
It’s the loved ones mystery box challenge first and they all get a letter from home – and Elise recognises the handwriting straight away. MasterChef loves nothing better than seeing contestants weep as they cook. It’s not quite on the level of Survivor loved ones letters but on the balcony even Theresa is crying. And we learn Harry’s real name is Harrison.
Usually there’s one person who gets screwed over by their loved one in this challenge and this time it looks like it could be Elise. Her box is half full of savoury items (including thyme, which no doubt is growing in the MC garden), and freekeh, which she’s never used before.


Everyone has eight ingredients in their box.
Elise’s fiance chose: Freekeh, gelatine, thyme, strawberries, quail, leek, almond meal, vanilla bean. (And we learn his nickname for her is Vanilla Bean. She’s stunned by the freeken but luckily they only have to use one ingredient – although I’d be worried round two is to use what you already haven’t.)
Glowing Elena’s mum chose: Almond meal, mud crab, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, vanilla bean, apples, bacon, lemons (A good all rounder box).
Harry’s mum chose: Tassie salmon, dry sparkling wine, sesame seeds, avo, lemons, asparagus, chilli, peas. (Surprised no crab of prawns).
Intense Matt’s wife selected: Longan, limes, peanuts, daikon, green papaya, snapper, chillis and Vietnamese mint. (Luckily my local supermarket was giving customers free longan tastings a while back or I’d be scratching my head right npw. They’re like a lychee.)

GE is making crab with cauli and Brussels sprouts and seems to be using many of the ingredients.
IM is doing a fish broth with snapper dumplings, and he and his then fiancee used to travel around Asia eating soup.
Elise is making vanilla and thyme panna cotta (it’s been a while since we’ve seen one of those) but the gelatine her fiance picked is not as strong as her usual variety so she’s taking a punt on the ratios. This could be vanilla custard. Can’t she just yell to Con the panna cotta king for help?
Harry is having a Mimi-style brain freeze and hasn’t started. He’s very sombre in the talking head … he’s either sick of he’s been eliminated.
He starts with a wine granita but still has no idea what his whole dish will be. Time for a George and Gary pep talk. He decides to do salmon two ways, peas and dumplings. Will he even use the granita?
IM’s dumpling skins look glorious. I want dumplings! Elise is making a strawberry jelly to go with her panna cotta (and using rectangular moulds – not the red moulds of death!) and bravely decides to have a crack at the freekeh. Luckily there are directions on the box. She pops it in the microwave and hopes it will puff up. Gaz likes the idea.
GE’s prep is excellent – she has everything lined up in little bowls, chef style.
Elise’s freekeh isn’t cooked enough so she whips up a thyme crumb for crunch and a black pepper tuile and praline. What’s next: spun sugar?
IM is making noodles out of his daikon. We call zucchini noodles zoodles, so does this mean he’s made doodles?
Harry is throwing all kinds of extra elements at his dish to add substance to it, including a lemon curd. Did he burn the lemons, as per usual?
Elise’s panna cotta seems to have set and it looks pretty good.The Brussels sprouts on GE’s plate give an amazing pop of colour. Even if it was a blind taste test they’d know it was her dish.

The judges taste


Elise’s panna cotta: The judges like the look of it. You can tell they like it – and, indeed, Gaz seagulls in to snag the last piece. The pops of pepper and thyme are great. Matt does say there’s a bit too much gelatine in there.


Harry’s salmon with dumplings and granita: Gaz says it looks pretty and sophisticated. “The things that throws the whole dish is that granita of champagne, because it’s raw.” Matt says the pasta is the best they’ve seen in the comp. So, he’s not the winner.


IM’s snapper with dumplings: “Lots of technique. The noodles for me are a hit,” says George. Matt says the fish is well cooked but questions the amount of chilli and Vietnamese mint. Seems like they were just trying to find something to balance the positives.


GE’s crab with Brussels sprouts: The judges adore her arc presentation and Gaz demands extra soz. Here comes the loud angelic music. She’s won. Gaz raves about her soz and while he goes on about “the alchemy of a sauce” the other two polish off the dish. “You bastards,” he says. Ok, I like Gaz a bit more today. Matt says the crab and apple combo was genius.

And the winner of round one is …
GE. She’s through to the semi final. Well deserved but if IM goes home after the next round I’ll be throwing a sous vide machine at the TV. I just have to buy one first.

Round two
They get to choose from types of ingredients, techniques and equipment. They do a knife pull for the order and they all must use the same selection.
Matt lists off some of the options: skewering, candying, juicing, using tea, grilling, aerating …
IM is first and he chooses “liquefying”, which involves juicers and blenders. As he says, this could be used for sweet or savoury dishes.
Harry picks “aeration”, which is whisks and siphon guns.
And Elise picks, surprise, surprise, gelatine.
The guys won’t be happy with the gelatine – time for a savoury jelly?

Gaz says Elise has chosen well by picking something that narrows the choices to favour her skill set.
IM is doing a dessert, a blackberry sorbet with honey nougat, tempered choc and port jelly – sounds like he’s using some of the skills gained in the Alla Wolf-Tasker challenge.
Elise picks an aerated choc parfait (ABC!!!) with an orange sorbet and jelly. Mmm – love Jaffas. On the gantry, dessert specialists Mimi, Charlie and Chloe aren’t keen. “I know Elise is always wanting to do something with parfaits but this is for a place in the semi finals … you have to make sure you’re showing the judges you’ve learnt so much,” says Mimi in a talking head.
Harry is making passionfruit sorbet, Aperol and grapefruit jelly and a coconut something – he needs to work on his enunciation.

The judges come over to Elise’s bench to freak her out. “Why are you doing another parfait again?” Gaz asks. She freaks out because she knows he’s right and he actually comes back to her afterwards to say “I don’t want to put you off, but it has to be said.” She agrees as tears plop into her sorbet mixture. “It’s MasterChef, not Average Chef,” she tearily tells the camera. Then whips out the smoking gun. “Smile – you love making desserts,” Anastasia tells her from the gantry. Because telling someone to “smile” always cheers them up. GE tries to cheer her up from the sidelines.

The judges remind IM how far out of his comfort zone he is.
Matt suggests to Harry he is trying to do too many things at once and Harry bites back: “I’m going to fight for the top three, Matt.”
So Matt moves on to Elise, who is still buckling under the pressure. Everyone on the gantry is worried about her.
Gaz reminds Harry he needs to add something crunchy to his dish, which is all soft textures. D’oh – that’s basic MasterChef, up there with seasoning and tasting as you go. With 12 minutes to go he decides to try and temper white chocolate. Oh Harry – why not just do a quick crumb or toast some nuts? White choc is hard to temper, whereas IM’s dark choc looks lovely and glossy.
So far everything we’ve heard from IM is that he’s happy, so it’s between weepy Elise and Harry.
It’s time to plate but Elise says her sorbet is too icy while Harry’s is not frozen enough. And his white chocolate “chips” are too soft, so he wisely leaves them off. And he hasn’t tested his coconut foam.
IM’s dish looks awesome. Winner pick! Elise’s dish looks a bit clumsy and GE comes over to give her a cuddle.


The judges taste


Harry’s passionfruit sorbet with jelly: “I feel like a shell of myself,” he tells them. His foam (which I’ve worked out is an espuma) is meant to stay fluffy but it melts away. The judges say he made a mistake by keeping the foam warm in the siphon gun. Gaz says it’s more of a pre-dessert cleanser than a dessert and it’s crying out for texture. George says the ice cream is “nice”. Faint praise.



IM’s blackberry sorbet with port jelly:
“You get to that point of the competition where you can’t hide behind a savoury mask any more,” he tells the judges. They love the presentation. George says it’s like something a top chef would make. “The sorbet is spot on,” says Gaz. Matt says he’s like a boxer who’s switched hands midway through a fight and he’s excelled.


Elise’s choc parfait with orange sorbet: “It’s a bit clumsy, isn’t it,” says Gaz. The glaze is dull, the jelly roughly cut. The sorbet is icy and flat and the choc too hard. George loves the flavour of the smoked choc parfait. They’re disappointed but you can tell Gaz especially likes her – he’s come a long way from barking at her in the early rounds of the comp.

The judges decide
And it’s Elise. She’s not surprised. The judges say nice things about her. They don’t show her saying “wongtongs” in the montage – dammit. “I’m going to have my own cake store,” she tells the camera. Harry is a lucky boy.


Bye Elise!
So top three is IM, GE and Harry. we may have to rename IM Glowing Matt – he’s so happy.

Tomorrow night
Gaz tells them tomorrow is a service challenge, They have to cook a main and a dessert for 20 people in the MC kitchen. We see one dish with perfect granny smith batons, so that’s Elena’s.



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MasterChef – Sun, July 17 – mystery box

The top six contestants now face a mystery box challenge containing some of the hottest ingredients being used in the world right now. The winner will gain the advantage going into the invention test.

What do we think the hottest ingredients in the world are? Surely beetroot has to be there.


The mystery box contained camel’s milk, matcha, pisco (brandy), cobia (also known as black kingfish), kohlrabi, mushroom leaves, kaiserfleisch, gochujang (Korean fermented chilli and soybeans).
Surprise, surprise – none of them has cooked with camel’s milk before.
“I didn’t even know camel’s milk was fit for human consumption,” says Intense Matt. At least most of them would have tried kohlrabi and kaiserfleisch is a type of bacon. They have an hour to cook a dish, with the usual pantry staples, minus cow’s milk.
IM is heroing the cobia fish by dry curing it in salt, sugar and matcha powder.
Seafood lover Harry also goes the fish, with the gochujang for a spicy sauce and kohlrabi, smoking the cobia bones to add flavour. The judges seem impressed with his ideas.
Mimi is also using cobia with a kaiserfleisch oil. I hope not everyone is using the fish. Can’t someone do a matcha and camel’s milk dessert?
Trent is wet curing the fish in the brandy and chilli paste and says he wants to use the camel’s milk in a soz. Glowing Elena is curing hers in the brandy and is doing crispy fish skin and she is pickling the mushroom leaves and doing a chilli caramel.
Elise is doing a dessert – yay! Oh, no, it’s a matcha parfait – Another Bloody Parfait. And she has the red moulds of death out. I’m glad she’s at least doing something different.
IM is worried his massive chunk of fish won’t cure in time – can’t he just cut it up smaller so the dry cure penetrates the flesh more? Instead he vac seals it so the cure is forced into the flesh. He’s made a kohlrabi leaf fritter for texture.
Trent says the camel’s milk reminds him of fresh cow’s milk, as it’s “a bit funky”. Matt Preston warns him to taste his camel’s milk soz with the fish.
Elise is soaking thin kohlrabi slices in the pisco brandy and and is candying others. IM is making a savoury custard with the camel’s milk and chilli paste. Matt P tastes it and says it’s sweet, so IM adds vinegar from the pantry staples.
Does this mean Trent’s camel milk soz will also be too sweet?
GE is making a million veg elements to go with her fish … In MasterChef – we have kings of savoury and dessert queens – is she the vegie queen?
Harry is finishing his fish over the gas flame to give it char. IM is happy with his fish and his blobs of custard look like cool egg yolks on the plate, but GE has overdone her chilli caramel and it’s too globby. She plates it anyway. The challenge is almost over and Harry’s fish is not cooked enough – no wonder, it’s a chunky fish.
Mimi had hardly any air time – yet again. So she hasn’t won.
The judges taste


IM’s fish with savoury custard: The judges love the look of it. “There’s more than a few things I love about,” says Gaz. The kohlrabi leaf is crunchy, the custard and the cured fish delicious. Matt says IM is a “true original”.


GE’s fish and kohlrabi: Gaz loves all the textures but the caramel is too hard. “It’s a really good dish,” says Matt, apart from the caramel.


Trent’s fish with camel’s milk soz: Yum, says Gaz. He likes the crispy textures. They like it but aren’t raving about it.
Mimi’s fish with kaiserfleisch mayo: George likes the flavours but her ratios are off. It doesn’t warrant a photo on the MasterChef twitter feed.


Elise’s matcha parfait with kohlrabi: “You’re a master of the parfait, so why not exploit the fact in finals week,” says Gaz. Matt says she’s on trend using savoury items in a dessert: “Hot ingredients, hot dish.”


Harry’s fish: George tries to amp up the drama by questioning whether the fish will be cooked. Cue extremely loud dramatic music. But it’s cooked perfectly. Matt says his use of smoke was inspired and loves the “jellified fat”. Don’t we all love a bit of jellified fat? “This is a dirty streetfighter of a dish and I like it,” he says. George just has a “wow”.

And the winner is
Everyone did a great job, yadda yadda, but Harry won. He gets the choose the advantage aka kiss of death for the invention test.
He gets to choose from a using a smoking gun, sous vide machine and liquid nitrogen.

He picks liquid nitrogen (which he used to great effect to make frozen fruit burst in one of Heston challenges) and Elise looks stoked but IM freaks out. They have 60 minutes and an open pantry.

Invention test
A worried IM reckons everyone will do ice cream so instead he’s doing a coconut mousse with raspberries. Harry is making fennel sorbet, a strawberry granita, a black sesame dacquoise (aka cake).
GE wants to stand out by cooking a savoury dish called “Cool as a Cucumber”. Vegie Queen! She’ll use the nitro for a yoghurt snow over cucumber done several ways, with pops of mint, dill and apple. Uh oh – Talking TV regulars Julie and Carole will be gagging at the thought of eating cucumber.
Mimi is making a foraged mint slice. Does MasterChef have a forest nearby? No, she’s going to chuck a desserty soil on top of some mint ice cream and the diner has to dig for their dinner.
Uh oh – more voiceover of IM saying how nervous he is. And he’s split his cake mixture, according to the judges. But he keeps on going.
Trent is making coconut cake with Chinese five-spice ice cream and a “con-fit” pineapple.
Elise is, of course, doing a dessert: saffron mousse domes with a crumb and orange blossom ice cream. The judges are worried she’s been heavy handed with the saffron, but she forges ahead.
Meanwhile, GE hopes to win over the judges by soaking cucumbers in gin. Mimi is adding loads of mint to her ice cream but it’s not strong enough in flavour. Is there no peppermint oil in the pantry she could sneak past the judges?
Elise’s ice cream freezes well with the nitro. IM drops spoonfuls of his coconut mousse into the nitro but he’s not happy with the result. Quick – do an ice cream, IM!
Trent seems under control but I’m worried his dessert will be too sweet.
IM is plating up but he’s not happy, so cuts his cake in half. Then regrets it. He’s not been in the right headspace this whole challenge. Bottom three for sure.
GE’s dish looks so pretty and Harry is thrilled with his fennel sorbet. Again, no beetroot this episode!

The judges taste


Elena’s cucumber dish: George loves it – it’s refreshing and interesting. Matt says using one ingredient many ways is very modern.


Mimi’s mint dish: Will it be minty enough? (Do we really care at this stage? These Sunday night episodes do drag on. I’d rather they broke up the mystery box and invention test over two nights.) It needed more mint – it was a mistake to puree it as it changed the flavour. They love the idea; not the execution. There’s another one for bottom three.


Trent’s coconut cake with “con-fit” pineapple: The judges say it’s not quite right. The textures of sponge and ice creamar good but the five-spice flavour does not go with the coconut and pineapple [Should have done cardamom, Trent.]. “When it comes down to pressure into the bottom three, I’m not buying it,” says Gaz tersely.


Elises’s saffron mousse: It looks a bit bare on the plate. Gaz says it tastes like Christmas flavours and they like the ice cream. Matt says it needs some fresh orange to offset the other elements.
IM’s cake and coconut mousse: “I think you’re in a bit of trouble,” says Gaz. “It’s a cake you might buy in a shop and take home for tea. “It’s you on an off day,” says Other Matt. IM know it’s rubbish and there’s no pic of it on the MC twitter feed.


Harry’s black sesame cake with fennel sorbet: Harry certainly has a flair for the dramatic with his plating, using the charcoal plate to make the colours of his strawberry granita and fennel sorbet pop. Gaz says he’s taken the plating up a notch. You can tell they’re going to love it. “Beyond delicious … it’s sophisticated and well thought out, says Gaz, adding the techniques are very cheffy. This will be their fave dish of the challenge. So, having the advantage was not the kiss of death for once.

The judges decide
They loved Harry and Elena’s dishes and I’m guessing Elise will be third because they need to fill the spot.
That means bottom three for tomorrow’s pressure test are IM, Trent and Mimi. Let’s hope for the boys’ sake it’s not a dessert.

Tomorrow night
Oh no – it IS a dessert – and it looks super intricate. Mimi has to be the fave for this one.


Hopefully the footage of IM talking about how rubbish he will be is just a red herring.



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