Tag: MasterChef Australia

MasterChef – Nigella Week starts

Nigella Lawson is here for the week, so hopefully she will try and teach George manners again.
It’s a mystery box challenge.


Gorgeous dress.

Everyone is freaking out that Goddess Nigella has descended from the heavens. The judges are in all blue and Matt has toned things down so as motnto distract from the colour pop that is the goddess.
What’s in her Mystery Box?

Marsala
Chicken livers
Squid
Cons milk
Ginger
Chilli
Cherries
Passion fruit
Anchovies “the bacon of the sea”, she says
Thyme

They also get the usual staples; 75 min to cook. Five dishes will be tasted.

The winner wil be in the immunity challenge and is flown to London for afternoon tea with Nigella. Cue exploding heads.

Reece is playing it cool until Heston week.

The judges wind up Kristen by telling her passionfruit with squid is a dicey combo but I googled it and there are tonnes of recipes.
Nigella is giving contestants some handy tips, like using a spoon to peel ginger. Nice change from disinterested Heston.
Oh no, we are getting a talking head from Genene about her rough trot thus far. So she’s in trouble. And she’s making semifreddo, so there will be setting issues.
Hoda is making “cotton candy” but I guess she means Middle Eastern fairy floss, which is less sweet.
The young dessert girl, Jess, has the red mounds of death out. She’s doing a Snow Egg inspired dessert.
Reece is doing chicken liver parfait with crackers.
Uh oh – Hoda is having fairy floss trouble because she does not have lemon juice. Try vinegar, Hoda! Nup – she had to ditch it.
Gina the Italian nonna has made a really interesting looking pasta and squid dish.
THE JUDGES TASTE
Reece’s parfait: it looks like that room Matt and Kim did on The Block that was paint splatter everywhere – the crime scene. But it tastes good.
Genene: I was wrong – she got a dish up. It’s an A cup of passionfruit semifreddo on a round of thyme crumb. They adore it. Poor Genene is overcome by the praise and starts crying.
Gina’s pasta with salt and pepper squid: they like it (and I realise Matt pronounces it pas-ta not pass-ta).
Jess’s “snow egg”: she was 10 when Peter Gilmore had it on the show. Yes, it’s eight years since Callum and Adam made it. She tells The impressed judges she has never travelled because her mum keeps her “in a bubble”.
Kristen’s squid: “That is really quite something,” says Nigella.
THE WINNER IS …
Kristen! Good one, South Straya! She’s thrilled.

INVENTION TEST
It has to be a dish that snaps, crackles or pops – the judges are all about aural. Open pantry, garden in play and 75 mins.
Adele of the dodgy corn fritters is doing Cajun chicken pasta with chicken skin. I am worried about Adele.
Ben the seafood specialist does a smart pick, using crab claw for “snap”.
Jenny’s snap will come via tempered chocolate – tricky in a warm kitchen with little time.
Khanh is using pork crackle and Jess a black sesame tuile.
Loki is doing a coffee and chai ice cream with popping candy.
A few randoms explain their dishes and then it’s Hoda again, with halva, date ice cream and kataifi pastry. Ambitious.

The judges tell Adele that Cajun chicken pasta is weird, so she switches to chicken and mushroom pasta. She’s still in trouble.
Chloe is not making noodles – she’s doing a nougat dessert with Snickers flavours.
Reece has gone back to his usual dessert comfort zone and making a chocolate mousse with tuile.
I like that we are hearing from more contestants but I still have no idea what Sashi and Brendan and that butcher guy are making – and Brendan is getting the early days silent edit with the odd flash of brilliance that means he could be a finalist.
Oh – Lisa is in the comp! She’s cooking fried chicken.
The judges head back to Adele and tell her they still don’t like her dish. To her credit she keeps changing it up, and decides to fry her pasta noodles.
Jenny is having trouble with chocolate seizing.
Aha – Hoda is making a Middle Eastern cornetto. Cool.
Jenny is definitely bottom three – her chocolate work is dodgy. And she knows it.
Chloe’s nougat as not set and it looks unfortunately turd like.
We get shots of a lot of pretty dishes by people who did not get camera time.

THE JUDGES TASTE
Ben’s vodka chilli crab: They love it.
Khanh’s Vietnamese pancake: Good.
Jo: Pork with crackle and parsnip chips. Good
Jess: sesame panna cotta with squid ink tuile. Super pretty.
Jenny’s chocolate bowl: Nigella has trouble cutting into the truffle and Jenny must be dying inside. It’s bad.
Reece’s warm. Vic mousse with burnt butter ice cream and tuile: “sensational”, says Nigella.
Adele’s chicken pasta: She knows she’s in trouble and wishes she’d made her original dish. It’s a dry plate of food, says George.
Lisa’s double fried chicken: There’s a lot of crunching. Gaz is in heaven.
Sashi’s sour fish with crunchy skin: “so good” says Nigella.
Brendan’s squid noodle pad Thai with prawns: they like the crunch.
Model Michelle: her white choc dome worked and they like the sesame nougatine and ice cream.
Chloe’s Not Snickers bar: it looks bad but she hopes the flavours work. “It’s near inedible because it hasn’t set,” says Matt.
Loki’s ice cream with popping candy crumble: He’s made it for his son and is a failure as a stay-at-home dad if it sucks. Ok, Loki, just turn the analysis down a notch. Nigella says it’s one of the best ice creams she has ever eaten.
Hoda’s Middle Eastern cornettos: Matt says 10/10. “I’d fly from London to Melbourne for that – I have!”

I’m thinking Chloe, Adele, Jenny for bottom three and top three Hoda, Reece and Loki.
Oh – it’s Ben, not Reece, but he gets a shoutout from Matt, as does Lisa for her crunchy chicken.
The bottom three are as expected. What a big drop for Chloe, who was in the immunity test last week. Perhaps the extra experience she has had cooking under pressure will help her and she seems calmer in the kitchen than the other two.

TOMORROW NIGHT
The bottom three have to make four of Nigella’s chocolate desserts.



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MasterChef – Thurs – elimination

The losing team from the MCG service challenge must face-off in this elimination challenge. The contestants must cook something inspired by the dish that made them fall in love with food.

Cue the nonna talk … And if someone you didn’t even realise was in the show starts talking to camera over a montage of the walking on the beach and selecting fruit at a farmers’ market, you know they are a goner.



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MasterChef – Wed, MCG challenge

The contestants find themselves on the turf of the iconic MCG for the first team challenge. Split into two teams, each must cook delicious and nutritious food for 50 diners using a different protein.

Surely at the G all you need is a meat pie? And that’s really just to warm your hands. Nothing too fancy.

Nigella Week starts on Sunday, so in the meantime you can brush up on your Lawson lore with this quiz. I did not do very well. Let me know how you go.



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MasterChef – Tues – immunity challenge

The winner of the mystery box challenge and the three best-performing cooks from the invention test will compete for immunity, with Shannon Bennett back in the kitchen to guide and mentor the contestants.

Well, that’s new. Although in the past they’ve had a one in three shot, and now it’s a one in four.

Sashi, the girl with confidence issues, groovy top knot butcher’s assistant and Chloe have to use eggs to create a dish. They get six each. I love that MC is doing these “simple” challenges that could be interpreted so many ways.
Sashi is making a scotch egg – these must be in fashion right now as we saw some on MKR.
Chloe is doing soba noodles with broth and a six-minute egg. I guess we’ll find out what that is. Soba noodles don’t usually have eggs in them so I wonder if they will see her dish as “eggy” enough.
Kristen is making a lemon curd and a mousse and will use most of the eggs. I hope she does not stuff up as they don’t get replacement eggs.
Topknot Tim is making a sponge with a fish sauce caramel. Weird but if he pulls it off the judges will love it.

Oh no – rookie error from the affable Sashi (sidenote: go South Straya!). He has forgotten to boil his eggs. Will his scotch eggs instead be mince patties with a fried egg on top?
It seems Chloe’s six-minute egg is, in fact, a plain boiled egg. Matt and Shannon tell Chloe to tweak her broth, and she does. This could be a winner’s edit.
Poor Sashi is trying to peel his boiled eggs watched by 50 people. It can be a hard task at the best of times, he gives up and just fries an egg instead.
Tim has done the modern dessert splat on his plate. Chloe’s egg is runny inside so the judges will love that.

THE JUDGES TASTE
Kristen’s raspberry mousse with lemon curd and tuile: It looks pretty. They say the flavours are well balanced and it’s a lot of work for the time. But I don’t think it has the “twist” or “flashy” factor they look for.
Sashi’s fried egg with mayo: The poor bugger did not even get to fry his patty but at least it was not an elimination challenge.
Chloe’s soba with egg: Has she got the flavour right in the broth? Shannon likes the presentation. They all love it.
Tim’s sponge with fish sauce caramel: His sponge is good but there is not enough fish sauce. They like the creativity but the dish does not work.

The judges say the top two are Kristen and Chloe, so it has to be Chloe, right? And it is. Is it too early to say Chloe is Gaz’s pick of the season?
She’s won round one but now she needs to beat a chef. He’s the current Young Chef if the Year and is Peter Gilmore’s right hand man. So, no pressure.


And now I’m off to google his name. It’s Shui Ishizaka. You can read more about him here.

Chloe gets 75 mins to cook; Shui 60 and he is locked in the dungeon until it’s his turn to cook, with no idea of the ingredients.
Chloe gets to pick 10 main ingredients from 50, plus she gets the usual pantry staples like oil, flour, etc.
She will make a prawn mousse tortellini in broth. It’s the kind of dish the judges like. She seems good at these noodley/brothy dishes. Someone on the gantry yells “Go, Chloe” and they pronounce it without the extra “ee” sound at the end that Shannon uses, so I guess they are still working out everyone’s names still.
Shui is freed from the dungeon and gets the same 10 ingredients. He’s doing confit prawns with a prawn custard.
Chloe is actually tasting her food as she goes along – hallelujah! Please watch this, future would be MKR contestants! She needs to adjust the flavour of her prawn mousse but did not pick anything acidic as one of her 10 ingredients. Don’t they get vinegar as a staple, though? Did Maggie Beer not leave a trail of verjuice behind her yesterday?
Aha – picked it. With help from Shannon she remembers vinegar could help, and she does have it in her staples.
In the end both dishes look good but Shui’s has that cheffy look. He was super calm throughout and speaks highly of the look of Chloe’s tortellini. Ok, it’s official: we like Shui.


THE JUDGES TASTE
Chloe’s tortellini: Gaz “can’t fault much in that dish at all”. They all like it and it shows good technique. (It’s pretty obvious after this that Chloe cooked it, as while delish and beautiful, it is “simple” in its uncheffy presentation.)
Shui’s prawn with prawn head custard and milk skin: They are all dying to tuck in because it looks interesting. They rave about it. Could be some 10s here.

THE SCORES
We get the usual talk up of how close it was. Who cooked the pasta? Oooh, what a mystery that is.

Chloe: Gaz 8, George 8, Matt 8
Shui: Matt 8, George 9, Gaz 9.
Shui for the win! He is gracious in victory. Hopefully there will be work experience at Benelong in her future.
Chloe has shown she has some good techniques – we have a contender.

TOMORROW
It’s an MCG challenge, cooking for the Demons in the traditional red versus blue challenge (such appropriate colours).



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MasterChef – Mon, Maggie Beer pressure test

The bottom three contestants from the Invention Test face a Pressure Test set by Maggie Beer.
I’m guessing verjuice will be involved. Although, Maggie has been doing work to promote the need for better food in aged care facilities, so I’d love to see them do a challenge based around that.



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MasterChef – Thurs first elimination

Tonight is the first elimination challenge of the new MasterChef season. This is the episode where they bring the fridges from home. I’d be in trouble with this one – mine is full of half-eaten yoghurt containers, too many types of chutney, wilted baby spinach and leftovers.
Which of the three will go?
Young dessert girl Jess, Brett or Genene.



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MasterChef starts May 7

Woo hoo – MasterChef is back! Thank his for a cooking show where everyone knows what a colander is.

Shall we play a game and see how many episodes before all the following happen?
1 The word journey is uttered
2 Dead grandparent(preferably of European origin) is mentioned as inspiration
3 George ends a sentence with a questioning “yeah”
4 Matt dons a blue tartan suit
5 Gary is a bitch to a contestant
6 Someone makes ice cream that does not set in time
7 A huge fuss is made over whether meat will be cooked in time but everything is actually fine
8 Someone cries
9 Someone says they don’t usually make desserts
10 A sous vide machine is used
Feel free to add anything I’ve missed in the comments.

SEASON PREMIERE
The wannabes enter the MasterChef garden with their families and the set designers have done a great job. Wish I could say the same for wardrobe. What is Matt wearing? A dark tan suit with apricot kerchief and cravat? No – just no! Please go back to your blues and purples, Matt.
All 10 previous winners make a surprise appearance and there are a couple I have to think about, especially as Emma Dean looks so different. Julie Goodwin still gets a few mentions, so it seems there has not been a re-edit in light of her drink driving. Lovely to see people like Glowing Elena, Adam (Sidenote: Mr 6 and I made his sushi sandwiches at the weekend) and Billie again.
The wannabes are told their audition dish will be created in the official MC kitchen for the first time, and the past winners will be there to mentor them.
First up is a youngish nonna who was brought her more stereotypical nonna mother to the audition. She makes ricotta-stuffed gnocchi with a burnt butter sauce. She dresses the salad, so we’re already streets ahead of 90 per cent of MKR contestant, and this is just the audition round.
Gina has to wheel her trolley of food past giant photos of past winners snapped as they cook on the show.
The dish looks fabulous and the judges are impressed. Of course, Matt has to go fetch older Nonna and she is lapping up the attention. Gina gets an apron.

Young Reece from Newcastle is making a mandarin nougat with beetroot nougat. He has been pitched as a food nerd. Julie Goodwin is his hero so the judges call her in to the tasting. Julie does the “oh yum” and does a good job pitching him. Gaz thinks the presentation could be better but the flavours are great, so he’s in.

Adele, who has an American hubby, is making Southern fried chicken waffles. She’s in.

Chloe makes prawn laksa – in.

Brett does Moreton bay bug with tortellini and it looks pretty and cheffy – in.

Lochie serves up an Indian banquet and George says it is the best Indian food he’s eaten on MC (take that, Rishi!). Cue bug with cute son.

Real estate agent Craig is doing crusted lamb cutlets with jus. Sounds yum but is it special enough for MC? Gaz says the lamb is a tad undercooked but the roesti is soft. Matt says it lacks finesse. Craig does his best sales pitch for a spot – no.
We get a string of fails and there’s a kid in the audience with a mullet. One woman has served a hot dish with dried ice that makes no sense – you can tell she thought it would make it look cheffy. But she has a sense of humour about it, telling old nonna afterwards “it was pretty bad”. Billie and Elena walk her in to the judges and she is freaking out.

Kristen from Adelaide is doing a dessert and she gets the shy, talented girl edit. Billie and Elena walk her in. She works in local government and thought she was too fat to be a chef. Oh, Kristen … are you sure you’ve been watching the show? Yes, there are your skinny, tattooed types but there are plenty of MC chefs who are the opposite. Her honeycomb dessert looks fab. It’s a yes and there are tears. I really hope she can cook savoury dishes also.

A lady gets through on a Mexican dish while Sarah with the red hair gets high praise for her wallaby dish that has that cheffy forest floor look.
A young lad gets the nod for wontons. Janine serves croquettes with chipotle mayo and they are wolfed down – yes.

Tim from Sydney works in retail for a butcher so of course he’s doing a massive steak. He’s very likeable. Gary is in heaven but Matt says the miso butter needed work. They send him to cook again.

Also cooking again are a girl who made neither her spring roll wrappers, nor her noodles. Ben with a salmon pie cooks again.
A nervous girl with a bow in her hair who made a lemon pie and praline has to cook again.

And we’re done.
So they are going with an inspirational, personal approach this year. After the draining antics of MKR, MasterChef is such a relief.

Oops, I thought that was the end but there is more. There is a likeable prison officer from SA. He grating a fresh coconut for his rendang and confesses to Adam “I’ve never done this in my life” as he uses the coconut machine. Sachi cooks the roti in front of the chefs and it’s like an egg net rolled into a cylinder. He’s just stoked to be there. Gaz lives the complex flavours. He pops out to get the kids and we learn he cooks a lot of different cuisines. It’s a yes – Adelaide is doing quite well thus far.

In the break we get the ad for Intense Matt spruiking olive oil. I hope he makes a guest appearance but I know he has a new baby and his restaurant is doing well, so maybe not.

DJ Khan from Melbourne has made pork belly with various cheffy bits and George and Matt ply Gaz with crackling until he says yes.

Samira serves lamb mince dumplings and gets in.
Jonhas made crunchy pork belly bao. Yum. – yes.

Meta (?), who is an older gent, makes shiitake mushroom chicken and his background is a nomadic Asian tribemknown for its fatty foods. They love him – yes.

Houda from Sydney is making a filo Middle Eastern dessert and she’s doing the pastry from scratch. Not easy. She’s a social worker. She wants to run pop up kitchens to teach disadvantaged families how to cook. Her dessert looks delish. Please let us have a great Middle Easter cook on the show who lets her food do the Talking, unlike that MKR horror show.

The bloke in the loud shirt who’s been in a lot of shots is making octopus. Also is doing it for his nonna (who’s alive). Can we get a show called MasterNonna. He does his occy sous vide then chucks it on a grill pan. George makes a show about whether the occy will be tough but his knife slides through it like butter. It’s a yes and now we really are done.
Only six aprons left.



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