Tag: relay

MasterChef – Wed, May 17 – relay challenge

The contestants are split into teams of four in a relay challenge as each member has 15 minutes to cook and only 45 seconds to hand over to the next cook in the relay.
Will someone go rogue this year and derail the whole team? (Yes, John, I’m talking about you and your white chocolate veloute.) I love/hate it when that happens.

Promo for tonight:

Mini recap:
They have to create a dish celebrating maple syrup. The four people who volunteer to cook first are given differently coloured aprons. The are: Benita Token Older Contestant (green), Beardie Bushranger Benjamin (yellow), Tamara with the Chandelier Earrings (blue) and Diana who so ably captained the team in the pizza service challenge (red). So these people get to pick the dish.
And then the twist is announced: the remaining contestants won’t know what team they are on until just before handover time. Ooh – sneaky! Since they usually let them watch the action on a screen in another room they are going to have to keep tabs on all four cooks.
Everyone gets to cook for 15 minutes and has 45 secs to hand over.

So, how many maple syrup with bacon ice creams are we going to see?

Benita is making a Singapore crab/prawn dish. Tamara chooses Asian sticky pork belly with bao buns and slaw. She wisely gets out the ingredients needed for all the elements.
Ben is making maple ice cream and he wants every team member to add their own ideas. No, Ben, just tell them what to make so they don’t waste time thinking.
Diana is making maple syrup ice cream with bacon. Picked it! She has a list of elements she wants the others to create.
The judges aren’t too impressed by Benita’s idea to replace palm sugar with maple syrup for her chilli crab. She just gets an “hmmm, interesting”.
Round two
It’s time for round two and the contestants haven’t been able to see what’s been happening, so it’s a blind cook.
Bushranger hands over to Whiskey Eloise, now a holder of the golden immunity pin.
Diana hands over to Invisible Trent with the Tatts (remember, he did that one awesome dessert with quandong I think on top, then disappeared again).
Tamara hands over to Funky Hair Sarah while Benita gets Other Ben Who Works Out a Lot.
Other Ben is worried – and rightly so – about Benita’s choice of dish. But rolls with it.
The first round cooks are locked in another room to watch the action on TV.
Tamara is thrilled she got Sarah as her teammate and watches her whip up an Asian slaw and prep some pork skin to add to the dish.
Whiskey Eloise decides to add smoke to the ice cream and make a white chocolate foam. Great, but can someone please make something crunchy to go with it.
Invisible Trent makes a jelly but puts it in the fridge, not the freezer or blast chiller, while Diana watches in frustration.
Round three
Invisible Trent hands over to Headband Samuel (go Samuel!!).
Ben Who Works Out a Lot gets Blonde Ponytail (it may be Karlie).
Whiskey Eloise gets Dessert Guru Bryan so they’ve lucked out there.
Sarah gets Golden Ball Girl Michelle, who starts to freak out that it’s not a dessert. She looks very young and very panicked. She chucks the bao straight in the steamer without shaping them and without a layer of paper. Uh oh. Surely she’s made steamed buns before?
Bryan decides to add pickled apples and some candied bacon crisps for crunch – he knows his desserts.
Headband Samuel is adding an almond maple biscuit to add texture. He checks on the jelly in the fridge and notices it’s really runny, but leaves it.
Oh, Blonde Ponytail is Nicole. She also is not so keen on the Singapore crab idea.
Sarah and Tamara watch in horror as Little Mich chops the pork too small and then fries it too much. And we know Sarah wants to open a pork-themed restaurant, so she knows her pig.
Bryan hands over to Eliza. She’s wearing a topknot so we can tell her apart from Karlie and Nicole.
Samuel hands over to Whizzkid Callan. Nicole hands over to Arum from the UK.
Mich gets Karlie. Karlie has done quite a few Asian dishes in the past so fingers crossed. “What a mess,” Karlie announces. “Whoa, what is that?” she says as she lifts the lid on the stodgy buns. The pork is drying out and the slaw is going soggy – it was dressed way too early.
Karlie decides to ditch the dodgy bao and instead make a shallot pancake and in the room her teammates are thrilled.
Callan spots that the jelly is liquid and puts it in the freezer – phew.
Arum is worried their chilli sauce doesn’t taste maple-y enough so works to add more to the dish.
Karlie also makes a sticky maple sauce – smart.
Callan wisely cleans up and gets most of the elements out on the bench so the last person just has to plate up.
Last round
Karlie hands over to Nurse Jess.
Callan gets Doctor Ray.
Eliza gets Young Sam.
Arum gets Crane Driver Pete, who is also worried about the choice of dish and he can’t taste the maple.
Young Sam is too late checking the tuille in the oven and has to pop another one in. Their ice cream looks pretty soft.


In the other room the contestants are yelling at the screen. Doctor Ray is moving rather slowly and looks to have forgotten the jelly that is in front of his nose. He should be right, though – the crab team will lose due to lack of maple flavour.
Jess has made another salad to top their pork pancake with – it looks good.

The judges taste
Yellow’s ice cream with pickled apples and maplecomb: They get a “yeah, baby” from Gaz. It’s delicious.

Blue’s pork pancake: The pork is a bit dry but some other elements are tasty.

Green’s chilli crab and prawn: They used a whole bottle of maple syrup to make it but the judges can’t detect it. The dish has a lot of flavour otherwise.

Red’s ice cream with maple bacon and without jelly: Diana kindly just says the jelly just didn’t make it to the plate. “Great jobs,” says George. Presto says the biscuits (made by Headband Samuel) make the dish. George singles out Diana for praise for setting up the dish so well.

The top two teams are (no surprise) yellow and red. And the bottom team is, of course, green.
So up for elimination are Benita, Pete, Nicole, Arum and Gym Ben.

Tomorrow night: It’s the good old ingredients auction using chunks of time as cash.



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