Tag: Karmen

MasterChef – Thurs, Jun 23 – elimination

Cue sad music as the contestants get ready for their elimination challenge. Elise mentions it’s her seventh time in black – maybe the universe is trying to tell you something, Elise?
Whoever survives tonight is through to the MasterChef Top 10.


Mimi has been absent from the edit for a while, so if she suddenly gets a flashback we know she’s in trouble.
George says tonight’s challenge is a twist on the classic time auction.
Five pantries will be revealed, one at a time, every 15 minutes.
Whoever takes the first pantry gets 90 minutes to cook with those ingredients, plus staples. Wait another 15 minutes and you get to use both pantries but only have 75 minutes to cook. Oooh – will they all go for the 60-minute mark? If they wait for the very last pantry they will only have 30 minutes.

The first pantry is just a mass of herbs. No-one moves.
Pantry two is vegies and at first it looks like no-one will bite, especially meat lovers IM and Trent. But in fact both boys and Karmen go for it.

Karmen is making a mille feuille with basil ice cream and candied tomatoes. I hope it sets – she’s had a few last minute hurdles in the MC kitchen with elaborate desserts.

Trent is making pumpkin rotolo with cauli puree while IM is cooking roast carrot tortellini with confit leeks and roast tomato and burnt butter sauce – how good does that sound.
On the sidelines, Elise and Mimi are hoping for some desserty-type ingredients, like fruit or chocolate.
The third pantry is revealed … it’s fruit – fresh and dried. Elise is stoked.
Mimi wants to “think outside the box” and she wants to make baked rhubarb and a beetroot parfait. That’s it – parfait is thumping panna cotta in the “another bloody” stakes.
The final two pantries contained poultry and fish.


Elise is looking a bit brain freezey, as happens to her sometimes, but she decides to make apricot ABP with passion fruit curd and a thyme crumb. Theresa shouts down the helpful advice to put her moulds in dessert. Uh oh – are they the red moulds of death? We get an Elise flashback so it does not bode well for her.
But here comes to Karmen flashback – yikes!
George pops over to Trent’s bench to screw up his nose at the fact he is boiling his pumpkin in water. Don’t look now, George, but I don’t think he used giant tweezers to place the pumpkin in the pot, either. Trent chucks his boring pumpkin and grates some more to fry with butter and milk.
Elise decides to add a strawberry and thyme coulis to put inside her parfait. On the gantry, the onlookers are talking up Karmen’s weaponiness.
IM starts rolling his pasta and the sheets look silky smooth from the get go.
Here comes a Trent flashback – aargh. He wants to open a restaurant with a vegie garden out the back. He’s been the only one tonight to get a flashback where his “food dream” is explained. So, Trent’s going.
Here comes Matt Preston to distract Mimi while she’s cooking beetroot caramel, and she has to spatter some on his hand to shoo him away.
There’s so much chat from the gantry tonight – “what are you making?”, “will you need to be put that in the fridge?” – are the judges just lounging around out the back watching TV?
No, here comes Matt to scare Elise that she has too many flavours on her plate. Those judges sure love seeing a panic-stricken Elise. But she sticks to her guns.
Karmen’s pastry looks quite layer-ey for a rough puff. Hopefully it cools down in time.
No-one’s pulled out the smoking gun tonight, so that honour falls to IM, who gives his leeks a puff.
With three minutes to go, Karmen still hasn’t plated up as she’s hovering at the freezer, waiting for her pastry to cool. I’m with George for once: “Come on, Karmen!” She gets it on the plate and it looks good – can’t blame her for the trickle of tears that follows.

The judges taste


Trent’s pumpkin rotolo with cauli: “I’m stoked,” he tells the judges. They like the inviting look of the dish. The judges are smiling. George says it has a meatiness to it and he loves the rich, buttery sauce.


Karmen’s tomato mille feuille with basil ice cream: We already knew Karmen’s parents don’t want her to go into cooking but I think this is the first time we’ve heard her dad is a chef, who never wanted to be. The judges like the golden brown look of the pastry and the taste but her ice cream is a puddle by the time they eat. “I think Karmen may have a problem,” says Matt. Her ice cream is not basil-ly enough but they don’t understand the use of the meringue.


Intense Matt’s roast carrot tortellini with confit leeks and burnt butter sauce: [Geez, IM is a master of puttig shredded fried stuff on his dishes – it looks delish.] George tells him his plating up looks great. “How absolutely delicious,” says Matt Preston. “He’s gota beautiful dish that just sings,” says Gaz.


Elise’s charred apricot parfait with a passionfruit curd: It’s not the prettiest dish and Matt oddly puffs out his cheeks as he eats. “You know what it reminds me of? fruit Loops. There’s confusion there.” George thinks she needed to simplify the ingredients and ditch half the fruit. Matt and Gaz think she has the makings of a great dish.


Mimi’s beetroot parfait with rosemary shortbread and beetroot caramel: Matt thinks it looks fun. They “oooh” as George pours the soz. Gary goes for a second slurp. They love the salted beet leaf and the whole dish is delicious.
So, it’s the return of Mimi and Karmen and Elise are in trouble – unfortunately, most likely Karmen.

The verdict
Mimi, IM and Trent get pats on the back. And the person going home is …


Oh dear. Poor Karmen. A quiet achiever gone. Hopefully she picks up a gig with Reynold.

Where is she now?
She plans to launch a dessert bar in Perth later this year.

So, for those playing along at home, what pantry would have made you stop cooking?
Next week: It’s Heston Week. The dessert girls should do well with the complicated recipes. The Melbourne Observation Wheel challenge looks fun.
And a reminder for those who watch it that Offspring starts on Ten on Wednesday at 8.30pm (yes, it should have finished last season but I’ll be watching anyway).



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MasterChef – Tues, June 21 – immunity challenge – what’s a rocher?

The four contestants who impressed in the relay invention test cook for immunity. Does the winner of the first round have what it takes to out-cook guest chef Victor Liong from Lee Ho Fook?
This will be an interesting one, as Karmen, Intense Matt, Trent and Elena are all decent cooks. And, look at the tweet below – Karmen has a sense of humour, too. I just hope she doesn’t try to plate up anything fragile that she will smash with shaking hands. Stay away from tuiles tonight, Karmen.

People keep trying to tell me burgundy is back, but Matt’s suit is doing nothing to convince me this is true.
He tells the contestants tonight is a skills test with a dessert theme, so Karmen gets a hige grin on her face. They must separate 12 egg yolks; create five perfect ice cream rochers (that’s a quenelle done with only one spoon, apparently); and spin sugar to a 30cm-high conical shape. Intense Matt has never even spun sugar before.
They’re pretty even in the egg-cracking leg, and all smash a few in the rush. Karmen finishes that round first, then IM, then Trent and Elena.
Karmen plans to take the rocher round slowly and get them right but IM and Trent are racing through, with Trent using his fingers to plop them off the spoon. They must have told the contestants the correct technique before the challenge. IM smashes out five rochers that he knows are dodgy but Gaz only lets one through. Trent’s are also wonky.


Meanwhile, Karmen is already on to her spun sugar. Elena has taken her time and it pays off – she catches up and is the second person to start spinning sugar.
IM and Trent slow down with their ice cream and finally Gaz lets IM through, then Trent. It’s still pretty close, though, as Karmen is waiting for her sugar to caramelise and hasn’t started spinning. Shannon urges her to take it easy.
Her caramel is ready first and out comes the head massage tool to flick back and forth. Trent has a go but his caramel looks too light, while Elena’s seems dark. IM waits til the right time and goes nuts with his flicking. He’s catching up quickly – height and longer arms are probably an advantage here. He takes his pile over to be measured and he’s done it! Good one, Intense Matt!
Skills tests are always fun to watch, although not as exciting as name the cake or ingredient, as there’s no play along at home element.
Matt is definitely top three material and, interestingly, he’s not active on social media – unlike some other contestants. Does this mean he goes all the way? Or he’s just not a Twitter kind of guy.

Guest chef Victor enters and how lovely to see a chef who looks like an engineering nerd rather than a tattoo artist – although he does have a Harry-style teeny topknot.
IM gets to pick from overflowing benches of ingredients A to N and M to Z. IM wants the kingfish, so chooses the former, to cook it crispy-skinned with blue swimmer crab broth. He’s definitely had hours of practice filleting fish and is a real chance here.
It’s Victor’s time to cook and his face drops when he realises what’s on the table for A to N. I like him even more when he tells confessional: “Ah, bugger – there’s no soy sauce, there’s no sesame oil.” He decides to do a crayfish in order to show “oriental decadence”.
IM is trying to make a crab broth to better the prawn head version with which he won an immunity pin last time.
Victor is having trouble balancing his sauce without any M to Z ingredients – IM has the advantage of having cooked in the MC kitchen many times. Victor grabs a can of coconut cream to add to his sauce and is happier.
IM starts straining his broth through muslin and manages to add some unintentional smoke when he sits it too close to the burner. Cue yelps of concern from the gantry and cool-headed Shannon tells him to pop the flaming saucepan saucepan in the sink. Victor even pops over to check on him and offer assistance. Luckily IM has plenty of soz left over.
Victor is only serving crayfish and coconut soz because he thinks less is more, but Shannon urges him to do something else to impress the judges. He doesn’t seem too fussed until Harry leans over the gantry to tell him to listen. Eventually Victor decides to add some mushies and cauli.
On the other side, IM is going hell for leather with a million techniques and is working hard to balance his broth. He’s doing George-style plating.
Victor’s plate looks pretty, too, but neither of them used tweezers.
Victor pops over for a lick of IM’s soz and says he’s impressed.

The judges taste


Victor’s roasted crayfish with coconut and armagnac soz: Gaz is salivating just looking at it. Matt Preston says the soz is well balanced and they agree the cray is perfectly cooked. Sounds like a high score.


IM’s crispy skin kingfish with crab broth: Gaz says it looks pretty but Matt thinks the bits of crab on the side seem superfluous. They love the taste of the broth and it’s all well cooked. “Sublime,” says Gaz.
They do the “oh, it’s so close” thing, which is usually so fake as there have been some shockers in the immunity pin round this season. But this time they both seem great dishes.

The scores
Scores for IM’s fish: Gaz 9 George 9, Matt 9 = 27/30 Fab scores but now I’m worried Victor will get 10s.
Scores for Victor’s cray: Yep, 10s all round.
Well done, Victor, but poor IM – any other week he would have slayed the competition.

Victor says some really nice things about IM being intelligent but ambitious and jokingly offers him a job.
Fun fact: Victor’s LInked In profile says he has a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA), Hospitality Administration/Management.

Tomorrow night
The contestants must cook three courses of finger food at an outdoor cinema team challenge. It looks like Brett and Harry’s blue team stuff up their quantities, but it could be a storm in a tea cup. And then on Sunday, Heston Week begins. Crack out your goggles and nitrogen canisters.



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MasterChef – Sun, June 19 – mystery box and relay

The mystery box challenge contains eight of the ugliest ingredients ever seen. The contestants must impress the judges by creating a beautiful and delicious dish in only 60 minutes.
Hmm … ugly ingredients? Maybe offal and some of the knobblier root vegies? This is also the relay challenge, which is always nailbiting to watch.

And the “ugly” ingredients are:
ugly
Chicken livers, monkfish, blue cheese, celeriac, Buddha’s hand, morels, horned melon, Moreton Bay bug and morels. Horned elon is a new one on me – Wikpedia says “The fruit’s taste has been compared to a combination of cucumber and zucchini[3] or a combination of banana, cucumber and lemon.” wiki
Surely for the “ugly challenge” Matt Preston should have donned one of his more startling outfits. He looks positively restrained in navy with pink highlights.
He talks them through the ingredients, giving pointers along the way. Elena is the only one who’s eaten horned melon before, because on an overseas trip her family went to a shop with unusual items and bought everything they didn’t recognise. That’s my kind of holiday – can I join the Elena family?

Theresa is butter poaching the Moreton Bay bug and monk fish while Anastasia is making a blue cheese parfait. Yep, another bloody parfait. This is making me miss the panna cottas!
Karmen is making blue cheese ice cream with a morel ice cream cone balanced in a microwaved sponge, with a horned melon syrup. It’s definitely inventive.
Elena is experimenting with dehydrating melon seeds in the oven, to be teamed with celeriac puree, butter-poached bug tail and a monk fish wing.
Brett will grill the bug, deep fry the fish tail and serve atop celeriac puree.
It’s back to Ana again, who’s having lump cheese dramas. How has Karmen resolved this?
Come on – there are only 12 contestants – can we see what the others are doing?
Ana ditches the blue cheese and will make a chicken liver parfait instead, but will it set in the red moulds of death?
George and Gaz pop over to taste Elena’s cooked melon seeds and you can tell they are impressed (take note, Harry of the poisoned rambutan seeds). They look a bit like pumpkin seeds.
Then they taste Karmen’s morel cone batter and tell her she needs to step it up. Just what she needs when she’s already under pressure.
Theresa is unsure how to cook her fish so it will probably be perfect.
No camera time for Chloe, Mimi, Trent, Intense Matt, Teeny Topknot or Headband Heather. Oops and Elise.
Uh oh – Karmen is having tuile dramas. Have we ever had an episode where someone said “my tuiles worred first time”?
The red moulds of death have had their terrible way with Ana’s parfait so she has to plop it on the plate. Just put it in a little ramekin, Ana? Poor Karmen’s nerves get the better of her and she crushes one of her cones with shaking fingers.

Time to taste
Theresa’s butter-poached seafood with morels and celeriac salad: George says “Theresa – where have you been?” Uh, you eliminated her, genius. Gaz likes the fish and salad but the bug is undercooked. George proves he also pronounces the veg “celery-ack”.
Karmen’s blue cheese ice cream in morel cone with horned melon syrup: George gets the broken cone. George dips the sponge in the syrup and creepily feeds it to Karmen off his spoon. Matt says the flavour combos are innovative and work.


Elena’s buttered bug with celeriac and horned melon salad: She explains she tried about 20 different techniques. The judges clean the plate. “That is an absolute riot,” says Gaz. He loves the textures and flavour. Matt says it’s genius.
That’s the top three, although they give Brett a shout out. The winner is, of course, Elena. Yay! So, what will her advantage be now the dreaded power apron is goneski?

The invention test
She gets to choose the core ingredients from the following combos: honey and lemon, maple and bacon, orange and fennel.Elena picks honey and lemon. Everyone’s happy until the twist is revealed: It’s the relay challenge. Cue “ooohs” all round. “It can be white chocolate veloute hell,” Matt warns. John is going to be copping lots of tweets tonight! There are three teams of four and Elena gets to pick her team.
It’s Elena, Intense Matt, Karmen and Trent. That’s a strong red team full of mostly cool heads. The other teams are (yellow) Mimi, Elise, Brett and Harry; and (blue) Ana, Theresa, Chloe and Heather.
IM goes the savoury route with pressure-cooked duck with honey and lemon. Smart move as they just have to wait for the timer to go off.
Theresa seems to reverting to her old ways, faffing a bit in the pnatry.
Harry wants to make whisky, lemon and honey trifle so each person can add a layer like a jelly, sponge or custard.
IM goes hell for leather, starting work on a sticky sauce.
Theresa finally picks dessert with a lemon and prosecco jelly BUT she doesn’t know what else should go with it. So, everyone else in her team will come in cold and waste time thinking what they can add to it, with no advanced prep? I hate to say it but she could at least have started off a parfait so it could be freezing while the others cook.
By the end of his time Harry has finished a lemon mousse and a syrup.
IM is leaving his team “a visual map” by putting the whisky next to the frypan for deglazing – smart move. He has 45 seconds to hand over to Trent.
Theresa hands over to Heather (wearing her magical headband), while Harry talks to Brett about the trifle he wants served in a martini glass.
The first lot of contestants heads to the storeroom to watch the TV and yell in frustration or, in IM’s case, grin like a maniac when he sees Trent set his whisky sauce alight.
Heather decides to make coconut macaroon biscuits to go with Theresa’s jelly. So, it will be a dessert platter, then?
Brett decides Harry has planned a very complicated dish that will be hard to communicate to the rest of the team. He decides to change the dish – OMG the producers must be so excited right now. Harry can’t believe his eyes: “Brett’s gone rogue.” Brett tells George it will now be a lemon meringue tart, with not much time left to make pastry, let alone blind bake it.
Trent decides to do honey-roasted carrots and we hear him say Karmen will have to remember to take them out at the end. So, that’s not happening, then.
Mimi takes over from Brett, Elena takes over from Trent, Ana from Heather. Brett heads to the other room to tell Harry everything will be fine but Mimi is quietly shitting herself.
Ana is making a preserved lemon syrup to add bitterness to the blue team’s choose your own adventure dessert. She hands over to Chloe who, quite sensibly asks: “What is the dish?”
Mimi hands over to a worried Elise (perhaps you should crumble it into a soil, Elise, to cook more quickly) while Elena briefs Karmen. The red team’s happy with Karmen’s actions bit those darn carrots are still in the oven.
Chloe is tasking all the elements and pulls a face when she tastes Ana’s syrup, but is determined to use it anyway to prevent hurt feelings.
Elise is running at a million miles an hour and then George comes over to ask dourly: “Where’s the invention in your dish?” Poor Elise always cops it.
Chloe drizzles Heather’s biscuit with the bitter syrup and tops it with Persian fairy floss.
In the other room IM, Elena and Trent are desperately yelling out “carrots!”, willing Karmen to hear them. With 30 seconds to go, Matt releases the hounds and they bay at Karmen to add the carrots. Luckily she tastes them and they are burnt, so she leaves them off. Good move but they may get lambasted for not “heroing” lemon and honey.

Time to taste


Red’s duck with pine nut puree: Contrary to their fears, the whisky did not overpower the dish. It’s tasty but they wish the carrots had been there. They’ll be safe.


Yellow’s lemon meringue and honeycomb tart: “Surprisingly, that looks all right,” laughs Gaz. The pastry is cooked and, while not great, they heroed the lemon and honey. But, asks Matt, is it inventive?


Blues’ lemon and honey choose your own adventure dish (Chloe calls it a lemon honey cloud): Matt loves the bickie. But they don’t like the rest of it. “That syrups very medicinal,” says Gaz. “It tastes like it’s been made by four people, rather than one person,” says Matt.

The result
The winners are obviously the reds, and they get a crack at an immunity pin. At least yellow’s team was edible, so they’re safe.
Going through to elimination are Theresa, Ana, Chloe and Heather. Theresa must feel dreadful right now.

Tomorrow night: They cook against a young gun from New York who is only 17! They have to make his beef wellington. Apparently he started a supper club at his mum’s house when he was only 12. What the hell! More on him here



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MasterChef – Mon, May 16 – The return of Reynold

As we know, Reynold is back in the MasterChef kitchen tonight, but this time he doesn’t have to worry he’ll be asked to do something savoury. He gets to set the challenge for the pressure test for the bottom three from last night’s invention test.
Here’s a link to his dessert bar, which is about to get even busier http://www.koidessertbar.com.au/

From Reynold's Facebook page.
From Reynold’s Facebook page.

The three contestants in the firing line are Chloe, Karmen and Olivia.

Apparently running on a treadmill, reading love letters and standing on your head are just what you need to prep you for a cooking comp. I’d just be reading cookbooks, but that doesn’t make for riveting TV.
They’re ready for the pressure test from Reynold – who gets a total fangirl welcome from the contestants – which is to create “Moss”. moss
It’s a dried fennel frond, apple blossom pearl, pistachio sponge, yoghurt foam, apple sorbet, and a sphere of pistachio mousse coated in matcha with a caramel gel interior.
George asks dessert enthusiast Karmen: “What’s it like standing so close to Reynold?” Reynold laughs like a nervous 15-year-old boy and tells George: “That’s not necessary.” Ah, Reynold – you’re just a dork who likes to cook – I love it. Yeah, George – just because they’re Aussies of Asian descent who like sweets doesn’t mean they’ll have the hots for each other.
Oops – forgot to do a “what’s Matt wearing?” update:

Tamer than his usual ensembles.
Tamer than his usual ensembles but we saw this cravat on May 5. C’mon, wardrobe – mix it up!

Karmen says she is familiar with most of the techniques used in the recipe and she’s off to a quick start. Olivia is also doing well and George and Reynold are impressed, just advising her to keep her bench clean. Karmen is having trouble with her pistachio mousse and Chloe manages to overtake her, so she starts again. And again it seizes up. What’s going on – is she not reading the recipe properly? She decides to keep it and just add cream and it seems to work. Hope her sphere sets Ok.
Restaurant manager Olivia seems to be whipping through each task – hope she doesn’t come a cropper. At least with her job she’d be used to multitasking.
Karmen is catching up so the producers send Reynold over to distract her with questions that will enable to mention how her parents think she should stick with surveying.
Reynold advises everyone to make spare spheres but Chloe has just made one sphere – aargh – so risky. Yes, she’s pushed for time, but without a sphere there isn’t a dish. Better to spend time doing a second sphere and leave off something like the yoghurt foam if you have to.
It’s just over a week into the competition and, finally, microwave siphon sponges make an appearance. Poor Olivia, who’s been doing so well up until now, stuffs up her sponge because she second guesses herself, and then she leaves the gelatine out of her foam. This is what happens when George comes over to tell you how far ahead of the others you are – the Calombaris jinx.
Chloe moves on to her white chocolate cremeux, which I think is the second cremeux of the comp, following Charlie’s ginger chocolate version when he was in the bottom three. At least it’s not ABPC (another bloody panna cotta).
Karmen is having cremeux trouble so she decides to leave it off the plate so she can concentrate on other elements. Olivia is in a total flap and it doesn’t look good for her.
The contestants have to make sure each element of the dish is in a specific place (fridge, freezer, bench etc) as they have 10 minutes to plate up when it’s their turn. But Olivia has forgotten her matcha sphere, and as she runs to get it she stacks it, just like Chloe the other night. What the heck are they polishing those MC floors with – olive oil? So, Olivia’s sphere is stuck in the freezer and probably won’t ooze when it’s cut.
Time to judge
Chloe lucked out in that her sole sphere looks good. She’s done a great job to get all those elements up and she seems to have a balanced outlook on life and a laidback temperament. Reynold likes the look of the sphere but the caramel inside is too pale. The sponge and mousse get the thumbs up.
Karmen is next to don the mad scientist goggles and play with liquid nitrogen to make her yoghurt snow. She’s devastated she missed the cremeux (or creme-ooh, as George calls it) but George gives her props for what she’s achieved. Her caramel centre looks better than Chloe’s but the plate is not as pretty. She gets ticks for a lot of her elements.
It’s Olivia’s turn and the siphon gun isn’t working, so she improvises. Olivia is totally going home, which is such a shame as she’s done a few delicious-looking savoury dishes, like this one:
Please come to my house and cook this, Olivia.
Please come to my house and cook this, Olivia.

As she predicted, her sphere is too frozen and her sponge is dense. Gaz does like the flavour of the mousse but Reynold says the caramel is too blond and her matcha coating is uneven.
The judges pretend she’s in with a shot but one missing element easily outweighs three poorly executed ones.
The announcement
The judges praise Chloe for her attitude and her dish. Olivia is going home but there’s no shame in bowing out on a dish that would have been a finale test in previous seasons. Can you imagine Poh or Julie having to create “Moss” back in their season? They would have failed miserably.
Where are they now?
Olivia is working full time in The Cook’s Garden (Google says it’s an English style pub in north Sydney – wonder if this is where she was working before?), heading up the pastry section. She hopes to launch a cooking program for high school and university students.
Tomorrow night
Nicolette, Con and Anastasia have to cook a dish using popcorn. Expect a tonne of popcorn parfaits.



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