All of Mat-gate aside, last night saw Dani and the blue team struggle sending her, Peter, Hayden, Michael and Kate into tonight’s elimination. One will be going home and with all the ‘good’ players on Dani’s team (quoted from Ellie), it’s going to be a tearjerker!
The blue team are getting ready for the elimination with Dani dressing in her black apron, Peter packing and Kate taking down her pictures.
They are quick to enter their SUV’s, travel to the kitchen and enter to meet the judges and a row of benches.
The judges are Gary and guest judge Justin North. The judges acknowledge that today is a serious day for them all with Gary reiterating why they are sat here today.
He tells them that Anthony Bourdain has taken the red team off for a day in Sydney. They are all taken on a tour of the Sydney fish markets as Bourdain dishes out some handy advice to the ever listening contestants. Team leader Alana was so happy with the advice as she isn’t too confident with seafood.
As they move around, they try all that is on offer before relaxing at a pub that looks like the back of a shop! It looks like the best way to end a day this far into the competition. But it’s not over yet, Matt Moran takes them all to his restaurant, Aria where he will make a Pavlova, claiming it is an Australian dessert in front of the American Bourdain. Anthony is too smart however, noting it is a NZ dish. I think Matt tries to cover it up by calling it a ‘Swiss Meringue’. Yes, nothing screams Australian more than ‘Swiss Meringue’!
They tuck into the ‘Australian Pavlova’ as Alana thinks about the blue team. Yeah, as if she’s really thinking of them, it’s just an excuse to skip back to the kitchen where Gary questions whether Dani will be using her pin or not.
Not to risk her place in the competition, she will be saying goodbye to her immunity pin not days after getting it. She is sad to part from it so soon but Gary reassures her, it’s probably the best thing she could have done. She hugs her competitors goodbye as Gary moves onto the challenge.
It is a technique based challenge and perfection is required. They will all be set tight time limits and they need to remain focussed to pass.
There will be three rounds with one person saved each round leaving one to be eliminated! They all have a box filled with ingredients (what are those straw things actually called) and it is filled with a lot of vegetarian stuff with rice paper. They need to make some delicious rice paper rolls and without a recipe, they have to come up with it themselves.
The techniques the judges are looking for here are precision knife work, perfect balance of flavour for the dipping sauce, seamless wrapping and presentation of the rice paper rolls.
With time starting, the contestants are fighting for their place in the competition. Peter begins on his sauce as the others begin to chop up their vegetables. They only need to make three rice paper rolls so they shouldn’t rush with something complex.
Peter has made a rich, fishy sauce which he hopes works in his favour. Michael has his rice paper in to cook up as Hayden works on his sauce quite nervously. With five minutes left, the contestants begin to wrap their rice paper up and for a shaking Hayden, this looks very hard. It is a fairly thin piece of paper but Kate is also shaking, causing her ingredients to just pour out, and there’s only a minute remaining.
The contestants are really struggling to plate up with only 10 minutes to go; they just have to hope they have made the best one.
With that all over, the judges begin tasting with Hayden’s dish with only one rice wrap rolled correctly. They taste that particular wrap and they are happy with the chopping of the ingredients but there’s a lot of lettuce which may not be a good thing.
To Kate and she would have liked an extra five minutes. Her rice paper rolls look even worse but still nice. Gary loves the basil in her roll but she has way too much noodle in her roll and her carrot pieces are a little long.
To Michael and his rolls look much better than the other two so that’s a positive. The judges taste the dish and he is confident he has done well. Justin looks happy with the vegetable chopping but the amount of lime in his dish is a bit overpowering.
To Peter’s and his wrapping looks good as well, but there’s a few elements sticking out. The judges immediately notice his strong sauce but they like his chopping of the vegetables as they liked everyone’s.
The judges have now tasted all the dishes in round one and have come up with a winner. Gary calls out the names of the people who did not present the best dish and therefore will move on to round two. These people are Hayden, Kate & Peter with Michael safe from elimination!
Now to round two and they have two lives left. Justin assures them that what is hidden under their Hessian sacks is not easy. Peter just hopes that what ever it is; please don’t let it be a cake!
They lift the covers up to reveal a (wait for it… ad break) steak and a few vegies. It is a rib eye of beef; screaming out butchering techniques.
The judges will be looking for trimming and frenching, trussing it like an expert and cooking to an absolutely beautiful medium-rare.
Kate loves cooking rib eye steak, but is put off having to cook against Hayden and Peter! The person, who cooks the best version of the rib eye steak with 25 minutes, wins the challenge.
The contestants all begin by trimming their steak up with Hayden quickly moving on to his trussing.
Kate is spending a lot of time frenching the poor steak with most contestants putting their steak on the pan. Justin recommends 12 minutes cooking time and with the contestants heading into the last 15 minutes, the contestants are panicking.
As his steak cooks, Hayden makes a very interesting sounding sauce as Peter begins to make a very healthy sounding log.
Kate begins to check her steak for the first time and while the thermometer is telling her it is still to cool in the centre, her hand is telling otherwise. She just goes with the thermometer, putting it in the oven for a little longer.
With 10 seconds to go, the contestants begin to plate up their steak and with time up, the contestants are happy with their efforts but in a cutaway, Kate mentions that she would love to eat Hayden’s and Peter’s more. Does that mean she’s not safe? I would hope not!
The judges begin tasting on Hayden’s dish. They cut his steak in half and Hayden is happy at least. They taste and Gary loves the technique; that’s all he says.
They move onto Kate’s dish and cut her steak to see she has cooked it a little too long. They taste and the judges just love the flavours however there are a few negatives about the dish.
To Peter and they cut his steak to what Peter calls a medium-rare steak. Gary just says they’ve made it hard for them to choose, not giving much away.
With judging for round two over, Gary announces that the first person moving to round three is Kate and she will be facing off against Peter with Hayden safe from elimination. At the end of the day, Hayden’s alfoil on the bone to keep it clean was the ONLY factor that saved him!
With that, Kate & Peter face off to remain in the game. With this, we see a quick back story from Kate & Peter before we move onto the challenge at hand.
There’s a cover on top of what looks like quite a few ingredients! They uncover their ingredients to show all the ingredients to make a pastry type dish; in this case, an apple pie and custard- traditionally!
Three techniques, well they are nice, puffy pastry, wonderful filling, and a beautiful custard. They will have an hour to cook the dish and their time begins immediately.
Peter & Kate are moving at the same speed and with 45 minutes to go, there’s a lot riding on this challenge!
Peter has created his base and is now filling his pie with the filling and has put it in the oven. Meanwhile, Kate is a little slower and finds out that the pastry base has stuck to the paper she was using, pulling it apart a bit! Oh no!
This actually happened after she got it out of the oven but she tries to patch the pastry, just hoping it works.
Meanwhile, Peter is calmly working on his custard and he has already made curdled custard but given the opportunity to start again, he tries to save it using a blender.
Meanwhile, the apple pies are done for both team and as he worries, Peter takes away the edges from the apple pie quite safely. Kate does the same.
‘Beauty is in the pie of the beholder’ says Gary, taking the crown for best comment all season, as the contestants enter the last ten minutes of competition.
Kate has finished her custard and knowing Gary’s love of cream, she plates some up with her spare time.
Time is up and both contestants are happy with their efforts but Kate notices that if both their pies are good, the judges may look back at the rest of the day and decide who to send home based on that.
Kate doesn’t know if the pie will save her, but is happy that she created a good pie. She gets a bit teary, talking about her family and it’s the start of what will be a sad ten minutes. Peter is also looking quite sad when he talks about wanting to stay.
Gary tastes Kate’s dish first, loving her cream. He and Justin taste the dish. The judges just love the entire pie, with the custard also a winner. Gary is up for another apple pie, so they move on and taste Peter’s pie.
They cut it up and pour the custard onto it before tasting, saying it looks great. Ooo, its so nerve racking but finally, the judges present yet more pleasing comments. Now, from here on in, NO CUTAWAY’S PLEASE, because with no negative comments, gosh, this could be the best elimination yet!
The judges are finished, and leave to make their decision.
They return to say their decision was incredibly tough to come up with. The decision was based upon the underlying theme of the challenge, techniques. Gary announces that Kate is safe to her utter shock, with Peter announced as the sixteenth person to leave the MasterChef kitchen.
The judges then announce why Kate’s dish won, being lighter and more crispy while also telling Peter that his base was a little undercooked.
Justin offers his support and help to Peter who is gracious to be going home. Gary wishes him well as he leaves the competition and it’s not sad, it’s more humble. He leaves with a smile and with such lovely music; it feels like more of an event than a downer.
They’ve absolutely done it again! After last night’s shocking episode, this has been another one of a kind! No giveaway cutaways, no unneeded ad breaks and an absolutely beautifully produced exit from Peter. Wonderful, pure bliss! I wish MasterChef could do this every day!
Courtney’s Verdict: 10/10
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