Previous Episode: MasterChef Australia Season Four – MasterClass Friday
Here we go again! Another week of MasterChef. I’m sure some Mexican will be enough to heat up the week.
The contestants walk in to see VERY tall Mystery boxes sitting on their bench. The three judges are all there to welcome them. So what’s the challenge?
Challenge Brief: Obviously, it is a mystery box. Under the lids they find a whole heap of ingredients to make pastry. They have to make biscuits. The winner can choose the core ingredient for the invention test.
Conditions: They can only use what’s under the mystery box and from a special bench out the front, which contains many common biscuit toppings and dips. 60 minute time limit.
Progress: Surely this won’t be too hard. Kylie is making a very sophisticated biscuit. Julia is making a melting moment biscuit. Apparently this is her secret recipe. Kylie’s Ganache doesn’t set as well as she would have liked, so she is holding her breath. It doesn’t look good. Should be her challenge to lose. Ben is going for the ANZAC biscuit.
Tasting & Results
Amina
Cooking: Maamoul
Comments: George says they’re the best he’s ever had, and he’s had quite a few!
Julia
Cooking: Melting Moments with Raspberry jam.
Comments: Gary says he hasn’t seen a melting moment this good in a while. As he tastes it, he takes them away to the other judges. They really enjoy it. Gary is wowed. He calls them deadest delicious.
Ben
Cooking: ANZAC Biscuit
Comments: Matt loves how the addition of cranberries and white chocolate don’t get in the way of the traditional taste of the biscuits.
Results: The winner of the challenge is Julia.
It’s now onto the invention test, which Julia will get to pick the core ingredient for.
Challenge Brief: They will all be cooking with a core ingredient and encapsulate the whole country of Mexico. The best dish of the day will go into immunity. The chefs of the three least impressive dishes will go into an elimination pressure test.
Core Ingredients: Corn, prawns or CACTUS (AKA The Prickly Pear) (?!?).
Julia’s Choice: Cactus. And to think she is picking this because she thinks it will work well for her!
Conditions: 60 Minutes.
Progress: Even the guru for Mexican food is thrown with this one, but he’s going with tacos. Julia is using the syrup of the cactus to make a Panna cotta. They all seem to get ideas, but will they work? Andrew however is a bit baffled, the only Mexican thing he knows how to cook is tortillas, and that’s only because he was taught the other day. I don’t know if I’d want to be eating these savoury, Mexican dishes after eating a sweet and light bicky. Dalvinder is doing a raw scallop salad- which doesn’t sound Mexican to me. She is dicing the cactus and realises that seeds can make the texture almost stone-like. Kath gets a few doubts in her mind after Gary questions her soup.
Tasting & Result
Ben
Cooking: Parmesan Taco
Comments: The dish has scallop in it, which Gary doesn’t taste well and doesn’t get. He calls it fresh. Matt says he has ‘tried’ to make a taco.
Alice
Cooking: Chilli Churros
Comments: George says the Churros are the best the kitchen has ever seen.
Kath
Cooking: Chicken Soup with Cactus Avocado Salsa.
Comments: Problem, says Matt, is the thick oil slick on the top of the soup.
Debra
Cooking: Scallop Salad with Cactus Tzaziki.
Comments: George loves the idea of the cactus tzaziki.
Beau
Cooking: Chicken Taco
Comments: Matt is impressed with the pickled cactus in the dish.
Andy
Cooking: Ceviche scallop taco
Comments: Likes the salsa.
Julia
Cooking: Lime Panna Cotta with prickly pear syrup.
Comments: George calls it grainy, blaming a process error. Matt likened eating the prickly pear salad to eating a fruit with gravel in it.
Sam
Cooking: Prickly Pear & Pork Mole.
Comments: Gary calls it a fine dish.
Tregan
Cooking: Scallop Tostada
Comments: Matt loves the puffy light tostada.
Andrew
Cooking: Tortilla stack
Comments: Gary calls it a heavy dish and ‘a bit weird. He can’t cook like that again.
Dalvinder
Cooking: Raw scallop salad Mexican style.
Comments: Gary is wowed and Matt says it is a little weird but out there.
Mindy
Cooking: Stuffed Jalapeno peppers
Comments: George tells her she nails the brief.
Results: The top three dishes of the night belong to Mindy, Alice and Dalvinder. The person going into immunity is…Mindy (Twice in a fortnight?!).
Andrew, Kath and Julia will face elimination.
MasterChef Australia next airs May 28 at 7PM on TEN.
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