MKR – Tues, Apr 12 – Lauren V Dads

Juz 57 Comments

Room service?

Room service?

The contestants enter Kitchen HQ and there’s a row of cloches waiting for them – how very MasterCheffy. Pete says there will be a rapid cook off for all six teams. At the end four teams will be safe, and the two weakest teams will go to sudden death.
The rapid cook off will require the teams to combine unusual flavour parings chosen by Pete and Manu (yeah, right) for a dish. What a pity they are only doing one round of this and then the same old sudden death.
The flavour pairings are saffron and vanilla (screams some kind of milky or ricey dessert), beetroot and chocolate (actually a common combo for cakes), lamb and apricot (umm, Moroccan tagine, anyone? As if this is an unusual pairing), fig and liver (ok, that’s weird), basil and raspberries (used in some modern desserts already), rhubarb and black pudding (odd but you could do a chutney with the rhubarb). Having won the restaurant challenge with their occy dish, Anna and Jordan get to allocate the flavours to the teams. Or in Gangsta Lauren’s case, flava. The biggest threats are Curlies and Sisters, so, strategically, they should get the fig and liver and rhubarb and black pudding.
Mama and Son take saffron and vanilla for themselves. Dads get basil and raspberries; Zana and Plus One liver and fig (and Lauren and Carmine think this is strategic, as Zana likes offal and they reckon she’s not a threat); Curlies catch the easy lamb and apricot; Sisters get rhubarb and black pudding; and Carmine and Lauren get the easy beetroot and choc.
They only have 45 minutes to cook with, which is not long to braise or bake anything.
What they’re making
Zana and Plus One are doing chicken liver pate with balsamic figs – what a great idea. Yum. They decided to add some fig jam and cooked liver, also, to do the cheffy two ways thing. There’s not much room to move at the kitchen benches and, of course, they’ve placed Lauren next to Zana, hoping for some argy bargy. Lauren is making chocolate ganache with beetroot sauce and macadamia crumb. She’s baking her ganache, first adding eggs. Sounds like you invented cake, Lauren.
Dads are doing raspberry sponge with Italian meringue and sweet basil pesto. Sounds good but I thought they would do little sponges rather than one larger dish.
Sisters are freaked out by cooking with black pudding, which they’ve not used before, and the almost as unfamiliar rhubarb. Their dish sounds really interesting: Black pudding Scotch egg with rhubarb mayonnaise. I would ditch the mayo for a rhubarb chutney but they are usually great with flavours, so let’s see.
Jordan and Anna are doing a savoury dish: Saffron and vanilla lobster with saffron pasta. Jordan is sous videing the lobster. Forty-five minutes is not long to make pasta, but both Anna and Curly Bro are attempting it. Curlies are doing spiced lamb rack with apricot puree and tortellini.
We’re subjected to yet another sequence of Gianni peeling things waaay too slowly – livers this time – although he’s not quite at Chops level. They’re hoping their pate will set in time for popping it the freezer.
The Curlies’ tortellini looks so cute, and no doubt their pasta will be thinner than Carmine’s last night. Speaking of, Lauren is worried that none of their elements is ready and is getting angsty. Carmine knows her well enough to stay out of her way.
Dad Cookie forgot to set the timer for the sponge, so they disagree over whether it’s cooked through. Have they stuck a skewer in it? Cookie wins the mild disagreement and grabs the cutter, but – uh oh – it’s raw in the middle. Do they have microwaves? Don’t think I’ve ever seen one on MKR, but they used them on MasterChef for siphon sponges all the time. They do their best and smush together the cooked bits with raspberries and top their Frankenstein sponge with torched meringue. They haven’t attempted as many elements as other teams.
They are not the only ones in a world of pain. Over at Curlies’ bench, Laura cuts into her lamb rack and it’s raw. Lauren’s ganache is too warm to quenelle properly. Jordan and Anna are plating their open lasagna and he’s not happy: “As time goes on, this plate gets uglier and uglier and uglier.”
Tasia is watching the clock and waiting until the last minute to pull the scotch egg out, so Gracia is freaking out. Gianni is frantically trying to pipe pate on the plate.
Lauren isn’t happy with their rushed plating: “This dish looks like a crime scene.”

Time to taste

The judges don’t give anything away but the egg yolk was delightfully oozy. 

Perfect. These girls are on fire.

Perfect. These girls are on fire.

Someone went crazy with the black pepper. Jordan is not happy but I’d be shocked if they don’t get through.

The livers look nice and pink.

Lauren sounds sooo nervous and I feel a bit sorry for her, but then they cut to confessional where she does her American accent again and I change my mind.

And the verdict …
Jordan and Anna: Manu says it looked messy, the lobster was well cooked and they used their ingredients well.
Zana and Plus One: Pete says they highlighted the figs and livers well and “it was very hard to fault.”
Sisters: Pete says it was unusual and smart. Manu loved it.
Dads: Manu says it looked pretty but the sponge wasn’t cooked and it lacked basil flavour. Pete wasn’t wowed.
Lauren and Carmine: Pete “didn’t mind” the baked ganache but it needed more beetroot sauce.
Curlies: Pete says the tortellini was sensational, the apricot good and the lamb underdone.
So I’m thinking Dads and Lauren for sudden death (which is what most of us predicted last night anyway). Yep, that’s how it goes.
That was a fun challenge – I hope they do that again.

Sudden death
For round two the teams have to create one dish with classic flavours. They have one hour to cook. This could go either way.

After the success of her apple crumble tarts in last night’s sudden death episode, Lauren decides to go pastry again with a white chocolate and raspberry tart. She’s making a chocolate pastry because she’s good at pastry. “If people want to call me a dessert queen, I’ll let them,” she tells confessional. But then she blanks on the pastry recipe. She sounds hoarse – maybe she’s crook. Luckily Carmine remembers: 3-2-1 (is that flour, sugar, cocoa?).

Dads are making mint-crusted lamb backstrap with peas and mint. Sounds simple so they’d better add some fancy pants elements.
Carmine is making a raspberry sherbet to go with their tart and on the sidelines we hear Zana say “I think they should be leaving that out”, but it sounds like it’s come from another part of the MKR timeline. Lauren is attacking her pastry again – but there seems to be less violence involved than last night.
The Dads do a tester with their herb-crusted lamb but they’ve cranked the pan up too high, so it burns and the crust falls off. This is their first time in sudden death and they are losing it. Anna doesn’t know why they don’t use egg to stick it, which is what everyone at home was yelling out. Or they could just cook the lamb and do a deconstructed crumb.
In the other kitchen Lauren is trying to temper white chocolate but Curly Laura says she’s aiming for the temperature used for dark choc. She’s freaking out over whether her tarts are ready and second guessing herself on everything.
The Dads cut into their lamb and it looks lovely and pink. But won’t their crust have gone soggy from being covered in foil to rest?
It’s the usual last-minute dash and the Dads’ little French fries look deliciously golden and crunchy. Neither team has done the best-looking dish and Lauren went easy on the raspberry soz.

Time to taste

And the verdict
Dads: Pete says the lamb was cooked properly and he liked the chips, but Manu says the crumb lacked crunch. However, Pete loved eating it.
Lauren and Carmine: Pete says the pastry was sensational and he liked the white chocolate mascarpone filling and the playful sherbet. Manu thinks she should “bottle” her pastry recipe. However, the soz was lacking.
Pete says it’s very close but it’s obvious the Dads are going home. The judges hand down the verdict, as expected, and Carmine is in shock. Everyone tears up and Manu gives his usual farewell salute. At least they get to see their recipe in the Coles magazine and they behaved impeccably throughout the series.

Hugs all round.

Hugs all round.

So the Final Five are Curlies, Sisters, Mama and Son, Zana and Plus One and Carmine and Lauren. Tomorrow night it’s a flashback to the instant restaurant days as we go round the country yet again. It looks like we’ll get some delicious dishes and we hear Pete utter the words “it’s the highest score ever”. There’s also a shot of a warm sauced being poured over a chocolate disc balanced atop a glass, which was a technique used in a dessert pressure test set by Shannon Bennett in last year’s MasterChef, so I’m thinking that’s a Mitch and Laura dessert. I did enjoy the snippet of the Sisters being so overjoyed that something was properly cooked and wanted to hug Manu but being unsure if they were allowed to touch him.

Did you all enjoy the varied format of tonight’s episode? I did. And now I’m left pondering what I would have cooked if I’d got each of those flavour pairings. And I’m going to look up that tart recipe because I have no idea from watching the show how she made those pastries work.



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Juz

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57 Comments

  1. I don’t see my boyfriend or the Curlies leaving (I think that would make for the most exciting grand final), Zana’s too damned entertaining, and I doubt channel 7 is going to lose the constant source of drama that Lauren and her puppet make .. so I’m thinking it’ll be the dads who go tonight. Mostly I really hope the sisters make it further, because I actually quite like them.

      • Jordan and Anna gave me a scare with that lasagna, but it must’ve tasted a lot better than it looked (which is a fair guess, given the skill they’ve shown in episodes prior).

  3. I’m drinkin’ the Haterade. Youse don’t know nuffink about cooking , Lauren and all youse nonnas can get…

  6. Quote of the episode belongs to Carmine. “We keep putting ourselves in the position of having to fight it out in sudden death…”

    THAT’S BECAUSE YOU’RE NOT VERY GOOD COOKS.

    • Second best quote of the episode: “I don’t mind if people call me the dessert queen…”

      NO THEY AREN’T!

  9. Making such a big deal about the pastry being cool enough for the filling. Hmmm, no concern for that last night!
    Does Lauren have a cold or has she been on the verge of tears all night?

  10. Now I’ve changed my mind, I’m thinking the dads will make it through. There was a promo for the next few episodes, and Manu said, “It’s the highest score ever on My Kitchen Rules!” A score *that* high would require every team scoring high, and why on Earth would Lauren and Carmine score high for anyone other than themselves?

  11. You can tell Lauren and Carmine still have no idea about cooking. You only need to put up 2 tarts, why made a hugh amount of coulis? And only put 3 drops on each plate.

    Their recipe from last night has the tart shells in the fridge before blind bake. So if her recipe is so good why did they change it??

  13. Waaaahhhh – I’m not all that surprised. Of course the producers want them in the return home dining round.

  15. Oh noooooo! She just keeps repeating tarts and broth. At least we didn’t have the gangsta talk.

  16. It’s disappointing but what can one expect?

    The show is garbage. It’s a rort for the producers….not a competition.

    Perhaps a 60 Minutes crew can come and abduct Lauren. How good at “pashtry” is she? Just shut up.

  17. Bit of favouritism there – how on earth did Jordan and his mother get through with that shocking mess😕

      • Yeah, the taste is the one thing the audience can’t judge them on. And given the past excellent dishes put forward by the Curlies and Anna/Jordan, I’m far more inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt on that one.

        It’s Lauren and Carmine getting through that makes me suspicious …

  18. You didn’t make the top five, Carmine, it was rigged for you to make it this far.

    This the worst part. The deluded believe the horse shit the judges blow up them. They believe that they denied the haters and made sumfink of themselfs. Fink they’re good at brof and pashtry.

  20. The most irritating “element” for me was Pythonesque Manu prancing around like he was the Spanish Inquisition then speaking to the teams as if they were Eeeenglish peeeg dogs.

  22. It was deja vu with the pastry saga from that deluded air head and her equally hallucinatory partner. What a crock of crap tonight’s show was.

    MKR, you suck.

  23. Juz, the 3-2-1 pastry dough is 3 parts flour, 2 parts butter and 1 part water. Nothing new about the recipe. Why such a rap about the pastry?

  24. I don’t get the judges raving about the desserts that L and C put up the past two nights. I’m so over the seeing the producers hands all over the results. It’s one thing to mess around with the editing to make it look like they’re all floundering to plate, it’s another when there is very obvious cheating.

    There is simply no way that pastry was cooked last night, no way it didn’t fall to pieces (you could see holes in it before she baked it!), no way the creme pat didn’t melt into a puddle and no way those apples were cooked in the time frame they had. Even the recipes they’ve put up don’t match for either time or ingredients!

  25. I think it is very unfair with this Sudden Death cookoff. Chris and Cookie got the short straw. It should have been a 3 course cook off at this stage. Not based on 1 dish. This is not the audition.

  26. Awesome poll. 😀

    Lauren is that kind of person I would love to push right into the Seine. And I would feel sorry for the Seine (and the ones pulling her out of the water…). The only other person I would push in is a former team mate (he already thinks I am mean towards him, so well, I can simply go the extra mile then, can’t I?).
    And superduper article from DailyFail:
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3535227/My-Kitchen-Rules-Lauren-Carmine-say-having-children-appear-cooking-show.html

    Found it while googling for Lauren’s age. 31 according to zeh interwebs. Thought she’s 35 or older.. Woopsies!

    • I had a laugh at that article too Zhee. Lauren chasing a media/food career is just delusional. She’s not even vaguely likeable. All the previous food show contestants who’ve done this (Adam Liaw, Julie Goodwin, Justine Schofield, Poh… actually they’re all MC anyway) are all basically likeable people. It’s essential.

      Would anyone watch a Lauren cooking show based on what we’ve seen so far? Anyone??

      • Maybe Lauren could make sumfink of herself dishing out pashtries and brofs at nonna funerals. Celebrate generations of culinary incompetence with a tart.

        There were buses getting around Adelaide with Rosie and Paige emblazoned on the back.. I haven’t seen a bus with the Turtle and concreting cretin on it. No groundswell of local support…just oceans of haterade. Lady Macbroth.

  27. Another good team thrown under the Lauren bus. Obviously the producers are spewing that Zana is not playing ball by putting her team into a sudden death with Lauren.

    Once again, Lauren does everything wrong with the tart shells. Hasn’t anyone ever told her that the pastry should reach the top of the tin and not shrink to nothing. And that choc disc… Pete’s comment about it was very carefully edited out, it was clearly the worst part of the dish can’t imagine anything worse than a hunk of white chocolate in the middle of the tart.

    I agree about the so-called weird flavour combinations – some were quite common, beetroot and choc is very normal in cake (like carrot cake), been using basil in desserts for quite a while now, lamb and apricot common in middle eastern. How about using banana and fish?

    And once again, the so-called rivalry amounted to nothing. One aside comment while working beside each other.

  28. ….I did like that they did something different with the format, but I really despise the over-acting by the judges, pretending that dishes were bad. Worse is the constant asking the contestant about their own dishes “Do you think there is enough sauce?”

  29. Anyone notice the two dads putting olive oil in the basil pesto? Gross. And just smashing bits of “cooked” cake together – also, apart from the fresh raspberries used, how else was raspberry showcased? Jesus. How do these people get this far?
    I am shocked, these contestants have absolutely no idea. Lauren’s tart – spare me, FFS where is the skill???

    • There’s a huge gap between the contestants with skill and those without, which should make the winners fairly clear. However, the show likes to manipulate things so that the lowly-skilled-but-controversial remain in the competition.

      Luckily the truly skilled usually find a career after the show, while the Pretenders fade into obscurity.

  30. Didn’t get what was so strange about some of the flavor combinations. The only one that I thought was weird was the rhubarb & blood pudding and congrats to Tasia and Gracia for being creative with those ingredients.

    Amazeballs (not) Lauren and Carmine are still in the competition. Agree with Littlepetal that this should have been a 3 course cook off like the other sudden deaths and not just one course.

    Poll…Lauren doesn’t have an American accent. It’s too “affected”.She is trying to emulate a “moll” and it’s not working and I think she’s been watching too many episodes of “The Sopranos”.

    • Agree with you Smythe the sisters did great with their ingredients. A very well thought out meal when considering they are not used to cooking western style meals. Did I hear them say they had only cooked Asian right throughout the competition? I thought they cooked non-Asian another time.
      Anyway, they did really well to come up with a Scotch egg, good on them.
      I am not sure if they are quite good enough to take it out, being up against Mama and son and bro and sister.
      As far as I am concerned the other two teams are no competition.

      Surely when Lauren sits back and watches this show she is going to die of embarrassment when she sees how bloody stupid she sounds and looks with that ridiculous phoney accent she puts on.

  31. Lady MacBroth – GOLD!! Brain Dead Dave is on fire!
    Seriously woeful tart. I was screaming at the tv that over handling pastry like that and pounding it into submission would make it gross, but clearly I’m just a hater!

  32. Give me a big big swig of that Hate-orade…. hell even a gallon or two.. three.. four..

    How how how….. my one solace is that after being in so many eliminations they’re eventually going to run out of dishes…. and what’s the bet in the restaurant rounds she bakes another tart…. I can hear it now..

    “Oh my.. the judges expect so much of my pastry I can’t let them down..”
    “two-fiddy K rides on these tarts being perfect”
    “I’m the dessert queen, the expectation for me to hit this out of the park is amazeballs”

    And what of the comments about Zana being given liver as a sign Mother and Son didn’t think they’re great cooks?? My goodness the hatred and paranoia continues..

    • Speaking of them giving Zana and partner the liver, I was surprised they gave the Curlies the lamb, I thought that would have been relatively easy for such strong competition.
      I bet they got a shock when the liver was cooked perfectly. They may even have been worried for a minute or a few seconds anyway.
      Even though it’s Zana I’m glad they nailed it.

  33. Tart Me Up

    If youse tart me up
    If youse tart me up I’ll never stop
    If youse tart me up
    If youse tart me up I’ll never stop
    We been running hot
    Youse got me cooking nonna blow my top
    If youse tart me up
    If youse tart me up I’ll never stop
    You make a concreter cry
    Spread out the oil, the margarine
    I’ll make the worst brof that youse ever ever seen.

  34. I was surprised that mother & son gave Zana & Gianni the liver knowing that they had cooked it successfully before and that she had said in the past it was one of her favorite things. You could tell they were trying to take the sisters out. I actually thought they might give the rhubarb and blood pudding to “The Faux Sopranos” but they probably just feel they are not competition so why not give that combo to one of the better teams.
    If Lauren & Carmine wind up in the finals I am done with MKR. I doubt they will but then who knows what the powers that be have planned. They should not have made it to the top 5.

    • They are still around for “entertainment” value. I doubt very much they will win because their edit is all about how annoying they are. Almost no endearing traits. Princess was showcased as the villain for a lot of the season before a turnaround showed a softer side (she could actually cook too). Her win was still unpopular, however I don’t see any letup on L&C – if anything, it’s ramping up!

      • Totally agree with you. They have softened Zana image. Same with Ash last year. We grew to like her.

        With Kelly and Chloe and Sophia and what her name, they didn’t win.

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