MasterChef – Wed, June 29 – Heston’s twisty past challenge

Heston’s restaurants are all about taking recipes from the past and giving them a modern twist. Four contestants must prepare a single course inspired by recipes from the past to avoid elimination.


So tonight it’s Elise, Harry, Theresa and Mimi trying not wind up in black. Matt goes on about how much Heston loves history, but the man himself says only a few words, without conviction.
The contestants will be given recipes dating back as far as the 15the century as their inspiration, but they must give them a modern twist.
Mimi is first with savoury, Theresa savoury, Elise sweet and Harry sweet.
They have to feed 10 diners plus the four judges. It’s another staggered start, but at least this time they can’t open their recipes until their time starts.
Both Mimi and Theresa have trouble reading their recipes due to the ye olde writing. Theresa is making roulade chicken with stuffing but Mimi seems lost with her roast salmon dish. Elise gets an apple and fennel seed tart recipe so she’s stoked.
Mimi is panicking and taking things too literally – just do a baked salmon with a smoked yoghurt and say it’s your modern twist, Mimi. Heston comes over to get her going and luckily she seems to find her mojo.
Gary pops over to Theresa to stress her further about whether she has enough time to sous vide her chooks. For once he hasn’t told Elise she’s rubbish and, for once, she isn’t flustered. Her dessert sounds pretty cool.
Harry opens his envelope and he gets a trifle recipe. This is his chance to do the dish that Brett derailed when he went rogue in the Chinese whispers challenge! He’s delighted and decides to do an espresso martini-themed trifle.
With only 40 minutes to go, Theresa pops her chook in the sous vide machine. They look massive – normally I’d be worried we’re in for another MasterChef raw chicken disaster but since her return Theresa has managed to take risks that mostly work. And while she never seems fully in control she’s not the flustered mess she was at the start of the season.
Mimi is making seared salmon with mushy peas and a beurre blanc soz but she isn’t happy with the soz – she decides to add saffron, which was mentioned in ye olde recipe. Still sounds pretty simple – chicken skin is a bit fancy but nothing new. Cut to Heston looking totes bored on the sidelines.
Elise is making nougat with ground fennel, with an apple jelly centre. She says she wants the fennel flavour to be strong, which could be another foreshadowing a la last night’s Elena’s “my green tea jelly can’t be bitter” outcome. Here are the olde recipes they used – if you click on them you’ll get a bigger version. Don’t know what Mimi was pancicking about that – most of it is understandable. She had an Elise brain freeze.

The judges taste


Mimi’s salmon: Gary asks Mimi lots of questions but for once he isn’t being a tool. Heston’s salmon is cooked perfectly. Gaz says she’s covered the main elements of the recipes. They seem happy.

Back in the open-air kitche n, Theresa decide to deep fry a roulade to crisp it off. “Shit,” she mutters. It looks rubbish. She has to brown off the rest in a pan of butter. Matt pops over to tell her it’s time to plate but she’s still cooking.
Back at the dining table, Gaz is back to his snarky self: “Where’s Matt? Is he doing the washing up or what?” Finally her chicken is cooked and she chucks stuff on the plate.

The judges taste


Theresa’s chicken roulade with leeks: They note the plating was obviously rushed. Gaz likes it and Heston especially like the raisins. George thought it was tasty but he ended up with a tonne of raisins on his and it wasn’t balanced.

Back in the kitchen, Harry decides his trifle is too simple and he needs to “Heston it up”. So he grabs a siphon gun. When it’s Elise’s time to plate, she’s ready to go. Gaz actually looks begrudgingly impressed for once.

The judges taste


Elise’s fennel nougat on a tart base with apple jelly: “I think that looks smashing,” Gaz says. Heston says it’s fabulous. George loves the caramelised fennel garnish.

In the kitchen, Harry is faffing around trying to combine white chocolate and red wine to make “snow”.
Oooh – now this is more exciting than watching Harry split a soz. It’s an ad for the Australian version of Survivor. See separate post.
Back to Harry, who grabs a bunch of fruit to chuck in a bowl of liquid nitrogen at the nitro station that of course has been set up nearby. Surely Heston now has shares in a liquid nitrogen supplier. He wraps the frozen fruit in a tea towel and smashes it to smithereens. The result looks cool.

The judges taste


Harry’s orange and coffee trifle with fruit confetti: Harry walks around with the table with his bowl of frozen confetti, dolloping on spoonfuls that send up a plume of frozen air for theatre. Heston says the fruit cells look like hundreds and thousands. Gaz likes it but Matt says it’s in danger of veering to tiramisu.

The verdict
The silent black-aproned ones hover in the background, to see who’ll be joining their ranks – hoping it’s someone they can beat. This would be the first time I’ve said it but surely Elise is safe. I think it will be Theresa for the rushed plating. Elise can’t seem to believe it when Matt praises her dish, telling her it could become a signature dish.
Theresa does indeed get the call to take the black for her inconsistent plating, so it’s off to The Wall with her.

Tomorrow night
So, the seven up for elimination tomorrow night are Trent, IM, GE, Theresa, Chloe, Brett and Heather. It’s a rainbow-themed elimination (where is Chloe’s tie-dyed shirt when you need it?). Poor IM cops blue: “I can’t think of any food that is blue. I’m not looking forward to this.” I’m with you, IM – I don’t really want to eat blue food. Enough Heston gimicks – just let them cook! Afterwards, there’s a masterclass with Heston’s best roast chook and a chocolate mousse made from only chocolate and water – now that I’d like to see.
No recap from me tomorrow as I’ll be travelling interstate amid the big chill. I’ll catch up with MC and Offspring at the weekend.



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34 Comments

      • I saw that too. So Harry now is Heston!!!!!

        What is the point iof giving an old recipe and they don’t understand. Its getting more BS each episode. Nothing to do with Heston

      • Thanks for that Liberty. Wow, you would certainly hope that some leniency is shown if the contestants fail to understand the Olde English! I guess Theresa is lucky she wasn’t presented with a live chicken as that recipe seems to start with the butchering of the chook.

    • “The twist”~You get a twisted bowel after eating Harry’s / Heston tilt.

      Jowl$y said “tiramizoo”. Forsooth, that kinde of English hasn’t been inventeth yet. Ma$terchef has become such low brow culture.

  1. Harry ~ imitator,amata,unhygienic wanker
    He$ton~ innovator, qualified chef.

    What the fennel is happening to this once culinary colossus?

    • I can’t even watch. I’m just going to read Juz’s recap and save myself the heartache….
      Harry finally getting the chance to showcase the trifle that he has pre-plagiarised would make me lose my dinner.

  2. Elise’s voice continues to grate on my nerves every time she opens her mouth – it’s like a mix of bogan boredom.

  3. George and Gary
    “Hi Theresa, we just dropped by to make sure you’re going to fail. No encouragement from us, whatsoever, we’ll just highlight everything that could possibly go wrong!”
    “Hi Harry, we’re excited” no bias whatsoever
    Meanwhile, Heston standing on sidelines, looking bored shitless.

  4. Look like Mimi is safe . Teresa is in trouble.

    Elise looked too happy in the talk to the camera.

  5. Maybe Heston is simply pissed off that he touted this year as the best ever – and then arrived to find mediocrity.

  6. Interesting, MCfacebook page also comments about too many parfaits and spheres, George’s table manners and Heston’s lack of interest – amongst many other things😁

    • I just flipped over to Ch10, caught Theresa bringing her dish out. They were so rude to her! Too many raisins. Oh the crime! We’ll have to send her to the gallows. While they were eating camera panned to Heston, looking as disinterested as the other nights.
      Maybe he has something going on in his personal life? Who knows. It’s probably being mentioned elsewhere because it’s obvious that “something” isn’t right.

  7. Harry Heston twist….LOL. So now Harry equates himself with Heston.
    Did Harry even attempt to read the entire recipe or did he just stop at the word trifle and just do his Harry thing? Wondered about that since he discovered the red wine ingredient towards the end of his cooking time.

    Would have liked to have seen a random pick of the recipes rather than George handing one to each contestant. Seemed like they knew who was going to get each recipe.

    • The contestants themselves picked the order of the 4 courses. First 2 will be mains and last 2 deserts. Harry was the last course. So will be either of the 2 deserts.

      In the end Harry didnt use red wine but no comments about missing an element.

        • Cant blame you!!! The show is so boring. I dont pay attetion most of the time. So far hardly any dishes that jump out.

          Best ever cooks. BS

  8. Thanks for the great recap Juz.
    That was certainly an interesting challenge last night. Seeing their faces when they saw the olde English they had to read was quite funny.
    So the sous vide machine finally made an appearance. Therese must have lost track of time. When Matt told her it was time to plate up she seemed quite startled & was still cooking.
    When all the dishes tasted good & had no faults & it came down to how they did with the cooking I thought it would be Therese since her plate looked obviously rushed.
    I had flashbacks to Anthony Callea when Harry started talking about espresso martinis.
    Yes I got excited when they showed the survivor ad too. Guess it’s about 2 months away since they seem to start promos that far away.

  9. I wish Harry had done the trifle he’d planned to do in the relay challenge. Coffee trifle, yuk. Not that I like trifle anyway.

    Good to see Mimi blossoming – now all she needs to do is dye her hair a distinct colour so I can tell her apart from Elise and Chloe and someone else who is no longer there.

    • Oh I actually liked the sound of his coffee trifle. A nice change to the usual strawberry jelly & jam sponge rolls. I’ve got a recipe for a chocolate one. Chocolate sponge rolls & chocolate custard. It’s really yummy.

  10. Blue cheese, blueberries, blue cod, purple potatoes and carrots at a pinch. Blue dye for the blue pannacottas. I see it all laid before me. IM will be safe. I have no doubts.

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