MKR – sudden death

It’s sudden death time … No, Tyson hasn’t stabbed a Hashtagger with his fork (now that WOULD be a massive twist) – it’s time for the bottom two teams to cook off to secure a place in the competition.


Surely the Hashtaggers have got this over the WA Flirty Vet and The Pale One (sorry, I know your name is Ash but the old MKR Ash is currently on I’m a Celeb and I can only have one Ash cooking on my TV each year. Although some might sew Newbie Ash ain’t cooking).
Here come the judges (yay – it’s Colin Fassnidge) and Karen Martini is looking rather sultry in a leather skirt with a thigh split and BIG hair.

COOKING BEGINS
For entree Flirty Vet’s team are cooking mushroom crepes with brie sauce. Is it the 1970s? Main is venison on black rice pilaf with Cumberland soz (usually made with redcurrants). So not a French theme, then. Biscotti with pistachio ice cream and lemon curd. So French, English/Asian and Italian? It’s not very fresh sounding.
Hashtaggers are doing a Lao raw beef salad, steamed fish wrapped in banana leaf, chilli salt fruits with with green mango and pineapple sorbet. Sounds yum and I’m intrigued by the chilli salt fruits.
Now they are talking about how important it is not to burn the crackling, and you know what that means … And Pale One and the judges are talking about how nutmeg can be overpowering, and you now what that means …
Pale One is aiming to make a thin crepe that’s “nice and fluffy”. Hmm, can’t say I’ve ever had a fluffy crepe. They have chosen a very labour intensive dish – not good time management.
I’m enjoying Tyson and Amy’s commentary on the sidelines. “Hashtag, burning the rice,” says our favourite Uber driver/serial killer as the Hashtaggers get off to a rocky start.


(Side note: What’s with Manu’s old man purple paisley tie? Did he borrow it from 2016 contestant Chops?)
Poor New Ash just loves cranking pans up to a high heat. She did it with their crucified fish the other day and now she’s burning crepes.


But it’s ok, Hashtaggers (Channel 7 keep trying to get “The Hustlers” to stick but I’m not having it) have burnt rice AND crackling.
Flirty is talking about how she likes the flavour of her sauce because it taste like brie. Flirty, no-one wants to eat a puddle of brie, though.
Hashtaggers’ dish looks inviting with lots of vibrant colours.

ENTREE IS SERVED
The judges like it but it needs more dressing (which we knew was coming because Betty mentioned it didn’t need more).
Tassie bloke Damo – supposedly one of the best home cooks in the country -has never eaten raw beef.
Colin calls the crepe “beige”. Ouch! It’s simple, it’s a pancake rather than a crepe and there’s too much nutmeg.

COOKING MAINS
“We want your mentos in one oww-er,” yells Manu. New Ash is putting a lot of stuff into her pilaf, including more mushrooms (when they just had a mushroom entree) and craisins, which are mostly sugar and more of a confectionary than real dried fruit.
Hashtaggers are pushing it to get their fish in banana leaf parcels in the steamer on time. On the sidelines, Amy points out the steamer has been overfilled and the fish may not cook properly. This is what happens when people practise by cooking for six people, not 12.
Hashtaggers are trying to do too many things at once and have forgotten a key element. Tyson: “Hashtag, where’s my rice?” The girls are worried their venison will be too rare for the judges but that’s how it should be. Hashtaggers are just chucking stuff on a plate in a bid to get something out.

MAINS ARE SERVED
Karen’s fish, garlic and ginger were raw, while Guy and Liz’s was perfectly cooked but the spices aren’t balanced.
You can tell the girls’ meat wasn’t rested properly because it’s bled all over the plate. Guy says the venison is perfect but the soz is a bit too sweet. Manu would have preferred the black rice without the soz poured over it (sacrilege from Manu!).

COOKING DESSERT
Bek (aka Flirty Vet) is worried her biscotti is too chewy. Perhaps that’s because she’s cut the slices really thickly. Just bung it back in the oven, Bek, and stop flirting with Brown Beard. You could well be safe as Hashtaggers are losing their minds and serving another savoury dessert. I know that’s a thing with Asian desserts but this was their chance to put their own spin on it to without shocking the Western palate. David has a little cry at the end of it and even Betty looks teary.

DESSERT IS SERVED
“Hooley dooley,” says Karen as she tastes the tart green mango sorbet but she wanted more fish sauce caramel to tie it together. Pete calls it “unique”, but he means it in a good way. Manu says it’s too tart for him and there’s a lot of face pulling as people taste it. Liz says it’s fun and challenging to eat – also in a good way.
Guy likes the biscotti. The ice cream was nice but not very pistachioey. Colin has a go at them for only using a blob of curd. Liz wonders if biscotti and ice cream classifies as dessert.

THE SCORES
Hashtaggers David and Betty
Karen 6 Liz 5 Guy 6 Colin 5 Pete 6 Manu 6 (can we just adopt the Colin method of scoring, now? “Good, bad, good.”
Total: 34/60

WA Flirt Bek and New Ash
(But first, Manu reminds them they served mushroom “crap” for entree.) Karen 5 Liz 5 Guy 6 Colin 4 Pete 5 Manu 6 Colin: “You had some good elements on every dish, but not every dish was good.)
Total: 31/60
The judges have been quite kind in their comments tonight (unless we didn’t see the bad). Cue sad piano music and the girls have a little cry. Brown Beard wipes his eyes and the editors are thrilled to be able to pretend a man wiping sweat out of his eyes is tears for a lost love.

So the Hashtaggers live on to continue their villainy. They are going to have to sort out their time management if they are to go much further in the comp.

SUNDAY NIGHT
It’s the new round of contestants and it looks like we have some mild-mannered brothers cooking for a dearly departed mum, a crier and a new master villain – or two.



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30 Comments

  1. Guy Grossi and Karen de Martini are King and Queen of Moomba this year, btw.

    Tonight’s rund is ze kook hoff tweest, gice. Ze ashtaggeurs v ze flirty vet& co.

    • Given how both of these teams performed in their instant restaurants, I’m frankly terrified to watch, tonight. I think this is going to be train-wreck levels of entertainment.

  2. David is hopeless and he keep trying to get into MKR. 6th attempt!

    He is not helping Betty at all.

    Should just go back to his day job

  3. Uh-oh. According to Manu, the teams are starting to do that thing again where they cook with their hearts … as opposed to ingredients and utensils.

    And this is kind of catty, but Manu’s French accent makes the word, “crepe” sound like “crap”. Seriously, just try listening to Manu talking about how much he loves the perfect crepe, just like the ones his mother used to make back in France when he was a small boy, and *not* giggle through your nostrils. It’s an ongoing battle.

  4. At the moment, I’m leaning slightly more towards the Hashtaggers surviving, because they’ve got at least half of a competent cook in Betty (not in David, though. Oh my gosh, dude. Stop burning stuff!).

    The girls, as lovely and pleasant as they are, just don’t look comfortable around food, do they? They just look like they’re making it up as they go, that they don’t really understand or know what they’re doing in a cooking-setting, and it’s strange to watch.

    Unfortunately, Many didn’t like their crepes. *snort*

    • That’s what I figured, LP – would be delicious! They should have had a dish of it on the side, not just a brush stroke.

  5. Well, spoiler alert! The girls who patently don’t know how to cook get eliminated first.

    I’m disappointed (although not at all surprised) on two fronts. Firstly, they’re just so much more likeable than David and Betty. Secondly, now we’ll never get to find out what happens with Bek and the Bearded Man Mountain. But the more I type that, the more it sounds like an awesome children’s story.

    • Sigh.

      It was the second-greatest love story on an amateur cooking-themed channel 7 reality TV show that never got told. Well, such is life.

    • A fair result, much as I would have preferred smashtag. If only the girls had come up with a slightly more adventurous menu I think they might have won.

  6. The girls’ menu was uninspired but their personalities were preferable to the hashtaggers. However I am glad that the flirting is over with.
    The blind tasting generally makes me laugh. One would have to be stupid not to know which contestants cooked which dishes unless the judges know nothing about the contestants and I highly doubt that.

  7. The only thing surprising last night was the length of the split in Karen’s skirt. Flirty Vet and The Pale One just can’t cook. The brie sauce had the consistency of water, and Pale One, having learned nothing from burning the fish previously, still thinks turning the flame higher will make the food cook more quickly. Hashtaggers can cook sort of, but try to cram too many elements into the allotted time, get flustered, and end up in a blind panic.

    How many iterations of “We can’t go home yet,” were there? Yes, you can and yes, you are, and good riddance because you’re hopeless in the kitchen.

    We have the same judges with even the same seating order, blonde judge still serves glasses judge, and all four exchange oh-so-meaningful looks, eyebrow raises, and head tilts to communicate.

    I suppose next round there will be a stunning variation – the obnoxious team will be the crappy cooks. Woohoo.

    • When we get to the meat (heh) of the competition, I can’t see the hashtaggers lasting very long, but I said that last year about Lauren and Carmine, and look how that one turned out.

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