MasterChef – Sun, July 9

Juz 55 Comments

Contestants have an hour to create a dish from four mystery ingredients to gain advantage in the invention test. Later, contestants must recreate a classic dish and avoid facing elimination.


They get to do a Shannon Bennett mystery box and at least I’ve heard of everything but one of the ingredients. Never heard of a Sunrise lime but they sound tasty. (They are pricey as you can see.
As always, mystery boxes are the time to go for broke because there’s no downside to losing. That side, I’m over the savoury desserts. Can’t we just go back to salted caramel being the closest we got to a savoury dessert? No more freaky ice creams (Arum, I’m looking at you and your mushroom ice cream.)
At least Eliza is making a Sunrise lime creme brulee, even if it is with a porcini bickie.
Shannon calls Arum’s ice cream “brave” and follows up with “interesting”. Hmmm … I’m fast forwarding but Ben and Sarah – oh and Diana and even Tamara – are absent from the edit. C’mon, editors, we’re down to the final bunch – can’t we have a token check in on everyone to maintain the mystery.

THE JUDGES TASTE
Eloise’s lime parfait with potatoes: Shannon loves her parfait and the potato is “not offensive”. But he does not say it’s good, either. Gary likes the spuds.


Karlie’s potato chips, bugs and lime: She has used all four ingredients. The bugs are perfectly cooked. They like it but don’t rave.


Arum’s mushroom ice cream and chips (surely Arum should have called them crisps?): “It’s an evolution on the tongue,” says Shannon. Matt says it’s the best thing he’s cooked so far. Aww – look at Arum’s happy face.

And the winner is of the invention test advantage curse is: Arum. First, there’s a twist. Are they confiscating the ice cream machines? Sadly not. It’s a “reinvention” test, with the dish to be reinvented decided using ye ole knife block pull.
Arum picks Beef Wellington, and given he’s a steak man that should be ok for him. He gets an extra 30 minutes of cooking and gets Shannon as a mentor for that time. As always the 30 minutes is out at the start, so the other contestants get to sit there and plot what they will do, which is really an advantage for them.
What was on the other knives?
Arum’s idea of a tartare with pastry bits to scoop with sounds pretty good.
Karlie can use her advantage pin to get an extra 15 minutes cook but I reckon she’ll save it. She’s talking about making a sweet Wellington. A shame because she’s proved a dab hand at cooking mushrooms before.
Tamara has popped back into the edit and is making a beef tataki.
Ben is calling on his Dutch heritage for a beef croquette in shortcrust crumbs, whereas Sarah is using Middle Eastern flavours with a brik pastry. But the edit does not linger on them. And we’re back to Karlie and we haven’t heard from Eloise or Diana yet.
Karlie is cooking pineapple wrapped in pastry, with a coconut ice cream. Surely she’s straying too far from the brief? It’s not a strudel challenge – ooh, now that I would like to see!
Shannon and Matt look dubious.
Diana is making beef rendang pie – I love beef rendang! She is going to have to crank that pressure cooker.
Eloise is doing another pate. Well, they liked her last one.
Ooh – Karlie is using her power pin for an extra 15 minutes’ cooking time. It’s quite possible it’s a waste and the judges could send her to bottom three anyway for not meeting the brief.
Eloise is in trouble as her pate isn’t working. Diana’s hasn’t checked if all her beef is tender. The edit is setting up Tamara, Arum and Eliza for top three. Sarah and Ben middle of the pack and Eloise, Diana and Karlie bottom. Let’s see.
At the last minute Eloise splodges runny, vile-looking pate on her plate. That’s a fail. And she knows it.

THE JUDGES TASTE
Arum: They love the pastry and say they still get the flavours of the original.


Karlie: Matt says, shapewise, it references a Wellington. The pastry is delicious.


Eliza: They like it.


Sarah’s Middle Eastern version: She gets the thumbs up (sorry no pic on Twitter).
Ben’croquettes: (Again no pic) Uh oh – Matt says it doesn’t connect enough to Beef Wellington, even though he used pastry to make his crumbs. So Karlie could be safe and Ben in the bottom – eek!
Diana: They love her pastry but the meat is chewy and lacks seasoning.


Tamara: (no pic – it looked quite pretty) Her tataki makes Gary happy (insert whatever innuendo springs to mind). At least she’s cooking Japanese after their trip.
Eloise’s liver slop with pastry discs (no pic): She knows it’s wrong; the judges know it, too. George actually offers up some useful advice, telling her a better way to make liver parfait in a short amount of time. Make that in your masterclass, George, and ditch the tweezers.

Top three: Tamara, Eliza and Arum (so he wasn’t cursed!)
Bottom three: Eloise, Diana and Ben.
Hmmm, ok, I like Karlie, I think she is a good cook and that dessert looked amazing but in a challenge to reinvent Beef Wellington you should at least use some kind of protein.

Tomorrow: It’s the pressure test – Ben’s first one! And former contestant Kylie Millar (smiley, blonde ponytail, did quite well in season 4) is back with some kind of spun sugar concoction.



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Juz

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55 Comments

  3. Reinvention is the toughest challenge.Not. Just make ice cream.

    “The pastry looked good Arum ,” Tamara comments. Is she a judge or just a patronising bitch.

  7. What? Eloise doesn’t watch Come Dine with Me where every third episode features pate as an entree.

  8. I feel as if Eloise will be in trouble tomorrow, she has been on the wane for a while.
    However, tonight had cemented Ben as the series winner for me. In Survivor, the edit will generally protect the winner any negative perception of them, likewise tonight Ben was barely shown, yet ended up in the bottom 3 so his dish must have been bad.

  10. Snooze fest! Kept myself entertained by watching Aust. Ninja Warrior in the ad breaks.
    Knew the pin would be on play since they didn’t go five minutes without mentioning it during the show.
    That parfait looked like something my cat threw up. I have no idea how Eloise screwed it up that badly. Hopefully tomorrow will be her swansong!

  11. Well surprise surprise Tamara was in the top 3.
    When they brought the knife board out I thought they all had to pick one & all do a different dish.
    I was worried for Karlie when she decided to do a sweet version that she hadn’t met the brief. But they seemed to get it.
    That liver shit Eloise did looked revolting. But then again I hate liver so wouldn’t have liked it if it had set either.
    I thought the judges were a bit rude to Ben with his dish. And poor Diana stuffed up her beef.
    And of course Tamara’s dish was fucking perfect. Good on Arum being in the top 3 too.

    • I cant see how Diana beef rendang is chewy. 30 mins in pressure cooker should be long enough to cook any meat.

      But even if she cooked it right, judges will say that is not beef wellington. If I ordered beef wellington I dont want to be served beef rendang

      • but would you be happy to order Beef Wellington and then get served a pineapple ring with some pastry surrounding it and some ice cream?

        • I would be totally thrilled to get pineapple and icecream when I was expecting Beef Wellington. NOT!

          I nearly want to watch the episode now just to see the pineapple and liver soup. . . but no. . . can’t come at it. I am happier just reading the comments!

          • I’ve just seen the liver pate. Looks like a pet has had an accident on a plate. Then the judges shat on the dish. Yeah, we eat with our eyes , George.

            Tamara dish of the day. What a surprise. Fail.

  12. I did a bit of a recap.
    Maybe Ben needed to amp up his “this is a dish from my childhood” schtick that the judges usually lap up. At least his dish had beef and pastry.

  13. Thanks for the recap Juz and reading all the comments here I don’t think I’ll bother watching a rerun. I was busy cooking tonight, wait for it ………..
    Thai style roast pork belly but I can assure you I didn’t make chilli and fish sauce icecream to go with it (or any other type of ice cream for that matter).

    • Kind of disappointed in you JB – at least tell us there was a beautiful moulded parfait with some amazing brik pastry and delicious fried fennel fronds for crunch? Otherwise I will think you haven’t been watching at all.

      • Oh Wow! Yes I recognise now that I really let the team down here. I clearly have not “grown” in this “journey” as would have been expected.

        • Well, I will give you a visual pass and infer soulful eyes and expressive hand gestures on this ONE occasion, and assume you were winsomely dimpling as you presented the dish with a becomingly modest smile.
          SO, if you could crank out a tear or two, reference a dead grandparent and/or multicultural background and say something meaningless about “this point in the competition”, “really, really wanting it” and that you thought the flavours were “there” while endlessly faffing on that you know how important it is to get the balance right . . we might forgive. But we won’t forget.

          I mean, you utterly failed to stick in anything about respecting the “beautiful” produce and completely missed the point of talking up your own dish with multiple adjectives such as “amazing” and “delicious”. Rookie mistakes like that that could cost you your place in this competition. oops – I mean forum.

          • Well I am small and blonde but I’m a grown up so I just don’t know if I have cute in me but I can put together a fairly decent word salad so I might just scrape through to finals week.

        • Now we want to see some dumpling ice cream! (Oops, dont tell that to Tamara. I must patent the idea)
          We also want some pork crackling wrap round the dumplings in a bowl of pate broth. Please also sprinkle some dehydrated pork over the top

          • I’ll do my best LP, one thing I can assure you of is that my plating skills (or lack thereof) are right down there with Tamara’s.

  14. Seriously judges, a reinvention of a beef welllington puts Ben and Diana into the bottom three when at least they used beef, not pineapple!!, tonights show was for me blatant favouritism towards Karlie. Very disappointed. If I wrapped anything around some pastry that would reference a Beef Wellington? Very sorry for Ben and Diana. Karlie clearly should have been in bottom 3.

    • I agree. If Arum had done the pineapple you know he would be in bottom 3. The judges favouritism is killing this show. Gary and George have to go. It reminds me of last year when they obviously wanted Matt to win and they were going to score him highly regardless of what he did but then he stuffed up so badly Elena won. Not to say that Elena wasn’t deserving, she was brilliant, but was ignored until the final weeks. Re Tamara: have nothing against her but there is obviously a plan to get her to top 3. No one else gets the airtime that she does, or gushing comments about everything she does. I’m sure she’s a nice friendly person but the bias is ridiculous.

      • When the eliminated contestants are interviewed on The Project & Studio 10 I wish they’d ask if the favouritism towards Tamara was as blatant to them during filming or if they only noticed it watching it back. I’m curious to know how they all feel about it.

    • Agreed, Kaye. It was not a pastry challenge – it was a beef Wellington challenge! I’d like to know if there was anything else written on the other knives or did they all say beef Wellington. I guess we should be thankful Callan is out so we did not get caramelised beef with candied
      mushrooms

      • With these kind of knife draws they need to pull the other knives to show what the other choices are but that will never happen because they all say the same thing. It’s total BS.

  15. The favouritism for certain contestants is killing this season of Masterfarce. I’ve barely watched it . It makes me want either Arum, Ben or Diane to beat the teachers pets. And it may just be the editing but the blondes and Sarah just come across as egotistical pains in the necks.

    • Just some observation of their instagram accounts. There are photos of Diana, Sarah, Karlie, Eliza and sometimes Eloise together, posted by them in their instagrams. Occasionally only some with Tamara.
      You know Sarah and Diana are really close because Diana will post Sarah dishes on her instagram and viice versa. I suuspect they knew there something.

  16. The judges are bringing the show down. One of the lowest rating last night. Just over 600K. Got roasted by Ninja Warriors. Really sad when once a good show get destroyed by the judges and the editing.

    • That’s so telling – beaten out by the ABC news. . . OUCH.
      I must admit when making a call last night about what to watch, what to record, etc. Masterchef was definitely at the bottom of our list.

      It used to be such a great show, but this season has done it for our house – the teenagers used to love it and now they are as cynical as everyone else. And we used to have recipe challenges and make some of the recipes – can’t see myself ever firing up the ice cream maker to dish up some delicious mushroom, coriander or herb flavoured ice cream. And even next level dumplings don’t entice me, tainted by a too large dollop of judge’s favouritism.

      One year we even did the beef wellington and it was fantastic, quite involved and I possibly have forgotten this is in the mists of time, but I don’t recollect pineapple featuring. In fact I have a quite firm memory of ingredients like beef, crepes and making a duxelle of mushrooms.
      But it wasn’t a re-invented dish, so it was actually edible.

  17. Good for Arum for making it into the top 3 in round 1 but just another ice cream and then Eloise with another parfait and another caramel.
    What does a ring of pineapple surrounded by puff pastry and topped with come ice cream have to do with Beef Wellington? Absolutely nothing. If I was served that in a restaurant not one thought of Beef Wellington would pop into my mind and I doubt it would pop into anyone else’s except the stooges. Karlie should be in the bottom 3.
    Didn’t look to me as if the stooges were having a difficult time with Diana’s beef although that was just Beef Rendang and did not evoke the idea of Wellington,
    but going back to the pineapple dish, no way should that have been acceptable.
    Once again too much Tamara. Too bad the editing crew doesn’t believe in equal “onscreen time” for the contestants
    Ben, Diana & Eloise in the bottom 3. I’m hoping Eloise will be eliminated but I fear it will be either Ben or Diana and probably Diana since if they eliminate Ben there will only be one male contestant remaining.

  18. Mushroom powder into an ice cream. Ch 10 can shove this encore of Ma$terfail.

    Unacceptable levels of mediocrity. “Whole new levels” of it.

    • Juz – talk about Sophie’s Choice. How can I vote for Gary AND ice cream AND giant earrings AND journey? I want them all gone.
      Actually if they could refrain from shoving bizarro flavours in ice cream just to prove they are so crazily inventive I might permit it to stay. I thought coriander was the lowest point possible, but this talk of mushroom is a bridge too far. I mean, I love both coriander and mushroom and I very much enjoy icecream, but I want them all nicely separated until they can enjoy a post prandial jaunt in my stomach.

      • That poll might allow me to vote twice….but I’ve resisted the temptation to vote again for Gary. I think Putin’s behind it .

  20. Not well and can’t bring myself to watch Eloise being saved at the expense of Ben or Diana. Hoping you all will post commentary so I can lie in bed and follow along!

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