MKR – Tues, Mar 22

Juz 39 Comments

As we shed a tear for the now-dead-to-us Italians, it’s time to see how the contestants fare with an outdoor challenge. Will some of them learn from their mistakes with the Olympic challenge?
Now we know it’s a seafood challenge, as this is a behind-the-scenes video of the contestants at the Sydney Fish Markets. It’s nice to see them all looking relaxed for a change.
https://au.tv.yahoo.com/my-kitchen-rules/clips/31161331/behind-the-scenes-fisherman-s-challenge/#page1

Here we go …

Looks like a lovely day to be on the waters of Sydney Harbor and the Lovebirds are doing the Titanic pose in the bow. However, Zana is not thrilled to be on a boat.
“There’s sewage in the ocean. I don’t like it,” she says. Ah, Zana, what was once infuriating to us is now hilarious.
Jordan fans (looking at you, Windsong) feel free to sit this one out as he and mum are safe after winning the Rio challenge.
Pete and Fass welcome contestants to Cockatoo Island but announce cryptically that Rosie and Paige are absent due to the latter having an accident and being told to sit out on doctor’s orders.
Thanks to Twitter I found out she seriously injured her hand while trying to show Rosie how to fillet a fish with a blunt knife in their hotel room. She ended up having to have hand surgery and still has trouble. If you click through the Twitter link you’ll get more deets.


Back at Cockatoo Island the contestants have an hour to prep and cook a dish of cockatoo – ah, seafood, for 100 fisherfolk. There’s going to be lots of tedious peeling prawns, pinboning fish and debearding mussels, which is why I tend to order seafood when I eat out so someone else does the hard yards.
Curlies (Mitch and Laura) are doing snapper remoulade with charred fennel and beurre blanc. Fancy! Perhaps it’s a good thing to be cooking French food when Manu has the day off.
Mr and Mrs Chops are doing pan-fried ocean trout with garlic aioli [there’s a tautology for you] and cauliflower chips. The chips sound yummy. They are happy and confident about cooking fish, so I’m waiting for them to flatline.
Zana and Plus One are doing salt and pepper squid with rocket and radish salad and spicy aioli. Should be quick to do in the brief prep time and is a good dish for a hot day.
Lovebirds go for herb-crusted tuna with tomato and bocconcini salad with crispy chips. So glad they didn’t go for that more pleb option of soggy chips. Uh oh – Nelly is writing on a blackboard again. Remember what happened last time she was let loose with chalk?

From the RSL challenge.

From the RSL challenge.

That massive slab of tuna would be worth a bomb, so I don’t blame JP for being nervous.
Lauren and Carmine are doing crispy skin salmon with asparagus and lemon butter sauce. Lauren has the spiraliser out and is doing oodles of zoodles. Hmmm … is zucchini really the way to a fisherman’s heart? I’m over salmon – it should be banned from the comp.
The Miners are making crispy skin barramundi with noodle salad and Asian beans. Do they mean snake beans? No, they look like regular beans and he’s going to throw in some hoisin and soy to Asian it up. Please don’t stuff it up, lads – you did so well on the Olympic challenge.
The seagulls are giving everyone the shits, especially Zana. I really hope one poops on someone.
Like maybe, Lauren, who in a flash of self-depreciating humour admits the convenience of technology is to blame for making her forget how to spell asparagus. But she’s way above Nelly level.
Time to fast forward through the adds for Coles’ Easter seafood specials. If you are buying seafood for the weekend, would you really buy it at Coles?
Chris and Cookie are doing tempura prawns with wombok salad and dipping sauce. That’s a whole lotta peeling and poop chute scoopin’. If they can power through the prep it should be a winner.
The Sisters are making spicy coconut mussels with lemongrass rice. Again they are worried about not having a rice cooker, but it worked out for them last time.
Tarq and Dad (geez – is there never an end to these contestants?) have Singapore chilli crab with egg noodles and coriander salad. This would be my pick to order, as they are fiddly beasts to prep and cook properly.

Zana is deep frying olives to put in her salad. I’ve never had one but it sounds fab.
Halfway through prep time Carmine and Lauren have not touched their fish, instead concentrating on their 1001 accompaniments.
Fass comes over to check on the Miners and gives them numerous hints their plan to cook the fish in the oven and then crisp the skin in a pan is a bad one. Seriously, guys – even the fishmonger told you to do the skin in the pan first. But fate intervenes and it seems their oven is not even switched on. So they’ll have to start it off in the pan now, surely? Did Fass sneakily pull out their electrical cord to save them from themselves?
Fass heads over to Lauren and Carmine to put the wind up them for doing candied walnuts when they should be cooking salmon.
The Sisters are getting frazzled but bickering is the way they work best, so they should be fine.
JP is having tuna dramas with the heat of his pan and the crumb falls off, and Carmine and Alex are stuffing up their crispy fish skins. The perils of cooking outdoors on a commercial stove.
And here come the fisherfolk on their trawlers and narry a yellow oilskin jacket or chunky blue jumper in sight. They are all dressed rather prettily. Time for the judges to taste. 



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Juz

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39 Comments

  1. Crispy skin sammin wif arseparagus.

    I reckon the lovebird will end up disrespecting that tuna.

    • Disrespecting, you said it BDD. It was a massacre. That beautiful piece of tuna – sigh…
      Editing suite wins the day with a dish of the day, you’d never have picked.
      Cook off tomorrow, mediocre vs average.

      • The award most fitting Lauren and Carmine surely would be “Douche Of The Day”. Totally suss result.

  4. i wonder what happened to Rosie and Paige. Maybe they’re off secretly crime-fighting with Anna and Jordan (who would look great in a spandex costume, by the way), and Pete had to come up with an odd excuse for them?

    • The Mafia have clearly influenced the People’s Choice farce tonight.

    • I’ve reached the point where I just kind of feel sorry for the boys. They’re serving sushi, for crying out loud. These boys aren’t cooks, you know, they’re just not.

    • I over estimated them when I said they’re Junior Ma$terchef material. Hopelessly deluded.

      Sudden Death Bore Off coming up.

  6. The more I see of Lauren the more annoying I find her and the “We got this” – NO I really don’t think you get it at all.

    • Lauren has this unmatched ability to state the bleeding obvious. Has anyone else noticed that? Last night, when she saw what Zana and whatshisface were cooking, her brilliant commentary was, “I don’t know.” Tonight, they keep cutting to her and she keeps making such brilliant observations like, “We need to cook this fish.” Really, Lauren? Is that the plan? I thought you wanted to build a house or ride a horse or something.

      • That’s it – I hadn’t realised but that’s what I find so annoying because she seems to think she is saying something brilliant. Just the inanity drives me insane and Carmine just standing there looking gormless.

  7. I think the fishermen only like some food. I thought the tempura prawns or chilli crabs will be people choice

  8. As several others have pointed out upthread, the People’s Choice today of Lauren and Carmine was a pure WTF moment. Like, what? Seriously, what?

    The two teams in tomorrow night’s sudden death cook-off, though, are far less surprising. The miners versus the lovebirds. I mean, honestly, they’re two of the weakest teams left. The lovebirds probably have a slight edge in cooking skill (since the miners don’t seem to have any), but can we eliminate them both tomorrow night? It’ll just save us all time in the long-run.

    • Now I’ve read your recap, the full horror of Lauren and Carmine being safe from the next two eliminations has hit me. I missed that. It feels like a stitch up.

      What happened with the walnuts that Colin called a “lark”? They came out of a packet, could have been picked donkey’s years ago. I can’t recall if they ended up on the dish, after Colin’s “help”. Crispy skin salmon, I agree Juz, like autumn leaves. Been done to death.

      • Crispy-skin any-type-of-fish – totally over it. Especially the myth that it is so difficult. It is frying in a pan, for goodness sake.

        Then again, not a fan of fish in general, so not an appealing challenge for me anyway. Tempura prawns would be yummy. The Curlies remoulade sounded classy, and smart because it relies less on the alleged cooking of the fish ‘perfectly’.

  10. Geez I love seafood.
    I want that tuna.
    I want Masterchef to watch this to show that you can show all of the dishes being made.
    Thanks for the recaps every day Juz, you are the best!

    • Yes, my main bugbear with MC that you know who’s safe because they you don’t even get a glimpse of them cooking.

      • And you always know top 3 and bottom 3 as they show them in detail. And all the middle of the road get glossed over. Drives me mad.

  11. So the besties miss the challenge and aren’t automatically in elimination? perhaps the lovebirds get a reprieve and besties take their place? It’s a bit unfair.. get attacked by the filleted fish and miss a challenge and suffer no recourse?

    I know how Lauren and her puppet won… all the fisherman must of been relatives or Lauren promised to flash for votes?

    • What dickheads.

      All the excuses under the sun and then some. How about “We can’t cook, folks?”

      Alcohol lowers a person’s resistance to any infection they might have…but Nelly knows best. Alcohol plus antibiotics is more stupidity. Don’t these people read up on the exhausting shooting schedule etc, etc? Go home, Nelly.

      • Lol, swigging from a bottle of whiskey to rid your throat of germs??

        Yes, I know when I’m ill with something like flu I immediately hit the hard stuff, the dehydration and nausea really distracts you from the coughing and fever.

        Seriously, what? Did Ch 7’s consultant doctor tell him to do that? What a muppet JP is lol.

  13. Yeah makes sense, I guess Listerine has alcohol in it, cheaper than whiskey too 🙂

    Agree with HWHNN above, with Nelly to deal with JP can have all the whiskey he wants. Give him some industrial strength earplugs too and he’ll be all set for the rest of his marriage.

  14. Back to last night, I enjoyed seeing most of the teams doing pretty well with all that luscious seafood. I sadly don’t use it much, bit pricey for my budget, so I’d have no idea how to prep a crab or filet a whole fish. It’s heartening that most of them weren’t clueless.

    Actually laughed at Zana thinking all birds have diseases that are spread by flapping wings…. her germ phobia’s starting to get funny instead of just annoying.

    • And it means you have a hilarious source of Zana kryptonite within easy reach.

      You’re stuck next to her at a dinner party? “Look Zana! A sparrow!” And then she’d scream and run away.

      Now there’s a fun dinner game.

  15. Lucy (in Charlie Brown comics), “Winning isn’t everything but losing isn’t anything”.

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