Well, this is it. The biggest episode of MasterChef so far. It’s the episode which has been talked about since the season began. It is the epic Jamie Oliver Immunity challenge.
Tregan, Jules and Hipster Alice won the Invention Test last night by cooking a Moroccan-inspired seafood dish for Rick Stein. There are three Immunity Pins to win tonight, so each of them has a shot.
It’s the day of the dreaded Pressure Test and Andrew is completely spent. His fifth time round and his confidence is wavering. He’s facing stiff competition in an energised and unified Audra and Dalvinder. The Ya-Ya Sisterhood have a dramedy deal in the works with Ten if this MasterChef thing doesn’t work out for them.
It’s the dawn of a new week. We open with Nurse Amina tending to Deb’s finger she crushed in a door of the MasterChef house. Amina recommends Deb visit the hospital to get it properly looked at, leaving her benched for tonight.
The rest of the contestants head to the kitchen for the Mystery Box. George hints that it’s a single ingredient which has been eaten for around 10,000 years. It’s incredibly versatile and everyone loves it. No, it’s not Tom Hanks. In the case of this Mystery Box reveal, it’s a single egg. If they drop it, they’re not getting another one. This week, instead of three best dishes, it’s six; one from each row.
After another straight loss, Red is up for elimination for the fifth time tonight.
Round one involves cooking the perfect steak: medium rare. The first four that over or under-cook the steak go into round two.
Tonight’s Team Challenge is an afternoon tea at Cataract Gorge in Launceston. Each team needs to make scones, something with chioux pastry and some jam. They have two-and-a-half hours to cook for one hundred guests. Mario expresses his nerves because he’s not known as a dessert cook. I wasn’t aware he was known as a cook full-stop.
It’s back to Red vs. Blue. The contestants first need get their ingredients from local farms and have to mill their own flour at the 175 year-old Callington Mill. Jules scratches her head. She’s never heard of milling flour before. How many blondes does it take…
After winning the market stall challenge last night, the Blue team each get a shot to cook for Immunity. Amina threatens to sit on Mindy for her pin if she doesn’t win tonight (her own joke, I wouldn’t go there). But first, they have to catch salmon at a sustainable fish farm. Their cooking time will be dependent on the size of the fish they haul.
Belying the emasculating yellow life vest and use of a net, Sam snags a 4.3kg behemoth. This gives him the most time to cook with forty-three minutes. Poor little Kylie ends up with the smallest catch of the day and has only twenty minutes.
MasterChef’s Tasmania week kicks off tonight! A lot of hype surrounded this, being the first MasterChef trip of the season (unless you count the qualifiers in Melbourne). Unfortunately, it’s Tasmania, so not that exciting. Where do you think they’ll go for the Final 10’s international trip? I’m thinking it will either be Japan or Italy this year. Just covering my bases across Asia and Europe.
Our culinary reality stars arrive to a soggy Hobart welcome and will undertake a team challenge tonight. Being in a foreign city, Andrew’s wearing the fugliest red pants in the history of the world, making him easier to spot in case he gets lost.
Well here we are. Week Five of the competition is here. It’s a milestone, which Gary is obliged to point out because we, as an audience, don’t really give a crap. We don’t care what week it is. We keep coming back for the staples: Emma drowning her beanie in tears, Cupcake Barbie atop her golden pedestal, and seeing what number from Hipster Alice’s hideous technicolor spectacle collection will be donned tonight.
