He Who Must Not Be Named

Masterchef Recap 4 August 2011

The final elimination.  Alana vs Kate.

We wonder who will fall at the final hurdle?  Matt tells us – “lose and that’s it.  The title will slip like soup through your fingers.”  We knew there was a good reason why someone invented the soup spoon.

Gary reminds us “it’s now or never.”

Then George raises the hyperbole to another level – “You have no idea what is about to hit you.  It is terrifying.”

It will be a Pressure Test.  Who is the guest chef?  We get some clues. The Resident Bad Guy.  The Sweet Assassin. 

Then he appears.  He Who Must Not Be Named.  Lord Voldemort?  No its Adriano Zumbo carrying a big gingerbread house with a smoking chimney.  A House of Horrors.  A Nightmare On Zumbo Street!  The toughest pressure test ever!

Alana wonders whether she should just curl into a fetal position and suck her thumb.  We already know Kate has her doubts.  She doesn’t know if she can beat Alana.

How tough is this challenge the judges ask Adriano.  He confirms it’s tougher than the crockenbouche, the macaroon tower and the V8 cake.  We wonder about this. After all it’s just a gingerbread house.  Mums make these every day.  My mum makes one every year for the grandkids (although I’m not sure she’s done too may isomalt windows) .

Who will have the fairytale ending?  We will know in four and a half hours time.

In a twist on a traditional Pressure Test the contestants can be creative and add their own elements.

Kate burns her gingerbread.  How did her oven get turned up to 250 degrees?  Fortunately she has time to make another batch.  She’s struggling today.  Her tangerine rock is not looking good.

Alana is working on her own jube.  A green apple jelly.  Could this give her the edge?

Kate is falling behind in the jube stakes.  She hasn’t got enough time to make Adriano’s roof tiles.  She hopes her chocolate freckles will get her some browny points.

Assembly is proving tricky.  Walls are crumbling and being fixed with tempered chocolate.  We suggest you don’t try this at home.

Another chestnut from Genius George – “it might just be a gingerbread house but will you walk through the front door into the grand finale?”

Time is almost up.  Kate sprinkles snow sugar on the roof of her house hoping to hide some cracks.

Against the odds we have two gingerbread houses to go to the judges.  Admittedly they are both somewhat derelict.  Perhaps a (cross programme promotion) challenge for The Renovators could follow?

Kate is not happy.  It’s not her finest hour.  We get some tears.   She thinks she didn’t cook very well.  It was not her day in the kitchen.  She thinks she’s done.

Kate is first up for judging.  It lacks the full variety of candy.  George gives his gingerbread a big sniff.  Gary pronounces the jubes delicious.   They agree the freckles were good.  Matt enjoys a beautiful bit of gingerbread.

Alana thinks she’s done enough to get to get to the finale.  She has lots of jellies but her roof is overcooked.  Her candies are brilliant but George thinks her creative green apple jelly is a bit dense (pots..kettles?).  Gary laments that the gingerbread can’t be eaten.

The judges sum up.  Kate’s house looked charming.  Her gingerbread was tasty but she had hardly any time to make lollies.  Alana had lots of jubes but a burnt gingerbread house.  How should the judges decide on this?

Kate wins.  It’s a big shock.  The judges decided hers was the house they would buy.  Lucky for Kate the grandkids weren’t judging.  The lollies would win every day of the week.

We end with another house of horrors as Alana returns home to a home full of Matt Preston impersonators.

Two more sleeps until the Finale.  We can hardly wait.

Three Contestants and a Three Hat Challenge

Masterchef Recap - 3 August 2011

And then there were three.  We find them drinking champagne and eating canapés to celebrate the demise of Dani.

Kate can’t believe we’re at this point – we’re so close!

The festivities are interrupted by a big man bearing three envelopes relating to either Entrée, Main or Desert. The contestants will decide who cooks what.  Not surprisingly both Kate and Alana want desert.  Michael is quick to bags the main.  Scissors, rock, paper will decide the desert – it’s Kate.  Alana will be cooking an entrée.

The challenge is explained.  Each must design a dish to be served at lunch at a Sydney Three Hat restaurant.

Each contestant is granted an audience with their executive chef to discuss their plans.  Kate is cooking desert at Quay.  She feels like she’s won already.  Michael is thinking about “winter on a plate” at Est, whilst Alana is told to report for service at 5am at Marque.

Kate arrives with a diagram of her dish.   There are lots of elements, which she spits out so rapidly it was impossible to note them all down.  We caught something about coffee.

Alana is doing a cold smoked citrus tuna.  She starts with the biggest piece of tuna we have ever seen, and under guidance from the sous chef proceeds to make it into a much smaller piece of tuna and roll it in gladwrap after putting in a cold oven for five minutes with a plate of burning kindling.

Michael plans roasted venison with beetroot done two ways and pear.

We learn Kate is doing ice-cream with her coffee desert.

Meanwhile Alana has some Jamon ham which she is putting through a dehydrator.  Kate has found some gadgets of her own.  She is blowtorching her jelly and has found an industrial juicer.  Looks like there might be a few more must have gadgets for wannabe Masterchef’s this Christmas.  What are the chances of a Masterchef branded dehydrator we wonder?

The dishes are wondrously complex.  It looks like the final three have really stepped up a level.  We however wonder how much off camera assistance they are receiving.  Soon enough they get some on camera help as well.  Gary is dipping his fingers into Michael’s sauces.  He can’t taste the juniper and the puree looks a bit thin.  Michael feels “a bit thrown” by this.

Alana is experimenting with garnishes.  She feels like she is out of her depth.  George comes to her aid and helps by scoffing some tuna.  He can’t detect much smokiness.

Kate is in a “good place” (although not as good as the tables out the front with the view of the Opera House).  She’s completed three major elements but still has three minor elements to go.  George stops by.  He thinks the jelly is a bit cloudy.  The coffee biscuit crumbs taste of biscuit.  Not coffee.

Michael is running late.  Peter Doyle is not happy.  He’s also feeling really out of his depth.

Alana’s tuna has been cut unevenly.  More disturbingly her chef opines that her hazelnut vinaigrette looks a bit vomit like.  Her tuna also needs more smoking.

Kate is not sure whether she will be able to pull this off.  Her jelly is not only cloudy but yellow instead of the desired orange.  Peter Gilmore suggests she try again with orange blossom.

Michael thins his sauce and is happy he’s on the right track.

Alana meanwhile has found some truffles in the pantry and is thinking of a truffle vinaigrette.  It’s pretty acidic, she’s not sure how to repair it.  Instead she’s told to start again.  After all it’s only truffles.

Kate’s second batch of coffee biscuits still taste of biscuit.  Peter Gilmore comes to the rescue with two quadruple expresso’s for the next attempt.

Alana is struggling with her knife skills in cutting the tuna.  The ever helpful George advises her to “calm down, and get motoring.”

Michael is now worried that Peter Doyle doesn’t like his dish.  He’s worried his boat is about to sink.”  We think at this point he has enough to worry about with his cooking without worrying about his yacht.  Fortunately Peter is now much happier than he was a few minutes ago.  He thinks it’s nice.

Guests arrive and our three contestants plating up is under the microscope.  Fortunately they manage to get their dishes through the pass.

The dishes will be judged by Matt Preston and the editors of the SMH Good Food Guide. 

Alana’s entrée is first.  She has to set the bar high so Kate and Michael can’t step over it.  The judges like the shine on the tuna.  This is special talking tuna.  The dish says “springtime.”  But it is a lazy dish.  Not every flavour on the plate is working for it’s living.  But they conclude for an amateur cook it’s unbelievable.

Michael’s venison is next.  The contrast of well cooked and crunchy vegies provides little surprises all the time.  The meat is beautifully cooked but the judges question the walnut puree.  Perhaps not the perfect counterpoint?  Nevertheless the dish is adjudged as tasting like it belongs and worthy of being on the table in Est.

The judges are intrigued by Kate’s desert description – “Coffee & Cadamom.  Perhaps she couldn’t remember that long list of elements either. It has a lightness of flavour but plenty of it.  The sticky crumb biscuit is good.  The texture is good.  The figs are an inspired crowning moment but the smoothness of the ice-cream is the hero of the dish.   The judges sound pretty impressed, but still Terry Durack is looking for that extra hidden unexpected element.

The decision will come down to four elements.  Kitchen performance, presentation, taste and fit to the menu/chef’s philosophy.

We learn from Alana that she would like to go straight through to the finale and know that her position is secured.  Who would have thought it?

There is time for some final feedback from the judges before the decision:

Alana was nervous and missed the mark in terms of technical sophistication.

Michael could have been faster but he listened to the chef.

Kate needed guidance and her dish needed tweaking.  But her desert was wow!  Her ice-cream was impossibly smooth and her dish looked like it could snuggle down in a blanket like a puppy and go to sleep there!  Is this a polite way of saying her dish was a dog?

Well not a complete dog anyway.  Alana is first to elimination.  The big drawn out tension build up starts.  We get ready to put the kettle on.  But a huge shock.  Michael has been announced the winner!  Before an ad break!  He’s hopping around like a madman. Straight into the finale.  It’s the happiest day of his life. We don’t get to hear what happened to his boat.

Laugh, Eat, Live

Returning to the Masterchef Kitchen after Monday’s Terrine Tragedy offers our remaining four contestants an “incredible opportunity for redemption.”  But as usual we begin in the Masterchef House before dawn.  The lights come on and our contestants take down and pack their photo’s of loved ones before donning the black aprons which signify an elimination challenge.

Dani sums up their feelings – “it’s going to be a tough day.”  This is confirmed by Matt Preston in the Masterchef Kitchen – “the black aprons say it all.  It’s going to be a dark day.”

The judges want to know the contestants stories (as if they haven’t seen enough  back-stories by now).  The challenge is a Food Autobiography.  To cook three dishes that tell the story of your life – your childhood, formative years, and where you are now.

Michael thinks this is going to be quite hard.  Looking down at his stomach he tells us – “there’s lots of stories there”.  Well we had noticed he’s certainly porked up a bit since moving into the Masterchef House. 

Three dishes, three hours and an open pantry.  But as the voiceover warns us “amongst incredible dishes lurks disaster!”

The cooking commences.

Alana is making a yabbie salad, smoked lamb cutlets and a chocolate desert.  Sounds familiar.  We’ve seen variations of these before.  But this time she promises they will be “restaurant quality.” The lamb cutlets will also have a middle eastern accompaniment.  Perhaps she grew up in Beirut?

Dani it appears grew up in a suburban chinese restaurant (from the 1970’s).  She will be cooking a corn and crab soup.  Another one of her pork and scallop Asian dishes and that most demanding of deserts – a banana fritter and ice-cream.

Michael is going long on proteins.  He plans a duck dish, a big plate of pork (three little piggies) and to finish some fish and chips.

Finally Kate is doing a smoked trout salad, a spiced pumpkin tortellini with prawns and a caramelised white chocolate desert.

Time for the spontaneous walkabout  by the judges.  A long discussion ensues with Michael who appears to be planning to cook every possible cut and breed of pork.  With a beautiful suckling pig wonder Matt Moran and Gary why would you bother with the belly of an older porker?  This has Michael feeling confused as he admits he’s “not really in the zone today.”

Kate’s first attempt at her verjuice jelly is too rubbery.  She has time to try again which fortunately works perfectly.

Dani tells us her corn soup will be a veloute.  Whilst Michael is cooking his duck sous-vide.  Perhaps they are hoping for bonus points for fancy French terms.  They must have already forgotten yesterday’s farce.

Michael is happy with his duck which he thinks is cooked perfectly.  Whereas Dani knows that her banana fritters have to be cooked perfectly.  Given the last time StKildaFlaneur ate banana fritters they were cooked by a 12 year old girl in a family run food hut in a small rural village in Laos we think she may be right.

Time is fast running out, but there is time enough for some more Dani disasters.  She wonders why she has left everything to the last minute?  Her oil isn’t hot enough and she can’t get her icecream out of the cooking pail.  Still she manages to plate up…more or less.  Michael is also in a spot of bother.  His three little piggies have become two little piggies.

Time for tasting.

Alana reminds us that “staying in the competition means everything at this point.”  Her Yabbies are beautifully sweet but Matt Preston worries that her entrée is “too busy.”  The lamb cutlet is pronounced “textbook” and Gary is salivating over her chocolate mousse which Matt Moran concurs is “hard to beat.”

Michael admits he hasn’t had a good day.  First up is his Two Little Piggies.  Matt Preston makes an astute observation, reminding us why he’s one of Australia’s leading food critics, noting “it’s all about the pork.”  For Gary though it’s a “winner, absolute winner.”  Less successful is his duck which receives a mixed reception.  The final dish is fish and chips with mushy peas and a lemon sauce, which Matt Moran thinks tastes like a lemon curd tart.  Looks like Michael made a desert after all.  Gary is similarly unimpressed pronouncing the sauce disastrous and horrible.

Kate is next up.  The two Matts sum up her smoked trout as “wow what a great dish,” her stuffed prawns as “a cracking dish” and her ice-cream sandwich is “an absolute knockout.”

We think Kate and Alana must be safe. 

Dani gets off to a bad start as Matt Preston observes her dishes don’t look very good.  But will they taste delicious?  Not the corn soup.  It’s been cooked too long and the crab meat is not delicate.  The pork belly and scallops are pronounced a great combination.  It all comes down to the desert.  A solitary pale banana fritter lying in the shadow of a giant pail of ice-cream.  The flavour combination is good (who would have thought it – banana fritters and ice-cream?) but unfortunately Gary notes that the ice-cream is far from successful.

The four contestants reassemble.  Alana is on the edge of tears.  We are reminded that “for one of you the dream is about to end”  As the audience leans forward on the edges of their collective seats…the screen bursts into flames – and we have time for a cup of tea.

To no great surprise Alana and Kate are pronounced safe….and Dani’s out!  She doesn’t think her dream is over, but at least one facebook page is now defunct and the Masterchef Cookbook publisher can breathe a big sigh of relief.

Dani will surely be missed.  But fear not.  Her website has now been launched www.danivenn.com  laugh, eat, live.

Masterchef Serves Up An Undercooked Dish of Farce

“You’ve entered the dangerzone and are only one step away from disaster.  If ever there was a time to pull out the stops it’s now.”  This is the voiceover introducing the first elimination challenge of Finals Week.

As we recall Michael has a huge advantage having tasted todays dish and received the recipe to study overnight.  However Michael is taking no chances.  Late last night he slyly left a few cake tins in the Masterchef House sink together with a de-zested lemon and for good measure half a packet of flour in the bin.  The girls seem to have fallen for this artful piece of deception.  They are now expecting Adriano Zumbo and a desert challenge.

As ever our judges are waiting at the front.  Matt Preston has really pulled out the stops himself.  He is adorned in an emerald green corduroy jacket and a nauseating paisley shirt.  George not wanting to be outdone is wearing a blue blazer with a grey v-neck jumper.  For some reason his white shirt is untucked and looking more like an Egyptian gallibaya.  Perhaps this is in homage to the start of Ramadan?

Gary welcomes “four of the best cooks ever on Masterchef” and even manages to keep a straight face!  No mean achievement, given the standards of the current series.

Maggie Beer appears to introduce the Pressure Test and Kate realises the girls have been tricked.  Michael manages without too much difficulty to look smug.

The dish is chicken terrine.  Maggie demonstrates the presentation – farce / breast / farce / breast and the tricky bit, wrapping it in the freshly removed skin of a chicken.  No one bothers to mention that “farce” is in fact a fancy French word for stuffing.  The pressure mounts as Matt informs the contestants that they will only be allowed a single chicken.

Cooking and resting time for the terrine is 1 hour and 45 minutes.  Total time allowed will be 2 hours and 15 minutes. 

They get down to skinning their chickens.  The girls approach it delicately, with the care of a plastic surgeon.  Michael is confident.   After all he’s skinned a chicken before.  He knows you can be a little bit rough with it.

Time is going to be a problem.  Kate’s entered the dangerzone.  She’s also under the pump.

Dani true to form has left the walnuts out of her walnut bread.  It can’t be easy finding new stupid mistakes every challenge, but she appears up to the task.

We see a lot of thermometers as contestants will the temperature of their terrines to get up to the magic 57 degree mark.  Michael is first to achieve this followed by Alana.  Will there be enough resting time left for the dish to cook through?  Michael decides to put his terrine back in the oven.  He tells us he’s “walking a very thin tightrope.”  We think he should instead concentrate on getting his chicken cooked.

Time’s up as George gleefully announces it’s “terrine terror time.”

Kate is up first.  Raw in the middle.   A disaster.  Gary solemnly announces he won’t me eating it and warns George to be careful as he takes a big sniff.  At least the shallots were yum.

Alana is up next.  It’s do or die with so much riding on this.  George takes another big sniff.  Alas it is also undercooked.  Maggie bravely tastes the bits that are cooked and both she and George conclude that it looks beautiful.

Dani presents her dish, sans walnut bread accompaniment.  Her terrine is not servable, but she had the best figs so far.

Finally up is Michael.  He is concerned that if it is not cooked in the middle he will have egg on his face, although if he followed the recipe he would in fact have farce on his face.  Maggie notes from the lusciousness of the skin it looks like it is cooked more.  It is at least edible as all the judges taste. However sadly they conclude it’s also not cooked.  One step ahead announces Maggie.

Decision time.  We recall the words of Gary at the start of the show. “By the end of today two of you will be heading into an elimination, and from there one you will be going home.”

This looks pretty straightforward.  Michael and Alana’s terrines were at least partially edible.  Surely it will be Dani and Kate in the elimination with the worst dishes of the day.

We get to watch the judges deliberations.  Given the raw terrine should they judge the garnishes?  But they have to judge the King of the dish.  Gary is feeling the weight of responsibility to make the right decision.  They liked Kate’s shallots and Dani’s figs, but she had no bread.  Alana’s presentation was nice and Michaels bread was delicious.

We discover that the recipe was tested 15 times and an additional 30 minutes was allowed.  Still none of the remaining top 4 contestants managed to complete the dish.  There can therefore only be one decision……..  The completion is over.  Everyone is eliminated. In order to maintain the credibility of the esteemed title of Australian Masterchef this year there will be no winner. 

But no, we know this cannot be.  Instead everyone will compete in tomorrow’s elimination.

Never mind the raw chicken.  We’ve certainly been served up plenty of farce!

Dani - I Was Never Very Good At Maths!

I’d travelled 7,619 km to be back in front of my big screen TV for “Finals Week” so my expectations were high.

During my eight weeks of peregrination the number of contestants had been reduced from eighteen to a final four.

We join Kate, Dani, Alana and Michael in the Masterchef House copying recipes into notebooks.  Surely after all this time they still don’t need recipes?   After all, the winner will be rewarded with their very own cook book deal.

Arriving at the Masterchef Kitchen its hugs all round as we note that nothing is set up for cooking.  Instead we meet the first of the promised special guests from the Masterchef Family who will be participating in Finals Week.

It is Curtis Stone.  Dani can’t believe her eyes.   He is indeed “famous”, but for what exactly?  He has no restaurant, nor a TV show.  Instead he is the TV spruiker for Coles supermarket where you can “shop where the Masterchef’s shop” – at least when the TV camera’s are rolling.

Today’s challenge appears simple enough.  Design a recipe that can be cooked by a home chef within 90 minutes.   Helpful advice follows from Curtis.  The recipe has to be specific, clear, concise and to the point.  It has to be accurate and it has to work.  Helpful advice indeed.  No wonder he gets to design $10 recipes for families of four  which appear in the weekly specials catalogue.

The contestants are sent home to test and write up their recipes.  Tomorrow their food will be photographed and the recipes put to the test by home chefs.

All too soon we are back in the Masterchef Kitchen.  The home chefs are introduced and instructed to follow the recipes exactly.  There will be no elimination today, but we are told the winner will get a big advantage for tomorrow night.

It quickly becomes apparent there are some serious problems with some of these recipes.  Particularly Dani’s.  Her dish is an Asian Noodle Soup With Pork Belly.  After prepping the pork the recipe instructs cooking for 70 minutes, resting for 10-20 minutes and then cooking for a further 20 minutes.  Let’s see …that adds up to 100 – 110 minutes plus prep time.  Doesn’t look like there will be much pork in the dish at the end of 90 minutes.  There will however be plenty of soup.  Her recipe calls for four litres of water.  Oops…. It should have been only two litres.  As Dani laughingly explains she isn’t very good at maths!

At this point we consider turning off and instead joining the Facebook page set up by one of Dani’s numerous followers:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/If-Dani-Venn-wins-Masterchef-2011-Im-not-buying-her-fucking-cookbook/177872168945543

We tend to agree.  Should the unthinkable happen and “Legohead” win, we don’t think too many of her cookbooks will be found under the Christmas tree this year.

The other contestants have difficulties of varying degrees and Michael wins.  It’s all a bit of a yawn, intended to pad the series out for another episode.  At least Michael got to meet Maggi in the pantry and be given the recipe for tomorrow’s challenge, where thankfully it will be back to serious business.