“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!
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