MasterChef Aus S11E16 – Recap

Today is day two of Legends Week. The losers of Rick Stein’s invention test, Derek, Leah, and Jess, are fighting to stay in the competition.

Derek decides the best way to get focused and prepared for the pressure cook is to exercise, so we get a few picks of him in a tight black shirt exercising.

If you’re into men exercising, the MasterChef Australia twitter has got you.

We’ll just leave this here…#MasterChefAU pic.twitter.com/AIK1KtCDV3— #MasterChefAU (@masterchefau) May 20, 2019

Jess slowly takes down her family photos and talks about how she’s got confidence to cook. She’s got to stay focused.

Leah is chillin with a cup of tea before they are whisked away to the kitchen.

The losers walk in to applause from everyone else.

Standing up the front, as usual, is the trio of judges, George, Gaz, and Matt.

Matt is wearing a blue suit, with little vest and pocket watch, as per usual. He’s wearing a black shirt, and a light blue cravat with a matching pocket square.
Gaz is also wearing a blue suit, although his is darker than Matts. He’s wearing a light blue shirt underneath.
George is wearing black jeans, a plaid-ish jacket and the white shirt he wore in the library episode.

George introduces the chef of the day. She has a very impressive resume, and Leah calls her cooking royalty.

Clare Smyth walks in wearing her chef whites, and carrying her secret dish.

Derek tells us that he wants a dessert…

“It’s technically quite difficult, takes a lot of finesse, dexterity, and a long time to prepare,” Clare says, before revealing her dish.

It’s a pear and lemon verbena dessert, which is complex, delicate, and beautiful.

Jess starts to panic because she doesn’t really do desserts.

After breaking it in half, Clare points out where each layer is and what it consists of. They all have a chance to try the elements, and she reminds them one last time to read the recipe and focus.

Gaz tells the contestants that the loser will be the one whose dish is least like Clare’s. They’ll have four hours to cook, and then ten minutes to plate up in the tasting room in front of the judges.

Time starts, and it’s a frantic rush for the contestants to get to their bench and read the recipe. Leah tells us there are so many pages, and Jess says there are 67 steps.

Each of them have a different way to prepare to cook. Leah decides to just read five at a time and work on it. Jess decides to just read the whole thing through and then work. Derek draws a picture of how it looked so he can remember what it’s supposed to be when he’s plating up.

The montage starts.

ANUSHKA WATCH: Anushka runs her own optical business and today is wearing black frames, to go with her white button up shirt with black stripes. She’s looking pretty casual and flow-y. Her hair is down today, which is unusual for her.

“Calm, confident, capable,” Jess says.

She explains it’s her mantra for the day. Funny, that’s what I was thinking when I tried to stop the smoke coming from the microwave the other day…

The major issue of the cook is that Derek left his jelly in the blast chiller for too long and it ended up freeing. He took it out, whisked it, which turned into a bigger mess, and finally decided to melt it.

More montage.

George and Clare are the ones walking around. Matt and Gaz are nowhere to be seen. They probably went out for a coffee, or lunch at the nearest pub.

With an hour left, they return and wander around to look at the contestants.

It’s almost time up, and the losers are working on extracting their meringues from the mould.

Derek is first. He has no problems. Leah is next, and also is drama free.

Last is Jess. She realises hers are so fragile and thin. The first one cracks almost immediately, as does the second, the third, and the fourth.

“I’m so nervous,” she says. “Everything is riding on this last dome. It has to come out in one piece.”
To her relief, it comes out perfectly.

All the elements need to be put into little tupperware containers so they can be assembled later. They either go in the fridge, freezer, or on their bench.

Time is up, everyone is quite emotional, except Derek, as he thinks about plating now.

Sitting in the tasting room is the trio and Clare.

Derek wheels in his little trolley with his tupperware. Matt tells him he has 10 minutes and Derek starts plating.

“How good does that look?” George asks, as he’s about to div it up.
“It’s precise, each layer is perfect,” Clare started. “It’s a really precise piece of work.”
“And bang on,” George said.

Next up is Leah. She also wheels in her elements before starting to plate up.

“Fantastic,” Gaz says when she puts it on the table.
“It looks really good,” Clare said, before George starts the demolition.
Clare says the pear discs are too thin. Gaz says the thinness ruins the texture.
“These are minute details,” George says, before saying that for a first attempt, it was really good.

Finally, Jess. She’s nervous about the whole thing, because she only has the one dome.
While plating, she puts the dome on the scale and starts to assemble from there.

As she turns to get another element, the dome suddenly cracks under the weight of several layers of elements. It’s really terrible. Absolutely not salvageable. Matt is shocked and sad, and puts a hand over his mouth.

She turns back to look at her dish, and realises it’s broken. Nonetheless, Jess puts it on the plate and finishes setting it up.

“It’s heartbreaking to see someone put that much effort in and see it collapse at the last second,” Clare said.

They start the tasting, but unfortunately, several of the elements just aren’t right, as well has the meringue being too thin for the dish.

The losers are reassembled back into the tasting room to receive the verdict.

“We said at the very start of the day that it will be the small things that will be the end of you, and it was,” Gaz said, not hesitating to get to the sharp end of the stick.

He breaks the news that the meringue was just too small, and Jess is out.

There’s a quick montage o her time in the MasterChef kitchen. It’s weird to see flashback Gaz without glasses.

“Today you were great, and you can walk out with your head held high,” Clare tells her.

Since leaving the kitchen, Jess is working in a kitchen, and has launched her own cultured compound butter range.

Tomorrow is the immunity challenge with Steph, Tati, Abbey and Larissa all competing for the golden pin.