After Tessa failed to snag her third immunity pin last night, the contestants are excited for another challenge. Today is a team challenge.
Oh praise be, the bottom bar is gone from the episode!
When the contestants arrive in the garden, they notice lights have been set up, and wonder what’s going on.
They walk in to see the kitchen set up differently to usual.
Waiting at the front is the judges, standing in front of a table with four ingredients.
Matt introduces the day, telling them they’ll be cooking for the 40 best diners they could get. Everyone’s a bit confused as to what that means and who will be turning up.
“Today, you’ll be cooking with some of the best you’ll ever cook with. These are four of the best ingredients anywhere in the world,” Matt says, before introducing the dishes.
So the first ingredient is a cheese from Victoria. it’s 50/50 goats milk and cows milk cheese.
Second is coral trout from Northern Territory.
Third is Wagu beef from South Australia
Finally from New South Wales, golden delicious apples.
Each ingredient must be the hero of their own dishes, so it’s a four course menu.
George walks around with a sack getting everyone in their teams of five.
Green team: Christina (captain), Nicole, Tessa, Derek and Tim.
Yellow team: Larissa (captain), Simon, Ben, Anushka and Tati.
George gives them the rules. They’ll make four courses and each team will serve 20 people, so a total of 40 diners. They’ll have two and a half hours to prep before the first dish goes out for service. Gaz will be working in the kitchen with them and work at the pass. This leaves George and Matt to be the judges today.
Everyone starts to run to their benches at the beginning of time, and the start of montage.
ANUSHKA WATCH: One of my favourites, Anushka, the 49 year old optical distributor, wears a different pair of glasses each episode. Today, she’s wearing a brown/cream frames.
Gaz comes around to look at the dishes. He’s found that Tim has just chopped ingredients and thrown them to make a jus, but it’s not good enough. He says to take the skin off the onions and to cut the size down. They’re serving 20, not 100.
Then, Gaz cuts down a few bits and pieces and goes, “This, good.” He points at what Tim made. “That, rubbish.”
The diners start to arrive and find their seats on one of the two tables.
It’s only when George and Matt go out to talk to them, that I realise he’s got glasses hanging on his jacket???
George and Matt welcome the diners, and tell them their loved ones are cooking for them right now. Matt says he’s sure they’ll see a huge jump from the food they were serving at home, to what they’re serving now.
Meanwhile inside, Gaz tells the contestants that the diners are all seated, and they have 30 minutes until service begins.
Oh, actually, the glasses might be a real thing. Johnson Leung sent through a Hot Tip about George.
Thanks for the tip!
It’s almost time to serve, and Gaz tells Larissa and Christina to get ready to start service. Christina and Larissa need to get the pass set up properly.
Ben and Anushka serve the first four plates.
They walk outside and see their family and friends.
Anushka sees her son, daughter, and husband. She’s very emotional seeing them.
“I just want to sit down with them and share a meal with them. I don’t know how I’ll be able to get back in the kitchen,” she says.
She comes back into the kitchen and hugs Gary before crying on the bench. Everyone’s very emotional, and Tati begins to cry a bit. Everyone serves the last of the food, leaving Gaz alone in the kitchen.
It’s quite heartwarming to see.
While everyone’s excited to see their family and friends, Matt and George enjoy a romantic dinner.
First to be tasted is the green team.
They really enjoy it. Not a bad thing to say.
Yellow serve their entree.
“Interesting dish,” Matt starts, before saying it was delicious.
George calls it all a great combination of flavour.
Anushka is having a very hard time keeping it together and keeps crying, so Larissa gives her a few moments to get herself together before resuming the cook.
It’s time for the next course.
Green serves first.
Straight away, Matt calls it restaurant quality and George says it’s what they’re eating finale week.
“You know what? If you and I were on a date and you picked the restaurant, right now, I’d give you a big hug,” George says, and Matt laughs.
Up next is Green.
They love the look and the crunch of the skin.
Both Matt and George enjoy it and say Tati has stepped up her game, and this is what they were waiting for from her
They’re getting ready for their third dish. Derek isn’t caramalising the apples for the fourth dish, but poached them in the apple cider. Gaz kinda calls him out for it and Derek’s worried. He went with his intuition, and so he’s a bit worried now.
Green serve dish three first.
Again, they super love it, and love the dish.
Yellow serve their dish.
The first thing Matt says is, “Oh dear.”
“Yeah, I’m not a fan of this,” George says.
Matt says that with a fatty meat like this, you want it crispy, so they’ll see how it goes.
Once they eat, Matt says the califlower is great, but says it’s not great. The way it’s sliced cools it down, which means the fat leaves a taste and it’s there. I don’t know what they’re overly talking about, I’m not a chef.
But the take away is this is the worst dish so far, so it’s put yellow behind a little bit.
It’s time for the last dish. Derek’s getting everything ready, and doing a fab job.
It’s time for the dessert, and again, green serve first.
Matt says George has more fresh apple, and it looks better than his.
After tasting, Matt says the cinnamon is too strong and you wouldn’t pick this as an apple hero-ing dish.
It’s time to try yellow teams.
Matt loves the look of this one, just as much as the trout.
George then initiates this:
They love this one, much more than the green dessert. They say the yellow team has come back strong.
Anushka’s husband said she’s stepped up her desserts a lot and he’s very proud.
Service ends, and it’s time for the results.
Matt says one team had hit after hit, and one had three hits and a miss. The hit after hit?
The green team.
George tells them that tomorrow is a day they’ll remember forever, and tells them it’ll be huge.
Tomorrow’s an elimination. Ummm at the beginning of the week they said there wouldn’t be an elimination? Well, the yellow team are dressed in black, so we’ll see what happens…
As usual, this recap was written as I watched the episode, so there will be spelling and grammar mistakes.
I posted a MasterChef rant about Sandeep, and you can read it here.
If you have a Hot Tip, tweet me, leave a comment, or head over to my contact page, and let me know what’s good.
To catch up on this episode, or other MasterChef eps you’ve missed, head over to southhemitv.com. If you want to watch The Super Switch, southhemitv.com also has you covered, and I’ve got the recaps here.
Enjoy my recaps? Consider buying me a coffee.
Felicity Feiner 
They said no pressure test, they didn’t say no elimination, they did it so they’d have equal number of members by the team challenges.
LikeLike
That’s true, but so far through MasterChef Aus, pressure test and elimination have been practically interchangeable, as far as I’m aware, and the pressure test/elimination/everyone in black is tomorrow’s episode, still part of best of the best week. Ah well, we’ll find out tonight what’s going on 🙂
LikeLike