After the elimination yesterday of Reece, we’re left with our final four – Reynold, Laura, Emelia and Callum.
Tonight is a Mystery Box challenge. The begnining teases the return of a renowned chef – Gordon Ramsey.
We were talking about Gordon last week in our family dinners. There was a mini series by Caterer.com years ago about this 9 year old kid who looked like Gordon. Very funny, here’s a link to a site with all the videos. Opens in a new tab.
Anyway, our final four. They stand in front of the MasterChef kitchen, staring at the huge doors, like it’s the first and last time they’ll ever see it. Very random, honestly.
The contestants come in to see a Mystery Box with the Union Jack stuck on top.
The judges are waiting for them at the front, next to a screen.
Mel welcomes the top four for 2020. She reminds them of the stakes, and tells them that the best dish today goes straight to the semi-final.
Then, she directs them to the screen.
He tells them they’ll be cooking from his fridge, and starts going through his fridge. There’s a whole shelf of bottled water, honestly it looks like an ad.
Alright, here are the ingredients: Pimms, paprika, rhubarb, cabbage, scallops, strawberries, fish (he said what the fish is, but I didn’t catch it), something pickled, and I’m pretty sure that’s it? If anything else comes up, I’ll mention it later.
“Best wishes,” Gordon says, “I miss you guys.”
It’s rules time – everyone must use at least one ingredient. They have the usual staples, and they can choose one ingredient from the garden. Today, they have 75 minutes to cook whatever they want, and Jock reminds them of the stakes.
Time starts!
The contestants start cooking, and reminiscing on Gordon being here.
Speaking of cooking, I did an amazing breakfast dish today for my family. I usually scam a free lunch from them, but today they came to my place and I didn’t burn the kitchen down! How amazing is that! Yes, they were worried I’d serve raw eggs, and yes they did eat toast at home before they came over, however, I did it, and everyone was very impressed.
How crazy – last season I destroyed the microwave making 2 minute noodles, and this season I’m making breakfast and getting compliments. That’s character development!
And now, I have no more food to learn. I’ve mastered breakfast food.
But I digress.
Callum is going to make a dessert with bay leaves from the garden, rhubarb, paprika and strawberries. I’m interested to see how this goes.
Emelia is making a choux pastry like she did in the first week with Gordon. It’s going to take 45 minutes to cook, so she only has one crack at it. Oof.
Omg, Reynold reflects on his dishes this season, and I forgot he started with White Noise! What a crazy dish was that. Ugh, I’m getting so hungry for a Reynold dish. But his restaurant is in Sydney, and I don’t think work would be ok with me going to Sydney at the moment.
Anyway, Emelia is still working on her choux pastry, and Andy and Jock are like, ????
“What if this choux fails?” Andy asks.
Fustrated, Emelia stares into the oven, but as everything is covered, she just stares at hot trays for a while, as she does literally nothing else. Probably a waste of time, but I’m not a chef, so what do I know about staring at ovens?
Aww, Callum’s a cutie, reflecting on his first week with Gordon.
Jock and Andy come over to grill him about the bay leaf ice-cream. The judges taste it, and keep tasting all the elements, like rhubarb and paprika meringue.
“It’s definitely something I’ve never had before,” Andy says, before sauntering away.
Mel comes to talk to Laura.
“So, this dish, fish and vege… is that enough to get you into the semi-final?” she asks. “That’s all I’m going to say.” I couldn’t help but laugh.
As she walks away, Laura decides to be true to herself and keep going with the dish.
She then goes over to look at Reynold’s dish, and just kinda looks, reminds him to be perfect. He already is.
Emelia has stopped staring at the oven, which is good, and works hard on her fillings, and such. The camera pans to the oven, where we just see trays.
But it’s time, the moment of truth – did the choux pastry work?
I start to sweat for her, as she pulls out the trays. We cut to the break, adding to the antici
pation.
“Spot on,” she says, pushing the pastry out of the shells, and beams. Oh thank goodness. She’s lovely. “Oh, my beautiful little angel.”
She starts cracking on filling the pastry and getting it going. Jock comes over, and she tells him the logistics.
“How many times have you made it?” he asks.
“Twice. In the apartment,” she laughs, and continues to pipe.
Jock comes back to base and gossips about how great the pastry look. The others are getting pumped at his words. Honestly, I’m getting pumped too! Where’s her restaurant? Ugh, Melbourne. I’m not quarantining for two weeks for pastry. I may love me a good dessert, but not that much.
Laura is working hard, with three minutes to go. Everyone starts to scramble, doing the last of what needs to be done before tasting time.
Jock announces one minute, and we see final plating and slicing happening. Callum runs us through how he plates his dish, and I’m really feeling it, to be honest!
Mel screams 30 seconds, and everyone continues at their previous pace.
Time counts down, with finishing touches and tweezers out, before it comes to a head.
There are elbow bumps and close-ups of the dishes, before we get a monologue from Emelia, a flash of the trophy.
It’s time to taste.
First up for tasting is Reynold.
Reynold finishes the plating by putting the red stuff in the bowl, and then Jock separates it into three different plates.
“Reynold,” Andy starts, “loved it.”
He compliments how it was full of umami, and he loves the flavours. He commends Reynold for the dish.
Mel says that this dish describes him – subtle and elegant, but with hidden depths. She goes through the elements and how much she loves it.
“Particularly liked the smoked paprika,” Jock says, before saying, “Well done, mate.”
Next up is Callum.
“There’s no mistaking that’s bay leaf,” Jock says, but goes on to say that the bay leaf should have been more subtle.
Andy commends him for the effort, and can see it working, but not in this particular dish 100%. He needs to think about which flavour will be the dominant flavour.
Mel loves the texture of the ice cream, calling it sublime. She says she highly commends him.
Callum says in his monologue that this needs refinement, not a winning dish today, but it could be an amazing dish.
Third to taste is Laura.
Ah, well there you go, the fish was bream.
Mel loves the flavours and the presentation with the greenary. She describes it as elegant.
Andy says she knows a lot about heat, and commended her on the crispy skin.
Jock agrees, and says it was a great play on brassicas. He says that lemons would have made the dish perfect, which is funny he should say, because that’s what she wanted right at the start of the cook.
Finally, Emelia.
She tells them what’s inside the pastry and they start tasting.
Jock calls the dish absolutely brilliant and how everything complements each other.
All round, there is nothing but perfection in their comments. Mel even says she’s so glad she got to experience that dish. Flavour wise, it was on point, and Andy calls it a banger.
Jock says compressed choux pastry should be called Emelia Jackson pastry from now on.
Mel reminds them of what the did, and Jock says they decided on two dishes.
Reynold and Emelia both had amazing flavour, but one really stood out.
The first person into the top three is Emelia, which is absolutely not a surprise.
“Holy shit!” she exclaims, hands over her face.
Jock compliments her again, and she’s relieved it came through and she’s delighted at making such a good decision to cook it.
Andy tells the other three to get ready for elimination tomorrow, where they’ll have the last two of their top three.
She’s such a sweetie.
As usual, this recap was written as I watched the episode, so there will be spelling and grammar mistakes.
You can read last years recaps here, catch up on this season here, and watch this season over here, at shvideos.net.
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Felicity Feiner 
Felicity Feiner it sounds like watching and recapping seasons of masterchef has taught you how to cook! Next you will be telling us you made a Reynold style dessert ❤️
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Haha absolutely! One more season, and I’ll be ready to apply! 😂😂
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