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Sav, Sumeet, Stephen, Snezana and a woman who claims to be called “Lourdes” get the chance to flex their cooking muscles for the season’s first immunity pin.
Following yesterday’s frankly pornographic “wrap your hands around this” challenge, the top five from that cook – Sav, Sumeet, Stephen, Snezana and a woman who claims to be called “Lourdes” – now compete for immunity, in the culmination of the three-episode “cook for immunity” arc. It’s the long way round, but this is MasterChef, not Complete The Competition In A Reasonable Amount Of Time Chef.
Arriving at the kitchen, the amateurs find that Poh and Jean-Christophe have been cooking. Poh has made what looks like a fancy vanilla slice, while Jean-Christophe has made a steak in a tent. These dishes demonstrate the challenge: the five can choose the Poh route, and cook with just a single ingredient plus staples, with 90 minutes to complete it — or the Jean- Christophe route, which allows them up to 20 ingredients but only 45 minutes.
Stephen and Snezana, being simple folk, go the 90 and they’re off to the pantry. “The clock is ticking away” Poh yells, knowing that the pressure of this show can cause one to forget how time works. Snezana has grabbed an onion and plans to do all sorts of impure things with it. She waxes lyrical on the subject of onions, to the point where one must consider getting her counselling.
Steve, meanwhile, has selected macadamias as his ingredient, leading everyone on the balcony to yell disgusting comments about his nuts. So distracted by the smut is he that he nearly burns his caramel, but then, at the last possible second, he doesn’t.
As the camera crew focus with increasing obsessiveness on the brand names of the kitchen appliances, the judges announce there is just one hour to go. The gantry spectators applaud wildly, being huge fans of single units of time.
Stephen confesses that he doesn’t make many desserts and that his choices today are baffling. The judges ask Snezana what she’s doing and she burbles about onions for half an hour until they back slowly away.
We’ve reached the 45-minute mark, which means Lourdes, Sumeet and Savindri have to get cracking. Sav declares that she intends to get smart with the protein, risking the protein’s moods. Lourdes announces to the world that she’s cooking a pork chop and doesn’t care who knows it. Andy asks how she’s going to cook the pork chop: you’d think after all this time he’d know how you cook a pork chop, but life is about learning. Lourdes reveals that her greatest weakness is that she is only 22 and has little experience besides icing cakes in slow motion in her own kitchen. Will the fact that she is so young and innocent and naïve and looks a lot like Anna Kendrick be her downfall?
Meanwhile Jamie, Andy and Poh discuss their shoes, so bored are they with their jobs. Sofia, however, is still euphoric at being allowed to be on TV and is as passionate as ever about yelling “half an hour!” at people. Suddenly a pall comes over the kitchen as the smell of burning fills the air. Snezana has burnt her onions, as a warning to the others.
Sav is making a ceviche – ie raw squid, considered a delicacy among sperm whales. Usually a squid ceviche is done with lime or lemon, but Sav is using vinegar, defying all conventional wisdom and local bylaws. Rumours that Sav has gone mad with power begin to circulate.
Back on the macadamia gateaux, Stephen is carefully calibrating his nuts, and receiving still more filth from the balcony. Stephen’s energy amazes Jamie. “I hope I’m still running like that at 62,” he says, as if he isn’t already. Meanwhile, Sumeet has trapped her prawns inside a smoke-filled chamber with her usual sadistic glee.
Jean-Christophe visits Lourdes’s bench to undermine her confidence, letting her know that cooking a pork chop is incredibly hard and has to be done perfectly and frankly she is a fool for even attempting such insanity. Cutting the chop open, Lourdes fears that it is too pink, which is somewhat heteronormative of her. She doesn’t know whether to cook it longer or not. Panic has set in. It looks like Lourdes will need a miracle. Ha ha! See what I did? Ah…we have fun.
“I have so much to do!” frets Snezana in a separately filmed segment taking place hours after everything is finished, rendering her emotion false and deceitful. With ten minutes left she is frantically trying to get her tortellini done, having wasted an inordinate amount of time gazing with frightening intensity at burning onions. Meanwhile Sumeet is skewering her prawns, causing Jean-Christophe to ask if he can move in with her, so erotically charged is the act of prawn-skewering.
Jamie declares Steve a “gateaux superstar”, which is quite clever really.
Stephen wants his gateaux to look like the Women’s Weekly cake, but wants to “MasterChef it up”. Perhaps he could layer some grilled octopus on top. Meanwhile, Lourdes continues to melt into a puddle of anxiety over her pork.
Suddenly time is up, and the five contestants sit in shock and wonder where their lives went wrong. All that’s left is for the judges to let them down gently.
First is Steve, showing off his nuts for all to see, with his Women’s Weekly macadamia gateaux. Poh declares it to look rough around the edges, as she’s never had a bad hair day. But though it may look rough, it tastes almost exactly like a cake. Jamie declares Steve a “gateaux superstar”, which is quite clever really.
Next is Snezana, who plates up her onion tortellini with onion broth and onion puree and pickled onion and crispy onions and bits of onion all over the frigging place. The judges taste the dish and identify a hint of onion. They are all agreed that Snezana should be congratulated for being brave enough to do something so obviously awful.
Lourdes steps up with her problematic pork. It’s too dry. She should’ve trusted the pink. Jean-Christophe says the corn is ten out of ten, but Lourdes knows that when the judges are complimenting your corn, you’ve stuffed up royally.
Next, Sumeet and the prawns she worked so hard to punish. Poh thinks it’s really delicious, but admits that’s only her opinion. Jamie liked it but would’ve loved to have seen more fish to satisfy his desire to see the oceans emptied of all life.
Finally it’s Sav and her raw squid. Upon tasting, the judges are unanimous that since this is MasterChef, they should pretend that squid tastes good, and congratulate Sav on not cooking her squid perfectly. “You’ve got good squid game, Sav!” Jamie cries, now completely out of control.
Finally the grim news must be delivered, and immunity from the upcoming elimination is awarded to Sav, narrowly ahead of Steve. This proves three things: a) it is better to have to rush frantically with many ingredients than take your time with one; b) it is better to pour vinegar over a squid than to develop a disturbing onion fixation; and c) making an ugly cake will lead to regret.
Tune in next week, when someone’s lifelong dream is hilariously extinguished.
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