‘MasterChef Australia’ Recap: Forget Bandy, It’s All About Poh And Gordon Ramsay Now

MasterChef Hive prepare your liquid nitrogen and ready your cloches because MasterChef all-stars is in full swing, baby.

With three new judges, a week-long guest in kitchen icon Gordon Ramsay, one immunity pin, and 24 of Australia’s favourite contestants, MasterChef: Back To Win kicked off last night. 

Opening with an unnecessarily long reel of flashback scenes to trace the origins of the cooking show, we were told what we already know: these returning cooks are MasterChef royalty who are back to prove they are worthy of the title.

With a pretty impressive line up of cooks, we were missing only a few from the list — that is, the familiar faces of icons Marion Grasby and Justine Schofield, plus the shows original judges, Matt Preston, Gary Mehigan and George Calombaris.

Despite the flashback scenes being full of the original judges, “a new era begins” announced the dramatic voice-over man. And with that, we were quickly introduced to our new judges.

Judge one is humble Season 4 winner, Andy Allen, who swears that his own experience on the show will help him “nurture contestants”, as though they’re some type of house plant in a Newtown share house that he’s trying to keep alive.

Judge two is food writer, Melissa Leong, who after years of critiquing food, is just happy and grateful the baton has been passed onto her. And lastly, is the necessary “serious” judge which casting found in Gordon Ramsay’s friend and celebrity chef, Jock Zonfrillo. And, yes, they are all actually very attractive — Gordon included. Don’t @ me. 

Are all these new judges hot or have I just been in iso too long #MasterChefAU

— Tahlia Pritchard (@Tahls) April 13, 2020

Before the contestants enter the kitchen, we get some notable updates on some of the returning cooks. We find out that Season 1 runner-up Queen Poh has a pixie cut now! Callum lets us know he’s serious about winning because he’s 30 and has a kid! And despite all of Reynold’s success with his dessert kitchens, he’s back to prove he can do savoury too! And we can tell all these returning contestants mean business because the music is dramatic and all the shots are in slow-mo.

After we learn who these new judges are, the returning 24 cooks enter the kitchen to find none other than THE Gordon Ramsay announcing that he’ll be around all week. A smart move by MasterChef, who have easily guaranteed themselves a week of high-viewing numbers as we take some time to try and figure out who these judges are. 

The best thing about returning contestants is we don’t need to spend three weeks trying to remember names. #MasterChefAU

— Michelle 🐿💨 (@MichelleMackey1) April 13, 2020

Nevertheless, Ramsay introduces the judges to the contestants, who very clearly have no clue — like most of us — who Jock Zonfrillo is. But still riding the high of having cooking show royalty in their presence, the top 24 cheer for the Scottish chef who once worked with Gordon back in the 90s.

He says he looks for “honesty” in a chef, which is a strange thing to look for in a talented cook. This is not a Tinder profile, so perhaps knife skills or creativity would make a little more sense. 

Next are some confused cheers for food critic Melissa, who Gordon says “produces the most amazing articles”. Great gowns, beautiful gowns.

Leaving the most notable to last, Ramsay then introduced 2012 winner Andy, which officially reunited the original cooking show bromance, Bandy. 

After some very awkward high-fives between the new judges, the cooks were thrown right into their first challenge: cooking a dish that is “worthy of winning the competition” for the one and only immunity pin on offer this season.

With a 90-minute time limit, no rules on whether the dish had to be sweet or savoury, and full access to the pantry and garden, the chefs jumped right in. Stressed and flustered, the supercut of the first five minutes set the tone for the cook: absolute chaos. 

“There’s everything in the pantry…. except flour, pasta, long life milk, noodles, dried lentils and rice.” #MasterChefAU

— Dean Nye (@Dean_Nye) April 13, 2020

Honing in on Reynold with some nice calming music to offset the stress of the kitchen, it was clear that the Dessert King was in his element. Despite saying he had learned savoury dishes earlier, Reynold, as expected, decided to cook ‘White Noise’ —  a dessert he simply described by saying “it’s white.” Insightful.

Taking a trip down memory lane, the producers then decided to give the audience what they wanted: more Bandy content. Ben, cooking abalone and pork cheek, used the opportunity to reminisce on the times that he and Judge Andy would dive for abalone in their spare time. After a bit of banter about how there would be no favouritism, Ben, super proud of his best friend, got all choked up and started crying. And great, now so am I.

If 2020 contributes one good thing to the universe, it’s this Ben and Andy reunion #MasterChefAU

— Joey Nicita ☀️ (@JoeyNicita) April 13, 2020

Meanwhile, Hayden reminds us that he isn’t like a lot of the other contestants here — he’s not like other girls chefs, he’s not a restaurant cook. You see, Hayden is a home cook who writes recipes and does TV spots, so naturally he had to keep his dish true blue, with a twist. He ended up opting for a nice steak with a gratin, scampi crudo, and three other sides — so basically a pub steak and veg, but you’d have to pay $87 for it at a fancy restaurant where waiters wear bowties. 

Gordon Ramsay then tried to be messy by getting some tea from other contestants. He asks Harry who he thinks his biggest competition in the room is. Naturally, it’s Poh and the camera pans to our calm queen talking to herself as she cooks an updated version of deconstructed abacus beads — taro gnocchi style dumplings — which was the audition dish that got her into the competition and ultimately started this whole journey for her. 

So Gordon visits Poh and praises her for all her success, while she just takes a page out of his book and greets him by saying: “It’s fucking good to see you.” King shit, honestly. 

Letting Poh know everything that the whole of Australia has been saying for the last decade, Gordon simply tells Pixie-Cut Poh: “You’re the favourite. You gotta get your hands on that trophy.” Responding by giggling like a schoolgirl, Ramsay tells her to get her head down, get a grip and to watch her language. 

At this point, Poh’s gone bright red which can partially be attributed to the 24 stoves burning at once and also on her obvious crush on Gordon Ramsay. She says she’s fan-girling, he says she has to win. Honestly, pack it in. We’re done here. Bring in the wedding rings, STAT.

Over on another bench, to fill in the gaps from the episodes main players, Judge Melissa finds out that Sarah is doing some “considered” Italian-Thai fusion, which I don’t quite understand but sounds amazing. Everyone’s favourite mum Amina is dipping her toes into Korean with a seafood hotpot and dumpling dish. And Chris from Season 1 shares that he’s fond of over-the-fire cooking and his decade-long love of fedoras is still going strong, so predictably, he is cooking steak.

After leaving Poh’s station, Gordon has no fucking clue what now mum-of-two, whole-food loving Dani is doing as she messily grinds coconuts for 10 minutes. Turns out she’s making a Sri-Lankan mud crab curry accompanied by a pineapple curry, sambal and roti — something Gordon finds out as he literally pats her face dry from sweat. When Jock later visits Dani, he reveals that pineapple curry is actually randomly one of his favourite dishes. How convenient and not sus-sounding at all! 

Checking up on Reynold, Judge Melissa says she can see that he “really, really wants this” which, I mean, of course he does. Reynold explains that the dish will have some pure flavours with seven components that need to cook, set and cool in 90-minutes.

In an attempt to dethrone the Dessert King, 21-year-old messy-ass pastry chef Jess announces she’s cooking a nine-element dessert called ‘Pink Petal’. Reece on the other hand is serving us 5th birthday party hacks by blowing up balloons and dipping the bottoms in chocolate to make little chocolate mould cups. 5-Minute Crafts, WHO? 

As the chefs toil away at their benches to deliver their finale-worthy dishes, the kitchen literally looks like it’s on fire. There is so much smoke EVERYWHERE, and while Hayden’s dinosaur steak is possibly to blame, every station is spitting and there is visible sweat dripping off people’s noses, which kinda seems like a definite health code violation. 

Unfazed by it all, Season 6 runner-up Laura shared that she became native ingredient-loving Judge Jock’s pastry chef right after her season ended. Playing into her ex-boss’ hands, Laura made sure her cottage cheese-looking dessert of ‘Native Winter’ featured ingredients like lillypilly and Davidson plum.

And in a fuck you to his haters, Ice Cream Ben, runner-up from Season 9, decided to not pigeon hole himself by avoiding a sweet dish, instead opting for ‘Campfire’ — which in the pan looked like a cross between a sauced-up log of miscellaneous meat and a burnt tree trunk. 

For the dessert girls, the number of ovens, stoves and grills cranked up was creating heat and problems for Emilia and Jess, who both need tempered chocolate in their recipes but only thought about it in the last 10 minutes of the cook. Choices, honey. 

Still calm, Poh realises that her beads of dough need to be bouncier than they are so she changes her recipe in the last minutes of the cook. Chocolate Balloon Boy Reece has realised that, despite all his blowing efforts, none of his janky balloon spheres have worked. In fact, Reece says he’s “completely deflated at this stage” which truly could not be more perfect. 

As people continue to run around their benches, cool, calm and collected, Reynold dons safety goggles and a rubber glove in true Dessert King fashion. Pouring in his liquid nitrogen, Reynold starts playing Harry Potter to make his little raspberry pebbles, which seem to go off with absolutely no dramas.

Sadly, at the last minute, Poh has more dramas of her own when she remembers that she forgot to make her chilli sauce — the component that ties everything in the dish together. If you listen close enough, you can hear the whole of Australia collectively screaming at their TV screens in disappointment.

Once time is up, Hayden is called up first. Thinking he’d stuffed his steak up, a shaken Hayden started doubting his abilities compared to the other cooks because, in case you didn’t hear the first five times, he doesn’t work in a restaurant. Presenting his mammoth six dishes of bone-in ribeye steak and sides, the judges called the cook on the meat “perfection” but explained that the dish itself needed refining and focus because there were far too many elements. 

Next, Reynold presented ‘White Noise’ which, honestly, also had way too many components for a human to achieve in 90-minutes. However, Gordon Ramsay called the dish technical, elegant to the eye, and “breathtaking”. Revealing the red centre amidst all the white, the judges, unsurprisingly, thought the dessert tasted even better than it looked.

Visibly shaken by the words of praise Reynold received, and knowing hers didn’t live up because of her lack of tempered chocolate petals, sweet baby Jess started crying.

And to talk about rubbing salt into the wound, the judges made her follow Reynold’s dessert, which they just said set the bar for the other pastry chefs in the room. However, once the judges tasted her dish, the happy music pepped up again. And to sum it up, Ramsay simply said “fuck the petals — that is delicious.” 

As for Jock’s protégé Laura and her native ingredient-packed yogurt dessert — which if we’re honest, really did look like a bowl of cottage cheese — she nailed it. The judges were such fans that it made Laura’s ex-boss emotional with how well she had taken what he had taught her over the years.

Then it was crowd-favourite Poh’s turn, who presented her chilli-less abacus beads. But hey, at least she was honest, which was that strange quality Jock asked for 12 days ago when this episode started.

After finding out the dish was missing a crucial element, Gordon Ramsay’s reactions said it all. “Damn. Seriously? Damn. Really?,” he said, claiming that the dish would’ve been immunity pin-worthy with the sauce. Tough to hear, but we move on. 

In a supercut of good-but-not-immunity-pin-worthy dishes, the judges loved Bandy Ben’s take on the surf and turf, Amina’s version of seafood hotpot was deemed “sophisticated” and I’m Not Just Ice Cream Ben’s campfire treat ended up looking beautiful.

Speaking of beautiful dishes, Emelia’s strawberry and pistachio eclair was flawless, a dish Judge Melissa said was something you’d see on the front cover of a magazine.

On the more rustic side of things, Dani’s mud crab curry and sides proved to be an absolute mess to eat, but also one of the judges’ favourite dishes of the night. The flavour of the curry, the cook on the crab, the balance of all the sides, and Dani’s ability to transport the judges to places with her cooking gave her a good chance to win alongside front-runners Reynold, Laura and Emelia. 

Ultimately, Reynold and Dani reigned supreme with the top two dishes of the night. But savoury ended up winning over sweet, and Dani, her curry-stained apron and her mud crab took out the one and only immunity pin of the season. 

Next episode, the all-stars test their teamwork skills when they’re split into two teams and are tasked to feed 120 hungry guests some three-course meals.

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MasterChef returns tonight at 7:30pm on Channel 10.

Michelle Rennex is a Senior Writer at Junkee who can’t cook, but enjoys judging people like she can. You can follow her on Twitter at @michellerennex.