TV

‘MasterChef Australia’ Recap: Textures, Unused Immunity Pins And Laura Cooking Pasta, Again

"Saddest short story ever: For sale - one immunity pin, never used."

by Michelle Rennex  4 May 2020
masterchef elimination texture

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Last night, Australia was rocked by the shock elimination of one of MasterChef: Back To Win’s front-runners.

The two-round elimination, based all around textures, started with the chefs having to cook a dish with the ultimate crunch. Despite having a pretty shitty and tearful last few cooks, Dani chose to, again, not play her coveted immunity pin. Meanwhile, Australia’s sweetheart, Jess, ran right up to the gantry to safety following her immunity win earlier in the week.

In a very airy fairy introduction to the elimination challenge, Melissa stressed the importance of the sound of the food contestants plate up. As she was interrupted by Jock tucking into a packet of Red Rock Deli (goals), the cooks realised that the sound of crunch would play an important role in the first round.

Given an open pantry, open garden, the choice of sweet or savoury and a max time of 75 minutes, the all-stars rushed into creating dishes with the ultimate crunch.

Meat Man Chris calmed Australia down by finally wearing his missing fedora from last episode as he got stuck into cooking a beer-battered flathead with aioli because he’s a MAN. A REAL BLOKE. MAN LOVE BEER. BEER IS ESSENTIAL. MUST COOK ALCOHOL.

Following the seafood vibe, Sweat King Callum opted for a chilli crab with some salt and vinegar onion rings, claiming that the essential “crunch” would be coming from the sound of the crab shell. I’m not sure who put the idea that people eat crab shells into his mind, but Callum ran with it.

Simon, stuck thinking about his time in England, decided to craft a humble chip butty with some home-made crisps — which is definitely not what a chip butty is. Perhaps just a little more time in England would’ve helped him out on this one, but alas.

Meanwhile, with seafood seeming to be the most popular food of the night, Khanh begun his cook of prawns and kale, which Jock doubted the crunch of, and Amina told Melissa she was deep-frying a bunch of school prawns.

Egging Ice Cream Ben on for constantly cooking his frozen treats, Melissa found out that Ben was actually going for a complex crispy Indonesian pork instead. Meanwhile Queen of Law Sarah decided to keep it simple with a crunchy fried chicken and Fuck A Time Limit Poh went even simpler with some Thai-style fried peanut snacks, as she explained she was just “trying to have fun today”. Poh, it’s an elimination. This is truly the worst time to have fun.

Back in crab land, as Callum began hammering away at his shellfish, Jock The Antagoniser came over and begun questioning Callum’s bizarre take on what crunch actually meant. Expecting the food in his mouth the actually be the crunchy part and not the shell outside, Callum started to do what he does best: Absolutely sweat fucking buckets.

Not picking up on the very obvious hints being thrown by Jock, Callum decided to not change his recipe and continue on with his “crunchy” crab shells.

Over in the land of sweet, Dessert King Reynold got stuck into a multi-component dish with chocolate, ice-cream, isomalt shard, freeze-dried mandarins and almond sable. Looking like another scene from a Harry Potter potions class, Reynold started blowing balloons out of sugar because, well, he’s Reynold.

Back on Earth, Hayden was well into his cook of Indian chicken curry with crunchy papadums. Proving his ability to listen to the task at hand was also a bit out of wack, just like Callum, Hayden explained that while his curry wasn’t crunchy, his side dish was.

Meanwhile, back on her bullshit after her one day break with raw tofu, Pasta-Lover Laura decided to whip up a fried gnocco fritto with beef tartare. For those following at home that’s fried pasta dough. Yep, Laura managed to somehow make PASTA in a CRUNCHY food challenge. I have truly had enough.

After her decision to not use her immunity pin, Dani shared with Andy and Melissa that she was going to wow the judges with a “naughty” fried eggplant. Covering it in tapioca flour to fry and glazing it in miso, Dani hoped that the eggplant — an ingredient notorious for being mushy as fuck — would maintain its crunch.

Excitedly plating up his dish first, Fedora Chris served up his fried fish and aioli, which lets be real, isn’t a really a complete dish now is it? Anyway, the judges loved his fish fingers and sauce.

Next up, in a shock to the entire country, Poh presented her beer nuts with 30 minutes to go instead of 30 seconds. And again, the judges loved this “dish” despite it also not being an actual dish. Idk, the rules of this elimination were so loose it was hard to know what was going on.

Stepping up the number of components to more than like two ingredients, Simon gave the judges his open-sandwich version of a “chip butty” — which was undoubtedly crunchy as hell considering it was just fried potato on toast. But the dish had the “double crunch” that Jock so desperately wanted to see and it somehow actually earned Simon a spot right up to the gantry.

Bringing her South-East fried chicken up to the judges, Queen of Law Sarah’s super crunchy dish also earned her an instant spot onto the gantry. Similarly, with what feels like her first screen time all season, Tracy’s potato skins were so crunchy that Andy sent her upstairs straight away. However, while Jock the judges (expectedly) liked Laura’s pasta, she didn’t get instant safety.

Looking questionable for an hour-long cook, Dani’s sticky miso “crispy” eggplant was a hit and miss. While the flavours were good, Jock shared that his eggplant wasn’t crunchy at all, which made her instantly second guess her decision to not play her pin.

Next up, serving up his chilli crab with onion rings, the judges struggled to see Callum’s crunch vision despite the dish tasting amazing. Calling the onion just a garnish that gave the crab a “hint” of crunch, the judges were torn by the dish. Which is a real concept considering Poh just served up fried peanuts and Tracy only whipped up some potato skins.

Sadly, Khanh also faced a similar fate as while the crumb on his prawns was a little crunchy, the texture was overtaken by the softness of the prawn itself. Brendan’s prawn wontons faced the same problem, where the dumplings were not crunchy all over.

Using the entire 75-minute cooking time, Reynold The Scientist’s blown sugar creation hit both the beauty and crunch marks, which earned him a spot right to safety. Similarly, Ice Cream Ben’s Indonesian pork dish was also so good that he was also given a spot on the gantry.

While good but not entirely gantry-worthy, the judges thought Amina’s fried school prawns were crunchy goodness and that Rose’s knafeh cannoli were delicious.

Last to the tasting table, Melissa said that Hayden’s curry lacked depth of flavour AKA seasoning AKA salt AKA his one true enemy in life. Not only this, but his papadums were also a bit too dense for the judge’s liking.

As a result Hayden landed in the bottom five alongside Khanh’s soft prawns, Callum’s ~crunchy~ crab, Brendan’s soggy wontons and immunity-pin wearing Dani’s limp eggplant.

Following the texture theme of the night, the bottom five were tasked with creating dishes focused on gooey with the same rules as the first round.

Very clearly regretting her decision to not play her pin, Dani let Andy and Jock know that she was cooking a gooey son-in-law egg in a chilli sauce. For some reason, Jock dove back into the ol’ Memory Vault™️ to pull out a story bragging that he once ate 34 son-in-law eggs at a work party. Like… cool story, Jock? I don’t know what you want us to do with this information? This is literally The Zonfrillo Pepper Crisis 2.0.

Anyway, back to cooking, Salt-Phobic Hayden also opted for an egg dish with a yolk-filled ravioli with home-made ricotta, butter sauce and parmesan foam. Again, because the two male judges are seemingly joined at the hip this season, Andy and Jock questioned Hayden on whether he was going for one raviolo or multiple ravioli. Placing all his eggs in one basket (heh, get it?), Hayden shared he was going for one single perfect pasta instead of multiple.

Finally shying away from eggs, Brendan begun cooking what was basically a cheesy pizza pocket made of Korean fried chicken — a dish he had actually never made before, which was a real choice to make in an elimination cook. Similarly, Khanh also chose to make something he had no experience with — a molten lava cake with a scotch caramel.

Last but not least, Sweat King Callum decided to go with sweet over savoury with a rum caramel-filled, piña colada-esque parfait. Once again busting Callum’s balls, Jock reminded Callum that caramel thickens in cold temperatures, so it may be difficult to achieve the gooey texture of the brief. With this new knowledge, Callum decided to add another two cap fulls of rum to make the caramel more viscous — and the judges more drunk, probably — before placing it inside the parfait.

Meanwhile, Dani, yet again, had another cheeky cry because she didn’t know whether her eggs were cooked correctly despite being given 75 minutes to cook extras to, I don’t know, test to see if they were cooked? Just a thought.

Up first to tasting table, Hayden’s singular egg yolk raviolo turned out to be perfectly gooey when sliced through the centre. And in the most bonkers critique for an all-star ever, the judges praised Hayden for finally seasoning his food correctly. Honestly? The bar is literally on the floor for Hayden. Anyway, they also enjoyed the parmesan foam for adding to the gooeyness of the dish.

Following Hayden, Brendan presented his cheesy Korean fire chicken pockets, which luckily had the gooey cheese pull the judges were looking for. Plus, it was also just super delicious. Then dipping into savoury, the judges tasted Khanh’s molten chocolate cake, which had the gooey centre needed to hit the brief.

While presenting her son-in-law eggs, Dani again broke down in tears. But sadly for Dani, her fears were warranted as her egg yolks oozed out way too fast, which was a sign that the eggs were undercooked. This meant that Dani’s son-in-law eggs didn’t have the gooey factor and instead were just plain ol’ runny.

Lastly, Sweat King Callum brought forward his piña colada-inspired parfait with a gooey caramel centre. Despite the caramel being visibly gooey and good enough for Melissa and Andy, resident Callum-hater Jock felt that the caramel was more saucy than sticky.

But it was Dani’s runny-ass egg that ultimately sent her packing, with her immunity pin ironically still stuck on her apron.

On the next episode of MasterChef: Back To Win, the remaining contestants split into two teams for an off-site Thai food challenge.

MasterChef: Back To Win returns tonight at 7.30pm on Channel Ten. 

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.