‘MasterChef Australia’ Recap: You Try So Hard And Get So Far, But In The End It Doesn’t Matter
The first Team Challenge of MasterChef Australia season 11 was the smoothest Team Challenge I have ever seen. I was expecting some chaos from the fresh-faced contestants, who were being tossed into an unfamiliar, high-pressure situation. Instead, both teams worked seamlessly to deliver seven flawless dishes each. It was almost disappointing, apart from the moment Simon straight up lied to the judges.
We’re only just starting MasterChef Australia‘s second week, and already two Immunity Pins have been won and two contestants are gone. Both Tessa and Prince Harry got Pins, though HRH used his to sit out the surprise elimination that booted smiley Yossera. Beautiful crab curry Dee is also no more, and I don’t want to talk about it.
Powering on like dutiful soldiers leaving fallen comrades where they lie, the remaining contestants head offsite for the first team challenge of the season. Taking place in Briagolong in East Gippsland, around 270km east of Melbourne, contestants are tasked with cooking a buffet lunch for the volunteers of disaster relief charity Lions Need for Feed, as well as the farmers they help.
I’m betting none of them have heard about this charity before, but they wax poetic about it for the camera. “I know that there’s been so much need for all the feed that they need for their animals, let alone for themselves,” says Abbey, invoking images of self-sacrificing farmers sliding their hay bale dinner over to their cattle.
The teams have three hours to cook three dishes, three sides and one dessert per team, to be served to 150 people. Blue Team nominate Larissa as captain, citing her temperament, while Red Team choose Prince Harry because he grew up in the country. That doesn’t seem like a qualification, but I suppose it’s early enough in the competition that they don’t have much else to base a decision on.
Blue Team is to cook seafood, while Red Team get land animals — exactly what both wanted. Everything is going improbably well.
Even during the cook, there are few issues. The editing does a good job of trying to make Joe’s rock hard beetroots and Christina’s uncertainty about her sticky date pudding ratios seem fraught. Nevertheless, all the problems have quick fixes or don’t actually manifest.
Most of the potential issues are on Red Team. Mandy, who is in charge of the lamb shoulder with pomegranate, molasses and sumac, confides that she usually roasts this recipe for around eight hours, but as they don’t have the time for that she’s hoping pressure cooking will do the trick. She doesn’t seal the pressure cooker lids properly, losing 15 minutes and winning a dramatic cut to commercial, but they come out perfect in the end.
Cooking the sides, the carrots for Nicole’s roasted honey baby carrots with crispy chickpeas refuse to soften up on the hotplate. She’s concerned until Jess suggests they pop them in the oven, after which they turn out a treat.
I feel like the carrots should have gone in the oven in the first place, but then again I’m not a MasterChef contestant. Maybe there’s a reason they opted to ineffectually roll them around on the hotplate.
The biggest screw up of the episode comes early on from the Blue Team, which has entrusted Vegan Smokehouse Simon with filleting six salmon. Simon says fish is his speciality, but so far that’s seemed like a lot of talk to me, particularly as he absolutely butchers his first fish. Unfortunately for him, George then shows up, so Simon takes a leaf out of the kindergarten playbook and hides what he’s done.
“How’s the filleting going?” asks George.
“First one is great,” lies Simon, who has turned the fish skin side up so George can’t see it. You kind of have to admire the audacity. Of course, George asks him to turn the fish back over, and it is very much not great.
“It’s like a scene from a horror film,” says George, making a face as though it also smells rank.
Though Simon says he has scaled the fish, at this point George isn’t going to take his word for it, and I do not blame him. He has Simon scrape a knife over the skin, and yep, it isn’t scaled properly either. Simon’s going to have to descale them all again, which will take up quite a bit of time, before filleting, pin-boning and portioning them. Get it together Smokehouse.
Also on Blue Team, Sandeep has again gone straight for the prawns to make a prawn curry, just like he did in his second chance cook. I love this man, and I love his love of prawns.
There isn’t a restricted pantry this time either, and Sandeep is stoked. “That’s my secret garam masala,” says Sandeep, holding up a silver bowl with a conspiratorial smile. “It’s got secret cumin, secret cardamom, secret cloves, secret star anise, secret cinnamon, secret bay leaves.” He doesn’t seem to understand what “secret” means, but he is just so happy that I do not care.
Working on his dish, he tells the camera that he’s being mindful to balance the flavours and not overload it with chilli. “It’s about the whole spice experience.” I could listen to Sandeep talk about curry forever.
The tedious task of deveining all Sandeep’s prawns falls to Derek and Kyle, though apparently neither have eaten a prawn in their life, as they innocently believe one prawn per person is enough. Fortunately Matt sets them straight, but who in the history of mankind has ever stopped at one prawn? MasterChef contestants should know better.
It’s slow going, but Blue Team is remarkably upbeat, cheering each other on in a manner that is incredibly optimistic even for MasterChef. Larissa hustles them along, but doesn’t need to be a disciplinarian because everyone is on point and having fun.
“The spice level in this prawn curry is perfect,” beams Sandeep. “Flavours are there. Farmers should love it.”
With 10 minutes to go, both teams are already plating up and bringing the dishes to the buffet table. There’s very little rush — everything’s done on time, confidently cooked and nicely presented. Prince Harry gets teary. “I can’t wait for the farmers and volunteers to taste this beautiful food.”
MasterChef‘s judges also can’t wait, and are suitably impressed by the Blue Team’s meals. There’s pretty much no criticism, and instead we’re treated to a sequence of the judges eating and making appreciative noises. In particular, they shout out Sandeep’s “crowd-pleasing” prawn curry and Christina’s sticky date pudding, which they call the dessert of the day.
The only note is that Matt thought their buffet felt like a bunch of individual dishes rather than a meal made by a team. Which is what a buffet is, but OK.
Unfortunately dessert of the day alone does not make a winning team, and while Blue Team served up excellent dishes, the judges were in raptures over the Red Team’s “seven fabulous dishes that blew our socks off”.
“I love the fact that you can mix and match whatever you want,” says Matt, as though you can’t do that with any food if you aren’t a coward. The dishes, of course, included another crispy pork belly by Prince Harry, helped by Ben. Crispy pork always wins.
So even though Blue did an amazing job, today they’re heading into elimination, where 22 will become 21 and Tessa will likely lose her Immunity Pin. Proving once again that as much as people say all that matters is that you try your best, we all know that is patently untrue.
Amanda Yeo is a Sydney-based writer, lawyer and MasterChef enthusiast who still thinks Reynold should have gotten an immunity pin for his 30/30 dessert in season seven. Follow her on Twitter: @amandamyeo.