Tonight Laura, Sam and Byron cook sushi for Nobu’s head chef. Laura cooked an amazing dessert last night, but the other two put up a very bad dish in the team challenge.
Who was eliminated tonight? We’ll be keeping you up to date as the episode airs.
Head chef of Nobu Melbourne, Nobu Matsuhisa, took Laura, Sam and Byron how to create one of his sushi plates. The contestants had to do the same, in 90 minutes. He had some very cool tricks and was extremely precise.
Laura didn’t have any issue filleting the fish, Sam struggled a little bit but Byron completely hacked at it. Gary and Nobu give him some tips and he tries again, much better the second time. He keeps going, trying to catch up. Sam was a bit nervous and a bit slow but she had a lot of knowledge about sushi and sashimi.
The rice component takes 45 minutes to cook. with an hour left, Laura had her rice on, Byron and Sam were still to get them on. It takes Nobu 15 minutes to plate the dish, so they were in a world of worry. Eventually they get them on.
Byron burns his prawn heads and fans his rice to cool it down, Laura powers along, Sam moves on to some squid and rips its head out but burns part of her rice.
With only a few minutes to go, Laura forgot asparagus and quickly cooked it and shoved it in the roll. Byron put way too much wasabi on some of his elements, Sam was throwing things together with only a minute to go.
Unfortunately Laura forgot one of the fish on her dish, she thought there were 6 fish components but there were actually 7, the other contestants got all of their elements on.
Judging
Byron brings out his dish. It was very clumsy. His roll was missing some elements because he didn’t put it all the way through. Some of his dishes were very hot with too much wasabi. The salmon was nice and thin, the tuna was seared well and the rice was cooked very well. The prawn was perfectly cooked but the prawn head was burnt and there was inconsistency in the rice.
Laura was next. The missing element was a “major issue” but her elements were very constant and the right size. There was a good balance of wasabi and overall the dish was “really good”. The fish was cut consistently and the rice was perfect.
Finally Sam was up. One of the plates was missing an element and the fish were all different sizes. The wasabi was overpowering and Nobu got a bone. The rice was springy and separate, Matt loved the prawn but the fish was very thick.
The judges took presentation into account more than ever in this challenge. Laura’s dishes showed the best knife skills, the best technique in cutting, most elegant portion size and perfect roll. So Laura was safe. Byron’s fish was cut very clumsily and Sam’s fish was way too big. Sam left the bone in her fish which was the worst thing for sushi, so she was voted out. Sam was eliminated from masterchef tonight