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Tonight on Masterchef, the contestants receive a mystery box full of ugly ingredients and need to turn it into a beautiful dish.
The contestants arrive at the Masterchef headquarters. The mystery box is in front of them. Matt tells them the ingredients inside are quite exotic. There is monkfish, celeriac, morels, morton bay bug, blue cheese, Budha’s hand, chicken livers and horn melon. The contestants have 60 minutes to cook a dish using at least one of these ugly ingredients. They will only be tasting the best three dishes and the winner gets a serious advantage in the invention test.
Theresa decides to make a seafood dish, she is going to butter poach her monkfish and the morton bay bug. Anastasia is cooking a blue cheese parfait with a melon meringue. Karmen is cooking a dessert, she is making a blue cheese ice-cream and a morel mushroom cone with a microwave sponge cake. Elena is making celeriac puree, a butter poached bug tail and monkfish wing. Brett is grilling a morton bay bug and monkfish served on a celeriac puree.
Anastasia is worried about her blue cheese parfait, it has a strange and grainy texture. She is not sure what she is going to do and she is running out of time. She decides to scrap the blue cheese parfait and decides to make a chicken liver parfait instead. Theresa is cooking her fish and morton bay bug in her butter sauce is starting on her salad. Karmen is having trouble making her cones, the first batch were too thick and cracked. She makes another thinner batch and puts them into the oven. Anastasia takes her liver parfait out of the blast chiller and it has not set. Karmen finally gets her cones to work but accidentally smashes one while trying to get them to stand up in the sponge cakes she made. Time is up!
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The judges now will choose which dishes to taste. The first dish belongs to Theresa. She has made butter poached seafood, morel mushrooms and a celeriac salad. The judges taste the dish. Gary says the fish is well cooked and he likes the use of the celeriac. The morton bay bug is undercooked though. Next up is Karmen.
She has made blue cheese ice-cream with morel mushroom cones, she has also made a syrup. The judges taste the dish. George feeds Karmen some of the cake dunked in the syrup. The judges love the dish. Finally it’s Elena’s turn. She has made a butter bug, celeriac and horn melon. The judges taste the dish. They clean the plate as they love the dish.
Gary says it’s a riot, it’s absolutely delicious, it’s joyous. Matt says her techniques were genius. He loved it.
Who will get the advantage in the invention test today? Elena wins today as the judges say her dish was absolutely delicious. It’s time to find out what her advantage is. She gets to choose between honey and lemon, orange and fennel and bacon and maple. Elena reveals her choice to the contestants. She has chosen lemon and honey.
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Matt announces that this invention test is no ordinary invention test, it’s a relay. Each team has to cook one dish, the team members will have no idea what is being cooked until it is there turn to cook. There will be three teams and four cooks in each team. Elena gets to choose her own team tonight. She choses Matt, Karmen and Trent. George splits the rest of the contestants into two more teams by dividing them down the middle.
The people cooking first are Matt for the red team, Harry for the yellow team and Theresa for the blue team. Matt is cooking a savoury dish, he is making a honey lemon duck with a whiskey glaze. Theresa still hasn’t decided what dish to cook and she is still in the pantry. Harry is making a whiskey, lemon and honey trifle. Theresa finally decides to make a lemon and prosecco jelly but she has no idea what else to make, she’s hoping the rest of her team have some ideas.
It’s time to change over. Theresa changes over to Heather. Harry changes over to Brett and Matt has changed over to Trent. The contestants that have completed the first leg are escorted into another room but can watch their team mates on the a television. Matt is thrilled that Trent is following his instructions perfectly. Heather is deciding on the next elements for the dish as Theresa had no idea. So Heather is making a coconut and lemon macaroon. Brett thinks what Harry is going to do is too difficult to describe to the other contestants so he decides to change the dish. Harry is not looking impressed and has no idea what Brett is doing. It looks like Brett is making a trifle, but Harry says that trifles don’t have pastry. He say Brett better not go white chocolate veloute on him, Brett has gone rogue. Brett now tells George that he is making a lemon meringue tart, George says wow, 30 minutes with pastry. It was not very encouraging.
Change over again. Trent swaps with Elena, Heather swaps with Anastasia and Brett swaps with Mimi. Mimi is a little confused as to why Brett has changed Harry’s original idea to a tart. Gary is wondering what elements the yellow team has ready and Mimi tells him a curd and a pastry. He is not really impressed with their progress so far. Anastasia is making a preserved lemon syrup to add some bitterness to the dish. Mimi finally gets the pastry into the oven, she roasts some peaches in honey to add more of honey element to the dish.
It’s time for the final change over. Anastasia swaps with Chloe. Elena swaps with Karmen and Mimi swaps with Elise. Elise is worried as the pastry is still looking a little blonde. She is wondering how she is going to tie all the elements of the dish together with only 15 minutes remaining. Chloe is also trying to work out how to put all of the elements of her dish together, she is not keen on the bitter lemon syrup. All of the final contestants start plating up their dishes. The red team are worried that Karmen has forgotten about the carrots. Elise has plate up the lemon tart and it looks really good. There is 30 seconds to go. The red team gets out of the room and get to tell Karmen about the carrots. She decides they are overcooked and doesn’t put them on the plate. Time is up!
The judges get to taste the red team’s dish first. They have made a braised duck leg with a honey lemon and whisky glaze and a pine nut puree and a salad. Gary loves the honey, lemon and whisky sauce. George says it’s a really tasty dish, he would have liked the carrots on the plate though. Matt says it’s a good dish, well done. Next up it’s the yellow team. They have made a lemon and honeycomb tart with thyme and honey peaches. The judges wonder if the pastry is cooked and when they cut it open they think it might be. George says he is surprised they got the dish up and they can taste lemon and honey. Matt agrees that he can taste lemon and honey but wonders where the inventiveness is. Finally it’s the blue team’s turn. They have made a lemon and honey cloud, a coconut and lemon biscuit, jelly and lemon syrup. The judges taste the dish. Matt loves the coconut lemon cake. George and Gary do not like the dish at all. They say the medicinal taste of the preserved lemon syrup is overpowering and unpleasant. They say it is quite obvious it was cooked by four separate people.
The winner of the challenge today is the red team. They are all now going into an immunity challenge. The blue team was the worst performing team due to Theresa’s poor start and lack of direction. The blue team is going into a pressure test tomorrow and either Theresa, Chloe, Heather or Anastasia will be eliminated tomorrow.