Tonight on Masterchef Australia, the final contestants will be chosen. There are 9 aprons up for grabs and 16 contestants fighting for them.
The night was split into two rounds. The first round was an open pantry with 8 aprons to be given out. The contestants must cook a savoury dish. The second round will be 8 people competing for the one remaining apron.
First person up was John, cooking a traditional Philippines cuisine, Chicken Adobo. It had beautifully cooked chicken, it was delicious, George had never tasted anything like it. Matt and Gary agreed.
There was a great tasting dhukka coated egg, a medium rare steak that was cooked well but not that impressive, a cuttlefish ink fettucinne and a crispy skin duck breast.
There was an interesting Deconstructed French Soup by James, that wasn’t really a soup, but George loved it. Matt and Gary did too, he got an apron straight away.
Georgia’s eggs and Mario’s stuff calamari got aprons, followed by Billy, Andrea, Jamie, Amy and John.
A guest chef has arrived to set the next challenge and it’s Shannon Bennet. He has brought a mystery dish. As he lifts the klosh it is revealed its a warm chocolate and orange mousse. This is a dish that Shannon tests his apprentices on. The pressure point is the tempered chocolate disk. There is orange jelly and madelines. The creme anglaise might also be a difficult point.
Only one apron is left. The contestants have 2 hours to recreate Shannon Bennet’s dish. The best dish will win the last apron.
The timer has started. The contestants rush off and get their equipment and begin reading their recipes. The recipe is 4 pages long and is quite intimidating for some contestants. A few contestants are already making mistakes.
There is 90 minutes to get and Rose is still reading the recipe. With 45 minutes remaining the contestants begin tempering their chocolate and making their creme anglaise for the mousse.
Supicha is frantically multitasking and beating her creme anglaise with one hand and mixing her chocolate mix in the other.
Gary shouts out that there is only 10 minutes remaining.
1 minute to go and the contestants frantically try to complete their dishes.
Time is up and Supicha is worried as she has not used the wooden presentation board or made her chocolate sauce.
The first dish to be judged was Lee’s. She poured the sauce on the top and it melted through perfectly. The balance of flavours were a little out and the texture was a bit wrong.
Supicha didn’t have her sauce and she didn’t have the board, she tempered the chocolate well though.
Jessie’s cakes were eggy, but the chocolate was tempered perfectly.
Scott, Nick, Isabelle and Ricky all had bits missing or wrong. Rose had all the elements, her tempered chocolate had a hole in it but it tasted spot on, it was “restaurant standard”.
In the end it was Jessie, Lee and Rose who had the stand out dishes. The apron was awarded to Rose.