Ben, Tracy, Renae and Ben are up for elimination and tonight they have no recipe and don’t get to see the dish they have to cook, all they have is Matt Preston’s food review. The contestants have 2 hours to re-create the dish. Matt Preston read the review from the head chef of the town mouse, Dave Verheul. Who will be eliminated tonight?
The first element all the contestants started first was the pear sorbet cornel. Some contestants used the juicer to juice the pears, others boiled, mashed and passed them through a sieve.
Renae tried to caramalise her white chocolate in the oven, she burnt the first lot, then burnt the second lot, she put a third lot in the oven and tried not to forget this time. All the contestants identified that the pear should be poached in butter milk.
Tracy had some issues with her sorbet, it wasn’t setting in the ice cream machine.
Ben was the only one to pick up that the walnuts were supposed to be combined maltodextrin to soak up the walnut flavour.
Brent was on to his ganache spaghetti. He had no idea how to make it. He piped the ganache into ice water, which made spaghetti but he couldn’t get it out of the water. He saw that there was vegetable oil on his bench and thought you could pipe the ganache into cold oil. This kind of worked. Amy told Renae this is what he was doing and she did it to. She didn’t like the ganache in the oil so just piped it straight on the plate.
The actual dish calls for gelatin and milk in the genache, which thickens it, allowing it to be piped.
The review said the pear “slab” was stuck to the plate with caramel. It was actually just a slice, a lot of contestants read this as “slab” and had a big piece of pear. Tracy got her sorbet out of the freezer and it was stuck to the tray. She had to put it on the cooktop to melt it a little bit to scoop it out.
All the contestants got their dishes up, to varying degrees.
Judging
None of the contestants dishes looked alike. The judges revealed the dish to the contestants. They were surprised. Ben thought his looked the closest out of the dishes but conceded it all came down to taste.
The first dish to be judged was Brent’s dish. The judges thought his presentation was good, his interpretation of the look of the dish was close. The caramel had a nice burnt flavour, there was some texture missing in the walnut crumble. George though he did a wonderful job, the sorbet was a bit sweet but had a “pure” flavour.
Next up was Ben. His caramel had set on the plate, so it wasn’t a “soft caramel”. He did have a walnut powder which was an “essential element”. The sorbet was great, it was nice and sweet and the poached pear was good. There wasn’t enough ganache on the plate however.
Renae was next to be judged. Her ganache was a “fail” it wasn’t a nest and there wasn’t enough crunch. The pear and the sorbet was nice, but her dish wasn’t “soft” or “light” and was very sweet and the elements didn’t work as well together.
Finally it was Tracy’s turn to be judged. Her dish looked fresh, but it was missing the “nest”, the ganache just turned into a caramel. Matt loved the saltiness of the crumb and the crunchiness of the crumb. The ganache had a good white chocolate flavour and the dish was well balanced in terms of sweetness, bitterness and saltiness. The poached pear was a overcooked.
The judges admitted it was a difficult challenge to judge.
Ben “captured the essence” of Dave’s dish so he was safe. Brent was also safe because of his ganache nest.
Renae’s dish was too sweet.
The contestant eliminated tonight was Renae.
Pingback: Who was eliminated? Masterchef 2014 Eliminations