Wow, controversial AND devastating. I hate it.
Khanh being eliminated because the challenge basically stipulated that his homeland cuisine is not 'fine dining' and made him change the thing he knows how to do perfectly into some dry ass fine dining experience.... I DON'T LIKE IT :(((( #MasterChefAU
— Astrid Jorgensen (@JorgensenAstrid) June 14, 2020
Asian cuisines are full of fine dining. Kaiseki, Confucian cuisine, Thai/Vietnamese court cuisine, almost any regional cuisine in China, Peranakan food... It's just that the Eurocentric conceptualisation of Michelin, World's 50 Best etc. constantly ignores it. #MasterChefAU
— Adam Liaw (@adamliaw) June 14, 2020
Regardless of all that, Khanh did incredible work. He championed the cuisine he cared about, elevated a dish others look down on, and used his exit as yet another sweet shoutout to LGBTIQA+ Australians. If you didn’t know, Khanh’s “you are loved” t-shirts are from the queer youth charity Minus18.
He’s been such a ray of sunshine all season and it’s sad to see him go. Khanh, YOU are loved!
Thanks for following along for another week. I’ll see you next Sunday for another terrible heartbreak.
Khanh is eliminated
Khanh is going home. His dish “lacked finnesse” and the cooking of the quail was “less than perfect”. Melissa is crying. Khanh is crying. I am crying.
“There are so many people in the world going through so much more than me right now,” he says. “I just want to say you are loved. It gets better.”
Updated
Laura says “I don’t know if I can handle this” and same.
Everyone is so emotionally cooked this episode also #MasterChefAU
— jonokik (@jonokik) June 14, 2020
The judges announce the best two dishes: Reynold (he does more than just desserts, who knew!) and Emelia (pastry genius). That leaves Khanh and Laura.
The teeny pastries are Paris-Brest petit four. Jock says it’s “textbook perfect”. Andy, who hates cakes, is frothing at the mouth. They love it.
Emelia’s petit-four is the last dish to be tasted.
“I’ve spent the last years trying to perfect my craft - cakes and desserts,” she says. “This is a big part of it for me. If I went out on the back of [this], it would just mean I’ve got more to learn - which is a good thing.”
I’m so sad Emelia didn’t get more screentime earlier in the season. She’s a big sweetie.
People are already saying goodbye to Khanh, but I’m in denial. I don’t want this to happen.
Fuck this I’m buying @khanhong ‘a cookbook in solidarity. If khanh goes home we riot at sunrise #MasterChefAU
— McSnazzin (@lliamonade) June 14, 2020
Realising that khanh is probably now going home is devastating. I've loved how he's worn his heart on his sleeve, hes been a ray of sunshine and I just genuinely love him to pieces. I hope khanh knows just how much he is loved, just like his t-shirts say#MasterChefAU
— ✨ Miss Natski ✨ (@Natski82) June 14, 2020
Laura’s coq au vin (without coq or vin) “doesn’t look very fine dining”, Jock says. The judges agree it looks rustic.
The flavour is a different story though. Charlie likes the variations she made to the recipe. Melissa says the elements speak to her attention to detail.
Khanh’s ga kho gung is next. He’s so worried because it’s usually “a peasant dish”. Don’t worry Khanh! Haven’t you seen Ratatouille???
Jock has a full ribcage in his quail. Uh oh. Charlie said “he tried his best”. Uh oh. Melissa thinks the meat is dry. UH OH.
Updated
It's time to taste the fancy food
Reynold’s confit blue eye looks very cute and delicate, but it seems much more basic than his usual sugar terrariums.
Jock is satisfied that it looks fancy enough. But how does it taste? Charlie says he “nailed it” because he let each ingredient sing.
Jock thinks the fish was “perfection” but “on the edge” of being overcooked. Reynold can chill out. There’s no way he’s going home.
<3
IM NOT CRYING YOURE CRYING #MasterChefAu
— Emelia Jackson (@emeliajacksonMC) June 14, 2020
Time’s up! Emelia is teary again, describing the immense pressure of the MasterChef kitchen. Yep, I believe her! It looks like an absolute nightmare.
She says she’s happy with the dish itself though. “If this wasn’t received in the way I wanted it to be, it would be devastating.”
It seems like the judges are either going to love it. Or she’s going home, and everyone is going to collapse into a flood of tears.
Khanh’s quail, on the other hand, isn’t exactly how he wanted it. He’s trying to make it as ~fine dining~ as possible by making everything tiny and sprinkling teeny tiny herbs across the plate (smart, rich people love that stuff)
Emelia’s choux pastry comes out of the oven, and it’s perfect. Bon appetit, as they say in The Fancy Language.
Laura is using bone marrow, quail and cognac instead of chicken and wine in her coq au vin.
Khanh is also butchering a tiny bird. He’s cooking a quail on the hibachi, but he’s worried it’s not going to hit the “fine-dining” brief. “I’m going to try my best to elevate Vietnamese food ... I want to champion it. This is what I’m about.”
If Khanh loses because he didn’t choose France I’m going to be furious.
Emelia is feeling a “crushing weight of pressure” about her tiny pastry.
“You’re risking your entire place in the competition on this tiny, little bite,” Jock says, laser beams in his eyes.
Emelia tears up. Her voice is shaking. She says she knows she was really reserved at the start of the competition, but she really wants people to notice her now.
This is a winner’s edit if I’ve ever seen one.
The judges are confused about Reynold not doing a Big-Time Reynold Dessert. He’s so great at French pastry!
Interestingly they don’t say anything about Laura not making pasta.
45 minutes to go. Reynold seems to be plugging in a laminator? Oh wait, it’s for the sous vide. I don’t know, I wouldn’t put anything past him.
Interesting (but not surprising) to see that three of the four contestants have chosen French as their cuisine in the “fine-dining” challenge. I wonder why!!!
“Asian food don’t lend itself to fine dining” because ‘fine dining’ itself is a European/ Western concept... That’s exactly why we celebrate reality cooking shows like #MasterChefAU because it’s a (tiny) step towards dismantling the Eurocentrism that dominates food culture
— Fiza Zali (@fizawanders) June 14, 2020
"Many Asian cuisines don't normally adapt themselves to fine dining."
— Josh 🌈 (@abangpinoy) June 14, 2020
Is that because there's been a particular mindset that has been levelled at non-Western European food, and the ones who have made them fine dining distinctively White™?#MasterChefAU
Their view of what is a “fine dining” concept seems to mean “French” #MasterChefAU
— Greg Jericho (@GrogsGamut) June 14, 2020
Let’s use the ad break to mourn the fact that one of these legends is going home! No one is sadder about that than they are...
We play jenga together, @emeliajacksonMC @lauracassai and Reynolds secret account 😭😭😭#MasterChefAU pic.twitter.com/24EqhVi2lk
— khanh (@khanhong) June 14, 2020
You know who that leaves... it’s the BIG DOG.
Reynold has also chosen France BUT he hasn’t chosen a sweet dish. He’s cooking fish - the thing that sent him home last time he was on the show.
Khanh is choosing Vietnam. He’s making quail hibachi basted with caramel. Yum! He’s worried that his dish won’t be “fine dining enough”. Charlie reminds him of how fancy the French are! Uhh thank god for those colonisers, I guess. Yum yum...
Laura is going with France, her take on coq au vin.
Emelia is also going with France. She’s making a Paris-Brest, a tiny little one-bite pastry. A very dangerous thing to make in an elimination challenge! She is pretty amazing with pastry though.
Round two: cook around the world
The worst four contestants from the first round - Emelia, Laura, Khanh and Reynold - are cooking in a second challenge to avoid elimination.
They have to choose a country that Charlie has travelled to for Atlas (his fine-dining restaurant, open for bookings right now, have you heard he loves to travel, so cultured, experience the world etc etc) and represent it through a fine-dining dish made in 60 minutes.
The worst dish will send that contestant home.
The second team cooking in the second round with Khanh and Reynold: Emelia and Laura.
Phew.
If it’s NOT Emelia and Laura, Twitter is going to explode.
The only thing for me is that it was such a terrible example of Indian food that my ancestors are now mad at me for watching this. #MasterChefAU pic.twitter.com/MzwBaY41qs
— J Kaul (@j_kaul) June 14, 2020
emelia serving her pani puris on a layer of raw dal (lentils) is the sort of white energy I didn’t need to experience today #MasterChefAU
— Isha Bassi (@Isha_Bassi) June 14, 2020
The teams that will be cooking in the second round:
Khanh and Reynold, and ... AD BREAK.
What do you reckon? Probably Emelia and Laura.
As an Indian who LITERALLY ATE PANIPURI for a better part of 20+ yrs..... That isn't PANIPURI....SORRY...#MasterChefAU
— Madhujith (@Madhujith) June 14, 2020
Poh and Callum’s Lebanese street food is a mixed bag. The prawns were a big winner, but the lamb was quite dry and kind of a weird dish to choose for such a short time frame.
Is Poh going to drag Callum into elimination? :\
Khanh and Brendan’s Chinese street food - pork dumplings and fried rice - is next. Melissa says it’s “good, but not great”.
It’s a meh from Charlie too. But on the plus side: Khanh did a good job on the dumplings. Is Reynold going to be cooking in the elimination round again?
Next up: the Indian team. Emelia and Laura made pani puri (kind of) and tandoori prawns.
Melissa loves the story of them travelling together to India (which the producers were definitely not told beforehand). Unfortunately the prawn flavour got lost and the pani puri is like a “stale biscuit”.
I’m personally shook that two white women who spent a gap week in Mumbai aren’t that good at cooking authentic Indian food. #MasterChefAU
— Tara Watson (@tara_watson_) June 14, 2020
It’s time to taste!
“Epic energy!!!!” Andy says. But the bottom two teams will cook again, and the loser of that cook is going home.
The Mexican team, Tessa and Brendan, are up first: crispy blue-eye tacos and agave and lime-grilled quail.
Surprise: the quail is great! And they’ve accidentally done something quite authentic. The taco shells are also perfect. Charlie, who has been to Mexico, also loves it.
Time is up!!
Let’s celebrate with a timeless tweet. Andy hasn’t really done anything this episode and he’s already getting dunked on.
I really dig how diverse the new #MasterChefAU judge lineup is - a Scottish chef with classic French cuisine experience, a lady food writer and critic who knows a lot about Asian foods and flavours, and an excitable toddler who’s been turned into an adult by the machine from Big
— michael busuttil (@m_busuttil) June 14, 2020
Khanh thinks Reynold’s fried rice is a bit too greasy. They’re trying to freshen it up with just a few minutes to go.
There are similar dramas with Emelia and Laura’s pani puri but… there’s not much that can be done with that!
Melissa tells Brendan “you gotta know when to hold [the tacos], know when to fold [the tacos]”. And, without skipping a beat, Reece is singing, serenading his buddy from the sidelines. You love to see it.
Callum notes how completely different he and Poh are during the cook. “She’s so calm! I’m so crazy!”. That sure is one way to look at it. Poor Callum. Sometimes there are very good reasons to panic.
And.. just in time one of Emelia’s pani puri puffs up! Just the one though. Which is unfortunate when you’re cooking for four judges.
She’s now cooking the naan and prawns in the tandoor, which she learned how to do in India. One of the more helpful, less infuriating things white women ~learn in India~!
A lot of anti-Charlie tweets going around.
Brb going to another country for 2 weeks and then I’ll be able to represent the cuisine confidently #MasterChefAU
— Anya 🏳️🌈💃🏽 (@anyasaravanan) June 14, 2020
How much is Ch 10 paying Charlie Carrington for tonight's episode?The guy has literally done nothing other than rave about how many countries he has been to. At least give some advice to the contestants. #MasterChefAU
— KC (@kelv_cheuk) June 14, 2020
I would try and defend him a little for balance but.. I also haven’t really heard him speak yet.
Emelia’s pani puri is still too flat. She’s been through “countless” testers. It doesn’t look great for them.
Callum (wisely) thinks they might need to drop an element to get it all done in time, and Poh quickly shrugs that off: “I LIVE OFF THE CHAOS, CALLUM. RIDE OR DIE, MATE.”
This is not his usual way of working.
15 minutes left. Or, in Poh time, three hours.
The judges huddle together (distantly) and say they’re low-key concerned about the pani puri. Also Reynold’s fried rice, which is not being made with day-old rice. Nothing said about the Mexican team who know nothing about Mexico, which is kind of them.
Laura’s prawns are looking good, but Emelia’s pani puri shells aren’t working out. They look like little pappadums. (They should be round like little egg shells)
“If that doesn’t puff up, you’re screwed” Andy says, helpfully.
Tessa seems confident she can wing the Mexican flavours on their tacos.
Elsewhere, Brendan is mashing his firsts in taco shell dough, grimacing, hating every single second of it.
We don’t deserve Brendan. #MasterChefAU pic.twitter.com/1OGMLfLkew
— Tara Watson (@tara_watson_) June 7, 2020
Also sorry was Jock on a Vespa before? Someone give me that horrifying screenshot
Excuse me, did Reece say he and Brendan live together?? Just during the show, or outside of that too? Either way I love it. Spinoff show now, please.
Tessa agrees that she and Brendan are the pair struggling the most with their cuisine. Like Brendan, she also knows basically nothing about Mexican food.
They’re making a crispy fish taco and chargrilled quail. Melissa says “uhh see much quail in Mexican cuisine…” and Tessa is literally and figuratively enveloped in fireballs. Uh oh.
Khanh and Reynold are making pork and cabbage dumplings and chicken fried rice. In a first for a Reynold dish, I understand every element he’s talking about!
I guess he couldn’t reasonably make a street food that resembles the Great Wall of China or something this time around.
Poh and Callum are coriander hummus and lamb flatbread (?). Lamb shoulder seems like a very hectic thing to make in a 75-minute street food challenge, but ok! It is Poh, I guess.
The Famous White Man has not gone unnoticed.
Good news,we’ve brought you another white man who’s been overseas! #MasterChefAU
— mrj_cooks (@mrj_cooks) June 14, 2020
Another white person guiding them on non-white food #MasterChefAU
— Leah (@forthejokes) June 14, 2020
Brendan, who says he knows nothing about Mexican food, knows enough that he should be making tacos.
Meanwhile, Laura and Emelia are stoked about their cuisine. They travelled to India together after their first season of the show, and feel confident about making pani puri (well, kind of) and naan bread (or, as it’s more accurately known: naan).
The guest (white male) chef today is Charlie Carrington! Carrington owns Atlas - a Melbourne restaurant that changes its menu every four months, based on a different cuisine from around the world. He travels to different places and drafts something new on his travels.
I wonder how the producers felt about this pre-recorded ep during the Alison Roman saga... Oh well, no time to dwell on the fetishisation of a persisting colonialist food culture, it’s time to make some street food!!!
And here are those shorts if you missed ‘em
.@reece_hignell is dressed to impress and ready to party 🕺🏻 #MasterChefAU pic.twitter.com/watrNoAK4i
— masterchefau (@masterchefau) June 14, 2020
Round one: Step Up 2 The Street (Food)
Two rounds of cooking today. Four contestants will be safe after the end of round one. Four will go into round two. One of those final four will then go home.
The first challenge is all about street food. The contestants will compete in pairs, either cooking Indian, Chinese, Mexican and Lebanese. Here are the pairs:
Indian: Laura and Emelia
Lebanese: Poh and Callum
Chinese: Khanh and Reynold
Mexican: Brendan and Tessa
Reece is wearing shorts that declare “I came to party”, Melissa says. As if we would expect anything less. Today is his glorious lap of honour, after winning immunity on Thursday night. Nevermind that this challenge is outside and, despite the sunshine, it is Melbourne. It’s about 13 degrees in that garden.
Aaand we’re live!
The contestants walk in, absolutely shrieking, and the garden is set up with market stalls labelled after different countries. Extremely bougie-looking market stalls - the type that would charge you $8 for a samosa - but cute nonetheless.
Hello again! It’s Sunday night, which means it’s time for MasterChef Australia to rip our hearts out and throw them straight on the hibachi. Tonight’s elimination challenge will start at 7.30pm. Until then, let’s look back on the last few eps...
It was a good week for: The redemption of vegetables. After Simon’s sad soggy broccoli turned everyone into carnivores last Sunday, pumpkin got its very own episode. Battling for immunity, Poh, Laura, Reece and Emelia were asked to cook three dishes with one pumpkin (big iso vibes).
Emelia did not win, but she came close - and she’s definitely having a good week after all this extra airtime. It was also a good week for Reece, who won the challenge and is safe from tonight’s cook. Sorry Simon, the new veggie boy is crowned.
It was a bad week for: Sarah Tiong. The real-life angel was sent home on Tuesday night after a controversial curry pressure test from Chin Chin’s Benjamin Cooper. Watching a white chef cryptically lecture Asian-Australian contestants on his version of a Thai curry was also not much fun for many viewers.
Benjamin Cooper: want some advice for cooking my dish which you are trying to do without a recipe?
— The Don (@TheDon36415485) June 9, 2020
Brendan: plz 🙏
Benjamin Cooper: be cheeky
Brendan (and Australia): #MasterChefAU pic.twitter.com/2AgZnl23mi
After Sarah was kicked off, she then got hit with some racist ~banter~ on commercial radio. Which, frankly, is kinda weird because the government told me MasterChef fixed racism???
Tonight: The contestants cook street food from around the world. The ads are teasing Laura, Poh, Reynold and Khanh as the people who are in danger. Who are you most worried about tonight? Probably Poh, right?
Tweet me @msmegwatson or send me an email!
