That’s it for tonight’s show!
Chris is kicked off the one time he chooses to not cook a whole animal. Melissa proves she should really have her own standalone show. Tracy, Tessa and Ben stick around for another week to meet Katy Perry. Pray for Hayden, who won’t be able to serve beers to the pregnant pop star...
Thanks for watching with me! Stay safe, go eat some laksa and read up on your history xx
Put out your fedoras
Folks, Chris is going home. His saag paneer just didn’t have the depth of flavour it needed to compete with the other dishes. On the plus side, he’s probably having a good time eating it in iso with his wife, his dog and some nice cold beers.
It’s elimination time - and Melissa has been dragged back to the kitchen to save Jock and andy.
Ben and Tessa are safe. Tessa’s fish couldn’t have been cooked better “by anyone in the world”. Hm, tough to compete with that. It’s between Chris and Tracy.
This would be suspenseful if Chris didn’t make a dish the judges so clearly don’t care about at all.
It’s time for Tessa’s fish curry! Melissa and Andy are totally sold, but Jock thinks it probably needed another 20 minutes in the pan (yikes?). The good news is that the fish is cooked perfectly... which is very bad news for Chris.
But back to Tracy.
Melissa thinks the dish is “really impressive’’ and the herb salad was a great addition. Jock and Andy are also raving about it. The salad with the nam jim dressing is “just genius”, so Tracy is definitely sticking around another week!
Why do I just want to open a bottle of red and have a good bitch about my day to Tracey? #MasterChefAu
— Samuel Leighton-Dore (@SamLeightonDore) May 10, 2020
Melissa has been out of the MasterChef kitchen for 15 minutes and people are about to riot.
This episode has really shown how essential Melissa is to this show. She is the alpha, the #1, the ultimate master. #MasterchefAU
— Shell 🌼💚 (@itis_michelle) May 10, 2020
I had no idea who @fooderati was before this year's #MasterChefAU and now I realise she is a gift to all of us.
— 30-50 feral Kyms (not Sarah or an Octopus) (@VerboseBorbage) May 10, 2020
Relationship status: Falling in love with Melissa Leong a little bit more during each episode of #MasterchefAU. Especially judging from home. She makes everything the best
— Maya (@tweetmayatweet) May 10, 2020
Tracy’s Thai green curry is next. She’s nervous because she feels like she’s “just hitting her stride”. Jock agrees. If nothing else, this has been a blockbuster week for Tracy screen time. I can now completely distinguish her face from Courtney’s! That’s… a kind of victory.
Melissa tries the saag paneer and… it’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with it, but there’s nothing that great about it either. Andy and Jock feel the same way. Chris could be in trouble. Keep your eyes peeled for Tessa’s half-cooked fish.
It’s Chris’ turn! And he’s brought a bev for the boiz!! (One bev, singular - did Ten blow the budget on Deliveroo?)
Andy and Chris agree that you can’t have a curry without a beer, which is in competition for one of the whitest things said on this show.
Everyone loves the dish - especially the sambal! Melissa is also very impressed with her fried egg! Should he have just served that for everyone though? Also why did Melissa get like three times as much rice? Restaurants are a scam.
Back to Ben’s nasi goreng.
Andy forgives the changes to the two dishes because “it’s MasterChef” - and for this reason teeny tiny food means it’s fancy. Jock is not as into it because of the eggs. And if there’s one thing Jock takes seriously, it’s eggs. (I’m not going to let this go).
This is the kind of MasterChef commentary I want from contestants:
Most Sundays I get a 10 pack of nuggets takeaway with sweet and sour sauce and extra big mac sauce. Then I eat the outside of the nuggets first with the first sauce and the meat I eat with the second sauce. #themoreyouknow #MasterChefAU
— khanh (@khanhong) May 10, 2020
The thought of this excellent chef scoffing 10 nuggets-worth of batter into his gob each week is thrilling and sickening, all at once.
An important announcement:
did anyone else notice that simon said the country of origin for duck was "pancake" #MasterChefAU pic.twitter.com/vyTbwrCWA6
— Eleanor Robertson (@marrowing) May 10, 2020
It’s time to taste!
This is like the old MasterChef kitchen! Just the lads!! Jock and Andy seem impressed with the look of Ben’s nasi goreng, but are divided on the egg issue.
Here’s something: Ben’s nasi goreng is absolutely tiny. When I order nasi goreng, I want to bury my face in rice, but Ben’s dish is roughly two bites worth of food and even the eggs are miniature.
“Apart from the elements which are completely different, everyone’s getting the exact same dish!” Ben says. Everything’s going well then.
This is.. a great point.
Pretty sure they just need one delivery driver #MasterChefAU
— Greg Jericho (@GrogsGamut) May 10, 2020
MasterChef theatrics have so thoroughly broken my brain that I didn’t question why there were four drivers waiting in some kind of military formation out the front.
Andy and Jock are not impressed by Ben’s idea to serve two different types of egg on the different dishes. The usual egg that tops nasi goreng wouldn’t survive the trip to Melissa’s house, so he’s doing a deep-fried chicken egg for her and pan-friend quail eggs for the others.
They plainly say that it does not hit the brief. He still seems keen on it. Hopefully the judges don’t compare notes in any way!
The judges are low-key worried about everyone.
Tracy is emotional!! Chris doesn’t have enough flavour!!! Tessa is making fish curry at a variety of different temperatures and cooking times to make sure it travels well for Melissa. Ben doesn’t know what a Peking Duck pancake is.
At least it’s nice to get through a night without having to stress about Poh.
The delivery drivers are on their way! It’s a nice throwback to a time when delivering food wasn’t a frontline job that put you at risk of an incredibly infectious and potentially life-threatening virus. Back then they were dealing with cute, easy problems like poor pay and a total lack of job security.
Also, @Masterchefau please delete this
No, YOU'RE a kebab #MasterChefAU pic.twitter.com/vw1H1nLTMh
— masterchefau (@masterchefau) May 10, 2020
Some feedback on the picks for tonight:
If Korean Fried Chicken can retain its level of crispiness after a 30 minute delivery, then you can do it.#MasterChefAU pic.twitter.com/pFAyUkYtKD
— Josh 🌈 (@abangpinoy) May 10, 2020
Not gonna drag anyone on this show for making ‘curry’, but it’s well worth watching Netflix’s Ugly Delicious episode “Don’t Call It Curry” to be more informed on the controversy of calling anything with gravy ‘curry’ #MasterChefAU
— Fiza Zali (@fizawanders) May 10, 2020
What we all expected to be under the cloches tonight #MasterChefAu pic.twitter.com/x2I6QcNdkm
— Amy (@AmyTheHalfie) May 10, 2020
If you’ve just tuned in, tonight’s show is an elimination. After a quiz on takeaway foods - which involved Reynold schooling everyone on laksa - Tracy, Chris, Ben and Tessa are now cooking for their lives in the competition. They have to cook takeaway dishes (of a MasterChef standard) that will be tasted both in the kitchen and also at Melissa’s house after a delivery. The contestant with the worst dish will be going home.
It doesn’t look super promising for Tessa - who, for some reason, is cooking a big old sweaty fish.
Tracy is making a Thai green curry instead.
Meanwhile, Jock and Melissa have an odd moment where they flirtatiously call each other kebabs? No thank you.
Tracy is abandoning the fried chicken because it just won’t stay crispy on the drive to Melissa’s house, which is a fair point.
Tracy tears up when she starts to talk about the fried chicken she was going to make. It’s an old recipe from her restaurant and obviously means a lot to her in some way. I really hope there’s not some big Daily Mail story tomorrow about ~what she didn’t say~.
Love you Tracy! You’re doing great!
This episode is weirdly relevant for something that was filmed before the shutdown restrictions were in place.
If Mel tastes these meals in her tracksuit pants, whilst also yelling at #MasterchefAU .... the universe might fold in on itself
— Caitlin (@caitiejayne) May 10, 2020
Tracy mentions she lives in the Barossa for the second time - we get it, girl.
She says she’s making fried chicken, and then immediately changes her mind as the words come out of her mouth. It’s a real Mal Meninga MasterChef moment.
Tessa is making a south-Indian fish curry. Yum! But also fish would not be the food that jumps to mind when I think of things that transport well :\
Ben is making nasi goreng. He says he used to eat it a lot when he lived in Bali, and he’s right in saying it’ll hold up well on delivery.
Chris is making saag paneer - no meat!! He’s also getting the sad edit, which does not bode well for his chances going forward.
While barbecuing, his wife asks how the meat is going and he says “they look about yum sticks”.....
I heard that right, yeah? Is this one of those weird regional things, like how no one outside of NSW knows what an “early mark” is? I have no explanation or comment.
Round two: redemption in a takeaway box
The second round challenge: Tessa, Tracy, Chris and Ben have to cook a takeout dish “of a MasterChef standard” that can stand the test of delivery. Melissa will be tasting the dish at her house, while Andy and Jock stay in the kitchen. They each have 75 minutes for the cook, and 20 minutes to get it to Melissa’s. There are no other restrictions.
I hope they do pavlova next. MasterChef might start a full-on war.
After a little crisis meeting with the producers, Jock - a diplomat - says both Malaysia and Singapore are correct. This is bad news for Tessa, Tracy and Chris who were straight up wrong. It’s good news for Reynold - who not only got the answer right, but also momentarily got Australia to consider the complexities of Southeast Asian culinary history on primetime commercial TV.
MasterChef starts an international incident
CONTROVERSY. The next dish is laksa but, as Reynold says, the origin is a bit more complicated than it seems. Contestants have written Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and “Thai” (the first two are definitely better options than the latter ones).
While we’re in the ad break, here’s some fun reading about how “the origins of laksa have been at the centre of a political controversy”. Malaysia and Singapore have fought about this topic for some time, with the Malaysian Tourism Minister once claiming Singapore had “hijacked their dishes”. There are also loads of regional variations.
Wow, MasterChef is really about to start an international incident over this. Any laksa historians wanna slide into my DMs?
This challenge is weirdly addictive, I agree!
OH MAN I’D BE SO GOOD AT THIS is this an actual game is there an app I can download I CAN’T WAITTTTT #MasterChefAU
— Fiza Zali (@fizawanders) May 10, 2020
The next dish is peking duck pancakes - and we have our first wrong answer!! Ben incorrectly says it’s rice paper rolls and Khanh dramatically gasps.
“I feel so bad for him,” he says. “Like, good on him for having a go and he did his best, but personally, I would just be humiliated and would never show my face in this kitchen again”.*
* not an exact quote
Before revealing the next food, Andy says “I’ve seen [Jock] devour about 45 of these in one sitting”. I genuinely thought it was going to be eggs. Just a big ol’ pile of googs for the hungry goog boy.
The second: it’s pho! Tessa brags that “it’s something I’ve eaten before”. Jock pronounces it with the hard o, which I would not have picked from him. Everyone gets it right.
The first dish: it’s pizza!! Everyone gets it right. No one humiliates themselves, decimating their professional credibility on national TV. Great work!
Once the dish is revealed, they get just a few seconds to write the answers. The first four to get it wrong go into round two. Those four will then go on to cook, and the worst dish will be eliminated.
It’s a two-round challenge tonight. There are a variety of takeout dishes in the many cloches in front of the contestants and, in the first round, they have to name the dish and the country of origin. Amina is the only contestant safe from elimination.
Chris seems very put out, and makes a point of saying he doesn’t eat takeaway. (An annoying lie people tell when they want to seem fancy). But also I genuinely don’t understand this. A “takeaway” dish is just a normal dish that’s been put in a box and delivered to you. They serve pad see ew at restaurants! Even in the suburbs!!! There’s no excuse for not knowing this food.
Round one: who’s the biggest Maccas fiend?
It’s a takeaway challenge!! Jock delivers some stats that are straight out of Deliveroo’s media kit, and asks the contestants about their favourite takeout dishes.
Poh loves some pad see ew but seems ashamed because it’s too basic, Khanh loves when his mum buys him “bougie” Chinese (happy Mother’s Day!!), Laura seems to not put her hand up at all. I guess Deliveroo doesn’t have many fresh pasta options.
“There’s cloches for days!” says Simon. Cloche is one of those words I only know because of MasterChef. See also: “gantry” and “hero” (as a verb).
Oh yes, another thing to know about this week of MasterChef is that it was all about “The Suburbs”. The contestants cooked in restaurants that - and stay with me - were not in the middle of Melbourne!!
They spoke about this great challenge like they didn’t even know that people east of Hawthorn ate food.
I, like Laura, am glad that we can put it behind us.
Why do they keep talking about the “suburbs” like it’s an overseas destination #MasterChefAU
— Anita Lawes (@mrsjbj) May 6, 2020
Hello everyone! Welcome back to another MasterChef liveblog. And happy Mother’s Day to all the mums who have used the power of this day to assert control of the TV remote for the next hour-and-a-half. Love your work.
Tonight’s elimination episode starts at 7.30pm. While we wait, let’s catch up on the past few eps:
It was a good week for: a not-so-“secret” Melbourne restaurant that is now booked out for the next 57 years, Khanh’s Twitter and IRL sass, and Amina - who won Thursday’s sushi-train immunity challenge despite not being able to taste her dish because the beef wasn’t halal??? (Step up your game, Coles).
It was actually a good week for everyone cooking in that final challenge (Amina, Emelia, and Tracy) because they had a great time, they helped each other out, and Jock wasn’t allowed anywhere near the kitchen.
the three gals having a blast and supporting each other whilst bitching on jock is the thriving I wanted in 2020 #MasterChefAU
— renee 🔫 // ke spoilers (@liekestoe) May 7, 2020
It was a bad week for: Peter Helliar, who keeps burning himself on the cornballer and appears to be stuck in a loveless marriage with Lisa McCune. Also Rose, who was eliminated on Tuesday after producing the worst “pasta not pasta”. It was a version of a traditional Indian dish called khandvi, which requires you to maniacally whip chickpea flour until you cry or it forms silky ribbons (whichever comes first). Bye Rose! I love you, Rose!!
Tonight: It’s the start of TWIST WEEK!!!!!! Tonight’s (already announced) twist will see the contestants making food that can “withstand the test of delivery”. It’s hard to get too excited about takeaway food when we know a future twist involves KATY PERRY. Give us the MasterChef queen.
I’ll be following all your tweets and comments throughout the episode! Get in touch: @msmegwatson.
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