It’s only been a week since a hologram of Nigella Lawson read us a sexy poem about cake, but I feel like I have lived 1,000 lives since then.
I’ve borne witness to someone poisoning mac and cheese with strawberries, and tormenting ice cream with onions. I’ve been haunted by dystopian projections of celebrity chefs. I’ve been assaulted with 10 smirking Heston Blumenthals.
A few contestants have come out of Superstar Week as real winners. Soft-spoken tattooed sweetie Pete emerged from relative obscurity to grab immunity. Aaron became a real contender with consistently impressive cooks, and Depinder made her mark with various kinds of upsetting desserts that turned out to be weirdly good.
But not everyone was so lucky. Katrina was sent home for making bread and butter pudding that didn’t taste enough like bread (famously everyone’s favourite part of that pudding). And the viewers were the real losers after watching some of the world’s most dynamic and engaging chefs reluctantly participate in full-body Zoom meetings.
#MasterChefAU
— Dave (@davey0511) April 28, 2021
Highlights of Clare Smyth on tonight’s show :
1. 🧍♀️
2. 🧍♀️
3. 🧍♀️
and who could possibly forget ...
4. 🧍♀️
Luckily, Sunday night served up something different. The final superstars to visit the kitchen were Poh Ling Yeow, Callum Hann and Reynold Poernomo – real-life human beings let loose to run and scream and rain droplets upon the benches of the common folk!
The contestants were challenged to create a dish that would perfectly fit in with the menu of one of the MasterChef alums’ food ventures. That means homely treats à la Jamface, modern Australian dishes in line with Callum’s new restaurant Eleven, or something that resembles the kind of obsidian sugar fascinators Reynold is slinging these days.
Naturally, the contestants really leaned into each superstar’s personal brand. Aaron wanted to show Callum how much he froths for Adelaide farmers’ markets with a fancy take on tomatoes and basil.
Scott baked a crowd-pleasing family favourite, ginger fluff cake, to appeal to Poh.
And Therese conjured something called a “miso apple” into existence for Reynold.
These were some of the most successful dishes of the night, and honestly thank God. Therese was so desperately in love with Reynold that I couldn’t have handled seeing her fail in front of him. The incredibly proficient and talented cook was blushing and throwing hot tuiles on the ground and silently nodding like a confused Tony Abbott whenever he approached her.
Just the few clips of her cooking were enough to give me traumatic flashbacks to every crush I had from the ages of 13-22; desperately wanting to be seen by someone, while also physically ill at the idea of making direct eye contact.
Elsewhere, people didn’t get their fairytale endings. Both Elise and Wynona used their immunity pins at the last minute, after their cooks didn’t turn out as planned (meaning Therese now has the last pin in the competition). And others served up some less than ideal food to the superstar judges.
Conor’s tiramisu was dry, Tommy overcooked his salmon and the Japanese-inspired dish didn’t hit the brief, and Maja gave Poh (the milly filly queen) an inferior mille-feuille to the one she already serves at Jamface. Is that a good strategy? No. Did it work out for her? Also no.
But it was Minoli who really cooked it. She was sent home after serving sesame-crusted steak with yuzu dressing and pickled radish: a dish the judges said failed in every relevant category. It didn’t fit on any of the superstars’ menus, it wasn’t delicious, and it wasn’t executed very well either.
Minoli exited the MasterChef kitchen endlessly elbow bumping contestants on both sides of her body, gracefully chicken-winging her way towards the door.
What made me cry
KISHWAR. Endlessly and forever. This woman is a treasure, a shining light in all our lives. And so it makes sense that she is inspired by MasterChef’s OG national treasure, Poh.
I cried every time Kishwar spoke about her idol – from their little hug in the pantry (“Poh, you’re my dream come true!!”) to her declaration of love while cooking (“thank you for doing what you do all the time”). And I cried again when Poh loved her Bangladeshi meat patties and told her to stand firm in her unique expression of her culture.
The white chocolate velouté award for failure
Shoutout to a real one: Minoli’s dish that the judges said sounded pretty gross and then it was. If only all things were so simple.
