Previously on MasterChef Australia...
Emelia Jackson, everybody!
...with a pastry queen in the house...
I've brought you...
Ooh! Oh, whoa!
...my eclair.
...they had to step up their choux game.
You don't want to be in round 2. Bloody oath, I don't.
The only 'shoes' I've heard of in the past
are the ones you wear on your feet.
Sweet or savoury, they were packed with flavour.
I love everything about it.
The texture, the zinginess. You've nailed the choux.
I think you did an amazing job.
Loved the concept. Really, really great choux.
Perfection, like, seriously.
Thank you. Thank you.
And after two rounds, Larissa said goodbye to the MasterChef kitchen.
I'm so gutted.
But not for long.
It's not the last
you're gonna see of me because I do have the Second Chance Apron.
Tonight, can they handle the heat...
It is chaos in the kitchen. There's so much going on around me.
...of the very first Service Challenge?
Wonder what it's gonna be today.
I'm thinking fish.
Oh, yes! You're always thinking fish.
Let's have fun today, then.
MasterChef has just been an amazing ride.
They say secrets and surprises. Every single day is different.
Here we go!
Down the front, gang!
There's rows upon rows of tables beautifully set up.
It's clearly a Service Challenge and I'm so nervous.
That's a bit fancy. Become too real.
Most I've cooked for sort of eight people,
maybe 10 people at a time,
at a dinner party.
I don't know how to cook for a whole restaurant full of people.
Oh, wow! Oh, wow! Oh, man!
Well, morning, everybody! Morning.
It is so good to have you all back in here.
We are almost at a full house.
Rue, Brent and Amy, they're still recovering at home.
But you're all here ready to go,
and you might have guessed it,
today it is a Team Service Challenge.
So you are gonna need one of these.
Grab an apron and then get in your team.
No looking.
Second to reach in the bag and I pull out a blue apron.
So my team today I'm pretty stoked with.
I've got Jess, Robbie,
Adi, Ralph, myself and Theo.
Snap! Ohh!
So, I'm on the green team.
So I'm with my buddy Rhi,
and they've got a few of the young folks,
Phil, Alice, Grace, Antonio.
What a beautiful bunch. What a great mix.
Now, seeing as it's Secret to Success Week,
and this is your first Service Challenge after all,
we've called on a couple of old mates to give you a few pointers.
These guys, they've been in your shoes before.
They've had the same fears and the same dreams.
And now they have their own hugely successful restaurants.
Please welcome from Sum Yung Guys, Matt Sinclair.
And from GAJA... Oh!
...Sashi Cheliah!
Oh!
Yeah, real pinch-myself moment.
First Service Challenge,
and Matt Sinclair and Sashi walk in the kitchen.
Like, how freaking cool,
like, literally MasterChef royalty.
Gentlemen, so good to have you back in the MasterChef kitchen.
It's always great to be back here.
Business in Adelaide pumping? Yes.
And we also just started a new one in India.
So, yeah, bit crazy.
In India, ladies and gentlemen. Amazing.
Matt, what about you? Just at Sum Yung.
Yeah? So, we've moved to a new location.
We're in Noosaville, so more in the heart of Noosa now.
Is there more seats in the restaurant?
Because every time I go there, I can't get a bloody booking.
There is a few more seats. It's not funny.
We've managed to extend it a little bit.
Ralph, when we talk about MasterChef,
these are two huge names.
Big heavy hitters.
Yeah, it's amazing. It's, I guess, what we aspire to be.
So who are you hoping for in your team?
Yeah, look... Oh!
I'm not even playing that game. I'm just gonna...
I was gonna...
They're both really good and I just want...
Any one of them would be amazing.
Rhiannon, how is it to see these two, particularly Matt?
Well, I've been to Sum Yung four times,
and, yeah, I'm stoked.
Well, the good news today
is that Matt and Sashi are your team captains.
Oh, yes!
And the good news for you, Rhiannon, is that Matt...
...is on your team.
Yay!
Sashi, you're with the blue team. Boys, go and join your team.
I'm, like, jumping in the air like a crazy woman.
To be able to have Matt Sinclair in our kitchen
is to me, like, the ultimate.
How are you going? Good to meet you!
This is a real fangirl moment for me.
Oh, my God, yes!
Underneath both of these cloths are some ingredients.
Three here for the entree.
Three for the main.
Your team needs to choose one of these ingredients
to feature in each course, but once chosen...
...the ingredient will be off the menu for the other team.
Ooh!
You will have 2.5 hours before your entrees
need to leave the pass,
and you're cooking entree and main for 30 diners each, plus us.
Three items for entrees, three items for main.
I'm hoping there's gonna be a fish under there.
Today, the best team will head into tomorrow's Immunity Challenge,
where Malissa up there has already earned her spot.
And as soon as we reveal these ingredients...
...your time will start.
What?
So are you ready?
Yes! Good, because your time starts now.
Oh!
Fish.
Ralph charges for that coral trout.
And big Ralph, 6'5, no-one's getting past him.
Grab it, grab it, grab it.
So we've got the coral trout that we need to feature in our main,
and cucumber in our entree.
Cucumber. Can we...
I sort of get around it and look back to my team,
and I think I yell out...
Can we have eggplant?
"Eggplant, eggplant," about 10 times.
Eggplant. What was the other one?
And pork, alright.
What's that? Pork belly and eggplant.
OK.
And the penny sort of drops that I really went for this.
I'm gonna really need to pull through with an idea here.
Entree. So, you're the one that grabbed the eggplant.
Where was your head at, my friend? What have you got? Let's go.
I think we do, like, some sort of, like,
sweet soy, sticky chilli glaze on them
and then we can just stack it with heaps of, like,
fresh coriander, chilli, some crunch.
Has anyone got any ideas of what we could do with the pork?
Should we do braised?
Because then, like, we've got the time, we can slow-cook it.
We can put it in, like, you know, some beautiful Asian, sort of...
In the pressure cooker? Yeah.
You think it's too similar, the dishes?
I just feel like it's both the same dish, one is pork, one is eggplant.
Yeah. Yeah, that's what I think.
It's the same thing. So it has to be... One has to change.
That's stumping me, the eggplant. Yeah.
Yeah, that's a hard one, isn't it?
I'm stressing about the time that's ticking away,
and we still don't have a dish,
and you've got to kind of make it cohesive with your entree as well,
and we've got eggplant.
Well, could we...
I know it's a bit more work, but could we braise our pork
and then deep-fry it so it's crispy.
Have you done that before? Yeah, I've done it before.
I take the lead because we kind of weren't going anywhere,
and I felt like someone had to just go,
"Let's just go with this."
So, yeah,
today for main were doing an Asian-style crispy pork belly
with a green mango salad,
and some kind of glazed eggplant for entree.
If you're feeling confident
in doing the sweet, smoky-style eggplant as a starter,
as long as you can turn it into a dish
that someone can sit down with a knife and fork, eat it and enjoy it.
You're gonna have to get moving.
We really need to motor.
Any idea on what do you want to do with fish?
I thought, for the main dish, we do a nice curry.
Curry and fish? Fish, and have some rice.
Fish curry. For the main meal.
I think it's an absolute no-brainer doing a curry
with Sashi as our captain,
Robbie, me with the fish.
So for the blue team's main,
we're gonna be making a yellow fish curry with cumin rice.
Since now we have a good idea on the fish, what does it go with?
I'm a bit worried about cucumber.
We gotta make sure that that ties in with that as well.
What are you gonna do with this? What are we gonna do with cucumbers?
Sashi, you know, asks us for an idea,
and for some reason everyone looks at me.
I think we do a sort of Indian marinated prawns,
a raita sauce with the cucumber.
And do you think that's enough for cucumber?
Just remember the cucumber must be there.
Featured. Featured prominently.
Yeah, so I think... yeah, I think a granita
with pickled cucumber...
Yeah, you can have pickle or something like that, yeah.
We're just spitballing ideas over the table
and thinking of how we could use cucumber in an Indian fashion.
And I sort of throw out the idea of raita,
which is cucumber and yoghurt.
Sashi thinks it could be good, but we need to make sure
that the cucumber is highlighted in the dish.
Let's do the cucumber in a couple of ways.
Yeah, OK. Yeah, nice.
A pickle. Yeah.
Fresh. Yeah.
A cucumber and mint and chilli granita.
Yeah.
I love Sashi. I've seen him on both of his seasons of MasterChef.
I know he's got his great restaurant, GAJA.
He's an amazing cook who knows how to layer flavour.
So you need a about 80 prawns, minimum.
Yeah, yeah.
Theo's gonna get started on the granita.
I'm gonna get started on prepping the cucumbers,
and Jess is gonna be working on all of our prawns.
I'm in my element, shelling prawns.
We need about 80 of these prawns peeled and de-veined,
which is a lot of work.
We've chosen a really finicky protein in prawns
to be cooking for this Service Challenge,
but I'm thinking if we marinate the prawns
in some Indian spices and flavours,
that's gonna elevate this dish to another level.
Really want to do well today, and he's in the house,
so I want to impress him.
Two tables. Yep.
Two different choices.
Obviously cucumbers, pumpkin and eggplant on that first table.
The blue team went for the cucumber.
Straight to cucumber. Yeah, for the entree.
I'm shocked by that. Yeah.
And then on the green team, eggplant.
Yeah.
I think they kind of got the eggplant thinking that,
and now they're like...
What do we do now? What do we do?
Yeah.
Main course, even more interesting. Coral trout from the blue team.
Yeah. And pork belly from the green team.
There's a lot of work to fillet coral trout,
pin-bone it and prepare it,
you know, plate-ready for 30 covers.
On the other side of things, pork belly is a smart choice
for a Service Challenge.
If you choose the right recipe.
Because if you're going for an even, crispy skin for 33 portions,
and you don't know what you're doing,
that's stitching yourself up.
But also portion control.
This is gonna be their first experience
of making enough of a sauce, making enough of a curry,
proportionally controlling the protein.
And that is a whole new experience for them today.
How we looking, guys? Good. How are you going?
Getting there, mate. Good, good. Yum.
So I'm working the main, which is braised pork belly.
We've got Phil doing the stock, Rhi making the sauce,
I'm doing the pork.
It's a lot of work.
Pork for 30 people, it's a fair bit of pork.
So we're planning on...
...I think it's about 160 grams per person.
So we've just got to get that right now.
So, actually, thanks for the tip,
because I need to actually get the scales.
It's very important that all dishes
have to be consistent in any Service Challenge.
So we're trying to work out
the quantity that we need.
150 per person times 30. 300 by 15.
Yep. 4.5 plus extra.
Yeah.
If we don't get the quantities right now,
we may not be able to serve plates which are consistent
because it needs time to be braised in the pressure cooker.
Alright, I'm trying to do my maths. I think you need about eight.
So it's trying to get that right and trying to do it under pressure.
It's not the kind of thing you can just whip up.
Like, this is probably a good hour, 1.5-hour process,
so there's no chance of recouping it if they haven't got enough.
We need about six kilos.
So, three threes are nine.
We've worked it out that we want 120 portions.
You count it out and I'll keep chopping.
We need to get this in, though, so I'm just gonna get another bowl.
Oh, my goodness, yeah, I'm doing maths.
OK, I'm up to 50.
My brain's not working. It's not maths.
I'm cooking, I'm not doing maths.
69, I'm up to.
OK, So we're at 70 there.
So, that's 72.
I'm not a finance person. You know, this is just not my brain.
72. 72, and I just put in...
I just put in 12.
But it's... Have we got enough pork?
I pray to God you don't fall short. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
I hope that they've really done their calculations
because there's probably gonna be a couple of them
that will have to answer for it if there's not enough.
You guys are very quickly learning
that Team Challenges are a very different ball game.
You've got 90 minutes till service. Come on, guys, push! Push! Push!
So, how, like, how long till you get this pork in?
Well, it's all done, so... So, the pork's all done.
Do it. It's there. Do it.
OK, we've got to get it in, so...
The pork's going in, it's done, lids are on, timers done.
Whew!
This? Yeah.
Let's do all the lids.
Just let that do its thing,
then it's onto all the other prep for the green mango salad.
I remember these days.
Mm, the early days.
When you had no idea. No idea.
Far out.
Declan is my name and fish is my game.
I'm in my element here and I'm loving it.
Jesus!
That's the level of confidence we're working with today.
For today's Team Challenge,
I'm on the blue team.
Sashi's our captain.
Just don't burn your curry, Sashi. Don't burn your curry, mate, OK?
No way! That will not happen this time.
And I've got Ralph, Robbie, Adi, Theo and Jess.
And so I'm just working on the main,
so coral trout curry.
So, we're cooking Grandpa Robbie's curry today.
Hello, girls. Hello, Robbie.
And he is a master of flavour.
Cardamom, coriander.
My God, you are in my forte.
Who else would we want to leave in charge of the curry?
I'm thinking he's much more experienced than all of us here.
Hey, Rob? Expectation.
I'm gonna make the yellow curry
'cause I think a yellow curry goes good with the fish.
Your galangal, your ginger, the turmeric, lemongrass.
Blend it all up, make the smooth paste.
The needs to be in the pot in the next five minutes.
Yep. If not, you'll be in trouble.
OK, brother.
Cook it well and know when to stop cooking it.
It's nothing like what I'm used to, brother. Far out.
I think there's a lot of pressure on my shoulders,
because I've never done restaurant sort of cooking before,
and at home we just chuck the fish on the coals
and we just make a big curry and be sitting around the camp fire.
For me, I'm thinking, "Is my food good enough
"to be in a restaurant?"
God, he's not even tasting my food. He's supposed to be my expert.
He's just kicking back. He goes, "No worries, you're right.
"No worries, Robbie."
I just hope I can pull it off.
So, I'm on the entree course,
and we are featuring eggplant.
So we're gonna do, like, a sticky-glazed eggplant.
Oh, the nerves are kicking in.
In true MasterChef fashion,
the pressure is really on.
So you cook this at home?
No.
That's what it sounded like! No?
Alright, perfect.
I feel like I have picked this eggplant
and so I need to make sure today that this could be a winning dish.
How many are we thinking of doing? We need to do 30.
And a few extra. 34...
Let's do, like, 40 at least,
just in case any of them don't work out.
I've got Alice and Antonio working up the front with me,
scoring those eggplants,
making sure that we've got enough
and a few extra just in case anything goes wrong.
Do you like eggplant? I... Yeah.
And I begin working on the sauce.
As soon as you guys have done that,
I'll need some help prepping this sauce.
This sauce is going to be the most important part of our dish,
and I still don't know what I'm doing with it.
Any tips, Matt?
I feel really excited to have Matt Sinclair on our team,
and to be able to just communicate with him
and pick his brain in terms of what he would do,
and throwing around a few different ideas.
You want it, like, set and forget,
blast it in the oven, finish it up,
and then you've got time to dress it up.
Let's do that. I do miso-sake-mirin.
And to caramelise, I basically paint it on.
And you have your oven cranked up? Cranked up.
Blast it. And then blast them.
Yeah. Yeah, let's do that.
Blue team, need to motor. Come on!
Whenever anyone's free, if they can come...
...help on the prawn prep.
Yep, yep, no worries.
Time is getting away from us,
and we are still sitting there shelling prawns
for our prawn and cucumber raita entree.
Seafood is a bit of a bugger when it comes to Service Challenges.
Yeah.
Probably a bit silly of us, but anyway.
We need 80 prawns today so that all of our diners
and the judges can have two each.
And plus we want a bit extra
so we can taste it and make sure we're happy.
How many prawns to you have now? Nearly 40.
40? Well, we need 80.
Oh, honestly, like, I am covered in prawn juices.
Delicious.
Gonna have a good shower when I get home.
Our prawns still need to be rubbed in this Indian spicy marinade,
and then they need to be cooked and then cooled down
so they can sit on top of the granita.
Jess now needs help getting these prawns peeled,
otherwise we're not gonna get entree ready for service.
Do this quickly, and then I can help you.
That's leaving me to work on the cucumber pickle.
Just trying to think, pickling liquid.
I haven't done a lot of pickling before.
Um...
I know it's gonna be one part vinegar to one part water,
but I don't know how much sugar and salt to add.
I'm adding the salt to this pickling liquid,
but I'm not at all sure about these ratios.
I'm just hoping it works out.
Seven, eight, nine, 10. That's 20.
20 coral trout in front of me
that I'm gonna have to fillet and fillet perfectly.
Most likely you can get two. Two, yeah, that...
Two decent pieces. That's what I was hoping for.
So you've got to motor on, OK? Yeah, let's motor on.
There's so many fish that we need to fillet, and I'm like,
"I'll help Declan with these,
"'cause time's gonna run out really quickly."
Fish is not my strong point, but we're getting there.
I'm filleting this fish, and I'm a little bit nervous
because I haven't filleted many fish before.
Have you seen what's going... No, I haven't seen.
Let's see...
Like, I don't know what's going on, mate,
but, like, there's not a lot of fish left on the fillet.
OK, I will go and have a look. Your portion control's, like...
You know what I'm saying? Yeah, sure.
Sorry, I messed that up.
I realise that I've massacred this beautiful fish.
I'm looking at what I've actually done,
and it's a nightmare,
and I'm not sure exactly how to fix this.
It's time to really finesse those flavours.
You have one hour till service! Come on!
Whoo! Come on, guys!
Let's go!
Yeah, this is a lot of wastage, lot of meat.
Nearly butchered it. Yeah.
I'm not feeling pretty good.
I've really messed up the cutting up of this fish.
And I'm nervous that it's gonna cost us this challenge.
You are trying to save as much as possible.
Go slowly. See the bone? You can see the bone here coming.
So Sashi's showing me how to do it,
but he's just made it look effortless.
Having Sashi in the kitchen today is amazing.
He's kind of guiding us, and, personally, I'm learning so much.
So you get much thicker fish. Yeah.
Yeah, you see? Yep. Alright.
Try one more time.
I'm learning a lot about filleting.
I just need to get a lot better at it.
Do we need fried curry leaf for a garnish?
- Yeah. - So what temperature do you want?
I don't know. I just use it in the frying pan, usually.
Matt, Sashi, let's go. Yes?
We're in trouble. You're in trouble already.
Blue team, tell me, what's happening?
OK, for the entree, they're doing prawn with a deconstructed raita.
OK.
So they're doing cucumber in different ways.
Talk to me about mains,
'cause I'm seeing Declan and the big man, Ralph,
doing the carpaccio, like, straight off the fillet.
He was butchering it, like, big-time.
But now we've shown them to do proper filleting.
Yeah, we are doing a fish curry, Robbie's family recipe.
Against... Eggplant and...
Miso, yeah, so they're going with a classic.
Main course? They're gonna do a...
Like, a twice-cooked pork. Yeah.
So they started focusing on the pork,
and they wanted to go sweet-sticky, then went back to the eggplant,
and what they know is sweet-sticky with the eggplant.
So they've sort of had to, I guess, pull back a little bit
and reconfigure what they're doing with the pork
and how they're going to serve it,
so they're going to braise it, fry it,
and then do a really aromatic green mango salad.
OK. OK.
Pressure. Playing with fire.
Pressure, absolutely.
The last time I used a pressure cooker was here.
And I think that that's saying something.
What have you both got for dessert?
Um... Bah! I'm only joking!
Paddle Pops.
And a beer.
Good luck, boys. Good luck.
Thank you. Thanks, gents.
Ads, we've got enough prawns now.
Good job, guys.
Oh, my God, Jess and Theo have finished prepping these prawns,
it's finally over,
we can finally get the marinade on them
so they can soak in all those Indian spices
before we cook them.
There's turmeric and Kashmiri chilli.
I really want to build flavour in this dish,
make sure that this feels Indian to me.
I think adding these spices is going to really complement
the pickled cucumber.
Can you believe we're doing our first Team Challenge?
How awesome.
First Service Challenge,
and everything is on the go at the moment.
So, we have our pork in the pressure cooker,
so we're just working on the salad now.
Everyone gets an equal amount of Thai basil and green mango.
It's all even, you know, and consistent.
The pressure cooker goes off.
Come on, green team! Nice work, guys!
Whoo-whoo!
So we need to just sit once it's finished,
so all of the flavour goes through.
Looks good. Looks good. Just gonna let a bit of the heat out.
Then after that we have to strain it.
It smells amazing. The smell, does it?
Yeah.
And then we've got to cool it,
and then we need to coat it with rice flour and fry it.
OK, so we need another one of these.
Oh, you right? Is that plenty? Is that enough?
Time's getting away.
It's definitely a risk to do twice-cooked pork,
but we've said we want crispy pork,
and we're just going to do that.
So I'm looking at the pork bellies. I'm a little bit worried.
How are we looking pork-wise?
Well, hopefully, that's enough.
I just hope that I counted the portions of the pork correctly.
This is it, is it?
Yep. Bloody hell.
How you doing, buddy?
We are just waiting on our eggplants to finish cooking.
I'm feeling a little bit nervous about these eggplants
because I feel like I put my hand up to take on this dish,
I'm the one that's put them in the oven.
How's the eggplant? They're looking good.
So I need to make sure that I get them cooked perfectly.
Let's take that one out. Yeah, two tea towels, babe.
See all that stuff that's on the bottom of the tray?
We want to use that. Yeah, use...
Yes! Yes!
We still have so much to do.
We've got to paste all of our eggplants
with that beautiful miso glaze
and get them back in the oven.
OK, that's good to go. Alright.
Prep our coriander, our spring onions,
our chillies.
We've still got to toast off some sesame seeds...
Ooh! Oh, Grace!
...finalise that vinaigrette.
It's insane.
Oh, good chopping, Phil! Thanks, Mal.
It's because I'm having 'shallots' of fun.
That was terrible.
It is almost time for service,
but our elements are kind of done or close to done.
The raita and the granita are done.
Prawns still need to be cooked,
but I know that that's gonna be really quick.
My only concern is those pickled cucumbers.
The pickles are really that acidic element
that this dish needs, so we need to get it right.
Try that. Yeah. Is it alright?
I haven't tried it. Yeah. It's quite salty, though.
It is a bit salty.
I did half the salt. Yeah, I think it's too much salt.
Oh! All of us immediately make a face like, "Oh, it's really salty."
What is it? Do you want to taste that pickle?
It seems very... Salty.
I did one part... Oh!
Too salty.
I did one part vinegar to one part water
to half-part salt and one part sugar.
I know that we can't serve this.
That time has arrived in your first Team Challenge.
Your diners have arrived. 20 minutes till service.
Whoo! Let's go!
20 minutes!
I don't know if we've got enough time to fix it,
and if we don't have time to fix it, a whole element is not on the dish.
I'm freaking out right now.
This could really cost my team the win today.
Take it out?
That time has arrived in your first Team Challenge.
Your diners have arrived.
20 minutes till service.
Whoo! 20 minutes!
20. 20.
Too salty.
I did one part vinegar to one part water
to half-part salt.
Don't use that. Yeah.
White vinegar, one part. Yep.
Water, one part, sugar, one part. Yeah.
Pinch of salt.
That's it.
That's OK. OK?
The diners are here
and we have to make a whole new batch of pickled cucumbers.
Let's do it now. OK.
I'm gonna help you. Yeah.
Careful, your hand. I will.
I don't know if we've got enough time to fix it,
and if we don't have time to fix it,
a whole element is not on the dish.
I'm not feeling super-confident at the moment.
This is gonna be really tough.
How long till service? 20. 20.
20. OK, alright.
Where did I put the knife?
Come on, guys. We need some urgency!
Make sure there are no bones in the fish.
Yeah, I will.
So at this stage for the main meal the curry is almost there.
Have a taste, girl.
Oh! Hits me at the back. Quite warm.
But delicious.
When you taste a curry,
you need to taste the flavours of the coriander, the chilli,
the galangal, the ginger, the lemongrass,
you want that to explode in your mouth.
All my life, I never tasted food until I come on this competition.
I only went on smell, never taste.
Good curry. Good heat.
That's exactly what I'm looking for.
Are you gonna blitz it up? Hey?
Are you gonna blitz the curry up?
I'm gonna put it through a sieve. I like that.
OK, yeah.
We need the rice to go in the pot. Where's the rice?
With things so busy, I've got the rice on now.
I've got to cook the fish now.
I think there's a lot of pressure on my shoulders,
because it's my idea to do the dish,
do the fish.
Let's get this show on the road.
It's full-on.
We are looking at a restaurant full of hungry diners,
and you have 15 minutes till service!
15 minutes! Bring it home! JOCK: Let's go! Come on!
There's not much time left.
I can hear the judges screaming for us to hurry up.
And at this stage, we are so behind in this cook.
Whew!
Do you guys want to help us? Anyone? Yeah, yeah, I'll help you.
OK. Yep, what do you want?
We now have 30 plates to put together.
Pick the plate that you're gonna use, start getting your plates organised.
Alice is working on the salad,
and we've got Rhiannon and Phil cutting up the eggplants.
I've got shallots frying.
Turn this up.
I'm working on our garnish prep.
If I can get all hands on picking herbs,
that would be really helpful.
We are really at risk of not making it in time.
Are you OK, Theo? Am I OK?
Yep. Yeah, I'm good.
The diners are seated, and it is almost time for service.
We have somehow made these pickled cucumbers in record time,
and now we just need to cook off our prawns.
Probably need to start the prawns now, yeah?
Yeah, you can start the prawns now, yeah.
This is incredible!
So, my job
is to cook all these prawns perfectly.
This is a big, big part of this dish.
Alright, these are coming off.
Entree team, five minutes, I want to see the elements all here.
So there's a lot of pressure now.
Come on, bruh.
Ooh, this is epic, isn't it?
I've got these prawns cooking. They look amazing.
This is exactly where I want them to be.
More prawns! More prawns.
More prawns here.
You guys are doing very well. Carry on.
I know it's gonna be good.
I'm just excited to serve people. Like, this is what it's all about.
Alright, give us a hand, everybody! 10!
9, 8, 7,
6, 5, 4,
3, 2, 1.
That's it!
Let's go, guys. We've got this. Come on.
So, plating,
because cucumber is gonna be the main thing...
Yep.
...so let's go for one spoonful of the yoghurt.
Yeah. Dust.
Oh, it's so pretty. So pretty.
Mine would have just been like, "I just put everything on the plate."
Look at that, man! We did that!
That's good!
That's amazing. Yeah, that's good.
This dish has a lot of contrasting juxtaposed temperatures,
so the cold yoghurt, the cold granita,
the warm prawns, the room-temperature pickles,
so I think all of that works really well together.
Look at this line of production, guys. You're on fire.
As these dishes are going off the pass,
it doesn't even look like a dish that I've created,
because they are so beautiful.
Service, please.
Looks like Indian fine dining.
Wow. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Amazing. OK.
So this is the entree from the blue team.
Prawns with cucumber raita.
It looks intriguing Yeah, it does.
For me, I really enjoyed it.
Prawns beautifully marinated, light touch,
and cooked beautifully.
My ones were perfect.
The granita crunch together along with the fresh cucumber,
the pickled cucumber with the fennel fronds really lightened it,
it was a nice light touch.
Again, not too much of it.
Love that prawn.
Love that the edges of the peeled prawn
are just a little bit crispy on the outside,
really tender, perfectly set on the inside.
Got to commend them on the looks of this plate.
And I know Sashi probably would've had a good hand.
But that's what he's here for -
to take their ideas and really put it onto a plate
in a way that's gonna make it better.
And he did just that. It looks spectacular.
Lovely texture on those pickled and raw cucumbers.
I thought it was really well done.
I know that was gonna be a big part of their dish.
Everything was light, fresh and spicy and delicious,
and there are so many positives on this plate of food.
And I'm watching them go out, they all look exactly the same,
they're all really well composed,
so massive ticks there.
Good job, guys. You are doing very well.
Alright, how are the... Have you got everything you need?
We're gonna need some more cori. Strain that off, get it into a bowl.
It is chaos in the kitchen.
There's so much going on around me.
Grace, eggplant. Rack two. Yep.
Just behind you.
We are still miles away from getting our entrees out.
How long until we get a finished dish?
Oh, my God.
We've got spring onion coming.
Quick, quick, quick, quick, quick.
Quick, quick.
You right?
Sashi, thank you so much. No, no worries. All good.
Good, guys.
I can see that the blue team
is sending out their plates really quickly.
Don't worry about that. Just keep going.
I can see the room now full of people,
and we are well and truly behind schedule.
I am freaking out.
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Just... Yeah.
Are you watching that? Um, more.
Yeah. Alright
So is this... I think it's nice.
Where's your spring onion? Get all this stuff up the front.
Just make sure that you're happy with that.
Just give me one last taste. Yep.
It is chaos in the kitchen.
Alice, can you check out eggplants? Do you want these in a bowl?
There's so much going on around me.
How long until we get a finished dish?
Are those cooked? Straight on the chopping board.
We still have not plated up our entrees.
Every ingredient, every condiment that you need,
up front to plate.
OK. And start getting it organised.
So we're finally coming up the pass.
If you want to follow me, you do sesame and shallot.
Beautiful.
Alice is working the vinaigrette and salad.
Rhiannon and Phil behind us,
they're placing the eggplants onto the plates.
More eggplant. Yep. Coming through with eggplants.
Yeah.
And Matt and I are finishing off the garnishes
and calling for service.
Can I have service, please?
Great work, guys. Keep it up.
I am so excited!
I cannot believe that we're sending out entrees.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
OK, so, from the green team,
an entree of miso-glazed eggplant.
Looks quite nice. ANDY: Yeah, it looks nice and neat.
My eggplant was really nicely cooked.
There was a generous covering of miso glaze on the eggplant.
It still had a bit of texture,
and when I say that,
I mean it wasn't just fall-apart mush.
You knew it was eggplant. Still held its shape.
I thought it was perfectly cooked.
And I think that that... that herb salad
was just there to provide relief, and it did.
Fried shallots were great,
the sesame was great, the dressing was really well balanced.
I think the eggplant's beautifully cooked.
I wouldn't have wanted it to be falling apart.
The salad is nicely dressed.
Even the shallots add a really lovely, nutty, onion-y quality
to the dish.
I think this is very even Steven right now between the two teams.
Yeah, I agree.
10 more. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.
We need one more.
Are we good there? We're good, we're good.
Yeah? Yeah.
Tell you what, I remember a Service Challenge
in this joint with far-worse-looking food.
Oh, really?
Well, you probably had a... You've done a pretty good job.
Thank you so much. Oh! Man.
Can't believe there's another course after this.
Oh, mate.
Fine there. A few more minutes. Perfect, bruh.
Four... four minutes will be good.
Now that the entrees are done, it's time to cook the fish.
And then I think, like, 60 seconds on the other side.
So it's Robbie's curry today,
so I'm happy to let him jump in and cook the fish with me.
That's hot, that's hot, brother. Yeah.
He is 65, so he's cooked a lot of fish.
How nice is this? Father and son on the fish together.
As we're taking the fish out and checking the fish,
couldn't have got any better.
It was cooked superb.
Had the spring in it, the nice colours that I was looking for.
It looks magnificent.
This is our food, mate.
This is our food that's going out.
My curries at home, sitting round a camp fire,
just going to the saucepan and getting your curry out,
chuck it on your plate.
Oh, wow. Great job, guys. Good work, Deccy.
Look at this. Mate, the fish!
Listen, it was all you to begin with.
I know how to cook a fillet of fish,
but I don't know how to present it this pretty.
Grandpa! Come down here.
Service, please.
Here it is on a nice fancy plate.
They had these guys all dressed up in suits and stuff.
It was at a... just another level.
I mean, oh, two different worlds,
like, my world and the world down here.
It's just, like, wow, amazing.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thanks. Thank you.
OK, so from the blue team,
a main of fish curry with cumin rice.
Hey, the skin on the fish looks pretty good, huh?
Yeah! Yeah.
It's a good piece of fish.
The fish is cooked unbelievably.
It's outrageous.
Wow. It's perfect.
The rice is fantastic.
The rice adds another spice layer to the curry.
That was a beautiful bowl of food.
Really was.
I'll say it, and we'll get it out of the way and we'll park it over here.
Robbie's curry, he's really good at it,
we've seen it a few times,
but I feel like today, though, he's amped up the spice a little bit,
but you can tell it's his curry.
What really took me by surprise was the cook on the fish.
Crispy skin,
like, beautifully caramelised and crispy on the top,
no cook underneath, so it's, like, skin the whole way,
and it was cooked to perfection.
It's, like, that's what chefs are trying to look for all day long.
My God, was that a good, good, very good, competent plate of food!
This is exactly what we were hoping for
in bringing Sashi and Matt back.
They take the bones of what these amateur cooks have got,
ie, you know, Robbie's curry,
and they send it into another stratosphere.
In a three-hat restaurant, that's getting sent...
...getting sent out to tables.
Like, you can't do it any better.
Are we starting to see something here?
Robbie, Declan, are they, like, the fish brothers?
The fish whisperers?
They're pretty good, aren't they? Not too bad, huh?
Absolutely perfect.
The entrees took forever,
so now everything's just rush at this point
to get the mains out.
So it's just all systems go to finish the pork.
Antonio gets on the pork
and he puts it all in rice flour ready for deep-frying.
Nice and crispy. Yum! Yum!
Mm!
And I get onto the deep-fry, 'cause I kind of know what I want.
Crispy pork's crispy.
It's looking good.
So, got to try and get 'em in threes.
Oh, in threes, OK. Yeah.
There's been a couple of counts throughout the cook
on this bloody pork,
but we've just got to get this on the plate.
We need the sauce on the bottom, so a nice, generous amount.
That's just the pork reduction.
We've got the fried pork - looking good, really nice colour on it.
So that off to the side.
And then we've got all of our green mango portions here.
OK. We good? OK. Let's go!
Alright, service on those four, please.
I'm not gonna lie,
I'm still anxious.
How many we got? How many we have?
Let's have a look here. How many we got?
You got enough? Service, please.
If any of them need more pork and you have it,
can you put some in?
I'm really hoping my team can count.
How many have we got left? Have they been sent already? No.
Thank you. Thank you.
It's tiny.
I have all the pork.
70g of pork on my plate.
Alright, service on those four, please.
Thank you. Thank you.
The main from the green team,
braised pork belly with green mango.
Slightly rustic in appearance.
70g of pork on my plate.
Yeah, it's tiny.
Well, it's inconsistent in portioning.
I had six pieces, 'cause I ate one just then.
So you had six pieces? Yeah.
Let me just check that bit to see if it's OK.
You should.
There are lots of big flavours, lots of lush textures,
lots going on, there's some good technique going on here,
but is it a complete bowl of food?
My pork was cooked nicely, but it was a little bit light-on.
I thought it was a bit measly. I had three.
Well, most if it is salad.
It was light and easy to eat.
I feel like there was nice flavours going on here,
no doubt about it.
I just feel like the composition is a little out.
Um, the salad,
like, there is so much going on there,
in a really good way,
but I think, you know, there's room for improvement.
I think...
What I was hoping for here for the green team
was that the main would come out and just blow it out of the water.
Yeah.
Quick, keep going, guys.
Well done, guys. Thanks, Cath.
Good to go. Thank you very much. MATT: Done.
Oh, my goodness!
Well done. Good work, mate.
What a push. Thank you.
Buddy. Well done, you guys.
Teamwork makes the dream work,
and that sentiment couldn't be any truer than today.
We loved watching all of you learn from two MasterChef legends.
Everyone give Matt and Sashi a huge round of applause.
Well done, legends.
Legends!
I know you're all eager to find out which team
is heading into tomorrow's Immunity Challenge,
so shall we see how you went?
Yep.
Kicking off with the entrees,
green team, your eggplant was cooked beautifully.
Blue team...
...your entree looked spectacular
and every element was perfect.
So fairly equal so far.
So it came down to the mains.
Green team.
You had some nice flavours going on there.
But the pork serve was inconsistent.
The attention to detail was lacking.
Blue team,
the spices in the curry and the rice, phenomenal.
But...
...that fish...
...Robbie, Declan...
...talk about a dream team.
It was perfect!
Every single piece of fish was cooked to perfection.
We couldn't have done it better ourselves with that dish.
There were no complaints,
and that's why, blue team, you have won the challenge.
Well done, blue team.
You've won yourselves a spot next to Malissa
in tomorrow's Immunity Challenge.
But everyone, across the board, well done today.
Your very first Service Challenge.
You've all smashed it.
Well done. Well done, guys.
They're a great bunch. Yeah, good, good.
They're awesome, yeah.
It's a chapter they'll never, ever, ever forget.
Amazing!
Tomorrow night on MasterChef Australia...
One of you will be up against
a bona fide legend of the kitchen
for a chance to win...
This guy. ...an immunity pin.
Now is not the time to chicken out...
Who doesn't love a roast chook?
...because there's not one
but two types of immunity
up for grabs.
By hook or by chook,
I'm gonna to get this done.
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