VOICEOVER: Previously on MasterChef Australia...
It is the Time Auction! ANDY ALLEN: Yes!
..in this classic MasterChef challenge,
Harry went hard from the start.
Sold to Harry! In 65 minutes.
The whole duck. Sold to Pezza!
Lamb mince. Sold to Lochy!
Harry, this will be your fastest cook in the MasterChef kitchen.
It was a spirited cook to stay in the competition.
I'm fighting hard to get into the top six today.
That's good.
Everything is riding on this 25-minute dish.
JEAN-CHRISTOPHE: The fish, for me, I think is cooked perfectly.
And it tastes superb.
It is dynamite.
I loved that. It really packed a punch.
But Lochy bade farewell to the MasterChef kitchen.
(CHEERING)
Tonight, everything's on the line
with the toughest Mystery Box of the season.
ALL: Oh!
I've been dreading this challenge since day one.
Survived the elim, Haz! HARRY: Mate, top six.
Top six. Well done.
Top six, baby! Let's go.
Wonder what's in store for us today. Who knows?
ANDY: Here we go!
Oh! Mystery box!
Pick a mystery box, any mystery box!
Mystery box! Mystery box!
Mimi is loving the mystery box!
For now. Ha-ha-ha!
I hope everyone is well rested and recovered.
Last week was a big one
and we're not dialling it back any time soon.
We're nearing the end of the competition.
Naturally, the challenges are going to get tougher.
Today - no exception.
This Mystery Box has been set by an Aussie icon.
(CHUCKLES) OK.
The way she thinks about food is unlike anyone else.
She knows this kitchen like the back of her hand.
Of course, I'm talking about none other...
..than our very own Poh!
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
Woo!
That's crazy.
Poh, you are the queen of Mystery Boxes.
What makes you so good at them?
I think for my particular personality type,
it's all about having the parameters.
Because we all know I'm a bit chaotic,
so just set up a little fence around my crazy brain,
and having that lack of choice
freed up space in my brain to exploit all the creativity.
I'm so excited, everybody.
You can lift your lids...
..now!
(ALL EXCLAIM)
Nice.
Whoa, that's a really cool cabbage.
We've got spatchcock...
..galangal...
..Szechuan peppercorns...
..sesame snaps...
..turnips...
..sour baby mandarins...
..sugarloaf cabbage...
..half a pineapple...
..and Chinese celery.
This is very exciting.
Just a regular old Mystery Box, right?
No way!
(LAUGHTER) No-o-o-o!
Guys, you need to have a good, hard look at those ingredients
and start thinking.
Because this is the Everything Box.
Oh.
Oh-ho-ho-ho!
Oh, yes!
For today's cook, you have to use ALL the ingredients in one dish.
No pantry, no garden,
just your under-bench staples
and those nine ingredients.
DARRSH: Dammit!
I was dreading this challenge since day one.
I've seen Everything Boxes and they are extremely difficult.
It's here. My worst nightmare's come true.
SOFIA: You will have 75 minutes.
You can cook absolutely anything, so long as you use everything.
The three least impressive dishes
will put their makers in tomorrow's pressure test.
You've got everything to play for today,
because the cook to bring us the best dish
will be able to kit out their home kitchen
with a ¤5,000 Harvey Norman voucher.
(CHEERING)
No way. Yeah. Let's go.
¤5,000? Yeah.
Bloody hell, it's a lot.
Damn!
It's a lot of money. Yeah.
Wow. Hey, somebody want to swap with me?
(LAUGHTER)
Well, are you ready to give it everything you've got?
CONTESTANTS: Yeah!
Let's go.
Your time starts now! Go, guys!
Whoa. it is quite a Mystery Box.
PEZZA: They're not foreign to me, all these ingredients today.
Cooked with chicken. Cooked with cabbage.
I'm feeling pretty good about the cook.
I'm going to be making a cabbage wrap.
I've just got to pull everything off
and get the flavours balanced. That's the big thing.
Right.
I actually didn't expect some of these ingredients,
but it is very Poh, I think.
I love the galangal, the Szechuan peppercorns
and the baby mandarins, but I think she's challenging us.
I am usually a more is more is more person.
So I love using most of the things in a Mystery Box.
But the problem is I have to use all these ingredients
in the one dish.
I think it's going to be... (SIGHS)
..a tough one.
I'm calling this a fridge-raid breakfast.
So making a little fritter with the turnip and the cabbage,
and there's going to be pulled chicken on it.
I'm doing poached eggs, a mandarin hollandaise
and a pineapple, sort of like a salsa/chutney kind of vibes.
I have my chicken poaching.
This is what I do on a Saturday.
I wake up at, like, 10am and look at my fridge
and there's a random bunch of stuff,
and I just go, "How do I make this all make sense?"
So, to me, this is very much an exercise in doing that.
Knife behind!
Poh has organised the biggest stitch-up
of the competition - 100%.
That one's still good.
Good. Perfect.
This is so hard.
I thought using everything could be easy,
but not with these ingredients.
Oh, my God, that was way more sour than I thought it would be.
Oh, woo!
I haven't used sour baby mandarins.
I definitely have not used sesame snaps.
Like, sesame snaps. What?!
Just, like, garlic or, like, onion would have been nice.
The flavours are there.
They're just not my flavour profiles.
Oh, crap.
I'm so stressed.
I'm making a chargrilled spatchcock
with chargrilled cabbage and then also a sour mandarin sauce.
I'm gonna glaze it with galangal caramel as well.
I'm gonna try and be very creative today.
Um, I'm gonna see if I can blitz these bad boys.
And that's going to turn to, like, the caramel
that I want to use to glaze my spatchcock.
So, here goes nothing.
Cute. Wow! Sour!
I froth this challenge.
You know why I love this challenge?
Because it is fair!
Because we are all using the same crayons in the box
in a dish.
The thing I'm thinking about first
is what ingredient do I hero in my dish?
Because you can't hero all of them.
I know for a fact that everyone's going to hero the chicken.
So that beautiful head of cabbage
is just staring at me straight in the face.
I am making my version of an okonomiyaki,
featuring the lovely cabbage in a batter
that's fortified by a spatchcock chicken stock.
Okonomiyaki is a Japanese savoury pancake.
I absolutely love okonomiyaki.
I eat this dish all the time.
I've had this a lot growing up.
I'm gonna try to get as much umami in this dish, as much as possible.
My idea is to use the crispy chicken skin
as a sprinkle to replicate that bonito flake vibe.
I put it into the air fryer
because I know it is the quickest way
to get crispy chicken skin without fail.
I think I've given them a bunch of ingredients
that actually go very well together. ANDY: Yeah.
There's so many things that sing together,
like the perfume from the pineapple
goes really well with
the Szechuan peppercorns, the sesame.
The turnip is probably the odd man out,
and the one that I think I'm going to be interested
to see how they apply.
I just want to see them be creative
and show us why they should be here in the top six.
We have to expect the unexpected.
There's going to be so much happening today.
I can smell it already.
50-50 chance of the bottom three. Oh, yes.
That's when you know it's heating up.
DARRSH: I've watched Everything Mystery Boxes before,
and I've been dreading it
because we have to use everything in this box,
and there's a few ingredients that I've never worked with before.
Chinese celery, the sour baby mandarin, turnips.
So it's really going to test us
to be able to come up with flavour combinations.
Um...
Alright. That's that, that's that.
The dish I'm making today is
deep-fried Szechuan spatchcock
with, uh, pineapple and mandarin chutney,
mashed turnips
and pickled cabbage.
I've never done a turnip mash before,
but, I mean, it kind of looks like a potato.
Root vegetables, they're all the same.
Potato, pot-A-to, turnip, turnip.
Theoretically, like, it works in my head,
but there's a lot of elements here that I need to nail.
This cook is all or nothing!
One hour to go! One hour left!
HARRY: Today, I'm doing some spatchcock tortillas,
I suppose you'd call them.
So I'm going to hibachi the spatchcock.
I'm going to have a glaze,
um, made out of a couple of the things.
I'm gonna do a charred pineapple and cabbage salsa.
Fry up the bulb part of the turnip,
and I think it'll all tie together.
I'm pushing myself really, really hard.
I don't want to just use every item
in, like, you know, a conventional sort of way.
So, yeah, I'm going to try some new techniques
that I haven't done yet. I'm gonna make green tortillas,
so I'm going to use the tops of the turnips for that.
You know, I think that's something different.
It's showing the judges
that I'm being creative and using a part of the vegetable
that would normally end up in the bin.
Right now, I'm just making my dough for the wraps.
This needs time to rest.
That's why I wanted to get it done quickly.
POH: Hey, Harry. Hey, Poh, hey, Andy.
Hey, Harry. Righto. Hit us with it.
So, essentially, I'm doing chicken wraps.
Yep. Yep.
Um, then I'm gonna do a grilled pineapple
and, um, sugarloaf cabbage, uh, like, salsa-y slaw thing.
Gonna have to be a good chicken wrap.
There's a lot of good dishes out there.
Yeah. And my fear is - a good chicken wrap? Great.
But this needs to be... The best.
..the best chicken wrap that we've ever had.
Because half of the contestants today,
they're in tomorrow's pressure test.
Yeah. I'll do my absolute best.
I thought I had a really good creative concept,
especially using the turnip tops in my wraps.
I don't know how I'm going to make the best chicken wrap
that the judges have EVER had.
A good chicken wrap? Great.
But this needs to be... The best.
..the best chicken wrap that we've ever had.
Because half of the contestants today,
they're in tomorrow's pressure test. Yeah.
The judges have rattled me a little bit.
I'm pretty concerned 'cause, like, I have picked
a pretty simple concept.
Got a lot of stuff going on here.
Um, I'm using everything in a lot of different ways,
but I think each element will stand out
on its own legs as well. But...
..need to make sure that this is THE best wrap ever.
So I've decided I'm gonna make a mayonnaise
with that fresh baby mandarin juice in it,
which is just gonna tie it all together.
There's a lot of bloody pressure on this chicken wrap now. (LAUGHS)
I really hope I can stay out of tomorrow's elimination.
What are we doing? What are you doing there?
PEZZA: Just trying to get a bit of flavour
into a bit of stock, brother.
Yeah. Nice, man.
If this was day one,
and that mystery box came in front of me,
I wouldn't know what to do.
I'm thinking dicing the cabbage and putting it into a slaw
or something like that, with a bit of chicken to the side.
Chief cook now, legend. Chief cook now.
Never had a cabbage roll in my life.
That's where my mind goes to now.
Like, I guess it's sort of inspired from my trip from Hong Kong.
This is something Cantonese, like a spring roll.
That's the way I'm thinking. Sweet-and-sour sort of flavours.
There's no doubt that's what it's getting to in this competition.
The flavours have got to be bold, they've got to be good
and they've got to balance.
And the way I'm going to achieve that
is I'm just going to taste, taste, taste all the way through.
I've tasted the start of the sauce and it tastes really nice,
but it's a little bit bitter.
I see the pineapple and I decide to put a couple of little pieces
of this pineapple to use a natural sweetener,
so I'll just chuck a couple of bits of it in
and we'll just let it sit in there.
What I've learned in this competition is,
as the sauce reduces, the flavour changes so much.
So I want to wait and see what it's like
when it's getting very close to being finished,
but just making sure that it marries beautifully.
If I can get it that they just want to drink that sauce,
I know that we're going to be up there today.
I think the wife will be stoked with her Harvey Norman voucher.
Probably get a coffee machine.
I'm used to drinking instant coffee,
so when I get home, I'll have to have a coffee machine, won't I?
Must use everything in the box. So think outside the box.
You have 45 minutes to go.
Let's go! (CLAPS)
Alright, come on.
NAT: Stakes are so high in this cook today,
so I'm gonna try really hard to make sure
that I get top dish, because I want that ¤5,000 voucher.
Hey, Nat. Hey, Nat. How are we doing?
So tell us what you're making.
Kind of like a Vietnamese Thai-style grilled chicken.
And I'm going to essentially
have glazed it with a blitz like sesame.
Mm-hm. Um, and some sugar and some salt
and then also some Szechuan peppers.
I would be really careful with this
because the sesame has got quite a lot of sugar in that praline.
Yeah, so much sugar. And you've added sugar.
So be careful when you're basting.
It's going to caramelise hard. Yeah.
And if not, you'll burn it.
Yeah, OK. For sure.
I'm intrigued about how it's all going to come together.
Me too.
OK. Good luck.
Thank you.
I am scared, so I'm going to keep watching this like a little hawk.
For my okonomiyaki, I'm going to use all of Poh's ingredients
to develop the sour, sweet, salty, umami flavours of okonomiyaki.
And hopefully, if I pull it off,
it's going to show a lot of skill, understanding and knowledge.
In my okonomiyaki batter, I put the chicken stock,
flour, egg, salt, sugar.
I grate turnips into the batter and I put my chopped cabbage in.
I set it aside as soon as I can
so that it has time to develop its flavour.
Ooh, yeah!
I'm hoping that the grated turnip replicates that level of umami
in the batter as equally as your traditional okonomiyaki.
As soon as my batter is done and set aside,
I focus on making my barbecue sauce.
In order to develop as much flavour as I can,
I grill my pineapple in a pan
to get that dark brown, sticky, shiny nature
of a barbecue sauce.
I melt the sesame snaps in a pot, get it all going together.
It is going to be so good.
I never want to jinx myself.
But, you know, it'd be pretty nice to get top dish today
because I need a stand mixer!
Yeah. Let's go!
Time to turn up the heat! You have 30 minutes to go!
Yes.
SAVINDRI: "Time to turn up the heat"? Oh, no.
DARRSH: I'm feeling a little bit stressed at the moment.
Um, I've got a lot of elements on the go,
and, I mean, I'm tracking well,
but I keep remembering all these elements
that I need to keep doing.
I've butchered the spatchcock for my fried chicken.
I've got pretty much everything else on the go.
So my chutney is cooking away and my pickled cabbage is done.
It's just resting.
I now need to focus on my turnip mash.
Obviously, that's not a potato.
It's... It's a turnip.
Um, and I've never made turnip mash before.
Um, so I'm hoping that, like, when I blitz it up,
it doesn't just turn to mush.
I want it to be mash.
There's so much stuff on the go right now,
and I just want to get this turnip mash working
so I can forget about it and focus on everything else.
I really want to avoid tomorrow's pressure test.
Now that we're top six,
the pressure tests only get harder,
and I can't imagine what's in store for them tomorrow.
Are you going alright, Darrsh? Yeah, man.
You? Yeah, I think so.
Just a lot to get done.
Sav. Hello.
How's the dish coming along? It is coming along. There's a lot going on.
I'm calling this a fridge-raid breakfast,
because this is very commonly what I do on a Saturday morning.
Open my fridge and go, "What bits and bobs do I have?"
So what's the big picture?
So I'm turning the turnip and the cabbage
into, like, a little fritter.
And there's going to be pulled chicken on it.
Poached eggs.
And I'm using the mandarins for the hollandaise.
Your spatchcock is boiling over there.
It's already hard.
You've got to simmer it. You think that's the best way?
Has to be tender. You know, pulled meat has to fall. Yeah.
If you boil white meat, especially, it's going to become very tough.
Yeah.
So do something about that before it's too late!
For my fridge-raid breakfast, I pulled my poached chicken out.
I'm really hoping
that I've gotten into it in time and I haven't overcooked it,
but I have to commit to the chicken that I have
because I have to use the chicken in the box.
So I'm going to let it sit
in my reduced chicken stock for a bit
so that it reabsorbs quite a bit of that moisture,
and I'm hoping that that does the trick.
I have to move on to making my turnip and cabbage fritter,
because that forms the base of the dish.
I have never made it with cabbage and turnip,
because who buys turnips?
Like, who does that?
Sorry. I have strong feelings about turnips.
DARRSH: Flip over on that side.
The spatchcock is frying.
Most of my elements are done.
I just need to bring it all together
and balance out my turnip mash,
because it is very different to a potato.
This competition is all about
adapting and rolling with the punches.
Something hasn't gone my way right now.
This isn't a mash, it's more of a puree.
But I can still make this work. It's not over.
OK, my perfect okonomiyaki is crispy on the outside,
fluffy on the inside.
I've been checking it, keeping an eye on it.
I flip it...
Yes, sir.
..And it is beautifully golden brown and crusted on the outside.
It's just about tweaking now. Everything is pretty much there.
Okonomiyaki sauce is reducing.
I've made the mayonnaise.
I've crisped up the chicken skin for crispy crispies on top.
I've dehydrated the top of the turnips
to make a seaweed powder.
I just feel good. I just feel good today.
The pineapple and my spatchcock are still in the hibachi,
I've still got to make my slaw.
I've got to cook the wraps.
I've still got to make a mayonnaise. Harry. Hello.
I've heard you're making a chicken wrap.
Yeah.
How is a chicken wrap enough for top six of MasterChef?
Well, it's about what's going in the wrap.
Clock is ticking, Harry.
Yeah, no, clock's ticking... And this needs to be the best dish
you've made so far in the competition.
JEAN-CHRISTOPHE: Good luck, mate. Thanks, guys.
So I'm just gonna have to start multi-tasking.
I'm rolling out my tortillas, getting them onto the hot pan,
and at the same time, I'm trying to shave this slaw
with the mandarin and just get everything together.
And the judges want this to be the best chicken wrap ever.
And right now, I think maybe chicken wraps
might not have been the best idea.
You've got to use everything in that Mystery Box
or it does not count!
15 minutes to go. (CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
SAV: Go, go, go, go, go!
Urrr!
PEZZA: Oh, I'm starting to sweat now, Haz.
HARRY: Oh, yeah.
Done most of my elements.
It's just really cooking now, finishing off the cabbage leaves
and that on the hibachi, just to bring it all together.
I've blanched my cabbage leaves.
So I've got them nice and tender, so they're right to roll 'em.
Then I'll be right to roll by the sound of it.
I want to put a little bit of chicken.
I want to put a couple of little strips of the pineapple,
a little bit of the pickle on top,
and I want to roll them nice and tight,
so they're firm, like a little spring roll.
And then just got to put 'em through the skewer
and finish them over the hibachi,
just give them that little bit of a golden crisp.
It's going to be, when it's all said and done,
a couple of mouthfuls. That's all they're going to get.
You want it to tingle their tastebuds
and finish with that beautiful, luscious sauce
that just wants to make you go back to keep licking the bowl clean.
SAV: There's a lot going on.
There's a lot to do. I've got a fritter in the works.
I've got a chicken in the works.
I've got my pineapple and Chinese celery salsa salsa-ing.
I'm now starting on my sour baby mandarin hollandaise.
Alright, come on.
How I usually make hollandaise
is with lemon juice and a bit of vinegar.
And I get lemon zest in there.
So, to me, it makes perfect sense.
And it's just the right way to introduce the mandarins
into the dish without it, like, punching you in the face.
You could bathe me in hollandaise,
give me a pool of hollandaise, and I would just dive into it.
I love it, it's buttery
and it's one of my favourite things in the whole world.
I'm feeling confident and in control.
And before I can start plating,
I just need to poach an egg.
Attention, Attention! Seven minutes left to go!
(JUDGES SHOUT ENCOURAGEMENT)
NAT: Ooh, it is hot.
I charred my cabbage
and I currently am trying my pineapple now,
and then I'm about to start on my baby sour mandarin sauce
with some galangal.
And I'm gonna make, like,
a, just like a savoury dipping sauce
to go with the chicken.
My ideal result of the spatchcock chicken
would be that it's beautifully brown,
beautifully charred from the sesame snap glaze.
Um, I'm getting a really good char on it, which is what I want.
Um, I just really want to make sure I don't overcook it.
If this chicken doesn't work, uh, things could just be bad.
Everything would be bad.
Um, honestly, if you want the truth,
I don't really know what I'm doing right now,
because all these flavours are, like...
I just want some soy and some garlic.
Oh-ho-ho!
Oh, no, is it stuck?
Oh, God.
Oh, no. Is it stuck?
Oh, God.
Yeah, things are a bit sticky right now.
Definitely in a sticky situation.
Holy Dooley.
It's really sticking to the grill, and I don't know what to do.
Well, this is going great.
Oh, no!
Whoa-ho-ho.
Where's the skin? Where's the skin gone? Careful with that.
You've only got one. I know.
It looks like it's been stuck against the grill.
Yeah, it did get stuck. Because the stickiness of the sugar. Yeah, yeah.
Um, so I'm just gonna use this and then, like, cut it in half.
Remember, you only have one. Yeah.
And nothing else, yeah? Yeah.
So that's your shot.
Nat, we're used to seeing you pretty in control.
So you need to get back there. And you need to get back there fast. Yeah.
A lot on the line. Yeah.
The judges know exactly what they're looking at.
And what they're looking at is disaster.
It's a little bit nerve-racking, that's for sure.
Four minutes left. Only four minutes to go!
Come on! Four minutes!
You know, Harry? HARRY: Yes.
Last week... Yeah.
..your sense of urgency was remarkable.
What's happened today?
I'll try and pick up the pace, yeah.
MIMI: I need to make sure that every single element
that I've developed in this cook gets to the finish line.
My okonomiyaki is crispy on the outside,
fluffy on the inside.
My barbecue sauce has that fruity, sticky sugariness to it.
My mayonnaise is sour, sweet.
My Chinese celery stem garnish is bitter,
and my crispy chicken skin sprinkle
needs to amplify the umami of my dish.
Everything is pretty much there.
I feel good about this one.
I knew that everybody else would have picked chicken to hero,
and I feel like I came up with an idea
that nobody else did.
I'm looking at my final dish
and I am feeling on cloud nine today.
Alright, Darrsh? That's done. Yeah, man.
Just got to bring it together.
I'm pretty happy with how things have gone
for my takeaway fried chicken.
My pickled cabbage is done.
My pineapple and mandarin chutney is done.
My chicken's done.
The turnip puree has definitely changed throughout the cook.
It's such a bland ingredient
that I've added some sugar to it
to essentially get that natural sweetness out of the turnips.
I just hope I haven't added too much sugar
and that it works with everything.
NAT: There's only a few minutes left on the clock
and I have to plate my dish.
OK. Everything together.
I put the spatchcock chicken down
and then I, you know, beautifully make, like,
these rose-shaped turnip pickles.
Classic Nat thing to do.
And then I put a Chinese celery top garnish on.
It's probably the ugliest dish I've dished up.
And I am worried because pressure test, it gets to people.
Literally cracks people in half.
(EXHALES)
Two minutes left to go, please! Hurry up!
SAV: I am definitely a little bit concerned about the chicken
for my fridge-raid breakfast.
I think I've done everything
as much as I can to make it as juicy
as possible, but here's hoping it's fine.
I've just got to get my egg poached
because we both know that I should not leave eggs
till the last minute.
And I'm running out of time to poach this egg,
but it has to be executed perfectly.
Yeah. I'm... I'm nervous.
Oh, God.
I've finally got enough wraps
so that I can serve the judges something.
My chicken's done, but I'm running out of time to do this mayonnaise.
Give it everything you've got in this last minute!
If I don't finish this mayonnaise and don't get it on the plate,
then the dish has nothing to tie it together.
The wrap needs something creamy and fatty to, you know,
make this the best chicken wrap ever.
(GROANS) Why didn't I do the mayonnaise earlier?
Oh, yes.
When the judges taste these cabbage rolls,
I want them to taste that beautiful,
succulent spatchcock with that sweetness of the pineapple,
the saltiness and pickling of the turnips.
And then just that Cantonese sort of sauce
that should have all that beautiful flavours together.
It should be a mouthful of goodness,
but the sauce reduced so far down,
I'm not sure how the sauce is going to go with these cabbage wraps.
That's the only thing that
I'm worried about today, to be honest with you.
ANDY: That's it, everybody!
10...
JUDGES: Nine, eight, seven,
six, five,
four, three, two, one!
Stop!
SAV: Well done, bro. Thanks, Sav!
Come here.
Good job. Well done.
Oh, man.
Oh!
We are super excited to see
what you did with all the ingredients
in my Everything Mystery Box.
I hope you cooked your hearts out,
because the top dish today gets a ¤5,000 Harvey Norman voucher.
Fantastic.
Let's go, Mimi. We're ready to taste everything.
MIMI: My goal today was to stand out by hero-ing the vegetables.
It looks pretty tasty to me.
I hope the judges like it.
This is my take on okonomiyaki.
I reckon we dig in.
JEAN-CHRISTOPHE: Mimi, this is fantastic.
You've managed to combine sliced cabbage, turnips, eggs,
stock into this combining,
which is actually very tasty.
There is the right texture.
There is that crunchiness outside. The softness.
It's delicious.
You've managed to create a symphony
by using nine different instruments.
And you've done that so well. So, well done to you.
Mimi, I think you've very successfully managed
to replicate the elements that we know goes with the okonomiyaki.
So you've got this little sweet emulsion,
which is like the Japanese barbecue sauce, and then your mayo.
A brilliant job on that.
Thank you.
Your beauty is being able to manipulate ingredients
into the five tastes.
Mm. That is a skill.
And that is a skill like no-one else has in this room.
So keep that.
Thank you, guys.
Savindri. You're next.
Oh, God.
I'm definitely concerned about the egg and the chicken.
So that's playing at the back of my mind.
Please don't let me go into another pressure test, please.
Sav, tell us what you've made.
I made what I'm calling my fridge-raid breakfast.
Turnip and cabbage fritter
with pulled chicken, a salsa
and I used a sour baby mandarin
for my hollandaise with a poached egg on top.
Alright, let's try the dish.
Oh, no. Egg cam.
You know, it's a poached egg.
It looks jiggly and perfectly gooey,
but I don't completely know how it's cooked.
So, fingers crossed.
Oh! It's under as... It's... Ooh!
Oh!
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The egg is definitely undercooked.
The white's still really runny. The white is still really runny.
Sav, I love the pineapple salsa.
You can taste that fresh pineapple.
You can taste that Chinese celery.
I love the hollandaise.
The mandarin in that is perfect.
The amount of acidity that you've added with that is fantastic.
I think where it goes a bit wrong is, obviously, the egg is under.
Yeah.
And the chicken, it's overcooked.
Yeah. The spatchcock, it is tough.
Yeah.
It's a young bird. It's fresh, it's the best of the best.
You boiled it.
Never boiled any meat, anyway, to start.
Positives are for me - I think you've really balanced the flavours
of those nine ingredients in the Mystery Box well.
I can definitely get the cabbage in that fritter.
You definitely get Szechuan.
You definitely get the pineapple and Chinese celery.
And then you get a hint of the baby mandarin
from the hollandaise.
Thanks, Sav. Thank you. Thank you.
Next up with the Everything Box, Nat!
MIMI: Yeah, Nat!
DARRSH: Yeah, Nat! Woo!
OK, OK, what have you made?
NAT: I made a char-grilled spatchcock chicken
with a sesame-snap glaze,
a Szechuan pepper baby sour-mandarin sauce
with char-grilled cabbage
and char-grilled pineapple,
and pickled turnips, as well.
Nat, tough day to have a hard cook on the Mystery Box
because it is very unforgiving. Yeah.
The chicken for me, it was a little bit haphazard.
You know, it could have had a beautiful, even coating
of char and glaze on it.
But you'll learn from that.
You can literally taste every single ingredient in the box.
The chicken reacting with the sweetness of the cabbage
versus the bitterness of both the galangal and the baby mandarin.
Then you just get a bit of fruit and hum from the Szechuan pepper,
and then a little bit of sourness from that pineapple.
The thing that you've relied on is being able to balance,
and that is essentially what the Everything Box is all about,
so well done, mate.
The flavours are playing together really nicely,
so even though the fruit didn't have that sweetness,
the cabbage is actually super sweet.
All the natural sugars and juices have come out of that cabbage
when you've grilled it, so that's offsetting the sourness.
The chicken itself,
for me, I found it definitely hasn't been cooked evenly.
It didn't retain its juiciness,
so not 100% on the cook.
But in terms of flavour, that could be
one of the most balanced dishes we see today.
Thanks, Nat. Thanks.
Bow! Bow! (GIGGLES)
Darrsh. Yeah, Darrsh-ay!
Uh, hello!
Darrsh, can you tell us what the name of your dish is?
DARRSH: It's fried spatchcock
with a pineapple and sour-mandarin chutney,
turnip puree and pickled cabbage.
Alright, let's do it. SOFIA: OK.
Darrsh, mate, there's some good cooking here, I'm not gonna lie.
That pineapple and sour-mandarin relish,
it's got that sweet, sour, bitter number to it.
It goes really well with the pickled cabbage
and, I never thought I'd say this, the turnip puree.
You've cooked the chicken really well.
There's some good cooking here, but it does feel like
you were made to use everything in the box.
I think that will be the thing,
and it probably depends on what's behind you,
whether it keeps you safe in the top three
or not safe in the bottom three.
JEAN-CHRISTOPHE: Darrsh. Chef.
These bloody turnips!
You've worked so hard. You tried.
Then it was supposed to be a mash,
and then it became a puree.
And it's too sweet for me.
Yeah.
Your fried spatchcock is really tasty.
I think it does have that,
sort of, subtle, round sweetness to the batter,
which does make it quite more-ish,
but the turnip might have been
the best opportunity for you to inject
some more acidity and astringency into the dish.
When you think of Korean-fried chicken,
they always serve it with that pickled daikon
on the side... Yeah.
..and maybe just something like that could have worked. OK, yeah.
Well done, Darrsh. Thank you, Darrsh.
Thanks, guys. (APPLAUSE)
Thanks. Good job.
See how we go.
Righto, Harry. Let's go, mate.
(APPLAUSE)
I'm pretty disappointed in myself.
I ran out of time to get the mayonnaise done.
I just left it to the last minute.
I missed that element that I really wanted on the plate.
Mm!
Harry, what did you make?
So, I made you sesame snap-glazed chicken wraps.
The wraps are turnip-top piadina and then slaw
with some charred pineapple and sugar-loaf cabbage.
I did want to do, like, a mandarin sort of mayo to go with it.
Oh, yeah. But I just ran out of time.
Harry, chicken's cooked really nicely.
Got a nice hint of smoke in it.
That glaze kind of does get lost between the punchiness of that slaw,
especially with the pineapple. Yeah.
But, also, it's dying for a mayo. Yeah.
It needs fat to carry all those flavours
and, kind of, tame them a little bit.
That's the problem that I have.
It's not about what you have done, it's what it could have been.
Hm, yeah.
It's sort of something that I would make if I came home,
like, from a farmer's market and just wanted to, like,
put together a nice wholesome lunch.
There's nothing wrong with that.
But today when there's three people going to the bottom...
..I feel like I just would have stretched myself
a little bit further. Thanks, guys.
Thanks, mate. Thanks.
(APPLAUSE)
Right, next!
If there is anyone from Tasmania over there...
Pezza!
(APPLAUSE) NAT: Let's go, Pez!
PEZZA: I'm really happy with the dish today.
The only thing that worries me is I haven't had a chance
to taste it all together.
My wife loves rice-paper rolls.
I think if when I come home, if this is good,
she's going to want me to cook this for her.
I could be in the running to win that voucher.
They look very attractive.
I really hope they taste as good as they look.
Pezza, tell us, what is your dish, please?
My dish today is spatchcock, pineapple,
pickled turnip, cabbage rolls.
Your cabbage rolls are pretty sweet.
When you combine it with your sauce...
..it's pretty much perfect.
I love that, Pezza.
I absolutely adore it.
That's how you do a cabbage roll.
They're soft.
They've still got the bite to them
and everything is wrapped up in this neat little package.
You've got that bitterness
and the slight astringency from the sauce.
It's as balanced as it gets.
I think it's really good, Pezza.
Thank you.
All the skills that you're learning
through all those harrowing pressure tests
that you've been through,
I can see you extracting every bit of knowledge
that you've been learning through this competition.
I'm getting quite emotional now.
I hope you're really, really proud of yourself.
This is an excellent dish,
and I hope you've got it in your head
that you absolutely belong in this spot.
So, well done. Thanks, Poh. Appreciate it.
Pezza, your dish is fantastic.
It is... It's brilliant.
In fact, I think it wants something.
I'm going to give you a present because...
I don't care. I'm going to do it!
Because, because...
..you can push the boundary. I love that.
Thank you.
Thanks, chef.
There was a young and dumb 23-year-old guy
from Maitland who reminds me a lot
of a younger version of you, actually.
(LAUGHTER)
It was me. Wow!
I came in the most inexperienced cook
out of anyone in the competition, and I struggled.
But I just kept my head above water.
And I'm starting to feel like
you're getting that momentum that I had.
You know, if you keep cooking like this,
you never know where you'll end up.
You may just end up lifting that trophy.
And that's the ultimate prize.
Well done, mate. Thanks, guys.
Thanks, Pezza! Well done.
Well done, mate. You killed it.
Do you want a salami, man?
No, I'm all good, bro. They're yours.
The Everything Box is designed to challenge you.
And, today, it sure did.
But one of you has done enough to score
a whopping ¤5,000 to spend at Harvey Norman.
This cook took all nine ingredients
and gave us everything we wanted,
but most importantly, we just bloody loved it.
Congratulations...
..Pezza.
(CHEERING)
Well, Pezza, congratulations
on being the very first member of our top five!
(CHEERING)
Mate, you'll be up on that gantry, safe and sound.
You can start brainstorming purchases for your new kitchen.
Ha-ha-ha-ha!
Everyone else, when I say your name,
step forward.
You're cooking in tomorrow's pressure test.
Sav.
Harry.
Darrsh.
Sav, Harry, Darrsh.
We're beyond looking for good dishes now.
It takes nothing but the best to win this competition.
Focus.
Goodnight.
VOICEOVER: Tomorrow night on MasterChef Australia...
Please welcome Guillaume Brahimi.
(CHEERING)
..one dish stands between them and the top five.
GUILLAUME BRAHIMI: It's a dish made for the King of France.
Wow.
Today, you'll be making not just one perfect plate, but five.
(ALL EXCLAIM)
Today is going to be a tough day at the office.