Australia is next. See
Australia is next. See you
Australia is next. See you again.
Captions
Australia is next. See you again. Captions by
ANNOUNCER: Previously on MasterChef Australia...
..the man behind Messina brought an exceptional pressure test.
Wow.
Oh, stop.
This is one of the hardest things that I've ever made.
The kitchen was a hive of activity.
MICHAEL: I couldn't have dreamt this dessert up in my wildest dreams.
They were challenged in ways they had never been before.
MONTANA: This blown sugar has just completely thrown me.
(CRUNCH) DANIEL: NO!
But it was Matt whose MasterChef dream came to an end.
Tonight, they're in the midst of a masterpiece.
SARAH: It's just so magical.
But can they create their own work of art?
# 'Cause you're hot, then you're cold
# You're yes, then you're no
# You're in, then you're out
# You're up, then you're down
# You're wrong when it's right
# It's black and it's white
# We fight, we break up
# We kiss, we make up
# You're hot, then you're cold
# You're yes, then you're no
# You're in, then you're out
# You're up, then you're down
# You're wrong when it's right
# It's black and it's white
# We fight, we break up
# We kiss, we make up
# You # You don't really wanna stay, no
# You # But you don't really wanna go-o
# You're hot, then you're cold
# You're yes, then you're no
# You're in, then you're out
# You're up, then you're down. #
(LAUGHTER, CHATTER)
Pretty good day!
BILLIE: Gee, they're setting the pace, aren't they?
Another team challenge today,
and we're heading towards
the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre,
which is...interesting.
ALDO: Don't run, Julie! JULIE: There's always running.
Very scary, 'cause you can fit a lot of people in this kind of space.
SARAH: Oh, my God. This is gonna to be a big one.
This is good! This is gonna be fun!
So, if we're cooking for, like, thousands today...
..I think we need a few more team members.
(ALL EXCLAIM) BILLIE: What the hell...is this?
Oh, my God!
MINDY: Do you feel, like, goose bumps? (LAUGHS)
Walking into this space is just...
I just have no words for it. I'm just awestruck.
Wow. It's so pretty.
Looking around at all the walls, and the floor and the ceiling.
MICHAEL: A little rabbit popped out here before.
Oh, really?
DANIEL: The clouds are cool.
There's moving parts to what we're looking at as well.
It's just... It's astonishing.
(ALL EXCLAIM)
JOCK: Take it in, guys. We are blown away as well.
How good is this!
It's amazing. Stunning.
You're literally inside the middle of a painting.
Welcome to the Lume, Melbourne,
Australia's first digital art gallery,
located at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.
Sarah, what do you think?
It's incredible.
And I think having this kind of inspiration
is so good for us when it comes to food,
because it's going to allow us to be really creative,
and it's just so magical.
That's exactly what I wanted to hear,
that you look at something differently.
And with food, that's half the thing, right?
Now, of course, Tommy, you won the mystery box.
And that means you won a spot in tomorrow's immunity challenge,
and you won't be cooking today, so you can stand over there.
Peace out, guys. BILLIE: Well done, Tommy.
ALDO: Thanks, Tommy. JULIE: See ya!
So lucky. I know.
For everyone else, let's divide you into teams.
No looking - please take an apron out of the bag
and organise yourselves into your team colours.
Ha-ha!
I'll make sure that you're not looking.
Wheeey!
(JULIE LAUGHS)
I can't even see the sack!
MEL: OK, so, on the green team, we have
Michael, Keyma, Alvin, Montana, Harry and Mindy.
And on the yellow team,
it's Aldo, Steph, Billie, Julie, Daniel and Sarah.
Hell, yeah.
Now, it wouldn't be a team challenge without a captain to lead the way.
Each team needs to have one.
ALDO: We already decided, I think. We already decided!
ALVIN: I'll be captain. MINDY: Good on ya, girl.
You know it. You rock it. Yes!
OK?
So, captain of the green team today is Alvin
and captain of the yellow team, Steph.
Yep.
I have never been team captain
but, in my role for the Reserve Bank of Australia, I was a team leader,
so I am confident that I can lead the team today.
For today's challenge,
you'll need to take inspiration from where you are standing right now.
To be more specific...
..from this.
ALVIN: Oh! (CHUCKLES)
HARRY: It really doesn't get old. No.
What you're looking at
is a beautiful piece of impressionist artwork
by the Dutch master Vincent Van Gogh,
one of the greatest artists of all time.
We want you to create a three-course menu
inspired by the world around you.
We want your dishes to take us into the heart of the forest.
The Lume is a multisensory, immersive experience,
and we want to have that same experience when we taste your food.
You aren't just cooks today, you're artists.
So make us a masterpiece.
So, artists...
..you've got two and a half hours to prepare.
Your teams will be serving 30 diners each, plus us.
The pantry's stocked with all kinds of natural ingredients.
And the winning team will join Tommy in the immunity cook tomorrow.
Get inspired, guys...
..'cause you time starts now.
MONTANA: Go, go, go! HARRY: Aagh!
Oh, my God! Oh, this is so cool.
OK.
ALVIN: A three-course menu inspired by the forest.
Now, this is a good challenge.
Find the paper.
It's taking something that you see, like, so abstract,
and you have to turn that into a full three-course meal.
Alright, Team Green, let's do this. Let's go.
JULIE: Get planning. Get planning.
If you can pull this off, there's something clever about it.
And I've always been fascinated when chefs can do this.
So, first of all, the whole imagery of the forest
is really something we can sort of draw on.
So we can do our courses in three tiers, I'm thinking.
MONTANA: Yeah. MICHAEL: OK.
My idea is actually looking at it from a bird's-eye view,
looking at, like... at the top of a forest -
you know, all you see is, like, a canopy.
If we're doing entree and we go for the canopy,
which is really bright and beautiful and leafy. Nice. Nice.
Something lighter. A vegetarian starter. Yep.
And then in the middle layer, there'll be sort of more leaves,
you know, like, trickling through.
I'm thinking, like, a red meat.
Like, if there's venison, that'd be great - like, deer in the forest.
And then, like, for me, mushrooms, forest... HARRY: Yep.
And then, of course, at the bottom,
which would be this, you know, like, forest floor sort of stuff.
My first thought is, like, ice-cream
with, like, foresty berries or something like that.
Sort of savoury ice-cream? Very sort of savoury sort of...
Yeah. And we can do chocolate twigs.
Yes. Yes. Thank you, Reynold.
I've come up with the artistic concept and they're happy with it,
so now we all need to come up with some great dishes to represent that.
Mindy, Harry, happy to do entree? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mon, obviously, we'll stick you in dessert.
I'm happy to do... Yeah. So, Michael, Keyma, happy to do main?
Yeah, I'll do main for sure. Yep. Cool. Main.
STEPH: Taking inspiration from the forest,
I think we should do kind of like a life cycle.
You know, the forest is not always green.
So I'm thinking, for entree,
we want something really bright and green.
For main, I want it kind of like a forest fire has come through
and it's going to be dark and earthy.
And then, for desserts, we get a little bit of a re-emergence
of life coming through and back into the forest.
So good. Yeah, goose bumps.
Yeah, look! Actually, physical goose bumps.
It's part of our life in Australia, where we have bushfires
and we've had a number of really bad ones over the years.
So I'm taking inspiration from that.
So, entree, we'll do something very green. It's really green in there.
So, do you guys want to do the entree? Yep.
Deep green, yeah. Really green?
Yep. Let's do that, Jules.
I'm working with Aldo on the entree today.
Cool. Let's do that.
And Steph has a concept
that this forest starts bright and light and fresh and new...
ALDO: Eggs. Eggs. Where are the eggs?
Eggs are over there, Aldo.
..before it's swept through by a bushfire.
What kind of spinach, honey? Proper spinach, yeah.
We're very conscious that it must be very green.
So the dish we decide on is tortellini with peas.
Jules, do you want to start on the ricotta?
Yeah. So, now just let me run my recipe by you,
make sure it's alright. I just...
I trust you. Well... OK.
(LAUGHS) OK You know what you do. Come on!
So, inside the tortellini,
we're going to make some homemade ricotta
with spinach, some pecorino cheese, salt and pepper, and lemon zest.
Very dark, moody kitchen, isn't it?
Channelling your inner Van Gogh.
And that's going to come together
in a beautiful, creamy filling for the tortellini.
And then the tortellini are going to be served
in a beautiful fresh pea juice,
and then some pea shoots and tendrils over the top.
Julie, once it's ready, the ricotta, put it in the blast chiller, OK?
I'm on it, mate. I'm all over it like a fat kid on a cupcake.
I'm excited by this dish.
When I think about standing in that immersive Van Gogh forest,
it was deeply green,
it was calming, it was soothing,
and that's what I think this dish is going to deliver.
So, two parts lemon myrtle, two parts mountain pepper? SARAH: Mm-hm.
So we want some more black pepper in there.
Yeah. Yep.
Out main is going to represent a bushfire,
so it's going to be charred and beautiful.
Everything has got a pretty strong bitter flavour,
so I think, just gotta balance that out.
So, today, we are going to make a native spiced crusted lamb.
(COUGHS)
We're serving that with a smoked macadamia puree,
lots of layers of charred leek and caramelised leek,
and also a quandong puree.
I like it. It's bush-fiery.
It's showing these different layers
of charred and earthiness to a bushfire,
but at the same time representing
different natural ingredients and natives.
I'll try and bring it together so that it takes you to that place.
So, do we want to call this dish the canopy?
Yeah. Yep. So we've got the canopy.
I've got the forest floor as dessert.
I need to think of a name for mains.
Yeah. But I like this idea.
Alvin's got this incredible idea
about moving through the different layers of the rainforest.
But it's up to Harry and I to really actually create the dish.
Bower spinach?
Oh, yum.
So, we're really thinking a great, strong vegetarian starter
because we want it to be reflective of the canopy.
Grains underneath. This will be our base.
This will build around it.
Fresh herbs and carrot tops. We've got asparagus.
Pickled caper leaves!
I've never seen pickled caper leaves before, but I'm loving it.
Having a beautiful pickled leaf on there
is definitely going to give that idea of being in a canopy.
Let's do it, girl.
ALVIN: 'Cause we've got the canopy, forest floor,
and I need something foresty in the middle.
Like, what would you call it?
Well, you know how it's, like, a bull in a china shop? Yeah.
Like, could it be a...? A bull in the forest.
I like that.
Alvin wants to have some creative names for the dishes. I love that.
And we're going to call our dish A Bull in the New Forest.
So, a bit like a bull in a china shop, there's a lot going on.
I've got another little idea to be more the middle of forest.
And when you pick mushrooms wild,
you find them under pine needles and under leaves
and in the weirdest places.
So I think we might have a little foraging element
to our dish as well.
It's a fun one.
It's just about cooking the beef well,
making sure the mushrooms are perfect.
Make sure the sauce is good as well.
The first thing I get started on is prepping this beef.
I just trim it up and square it off
so I've got a nice cube of sirloin that I can cook.
And Keyma is going to work on
getting the bones roasted and the vegies chopped for the jus.
Perfect and then make sure we give it a good dry-off too,
so it caramelises. Yeah.
We'll work on those separately
then come back together for the other elements,
then we'll just bring it together as a team inside of a team.
Is this enough? Yep. Perfect.
Nice work, Keyma.
ANDY: We hope you can see the forest through the trees.
You've only got 90 minutes to go.
(JUDGES APPLAUD) TOMMY: Whoo-hoo! 90 minutes!
Salt. Bit more salt?
Salt and lemon juice. Salt it up, baby!
JOCK: How are you, mate?
I'm good.
Tortellinis? Yes.
How many are you gonna give a portion?
Just three. It's an entree.
Three? Yep.
So, in 90 minutes' time, you're going to have 100 tortellini ready to go?
I think one tortellini per minute is 60 minutes...
No, unless... It has to be more. It's 90 minutes.
You need to be like a tortellini factory!
Sort of. Let's say that.
I hope I get three. Oh, God!
(LAUGHS) I can hear Jock asking Aldo,
"You're really doing tortellini?
"You haven't started them yet?
"How many have you gotta do?"
And I'm thinking, "Oh, gosh. We need to get on with this right now."
Aldo, if we don't get started on those tortellini, buddy,
we're going to be serving... Don't worry, my love.
I need to make 100 tortellini, but probably even more,
because I need backups in case they're going to burst in water.
So I need to just be folding those tortellini as a mad person,
or otherwise it's not going to have an entree.
Entree needs some hands.
We need that cleaned down. We need those machines out.
We've gotta get rolling pasta. We've gotta get onto it now.
What do you reckon? Are they going well?
Look. Oh, sick.
You know, the one thing that I've learnt from a previous challenge
that I can bring today are those chocolate twigs.
Thank you, Reynold.
Today, you'll be making my new signature desserts - noi.
What do we find in the forest floor? Twigs.
We need lots of twigs.
BILLIE: So, I'm on the dessert course.
Our concept that Steph came up with, I think is really beautiful.
My idea is a little choux pastry log that's sitting on the ground
of the forest, that's starting to sprout again,
using flavours of dill and rhubarb, which are both really fresh.
I've used dill and rhubarb before in my semifinal dessert dish.
I made a dill ice-cream with a rhubarb champagne spider.
Are you pouring it over the top? That's better.
When you pour a spider...
(OTHERS CHEER)
It was good enough to get me into the finale of season seven.
So I'm hoping today that flavour combination will get us a win.
OK.
I'm really trying to work methodically
to make sure that each of my elements are perfect.
And the fact that I'm on the dessert course by myself,
I cannot afford to make any mistakes.
(GROANS)
Mmm. Yum.
Everything's going well so far.
The flavour in the mushroom ice-cream is really cool,
it's really interesting.
Is it good? Yeah.
Everyone on the team's had a little taste of it,
and we're really happy with it.
That's quite mushroom. Yeah.
Yeah, I like it.
So we're happy that the sort of main element of the dessert
is on its way.
Dessert's on track, so I'm just helping out the entree team
while everything's sort of sitting and waiting for me.
I'm up against Billie on the yellow team,
and I have beaten Billie a few times in service challenges on desserts,
but it's a little bit different today, it's one v one.
She is such a powerhouse in this competition.
She just knows flavour like the back of her hand.
A bit chalky. Chalky.
So I'm going to just try my very best
at producing something that could be better than hers.
MICHAEL: These bones came. They look good, huh?
Yeah, good.
The Wagyu's been trimmed up,
the macadamia nuts are in the oven, roasting.
Now it's time to work on our jus.
Now stock time.
Now, Keyma's already roasted the bones for the jus
and diced up the vegies, so I just have to cook them down.
Keyma, any time you walk by this, you're just gonna strain it off.
Yeah, every... Just any...
Any scummy bits that come up, just strain them off.
I've never made this dish before.
That's the great thing about MasterChef,
it drags new and interesting and creative
and exciting dishes out of you.
I think it's that, you know, being inside The Lume
and experiencing feeling like I'm inside of that
beautiful Vincent Van Gogh painting.
The dishes need surprises and elements of excitement.
MAN: Michael, you're OK?
Yeah, I'm just searing all the beef,
and then it's going in the oven.
I've got eight pieces of Wagyu, six in one oven and two in the other.
I've never cooked a bit of Wagyu this big before,
so it will be a bit of a test for me, but I reckon I can make it work.
Oh, yeah.
That's the paper bark. SARAH: OK.
So if we put that with the macadamia. Yeah, perfect with the macadamia.
So you want to smoke them whole and then puree, or smoke it after?
I think it would be best to puree, and then we'll smoke it.
Do it after, yeah.
As a firefighter, I've been to several bushfires
and I've witnessed how destructive they can be
and destructive they are.
Being inspired by Van Gogh, who was inspired by nature,
seeing it from a different perspective.
So we're doing that today.
We're looking at the forest and how in Australia,
you know, part of nature is bushfires wiping through,
and so hopefully we can execute it.
Sarah's finished preparing the lamb,
she's got that brining in the fridge,
and now she works on the leeks.
The main part of the leek, which we've roasted gently,
we're gonna sort of cut them into planks
and lay that on top of the lamb so that it kind of covers it.
I reckon just check these in longer because we don't need the sweetness.
We're also going to get some other bits of leek
that we're going to cut finely and char as well in the deep-fryer.
It'll kind of symbolise charred hay or charred grass.
While she's doing that, I've got my spice blend done,
I've got my smoking set-up ready to go.
Um, cool.
Now it's time to get to work on this quandong jelly.
Oh, yeah, that smells mean.
We wanted this really deep redness,
which will sort of signify the little red embers of the flame.
You're kind of searching for it
because it will be the lift and the acidity of the whole dish.
Mmm. Yummy.
Don't lose your way in the forest. You've only got one hour to go.
ANDY: Come on.
JULIE: Can we please put tortellini down now?
ALDO: One second, my love.
Julie's concerned about the timing of folding of the tortellini,
but, you know, I think an hour time to get tortellini done in
will be more than enough.
Are you going all the way down?
Slimming it from the top. Just from here?
Yeah, from the top. OK.
That'll save a lot of time. Yeah.
Huh.
So, we're just starting with a very simple thing
that Julie's going to start to roll the pasta out,
and then I'm going to pipe it in, the filling,
and then I'm going to fold it.
Beautiful, Jules. We're on a roll, mate.
I'm feeling super confident. It's my A-B-C.
I know that I can get it done.
One serving done, 33 to go! (JULIE LAUGHS)
MINDY: Right, let's move, Harry. We've gotta move our arse, babe.
We've got a lot of components to do, so let's get this done.
Do you think that's enough? I think you might need a bit more.
More? I can keep going, I just don't want to spend too much time.
No, you don't wanna waste time on it, I know.
I'm stoked that I'm doing entrees with Mindy.
Entrees is where I feel most comfortable,
but I've got so many elements
and we've still got so many things to achieve.
I'm really hoping that the two of us can pull this together
because otherwise we're just going to have a lot of half done things.
So, what I'm thinking, babe, we will do a little pea puree.
That will form the base under our plate,
but we might add a bit of a goat cheese into it.
Yeah, I can do that. We'll cook those down.
We're thinking that the pea puree will be the base of our dish.
So Mindy has this great idea to paint it onto the plate.
This is to mimic the fact that we're in an art exhibition
and you can see the paint strokes on the wall.
So we want to translate that directly onto our plate.
Like paint strokes.
I think it's a great idea
and I think the judges are going to love it.
ANDY: Listen up, gang! You've got 30 minutes
until the entrees leave the pass!
Let's go! Come on.
47.
ALVIN: How's the beef, Michael?
It's ticking along, Alvin.
What are we at? We just got to 48 on the back one.
48? Yeah.
So I'm going to take it out now.
What did you roast it at? 165? Yeah.
Whoo!
Mate, that's saying 19. That can't be right, can it?
Looking at my Wagyu, and the temperatures aren't coming up
in five of the six pieces in my big oven.
And the thermometer in one of the pieces is saying 40 degrees,
but the others are at, like, 18 and 20.
There's a real discrepancy there and I can't quite figure out.
I'd be checking them all.
How long have we got?
What...
And two more at...18
18?! Wow.
If you think that these are going to get up to temp in time...
Because they're so small. ..which they need to...
They're so small, it's going to happen quickly, right?
I don't know. It's going to be stressful.
It always is for me, Andy.
If I keep watching the Wagyu and just focusing on it, we're going to be OK.
Will it be a stressful next 25 minutes? You bet.
MINDY: What else smells like the rainforest?
Should I stick a bit of fennel in our atomiser?
Yeah.
Entree is light, leafy, and it's a beautiful canopy.
I want to create the sensory experience.
When you walk into a rainforest,
one of the first things you do is you smell what's around you.
For the experience of the guests, we're going to create an atomiser,
which is basically an infused liquid we can spray onto our dish.
Oh, yeah. Ooh, yeah.
We'll strain it into there, and then they kind of get this scent.
It smells like lemony rainforest to me.
I'm smelling lemon myrtle, lemon verbena, very citrusy notes.
And that is what for me is moving through a canopy.
Eau de forest.
Coming to a store near you - a scent for the real man.
JOCK: The forest is starting to fill up with diners.
You've only got 15 minutes to go! Come on!
Go, green! Come on, yellow!
I pause helping the entrees for a second
and just have a look on the ice-cream,
and it's looking really good, it's churning nicely.
Mindy, how many do you need to help you plate up?
MINDY: Just you, girl. OK.
Alvin has sort of gone and jumped on to help with the entree team.
There's a lot going on.
I've got the cream there, Mon. Can you just finish that off for me?
Yep. Have you got time?
Yep, yep, yep.
I can see that mains is sort of struggling a little bit for time,
so I'm going to jump on and help them with a few elements.
So, I'll get that. Can you give Keyma a hand with the kale?
Yep. Yep, yep, yep.
One sec, Keyma. Yeah. Thank you.
..17, 18, 19, 20,
21, 22, 23, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27!
(EXCLAIMS IN ITALIAN)
Yes, darling, yes!
I just got 27 servings.
I've got probably six more to go and I'm fine as.
How many tortellinis have you made? 27 servings.
Mate, I'm on the right track.
Despite that people, they didn't have faith in me, I made it.
I'm tired enough.
Just folding the last ones and then we're ready to go.
ANDY: Hustle! 10 minutes till service!
MINDY: Let's do it. Let's go, go, go, go, go.
Let's start plating, guys.
Dan, when they start the entrees, let's start getting our lamb on.
Yeah. Yeah, so we'll sear the lamb.
Yeah. And then we'll crust it.
Finish it in the oven. And finish it in the oven.
Yeah, do the probing, yeah. Yeah. OK, cool.
10 minutes until entree service starts,
and we have a lot of things to do for the mains.
That macadamia puree is still not done,
I haven't even started searing the lamb.
The leek isn't quite finished.
I know that this is going to take quite a bit of time
to make sure that everything is balanced.
So I'm kind of relying on the help from the entree team
to bring it all together.
Is this definitely going to be cooked in time?
We need to go now. Chuck it on.
Right, let's just clear some space, guys.
We've got to think clear about this.
It is all about the visual today.
Customers, yes, eat with their eyes.
Harry and I are going to start attacking this
to see how the dish comes together.
Let's go. So some peas, Harry.
It's fresh, it tastes of peas,
but you've got that acidity and creaminess of the goat's cheese,
earthiness of the black barley
and a little bit of nuttiness with pepitas.
Look how pretty that looks. Yeah, that looks really pretty.
High five. Let's go. Let's do it.
It is looking exactly what we wanted it to look,
but, my God, this plating is going to take us so long.
Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Traffic jam!
There's so much detail and intricacy,
but if we can nail this, we're in for a win.
You've got one minute to go. One minute!
MELISSA: Come on, guys!
Team, can you come and have a look at entree, please?
There's a lot of pressure on us right now.
This is a lot of tortellini.
I'll do juice and tortellini.
And I'll do olive oil, black pepper and peas.
We're cooking them as they're going out on the pass
because you want them to be beautiful and hot
and to be juxtaposed against that lovely, fresh, cool broth
that we've got in the bowl.
So it's all systems go.
ALDO: Guys, we gotta hustle, OK?
A little bit of cracked pepper on, and that's it, guys, OK?
OK, here we go.
JUDGES: 10, nine, eight,
seven, six, five,
four, three, two, one.
JOCK: That's it! Service has started.
Service, please! Yes, baby, yes!
Let's go. Come on, everyone.
Service, please.
Entree service begins,
and the judges are expecting multisensory, immersive experience.
And I think the entree sets the scene of the entire menu.
Let's be a little bit organic about it, yeah, this time?
Just let it have a little bit of movement.
It looks like a painting on a plate, which is, you know what?
If that doesn't hit the brief, I don't know what does.
Ooh, here we go.
Thank you.
Wow. Thank you.
Fantastic. So, this is the entree from the Green Team,
named The Canopy.
Pea and goat's cheese puree, black barley and leafy greens.
And very fancy little atomiser
of lemon myrtle, lemon verbena and lemon zest.
A bit of a lemony multi-sensory experience, if you will.
May I?
Thought you'd never ask. (SPRAYS)
I think it looks stunning. Yeah, I reckon it looks epic!
I think, as well, you know, like the painted-on puree,
which is the goat's cheese, right...?
I mean, look around us.
It kind of looks like the brushstrokes in the painting, right?
The perfect dish for this surrounding.
Yeah.
You know, you could probably hide a plate of that
just somewhere over in the distance
and it wouldn't look out of place, you know?
Which, I suppose, means you've ticked the brief.
For me, flavour-wise,
a concept is nothing on paper
if you don't deliver on flavour,
and they definitely have here.
You get that kind of grassy taste
of the combination of the peas, the black barley and the pepitas.
But then I really liked when the goat's cheese kicked in,
it just rounded it out with a bit of fat.
So, it was a nice little layered dish.
MEL: I like all of the different textures.
I think the chew on the black barley, the crunch from the pepitas,
even just the tenderness of the asparagus,
was really lovely.
Mindy and Harry as a combination... Yeah.
..pretty good.
You know, put those two together, have a look.
A little bit of inspiration from the forest,
and we've got an absolutely banging dish.
Yeah.
Here you go, loves. JULIE: Thank you, darlin'.
Alright.
ALDO: The dishes, they're all consistently looking good.
I'm super happy. They look beautiful on the plate.
But sometimes, you know, the way that it looks
is not always the way that it tastes.
Did we add the other lemon juice in?
I did put another splash in. Beautiful. Perfect.
I think it's really nice.
ALDO: But I know that we've got
the creaminess of the filling of the tortellini.
The pea juice, it's beautiful, it's vibrant and fresh.
And then at the very end, when you bite onto the pea shoots,
it just brings back the beautiful sweetness of the pea as well.
JULIE: Service, please. Service.
BOTH: Thank you.
I just hope that we just done enough.
Amazing. Thank you. Thank you.
ANDY: Thank you.
Wow. OK.
So, entree from the Yellow Team,
Entering the Forest.
Green tortellini with peas.
I didn't think we'd get three.
We got three. We got three.
You know, Aldo stuck to his guns
and he pumped those tortellini out, didn't he?
There's things I like about this dish
and there's a couple of things I'm unsure about.
The filling I thought was delicious -
you know, that real richness of the ricotta
and the spinach pureed, folded through there.
It was seasoned perfectly, touch of lemon, on point.
I really like the broth.
You know, it's green, it's vibrant, it's light.
It feels at home right here.
But I just feel the two components -
the beautiful tortellini, which is quite rich and warm and lovely,
and that light broth -
aren't marrying up to create one beautiful dish for me today.
JOCK: The pasta looks fantastic.
It's kind of like a pasta salad, isn't it?
Do you know what I mean?
The broth is more of a vinaigrette dressing, if you like,
rather than a broth itself.
And as soon as you start thinking about it that way,
it begins to make a little bit more sense to me.
So, I think there are things to really love
and some things that, I echo your sentiment,
doesn't really quite feel complete.
Come on. Three, two, one, go!
Yes! Thank you. Let's go.
That's entree done.
Entree service is done, so that's a huge relief.
Michael, what do you need?
So, now it's all hands on deck to help with the mains.
MICHAEL: Mon's helping with the puree, which is good.
Here's the beef moment.
I've got to carve a bit of beef
to make sure it's nice and pink in the centre.
And it's perfect.
Pretty good, guys? MONTANA: Yeah, nice.
The fat's rendered, so there's no chewy bits of fat.
And I'm glad I spent so much time paying attention to the Wagyu
because it's worth it when you get beautiful pink beef like this.
So, do you want to put everything together for me to taste? I do.
Keyma, can we get the mushies out? Yeah.
I make our test plate up - I add the beef,
I hide the mushrooms on top of the puree,
hide them in the leaves,
and it looks how I want it to look - I'm happy.
When they dig in, they'll find herbs and mushrooms.
Yeah. Happy?
Yes, I'm happy.
Alright, good.
Alright, let's set up the station.
SARAH: Oh, my God. Are we going to get this done, Dan?
Steph is helping out on entrees right now
because, you know, they're going out first,
but we are crying out for an extra pair of hands.
DANIEL: Aagh!
We're sinking.
Can you portion the caramelised leeks as well, and season them?
DANIEL: Um, yep.
I definitely feel like we're sinking at the moment.
We've got to get that lamb on, man, hey?
We need to motor.
I'm not sure if we can bring it all together in time.
STEPH: Is this side not hot enough?
No, it's not hot enough.
I know that our main course has kind of delayed the service.
ALDO: This taking forever.
Guys, this will be pushed out right now, please.
JULIE: Yep. Come on, hustle.
Hustle, hustle on the herbs. Hustle on the herbs.
SARAH: So, this could definitely cost our team immunity.
SARAH: Aldo's going to help us do the lamb. So, we're good.
Yeah.
Although we are feeling the pressure right now and a little bit behind...
Come on, come on, come on, come on. Quick, quick, quick.
..Aldo and Steph are going to help us get this dish over the line.
Go, go, Sarah. Yeah.
Come on.
STEPH: Come on, team. Let's get this goin'.
DANIEL: Yeah! SARAH: Whoo-hoo! Go, Steph!
It's slowly coming together, but we just need to really focus
and get everything across the line.
ALDO: So, you want to just a little bit of colour on the outside.
That's it. Just colour. That's it.
Are you finishing this in the oven? Yeah.
I'm just hoping we're not going to be delaying the customers
from getting their meal on time.
OK, first one's ready.
HARRY: Alright. Ready.
Service?
Just those two. Thank you so much.
MICHAEL: The dish is coming along exactly how I imagined it.
It tastes great. The mushrooms work really well with the beef.
The puree adds a nuttiness and the leaves add that bitterness
and that interesting element of hiding the mushrooms.
So, I think it hits the brief.
Mindy, this is looking great.
The flow works in my mind.
Hopefully, the diners get that as well.
Thank you.
ANDY: Thank you very much. MEL: OK.
So, from the Green Team, their main of A Bull in the New Forest.
Roasted Wagyu, macadamia puree,
roasted and pickled mushrooms
and roasted beet leaves.
I'm guessing everything's underneath the beet leaves.
Beautiful plate of food, that.
For me, the Wagyu, it was beautiful.
It'd been rested for long enough.
It was nice and pink. It was juicy.
Beautifully well done.
Then the plating.
I thought, you know, A Bull in the New Forest,
the leaf, great, looked fantastic.
Kind of hiding stuff.
I was kind of searching around, getting little surprises.
The jus itself, I thought, was really fragrant with herbs
and a really lovely thing to bind this entire dish together.
My commendations to whoever made the macadamia cream
because it had the most luxurious texture,
the most lovely balance
and such a small amount on a plate made all of the difference.
Yeah. Pretty good dish.
STEPH: Whoops. I'm behind you.
Yep.
Done. OK. Service, please?
Perfect.
SARAH: Watching those first plates go out for service
feels pretty great
because I really felt like we were sinking for a moment there.
ALDO: Sarah, the lambs looks beautiful.
I think the concept of this dish has definitely been brought to life.
And not only that, I think it's a dish to be really proud of.
Come on, puree, puree, puree!
Let's go! Got it.
Need to catch up. Beautiful. You hold this.
The flavours are so interesting and unique
and they really play together really well.
Come on, let's go. Have we got more leek?
Yeah, there's more coming. Beautiful. Thank you, Jules.
SARAH: I feel like, at this point in the competition,
it's really important to bring well-executed dishes,
but also to really push the boundaries with them,
especially in a challenge where it is conceptual.
So, I hope we've done enough.
Service, please?
ALDO: Well done, everybody. Thank you.
JOCK: Can't wait for this.
Thank you.
OK. So, from the Yellow Team,
we have a main named Forest Fire
It's a native spiced lamb
with charred leeks
and smoked macadamia.
I think it looks really impactful.
It's...I think it's quite a clever interpretation.
I like their thinking. Yeah, I like the thinking.
Let's see what it tastes like, though.
OK.
Diving into the details.
The lamb was cooked really, really nicely.
Loved it. Yeah.
You know, blushing, medium. Just how I like my back strap.
Mine had some good caramelisation,
and it was quite light on that Aussie spice mix that they made.
That native spice mix.
I thought they did well to kind of tame that.
The deep-fried leeks,
I'm...I'm not digging.
Maybe if they were really, really finely shredded,
they would have been a lot less in-your-face
because they are still quite bitter
and because they've just been flat-out deep-fried
until they're that colour,
they are quite tannic as well.
When leeks are soft and beautiful and melting,
there's just nothing better than it
because it coats everything in a veil of sweetness.
And we didn't really get that opportunity today.
But I really liked the macadamia cream.
I thought it had a really lovely texture,
a light, smoke flavour to it.
For me, it feels like the guys have been under the pump.
This is the first iteration of the dish
and we've just been so busy that we've had to get it out the door.
"Let's get it on the plate and out the door, ASAP."
ALVIN: And then we'll take a couple of berries soon... Mm-hm.
To finish our menu today,
our dessert is going to be based on the forest floor.
And I think the plate
that Alvin has in his mind
is to have just a scoop of the ice-cream,
a few of those little pickled blackberries next to it,
and a few of the little chocolate twigs leaning up against it.
But it doesn't look as refined as we thought it would be.
MINDY: What's the ice-cream going to sit on?
Have you got something for it to sit on? Um...
We've got a test plate of our dessert
and the ice-cream is just sliding all around the plate.
We've just got three blackberries on there.
We've got a bit of ice-cream, the chocolate twigs,
but it doesn't look quite complete.
Is there a sauce or... what are we doing?
Um...
No? No, there's no sauce. No.
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MICHAEL: I think it needs something green.
No, forest floor - I think we're going brown.
OK.
One of the things that a lot of people tend to forget is,
it needs to be travel friendly.
You know, like from the pass to the diner, there's a lot of movement
and you don't want things to fall off or slide off.
Then it'll ruin the general image of the dish.
Do we think sitting it on the raspberries? Yep.
And then just do some blackberries on the side?
I think raspberries and Blackberries mixed together.
Yep. Great. Yeah. Cool.
Do this in five minutes, guys.
Thank goodness smart Montana suggests
we rest the ice-cream on a bed of raspberries.
Mon, is it just gonna be like this
and you're gonna, like, nestle on top?
Yep.
Which is great, because with our time limit,
we think the easiest way to do it
is to incorporate another type of berry,
and it'll bring some freshness
and it'll cut through the earthiness and the richness of the dessert.
Perfect. Let's go. Let's go.
Up the end, please. Pushing.
MONTANA: The final dish looks quite pretty,
but I'm worried about the balance of flavours.
Service!
I'm definitely worried about those blackberries,
and I'm not sure if this hits the brief visually.
That one might need a tiny wipe, but there's that one.
I'm up against Billie on the yellow team,
which is never fun.
She's an exceptional cook
and she is definitely really strong in this competition.
I think I need to produce an absolutely perfect dish today
to beat her.
Thank you.
I just hope that I've done enough.
Alright, so, from the green team, we have dessert of Forest Floor -
mushroom ice-cream, pickled blackberries, fresh raspberries
and chocolate twigs.
I was hoping for a lot more, to be honest.
Yeah.
Interesting dessert.
In terms of a forest floor,
I mean, the twigs, you get it from a visual aspect,
really nice and organic looking.
But, from a flavour profile,
it probably needed a bit more mushroom
to make me buy into the forest floor concept, you know?
Yeah, I've got to agree.
Like, when I first tasted the mushroom ice-cream,
I was like, "Yeah. Like, that's tasty."
But then, once you get the bitterness of the chocolate,
the sweet sourness, I would say,
of the raspberries and the blackberries,
it really does drain it out.
It just felt like a nice mushroom ice-cream
that had just been drowned out by, you know, some things that were OK,
without blowing me away.
Yeah.
STEPH: Service, please!
Whew!
Well done, guys. Yes! Thank you!
Oh, you guys did so well.
So, we've been hectic with mains,
the mains just kind of flew,
and now it's up to dessert.
JULIE: That looks exactly like a log.
And I turn around and Billie's plating, and it looks incredible.
Billie, What do you need?
BILLIE: Um...
I think we're pretty well... You're good?
..good. OK.
Plating up is pretty simple for this dessert.
The idea is just a log sitting on a forest floor.
There's some rhubarb and some dill as the main flavours.
I feel like they're quite fresh flavours,
and represent the regrowth of the forest.
Just on the soil, and then we'll go dill on top of that.
So, the great thing about being on the dessert course on my own
is that this dish is just what I wanted to make.
But...
Service!
Thank you. ..if they love it, then great.
But if they don't like it, it's all on me.
Thank you.
It's just that fear, I think, of...
..are they gonna like it?
Wow.
Thank you. Thank you.
From the yellow team,
their dessert of Regrowth.
Dill choux with rhubarb.
What I love is that little contrast of the green dill sugar in the fronds
just popping up through the soil,
because it does suggest that little bit
of the first regrowth after a fire, which is the whole point.
Who made the choux?
Did Billie make the choux pastry? Billie.
She made everything.
That was a cracking dish.
Absolutely loved it.
Choux pastry - light as a feather.
Dill flavour - beautiful.
Billie, again, just... she's got a really nice touch
when it comes to tempering strong flavours,
in this case dill, in a dessert.
Dill is one of those things
I think a lot of people only think of it as being something super savoury,
but we also know it can stack up against really big flavours
and hold its own.
And here, paired with the rhubarb, I think it works really well.
The rhubarb is a very intense sour flavour,
but it's really balanced
with that delicate herbal fragrance that the dill brings.
I think it's just enough to be there, but not to be overpowering.
30 plates! Billie did 30 plates!
Like, start to finish.
Man, she's...she's good.
Billie, the choux is beautiful.
BILLIE: Happy? Yeah! Great.
Good-O.
ALVIN: Oh, my God. Is that the last plate?
Yeah. Oh, Jesus!
(MIMICS ALVIN) Oh, my God! Oh, my God!
ANDY: What started as like, you know, the perfect surroundings,
the perfect kitchen, the perfect pantry,
seemed to be the perfect menus as well.
Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
Today we delved deep into the forest
and what we found were some truly artful plates of food.
And for one team today,
that imagination has secured you a chance to vie for immunity tomorrow.
So let's see who it is.
The energy in the kitchen today was brilliant
and the results speak for themselves.
Let's start with the really big hits.
One of the desserts absolutely blew us away.
It was downright delicious.
That dish was cooked by...
..Billie, giving deserts to the yellow team.
(ALL CHATTER EXCITEDLY)
Great work, guys.
Well done. Thank you.
The next dish that really impressed us was an entree.
It was balanced and fitted seamlessly into the environment.
And that entree...
..was cooked by the green team.
Really proud of you, babe.
Mindy, Harry, what a partnership that was.
Well done. BOTH: Thank you.
DANIEL: Oh, man, oh, man. Here we go. (CHUCKLES)
(LAUGHS) Dan!
So, the main course.
Although both teams' proteins were beautifully cooked,
only one's accompaniments were equally as impressive.
And only one team brought us a dish that was executed near perfectly.
And that main...
..was cooked by the green team.
(ALL CHEER AND LAUGH)
I'm so happy. My first team captaincy, and my team won.
Our creative director! Good work, babe! Good on ya, Alvin.
That's great. Holy moly.
I mean...
Yes! Yes!
Green team, you lot were clearly inspired by what you saw today.
Keep cooking, keep pushing yourselves,
and do not get comfortable.
Because tomorrow we are dialling up the heat.
Tomorrow's immunity,
it is unlike any other immunity that we've had this season.
(NERVOUS LAUGHTER)
It is going to be a monster day.
Oh. What?
ANNOUNCER: Tomorrow night on MasterChef Australia,
we turn up the heat in the kitchen.
MARCO PIERRE WHITE: Ask yourself, who are you?
And what would I like to be?
Get ready for White heat.
Captions by Red Bee Media