ANNOUNCER: Previously on MasterChef Australia,
Oh, stop.
Oh, that's my mum!
My baby! (LAUGHS)
They cooked their hearts out to impress their loved ones...
It's quite surreal. Like, we're going to feed our families.
Can you wish me luck? Good luck!
..and the judges.
JOCK: That, my friends, was how you do an entree.
ANDY: An absolute belter!
But the aqua team won the day.
(ALL CHEER) Well done.
Tonight, they've reached the pointy end of the competition
in more ways than one.
JULIE: They've made this challenge almost impossible.
So, who will win immunity?
And later, the claws are out in a brilliant MasterClass...
ANDY: Mud crab is the best of the best.
..and chef Natalie Paull takes baking to the next level.
# '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. #
(MYSTICAL MUSIC)
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
After cooking for our families, we've got renewed vigour,
we're all 10 feet tall, match-fit and ready to fight for immunity.
There's four glass cloches, like, behind the judges.
And I could barely make out what they are.
(GASPS) Is that a cactus?
You know, like, it looks... It looks really...
It looks menacing.
MEL: Good morning, everybody. Good morning.
You look sharp, because it's immunity day.
I hope you're all feeling good
because today, one of you will become the first member
of the MasterChef top seven for 2022.
Ooh, yeah. (WHOOPING AND APPLAUSE)
Alvin.
You've done a lot of great things in this kitchen so far this season,
but what you haven't done is won immunity.
Is today the day?
I certainly hope it is.
I've come so close and then, you know, not... No cigar.
The only thing standing between you and that top-seven spot
are a handful of prickly ingredients.
You could say we're at the cutting edge of food right now.
(CHUCKLES AND GUFFAWS)
(LAUGHTER)
OK, well, let's get into it.
So, today it's gonna be your job to tame
one of these prickly ingredients
into one very delicious dish.
Oh, hell. This'll be fun. Oh.
Here we have sea urchin.
Prickly pear.
Stinging nettles.
And right at the very end, we've got chestnuts.
Oh. Oh! SARAH: Prickly pear.
Immunity at this point of the competition
could be the difference between getting to the finals
and not getting to the finals,
and I think that the judges are so aware
of how important it is,
that they've made this challenge almost impossible.
ANDY: Think these four...
Did they think that we were just gonna hand them immunity?
(LAUGHTER) No.
Not today.
There's a couple of prickly ingredients in here that, you know,
I reckon it might test a few of these guys. What do you reckon?
Have any of you cooked with any of these before?
No. (CHUCKLES) SARAH: Mm, I have.
You have, Sarah? Yeah.
I've actually used nettle and sea urchin.
Nettle and sea urchin. Yeah.
Everyone else is at zero.
Uh, no, I've cooked with...
I've cooked with nettle, sea urchin as well.
Cool.
Julie? Anything?
Nothing?
Nothing. Never even used a chestnut?
I think I've used tinned chestnuts in a stuffing.
OK. But I've never seen them like that.
BILLIE: Seeing the ingredients
that the contestants have to work with today...
..I reckon it's one of the hardest challenges -
not just immunity challenges,
but one of the hardest challenges we've had yet.
It's a bloody hard one.
Each of you is gonna pick your prickly ingredient.
And, Keyma...
..you're up first.
(LAUGHTER) Ooh.
Keyma, what are you thinking?
Chestnuts, nettles, prickly pears and sea urchin.
This is as much about taking something off the table...
ANDY: Yes. Oh.
..as it is onto yours. MEL: Keyma's like, "I'm a sweetie.
"I would never do that." No.
No. I don't want to play that card.
Time to get strategic, Keyma.
No, I can't.
I'm gonna go with prickly pear.
Prickly pear it is. Yep.
There you go. Grab 'em. BILLIE: Well done, Keyma.
All of them? Yep.
Yep. Cool.
Ciao. Ciao.
Sarah, you're next in line.
Let's do it.
Think I'm gonna go chestnut. Chestnut?
Yep. Chestnut it is.
That's you.
Alvin, what's your choice?
Sea urchin. Sea urchin?
All yours, buddy.
Alright, Julie, that leaves you with the stinging nettles.
Come on and grab them.
JULIE: OK.
Would you have picked stinging nettles, Julie?
I have no idea. I'm really glad I'm fourth, actually.
Just... I'll just take whatever's left.
(LAUGHTER)
SARAH: Oh, there's a spider there, look!
(JULIE SCREECHES) Stop it! ALVIN: Argh!
Sorry, you chose the spider and the chestnuts,
you have to cook the spider. Extra protein.
(LAUGHTER)
You gotta feature it, Sarah.
That's prickly as well. (DANIEL CHUCKLES)
Now my ear's itching.
Oh.
What is going on here?
Is it a spider in there?
When you can't use your hands, it's the worst. (CHUCKLES)
(CHUCKLES)
All of you will have...75 minutes to bring us your prickly dish.
You can cook whatever you want - sweet or savoury.
Pantry, garden, fully open, no excuses.
But, of course,
your prickly ingredient must be featured in your dish.
As you already know, the best dish will secure their maker
the first spot in the top seven -
plenty to play for.
We are literally at the pointy end of the competition...
Ba-da-ba-boom-boom-tish!
Oh. I just got it. (MEL LAUGHS)
Come on, Alvin. Sorry.
Thought if there was one laugh, it'd be you. But, nah.
Righto, good luck, 75 minutes starts now.
(CALLS OF ENCOURAGEMENT)
It's prickly.
Oh, gosh.
KEYMA: What else do I need? Sugar.
(CHUCKLES) Come on, Sarah, come on, Alvin.
BILLIE: Go, Alvin. ALDO: Go, Sarah.
Hey, that chicken looks very relaxed on the chopping board.
(LAUGHS)
It's like you guys - relaxed.
So, I have chosen chestnuts today.
I am making a poached chicken breast with chestnut cream and mushrooms.
I want to take these chestnuts
and roast them on the hibachi
and then create a puree to get it nice and smooth.
It's most definitely the most important part of this dish,
so I need to make sure that that's perfect.
At the end of the day, it's the featured ingredient so...
..that could be the thing that gets me immunity today.
ALVIN: (LAUGHS) I love sea urchin!
I'm so happy with, you know, picking the sea urchin
but I think it's gonna be a difficult challenge
because it's such a delicate ingredient to feature.
A lot of restaurants, they don't tend to do much with it.
What does this actually taste like, I wonder?
Oh, this is amazing.
As I'm sort of workshopping this in my head, I'm sort of thinking
I could go the simple route or I could go the complex route.
Because I'm so hungry for immunity, I just sort of thought,
"No, I need to get this idea out so I can start working on it."
So, I'm gonna go with the simple route.
I'm going to do egg noodles and sea urchin.
It's all about featuring the sea urchin today.
It's really nice.
I have to feature the stinging nettle.
Hello, fella.
As soon as I see this beautiful salmon,
I think about getting stung by nettles as a kid on holidays
and I think, "That was a beach holiday. There's a fish."
I can't think of a more logical reason to cook a salmon.
Uh! ALDO: Go, Julie.
Yep. (LAUGHS)
I'm gonna cook this salmon whole and present him whole
with a beautiful sauce and also a salad made from the nettles.
DANIEL: Really scaling it up today, Julie, hey?
(CACKLES) (CHUCKLES)
I love you, Dan. So good.
(CHUCKLES)
My gloves.
This is gonna be difficult.
I have no idea how prickly pear tastes.
Like, it's not an everyday ingredient.
MINDY: You OK, Keyma? Yeah.
They're throwing me out of my comfort zone
so the first thing I do is just cut a piece and then try it.
DANIEL: What's it taste like? They're really mild.
Almost like a watermelon.
Watermelon?
I'm a bit worried that it doesn't have much flavour.
I need to feature prickly pear at all cost.
But I can't think of anything to do with them.
I'm, like, blank.
Stakes are high today. Yeah. You know what I mean?
Come on, immunity has never meant more
than at this end of the competition.
What would be the one of these four that you would not want?
I would...I would not want -
if I hadn't used it before - the stinging nettle.
Because it is quite hard
to really drive the flavour of the stinging nettle.
Mm-hm. Yep. They're quite grassy.
And I think Julie has a challenge on her hands today.
I mean, I think, for me, it would be prickly pear,
just because I've eaten them before, but cooking them -
not something that I grew up having in my backyard.
But I think they go great with, you know, Latin American food
and that's why I think Keyma, she could be in a good spot today.
You know, Alvin, I think he's gonna be fighting hard.
He hasn't won immunity yet, you know,
and he's been close a couple of times. Yeah.
He was very confident with the sea urchin,
so I'm looking forward to see what he's gonna cook.
I think that that could suit his style of cooking as well.
JOCK: Yeah, I think you're right.
ANDY: I'm keen to try Sarah's chestnut puree.
These are the little prickly husks.
They pair very well with virtually anything.
Yeah.
But I think everyone's in for a tough job today.
They're gonna have to be careful that they feature the ingredient
and it isn't just lost in a whole mash of an open pantry.
KEYMA: I'm suffering here!
Oh, my God!
Prickly!
I feel itching everywhere.
Who made up this challenge?! I hate you! HATE you!
Oh, my God! (DANIEL CHUCKLES)
ALDO: Your apron is undone. JULIE: Oh, thank you, mate.
Oh, yeah, it is too.
Cooking show and a strip show.
(ALL LAUGH)
Ah, love it.
(SIGHS)
Before I can put the salmon into the oven,
I have to know what these nettles are, what they do, how they taste.
I'm not sure I've ever seen noxious weeds as ingredients before.
I've never eaten them and I've most certainly never cooked them.
Apparently, if you blanch them in boiling water
and refresh them in cold water,
that takes the sting out of them.
And then I want to taste what they're like
to make sure I'm getting as much of that nettle flavour into things
as I possibly can. (LAUGHS)
I've gotta make sure I'm heroing this ingredient.
Wow.
The problem is they don't have very much flavour.
Terrible. What a terrible ingredient!
I'm quite shocked because it just...
It's just like chewing on a grass stalk.
They actually don't taste like much at all
and I have come to a horrible realisation
that this is gonna be really hard to feature.
JOCK: One hour! Let's go!
Ah! BILLIE: Nice work, Keyma.
An hour to go.
I'm all prickly.
Even my arms are prickly.
Working with prickly pear, the only thing I know about it
is that it grows in Italy like a weed.
And my father-in-law
used to just go find prickly pears in the streets and eat them.
I never tried them.
I'm so regretting that I've never asked for one and tried it.
The prickly pear is very mild in flavour,
so I want to incorporate some other flavours
to be able to bring up the flavour of prickly pear.
I finally came up with an idea.
I'm thinking kind of a plate of dessert with some crullers.
It's like a doughnut, like, a French doughnut.
And then I'm making prickly pear sorbet and prickly pear gel.
For the sorbet, I've juiced all the prickly pears.
Oh, look at the juice.
And then I start adding lime and lemon
to try to balance the flavour.
And then...
..I add a bit of tequila,
just for fun.
And I'm really happy with the mixture.
The colour is so beautiful.
I think it's going to stand out on the plate.
I don't want to say I'm on a bit of a roll at the moment,
but I feel that it's been really good in the kitchen lately.
I feel I've found my feet in...around this environment
and I'm enjoying it so much.
DANIEL: If you nail this, Keyma,
then you'll be, like, one of the last fans and you'll be top seven.
Thank you.
So much pressure. (LAUGHS)
ALVIN: It was so special seeing my partner and my friends yesterday.
It's just that extra fuel to see us to the finish line.
I'm so determined to win this.
MELISSA: Alvin. Hi.
Sea urchins. Sea urchin, yes.
Love to eat them. Love to eat them.
Very treasured as a flavour. What's the dish?
I'm going to make egg noodles with sea-urchin butter
and just sea urchin on top.
So, I'm going to make it quite unadulterated.
It's simple, right?
When you get something like this,
you don't want to stuff around with it.
No, you don't. You know what I mean?
It is perfect by itself. Yeah.
And they just love a carbohydrate. So, I was thinking...
Love some fat, love a carb, love a little bit of salt.
Yeah.
Not much else needs to really be done
other than the perfect texture of these egg noodles.
Tone down your expectations, please, because I'd hate to disappoint.
No, no, no, sorry. No, we're not doing that.
No, this is not a day where we're toning down expectations at all.
Nah. My expectations are through the roof.
Sky-high today.
Any other ingredients, other than your noodles,
the butter and the sea urchins?
No, that's it. Hoo!
That's it. So, I have... I have enough time to perfect this.
And if I don't, then I don't deserve the immunity, yeah.
So, just nail it and immunity is yours to...yours for the taking.
Yep. So, take it.
Good luck. (LAUGHS)
The sea-urchin butter, I want it to taste sort of salty,
umami, creamy.
Like, after you eat it, it's like, "Oh, yeah, I can taste...
"..I can taste the sea urchin."
Oh, wow, so creamy.
I just coat that through the noodles
and then just put some lovely, plump sea urchin tongues on top.
That's really all you need. It's just rich.
I'm feeling really pumped for this one.
I think this could win me immunity.
Oh, they smell amazing, Sare.
I have chosen chestnuts today because, I don't know,
I just really love the flavour of them.
Sarah. Hi.
These look good. How are you gonna use them in the dish?
I want to do a couple of different ways,
so do a bit of a puree for one, and then also some nice toasted ones.
So, I'm thinking a poached chicken breast
with some different kind of shiitake mushrooms and a bit of a jus.
I think you're going down the right track,
but, like, are we going to get
THE best, most silkiest chestnut puree that we've ever had?
You know, to win this immunity and take this out,
everything needs to be seamless.
Thank you.
I'll try.
(CHEERING) BILLIE AND ALDO: Go, Sarah!
My poaching liquid is on the go,
I've got my chicken in the brine,
so I can make it nice and juicy and tender.
But roasting and peeling the chestnuts
is taking a really long time.
They're so small.
This is going to take forever.
Do you guys want to help peel some chestnuts?
We'd love to help. Chuck them up.
Love to, but we're not allowed. No. Sorry.
I need a lot of chestnuts.
Making a puree, it's really tough to blend if you haven't got enough.
And I only need one portion, but I just want to make sure
this is really creamy and smooth.
I need to make sure that that's perfect.
I hope I'm featuring chestnuts enough.
I'm hoping that it's going to be the ingredient that's shining through.
Fish! So big.
The goal throughout this whole competition
is to get into the immunity challenge
and then to win the immunity challenge.
Everybody wants that.
But, gee, they're making it tricky.
My prickly ingredient is stinging nettles.
I'm going to make salmon
with a beautiful sauce and also a salad made from the nettles.
BILLIE: Love it, Jules. Is that going to fit in the oven?
You know, good on her for taking a risk.
I love it. Absolutely love it.
So, I've blanched the nettles,
I'm going to start work on them once I've got this enormous fish
in this slightly-less-than-enormous oven.
Nice, Jules. Get it in there.
Oh, my God.
ALDO: Go, Julie!
The tray might be a little bit small.
Cross your fingers. Oh, yeah.
The problem with this salmon is it's huge.
It's 3.8 kilos.
I normally cook about 2.5 kilos.
I know exactly how long that takes to cook in this way
and which temperature.
This is a much bigger fish.
Oh, my gosh. Oh, my God.
Curl that tail around. It'll get in there, surely.
He's a little nakey. He needs a bit more foil.
(MINDY LAUGHS)
Oh, my God, this is the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life.
You're the best! This is so good!
Good work, Jules! Yes!
Gotta get a timer.
I've got Moby Dick in the oven.
I'm worried that I'm not going to get it cooked.
So I'm going to crank up the oven and cook it for longer.
(MEL LAUGHS)
He's a little curly.
Looks like a big banana in there.
Now that the fish is in the oven, I've got 50 minutes
to work on the nettles
and to make sure that they are the ingredient of the dish.
It's mild, man. It's a really mild little flavour.
So, I'm just going to blitz it up,
a little bit of garlic and butter and a little bit of...
I'll finish it with lemon juice...
..a little bit of salt and pepper, and see what happens.
Yum. MINDY: Keyma, looks amazing.
So, that is nice. It tastes just like prickly pear.
It's not too...too lemony. You can taste the prickly pear in there.
And I'm just working in my fluid gel.
Keyma. Hello, guys.
Have the prickly pears already claimed a victim?
Yes.
OK, well, how are you going to make this...
..are you going to seize back this as a win?
What's the dish you're making?
So, I'm making, like, a plate of dessert, kind of.
So, I'm making French doughnuts with prickly pear sorbet
and prickly pear fluid gel.
ANDY: OK.
I have just a question
based on the fundamental building blocks of your dish.
Doughnut, sorbet, gel.
Yeah.
How's the doughnut and the gel and the sorbet
texturally going to work?
Uh...
Are we going to end up with a soggy fest, or...
Um...no.
Does the doughnut need to be there?
Like, what is the doughnut doing?
Like, seriously, like, if you can answer that...
You have, like...it sounds like you're gonna have a nice zingy sorbet.
I would be building the dish
around the thing that you need to hero, not a doughnut.
And that's what I feel that this dish may have been based around.
So... Yeah.
..you know, if you can work on your sorbet
and make it absolutely pop,
I would just be trying to fill in the gaps,
and I don't think a doughnut is filling in the gaps.
OK. Righto?
Cool. Thank you. BILLIE: Let's go, Keyma.
ALDO: Go, Keyma. Come on.
OK. What else can I do?
What else can I do?
Think, Keyma, think.
I hate changes.
Sometimes, my brain does weird stuff, especially under pressure.
OK, OK.
It's foggy at the moment, I don't know where to go from here.
And, yeah, it's causing me stress.
Let's go, Keyma! Go, Keyma!
ALDO: Go, Keyma! Keep going, Keyma!
Chin up, mate! Play on! You got it.
I was so invested into my doughnuts,
and I have to strip back all what I've thought.
(SIGHS) Come on.
I'm just thinking and trying to figure out how to fix this dessert.
How are you doing? Not good.
Not good, not great.
30 minutes to go.
Oh! It's prickly.
(SIGHS)
I wouldn't want to be in today's challenge at all.
The ingredients that the contestants have to work with are really hard.
I can see they're all starting to stress down there
and I'm really feeling for all of them.
What's happening? You've got a very worried look on your face.
What's the dish? Tell me.
So far? Or have you changed it already?
Sorbet.
OK, so, so far you've got...
I'm guessing it's a prickly pear sorbet?
Yes, I have the sorbet in here.
Yeah.
What else are we thinking, then?
What's your favourite dessert back home?
Tres leches cake. But... OK.
I don't have time to make a tres leches cake.
Mm-hm. It's going to be too hard.
Maybe a sponge.
You've still got time for that to cook.
As long as you don't do one that's too big.
Yeah. Do you know what I mean?
As long as that's balanced nicely.
Then you've just got to worry about a little...
..a little bit of cake. Mm-hm.
Right? Yeah.
Keep it simple.
This is part of your growth. Come on.
Ow! (LAUGHS) Strip it back. Nail it.
Yes? Yes.
Let's go.
Jock is being really, really supportive.
I'm just trying to go with a... kind of an almond sponge.
Just trying to figure it out.
I have to speed up, obviously.
I only have less than 30 minutes to go.
God!
Go, Keyma. Come on, Keyma.
I have to move fast to put this cake in the oven.
Hopefully, I'm able to put some sort of dessert today.
I don't...I don't know.
How far are those chestnuts, Sarah?
Close. They taste good.
I really would love to win the immunity today.
I think, at this point in the competition,
you know, anything that can keep you safe is the ultimate.
Everyone is cooking incredible food.
So, this week's elimination, all-in elimination,
is going to be a really tough one.
I am featuring the chestnuts in a chestnut puree,
served with poached chicken.
Oi, Sarah. How many have you peeled?
Just need enough to blend.
Roasting and peeling the chestnuts
took me so much longer than I expected,
but now I've peeled enough chestnuts for my puree
and simmered away a little bit of that chicken stock
until they're nice and tender.
So, now I can create the puree itself.
The perfect puree needs to be really lusciously creamy
and it doesn't have any sort of graininess.
If I get this right, then this is definitely hitting the brief.
That's not working.
Don't really have much.
I thought I was doing OK,
but now I'm in a massive rush with this dish.
I've got to poach my chicken breast.
I've got to make my sauce as well,
fry off those mushrooms.
I have so much left to do.
That does not want to blend.
(LAUGHS)
ALDO: Come on, guys.
Go, Julie.
DANIEL: Let's go, Keyma!
Come on, Keyma!
Got to get it in.
BILLIE: Get it in, Keyma.
I get my mini-cake in the oven.
I was crossing everything I have to be able to get it...cook in time.
Keyma, you look so much happier. I love it.
Thank you, guys! (LAUGHS)
JOCK: Interesting dishes. Some...
Some are on shaky ground.
There's a bit of self-doubt going on in the kitchen today.
MEL: Can you tell me what's going on with Keyma?
ANDY: Yeah. Because I think what we went around,
there was an idea.
That idea wasn't quite on solid ground yet.
Has it changed?
So, she's got a sorbet. Colour's fantastic.
Looks brilliant.
And then she was talking about making a sponge.
It's about distilling it down into something
really simple and succinct
if she wants to play for immunity.
What about Sarah? Chicken.
Sarah's, to me, struggling a little bit with that dish.
She's got a great idea.
I mean, I think, you know, a poached chicken breast
that's been in a brine - tick.
Roast chestnut puree.
Is it going to be silky smooth and not chalky?
And, you know, sometimes chestnuts can be gloopy.
Yeah. So, interesting point for her.
Alvin?
Box seat. Yeah, totally.
In terms of concept. Yes.
He's got three elements.
He's got the noodles, he's got his sea urchin
and his sea-urchin butter.
And I think that that is the best way to approach sea urchins,
because they are so good by themselves.
He's got zero places to hide.
And the thing about the dish is, though,
if he's going to cook that butter out, as soon as...
Like we all know, as soon as sea urchins hit heat... Yeah.
..they dilute a little bit.
So, how...? Is he...? Does he know that?
Because it may be too late, once he's down that track
and rolling the noodles in the butter.
Last but not least, very large fish in an oven.
She's feeding the crew. (LAUGHS)
There wasn't even a thermometer in it when I went over.
Yeah. So, she's not too sure how long it's going to take.
She's struggling as well, though.
She's trying to work out
how do you get that subtle flavour of the nettles
and let it be featured
without compromising any flavour anywhere else?
Because you know Jules. She loves to pack flavour.
She's worried that if she packs flavour, she'll lose the nettles.
Very, very interesting. Anyone's game right now.
I think I'm in a good space.
My sea-urchin butter tastes really good.
It's very creamy.
My dough has had enough time to rest and it looks really good.
So, it's time to sort of put it through the roller
and get my noodles happening.
Alvin. What, sorry?
What cut? I'm doing, um...
For lack of an Asian word, the fettuccine.
Flat noodle.
Flat noodle. That's it. Thanks.
(LAUGHTER)
I want every slurp of that noodle to be, like, tasty.
If I win immunity spot for this, I would be so happy.
It's like, what a time to win it as well.
And that, you know, it's like, come on.
Surely, this is my time.
OK, noodles.
There's only four of you and only 14 minutes to go!
Come on! Home stretch!
DANIEL: Let's go, guys.
ALDO: Come on, guys!
BILLIE: Hey, Sare, put some butter or some liquid in there.
A little bit of liquid.
Yeah, I just did.
I have just put so much attention into this chestnut puree
and it's taken a lot of extra time than I expected.
Mm. That's good.
But now it's amazing.
It's so...it's actually smoother than what I expected it would go.
It's really beautiful.
But I realised that I've really left this to the last minute
to get my chicken on.
I'm running out of time, aren't I?
So, I place my chicken breast into the poaching liquid.
The chestnut element is the most important part of this dish,
but at the same time, this dish rides on the cook of the chicken.
I'm hoping it's perfectly cooked through.
I'm hoping it's just a blush on the centre.
And we won't know if the chicken's cooked right
until the judges taste it.
DANIEL: Come on, Julie. We're at the prickly end of it.
JULIE: I have two big worries.
One is the fish cooking on time
and the second one is balancing this nettle.
It's slightly hilarious to be cooking with weeds,
but we need to experiment and we need to take risks.
Ooh!
Your sauce looks incredible.
It's so vibrant and green.
This is a real dance.
I've got a little bit of garlic, lemon, some caper berries.
But really what I want is for the nettles
to be the outstanding ingredient.
Tastes nettle-y.
(LAUGHS)
Yeah, it's a gorgeous colour, it's a subtle flavour.
It needs a little bit of acid and a little bit more salt.
And I'm not unhappy with it.
MEL: Five minutes to bring it all together!
Five minutes to go! Come on!
JOCK: Let's go! Five minutes!
What the hell!?
75 minutes has just flown
and I'm running out of time.
I've got to quickly stir-fry my noodles
and then coat that in that lovely sea-urchin butter.
So I'm hoping that by pan-frying the butter and the noodles,
I'm hoping for the butter to melt quicker on a heat
than just relying on the noodles alone.
Right now, Alvin has to be very careful,
just because sea urchin, they don't like heat at all.
He's, like, frying.
That should be in a bowl. I know.
Like, it should just be melted and then rolled through.
All the sea urchin is just going into the air.
Oh, I think the damage is done.
Please turn it off.
ALDO: Come on, guys!
Sarah Todd, come on!
What the hell? (CHUCKLES)
Don't think, "What the hell?" Keep finish cooking.
My brain's stopping working!
DANIEL: Come on, Keyma! Let's go! OK.
Oh. (CHUCKLES) Where's my spoon?
JULIE: My salad's done, sauce is done.
Sarah Todd, come on! Whoo!
The fish is the oven till the very last minute.
Oh, boy.
It's the moment of truth.
Here it comes. Here it comes.
This has been the fastest 75 minutes of my life.
Oh, God.
I only need to look at it and know that it's underdone.
God, this is hard to watch.
(WHIMPERS)
Come on, Sarah.
I'm running out of time. Yes, you are.
I've left a lot till the last minute.
Oh, my God, what was I doing?
It's crazy. I still need to plate up.
Come on, Sarah, you got this.
I've got my chestnut puree...
Come on!
..that beautiful piece of chicken breast.
Yeah. My other mushrooms.
I have tasted everything except for my chicken breast.
Ow! Hot.
I think everything is on point.
ALDO: Looks great, Sarah, now.
DANIEL: Come on, Julie.
The top end, it's underdone.
(INHALES) No!
So I flip him over
and the bit that's been sitting on the bottom of the oven,
THAT is perfecto.
It's not gonna look the way I wanted, a whole big fish on a tray...
This is all in pieces.
..but I do have a big portion of fish to feed the judges.
DANIEL: Come on, finish it off!
Definitely getting real in here! One minute to go!
ALDO: Come on!
Come on, everyone. Let's go.
KEYMA: Time is slipping away.
You got it, Keyma! Oh.
I need to move.
Just slam it out, Keyma. Undo the ring.
Oh, my God.
Where is the plate? Where is the plate?
Let's go, Keyma! Come on, Keyma!
30 seconds!
BILLIE: Come on, Keyma.
(SCREAMS)
Oh, my God, Keyma's dropped something.
What did she drop?
Oh, my God, no.
Oh, my good god.
I can't believe it.
I'm not gonna plate up my dish today.
Oh, bloody hell.
Because the cake touched the floor.
There's no way they can eat it.
(SIGHS)
So, I'm just gonna serve them as it is, as elements.
Let's do it. 10!
ALL: 9! 8! 7!
6! 5! 4!
3! 2! 1!
That's it! (APPLAUSE)
Oh, my God.
What just happened?
Come here. You're amazing.
What happened? Did you get everything?
I dropped the cake. You dropped the cake?
(SIGHS) Bummer.
OK.
JOCK: To win immunity from Sunday night's elimination,
all you had to do was take a prickly ingredient
and turn it into a delicious dish.
Easy. Right?
The first dish we'd like to try belongs to Alvin.
(APPLAUSE) Go, Alvin.
ALVIN: I'm feeling good today, walking my dish up to the judges.
Because I feel like I've actually featured sea urchin really well.
Alvin, what have you made us?
I made sea urchin and egg noodles.
It's very simple, um, but I just hope
that every element there is perfect.
Alvin...
..I think you were so close.
Oh. No way.
I think you were so close.
I can see... Oh.
..exactly what you were trying to do.
And I think you could have done it
had it not been for tossing the noodles over the gas.
You just kept the gas on full bore and I was just standing,
looking at it, just going, "Please turn it off.
"Please turn if off. Please turn it off.
"Please turn it off. Please turn it off."
And it was on there for another good couple of minutes, on the heat.
And you lose... Goddamn it.
..the rich velvety nature of the sea urchin.
You lose the umami instantly.
You cooked it all the way in the pan.
Oh, Jock. Damn it!
The beautiful lobes of juicy uni over the top,
they burst in your mouth in the most oceanic, beautiful way.
That's what you want.
It's just a shame that that depth of flavour
didn't pay off in the final dish.
(SIGHS) Oh, I know, I know.
You want to kick yourself or you want me to kick you?
Oh, allow me. OK.
It was there. Oh.
And it wasn't by adding anything or subtracting anything. (SIGHS) For God's sake.
It was just by literally keeping it in that pan.
Thank you, Alvin. Thanks. Unlucky, mate.
So close! Every time!
(LAUGHS WRYLY)
I feel disappointed with myself.
I've buggered up my dish and annihilated my sea urchin...
Yeah, I don't think I have a chance to win today.
Next up, Sarah Todd!
(APPLAUSE)
SARAH: I'm really happy with my dish.
I think the flavours could get me that immunity.
Sarah, what have you cooked us?
I've made chestnut and chicken.
How's your chicken cooked? (CHUCKLES)
Hopefully well. This is yours to lose today.
I know.
SARAH: Is it OK? JOCK: Nup. It's... That...
The head end of it's undercooked.
Is it? It's more than a blush.
Yeah.
This bit's alright, though.
Yum!
Chestnut puree is delicious.
The sauce is delicious. (CHUCKLES)
The bit of chicken that was cooked is delicious.
(LAUGHS)
But...there's a lot of undercooked chicken on there.
Yeah.
A big chunk of it we just can't eat.
I'm disappointed.
Dad's not even angry, he's just disappointed.
That's the worst.
It's the worst.
You had so much time up your sleeve.
You know, like... Everything was going so well.
The puree took longer than I expected
and I just ran out of time in the end.
Just became quite rushed.
75 minutes is a long time, and for these elements,
you should be able to get that done well and truly in advance.
Whether that lesson is...
..in an elimination on Sunday or not...
Mm. ..we'll wait and see.
Yep. Thank you. Thanks, Sarah.
Thanks. Oh, my God. (APPLAUSE)
The next dish we'd like to taste belongs to Julie.
ALDO: Let's go, Julie!
JULIE: I am really disappointed.
I only get to serve one tail portion of this beautiful big salmon
but I think the fact that I tried to make a nettle-forward dish,
it's gonna be OK.
It still tastes mostly of nettles
but it's got vibrancy and it's got flavour.
Hopefully, the judges will like it.
Sorry about the giant plate.
Julie, what's the dish, please.
Uh, salmon with nettles.
Wonderful.
Um, so you fed the crew today with that fish,
here's some of it for us,
still a very generous portion.
I just didn't leave myself quite enough time to, you know,
plate it on the correct-sized plate
for the dish that I ended up making! (BOTH LAUGH)
Thank you very much. Shall we taste?
Julie...
..um, the salmon is begging for some salt, unfortunately.
I think you may have seasoned the skin, you peeled the skin off
and then we're left with a little bit underseasoned salmon.
It's really spot-on, the way you've dealt with the nettles.
Apart from some grittiness.
Julie, I agree with Andy.
Two obvious problems here - one is a...
..big lack of salt.
Second thing is your gritty nettle puree.
It will still be the day
that Julie Goodwin put a whole salmon in the oven, though.
(LAUGHS) (APPLAUSE) Thank you, Julie.
I'll never forget it,
just sitting like a little smiley face in the oven. (LAUGHS)
Next up, the lady that had to tame the prickly pear, Keyma!
(APPLAUSE)
KEYMA: I have elements that I'm proud of.
I have a beautiful sorbet, a gel and a creme fraiche.
I just don't have a cake
and I'm just hoping that the judges can at least see the effort
in all the rest of the elements.
OK.
So, we have a prickly pear, tequila, lime and lemon sorbet,
prickly pear gel
and creme fraiche with some mint and lime zest.
Keyma, obviously, your cake fell on the floor
so we're not gonna taste that.
But you've brought up your other elements, so we'll taste them.
Yep. Cool.
Keyma... Mm-hm?
..I'm gonna get you to try this.
For good or for bad? Come on.
OK.
What do you think?
For good or for bad? Come on.
OK.
What do you think?
I think it's good. It's bloody delicious.
Keyma, it's so tasty. It's so delicious.
The sorbet is incredible.
There's a great balance of lime in there.
You listen to your senses.
The acidity brings out the flavour of the prickly pear.
The colour's extraordinary.
You are a brilliant cook.
Don't let a dropped cake ruin your day.
Well done. Thank you. Thank you, guys.
(APPLAUSE)
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Oi, oi, oi.
Whoa! Oh, sorry, you were, like, clapping.
What are we, chopped liver?
Yeah. My God.
I'm here. (LAUGHS)
I'm so nervous. I'm so sorry.
Keyma, this is an absolute triumph
and you should be taking confidence in this.
That's two days in a row you have brought us bangin' desserts.
Take that home. Thank you.
Exactly what they've said.
Your prickly pear sorbet was fantastic.
The fattiness from the creme fraiche,
the herbed creme fraiche,
with the, you know, sharpness and the brightness of the sorbet,
it just works.
So, yes, you dropped the cake and couldn't offer it to us,
but even just here, this is why you're here.
Well done. Thank you.
To listen to that feedback is just...
I can't describe the feeling.
This is really, really amazing.
No dish on its own was worthy of winning immunity today.
So...
..we're going to do things a little differently.
What we've decided is that we're going to award immunity
to the cook who brought us the best prickly element.
There were two main contenders.
Sarah, your chestnut puree...
..and, Keyma, your prickly pear sorbet.
Both were delicious,
both made proficient use of your prickly ingredient.
But one was peerless.
And that element...
..was cooked by Keyma.
(APPLAUSE)
Keyma, the sorbet, not only was it delicious
but it perfectly highlighted prickly pear.
Well done, you are safe from Sunday's elimination.
Well done, Keyma.
Whoo!
Alvin, Julie, Sarah, unfortunately we've got nothing for you today.
With no safety net, you three, along with the four over there,
are vulnerable in Sunday's elimination.
But next up is a very special MasterClass.
See ya, guys. See ya.
MasterClass, everyone. MasterClass day.
Fun time.
We don't have to cook. It's a good day.
Bring it on. Let's do it.
Whoo!
Here they come! Morning!
Good morning.
Come on in, guys. Take a seat.
Welcome to MasterClass.
(ALL RESPOND)
You get to learn something new from us, your kindly judges.
That's us. (ALL LAUGH)
Alright, today, Andy and I are going to be cooking up a storm
with one of our favourite ingredients.
I'd like to officially welcome you to the clash of the crabs.
A crab-off!
Crab-off.
It's a crab-off. We're clapping the crab.
Are you guys ready to eat some crustacean carnage?
Absolutely. Let's get into it.
Go, Andy.
So, the crab-off.
We've got a couple of beautiful muddies here.
They're about a kilo each, so it's happy days.
Mud crab is the best of the best.
I'm going to do an XO butter mud crab.
And you're going to do...
I'm going to do a white pepper and citrus mud crab,
and little Chinese flower buns stuffed with coriander.
Ooh.
Just 'cause. (LAUGHTER)
Yeah, we need a mopper, for sure.
So, I'm gonna make the bread for him, he's gonna prep my crabs.
Should we get started?
Righto, I'm going to start with the XO butter.
This is not classic at all.
We've got 20 grams of dried scallops which have been rehydrated in water.
10 grams of dried shrimp.
I've got a couple of grams of shrimp paste,
which I've just toasted off, peeled garlic.
I've got six chillies here and I'll keep the seeds in.
I want it a bit spicy.
I've just got a nice 50 grams of smoky bacon here,
which I'm going to take the skin off.
So all this goes into the food processor.
I'll throw to you because I've got to blitz up.
Superb.
I've started off the coating
by making a beautiful, fragrant oil to cook the spices in, essentially.
Using curry leaves, lemon myrtle and Kaffir lime leaves,
at a low temperature.
Then I've got one of these little spice mixers.
Some white pepper, some dried shrimp. Blitz that up.
And then into that...
Everyone knows what candlenuts are, yeah?
So, the candlenuts are going to give the thickness to this
that will stick to the crab, essentially.
Some fermented white soy beans, white soy, oyster sauce.
Lime zest, lime juice, lemon juice.
That's it, that's all that's in it. What are you doing now?
So, I'm good to start frying off my paste.
You can kind of smell it. The bacon just takes it to another level.
You've got the funkiness from the dried shrimp
and the scallop in there.
And now I've just got some foaming butter here,
and we can go in with our base.
And we're just going to fry all these lovely, funky aromats off.
And we want to try and cook this out for a while.
So I'm going to sweat this down for five minutes,
then we'll dump the rest of the butter in
and we'll cook that out again.
Alvin, you would have made a couple of XOs over your time.
Yes, I have.
What's your favourite thing to get it on?
On toast. On toast?!
That is a boozy bit of toast, mate.
(ALL LAUGH)
While that's kind of kicking along, we'll get on to our crabs.
So, muddies, obviously.
Now, we'll go through how to clean a crab.
So, grab our crab here,
and then all you want to do is lift up that bottom fin
to release the carapace, which is kind of like the head bone.
Put your thumb underneath and then hold on to one of these back fins
and just pull up.
And that's going to reveal
all of that beautiful mustard in there.
That's epic. I'm going to keep that and add it into my XO at the end.
They're the gills, and they call them dead man's fingers
because they are poisonous.
I didn't know they would kill you. No, they're just terrible tasting.
(SOME LAUGH)
They give you a pretty upset stomach if you eat them.
So, remove all of those gills.
Cut it in half, down the middle.
And then I'm going to cut the claw off...
..and then the four legs, I'll cut them in half.
We'll be left with six pieces.
So, I've blitzed the spice paste.
Once your leaves have had five minutes, just whip them out.
Then one brown onion, brunoised.
100 grams of garlic,
three green chillies, ginger,
and then just mix through.
I'm going to add my paste with the shrimp and the goodies.
And then turn the heat down
and just let it tick over for as long as possible.
The slower and longer you can cook this for,
the better it will be.
Alright, so, I'm going to start to cook my Chinese flower rolls.
So, this is a good sign, when the butter starts to foam.
We're going to throw in spring onions.
We've got a bit of the crab mustard there from the head.
That can go in.
The crab mustard's just going to give it
that kind of umami, salty kick.
Give that a couple of minutes and then we can season it up.
So, we're going to deep-fry these.
We're going to coat them in a spiced flour.
We're going to use three different types of flours.
200 potato flour,
100 tapioca and 100 rice flour.
So, it's going to go crunchy because of the rice flour.
I've got 20 ground white pepper,
and then I'll just give that a little mixy-mix,
and I'll split it in half and give half to Jock.
And then I'm going to roll my crab in this flour.
So, Chinese flower rolls.
I'm using a whole bunch of coriander for this recipe,
with white soy and the sushi seasoning
so you get that sort of sweet-sour thing going on.
And then that is now going to go into my dough,
and spread it as evenly as you can.
So, now, we'll letter-fold it.
Get it as close to a rectangle as you can.
Same on the other side.
Who wants to help me make some buns? ALVIN: I'll do it.
Let's go.
So, I've cut the dough into 12 strips,
and you can see the coriander split in between the two.
You add one on top of the other one.
Grease up your chopstick,
and then you're going in the middle lengthways and pushing it right down.
And you'll see that the bits with the coriander all push out.
Oh! Can you see that?
Yeah.
Then you get it and you just stretch it like that.
Get them all like that. Mm-hm.
OK, so, we're going to pinch the bottom of it like that
and then twist your chopstick around, push it down.
And there you go. DANIEL: They look sick, eh?
So beautiful.
Remember, that's going to puff up.
It's going to reveal itself like a flower, hence the name, right?
So, I'm going to set these up, and then we'll cook the crabs.
I'm ready to fry. It's a fry-up.
We have got crab sitting in our flour.
I've got my fryer on 180 here, so I'm going in.
They might spit a little bit, so just be careful.
So, we're frying for four minutes.
I'm going to go three and a half now
because I just forgot to set the timer.
JULIE: Welcome to our life.
(LAUGHTER)
ANNOUNCER: Coming up...
That is looking a doozy.
..Andy and Jock plate up their stunning crab dishes.
Yes!
(ALL CHEER)
Victory lap! Victory lap!
Then...
So, we're going to bake a cheesecake layer
and we're going to put it inside the carrot cake.
..chef Natalie Paull reveals her tips to take anyone's baking game
to the next level.
Oh, my gosh.
And later...
There you are, sir.
..Dan and Aldo show off their go-to midnight snacks.
Wow.
So, we're gonna do Mexican loaded fries, carne asada fries.
Are you going to eat a feast at midnight?
(ALL LAUGH)
BILLIE: The sledging's started.
Today, I'm doing an XO butter mud crab.
And I'm doing the white pepper and citrus mud crab.
And then little Chinese flower buns.
Easy days.
OK. I think we should fry, my friend.
190.
I'm going four minutes on mine.
It's like the longest four minutes in the history of the world.
If only it was this cruisy in the restaurant.
(TIMER BEEPS) Oh, hello.
So, that is looking doozy.
And then I douse it.
You get all the good stuff down the bottom of the sauce, too,
and then we're just going to give it a roll.
Start to plate up, I reckon.
Now the crab's cooked,
straight into a bowl,
and then sauce straight on top of that.
And this recipe makes enough for one crab,
plus enough sauce to do a bit of dipping at the end.
Right. I've got bunch of coriander, so heavy on that coriander.
Coriander and white pepper and citrus - best mates, right?
They're all loving each other.
So, I'm just going to check the bread.
MINDY: The grand reveal. Yew! (WHISTLES)
So, little bit of an oven rush job on that one there, mate.
(LAUGHTER)
That wasn't even mine!
That was yours!
Alright, mate. Alright. That's OK.
ANDY: Come on, Alvin.
BILLIE: So good.
(WHISTLES) How good's that?
Andy, do you want your bread rolls? Yes, please.
Alvin wants to give you his one.
What happened to that?
That was Jock's!
Right.
We're done.
XO butter crab, right there.
(WHOOPING AND CHEERING)
Yeah! Go, Andy Allen!
Yes!
(CHEERING) Victory lap! Victory lap!
JOCK: Alright. White pepper and citrus mad crab
with Chinese flower rolls.
(CHEERING)
Alright, who wants to try it? Yeah, yeah.
Mindy, Keyma.
Alright.
Andy? I'm getting into it.
(LAUGHS)
Ladies. Oh, yes. Smells great.
I'm going in. Go hard.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, my God!
Oh, yes.
Spot-on.
Oh, there's beautiful heat in that. Mm-hm.
It's really fragrant. Isn't it? Yeah.
And fresh.
So complex.
And all the layers.
Oh, the buns are good.
Amazing. Thank you.
Thanks, ladies. Thank you.
XO butter time. Butter.
Dan and Sarah, let's go.
Yes!
This looks insane, Andy. Yeah.
Straight for the claw, Sarah.
Yeah, well... It's got your name on it.
Go hard, mate.
The butter, it's actually incredible.
Adds a real creaminess to it as well.
The flour coating is really good, too.
I need to work out a dish that's just that.
If you can't afford the crab... (LAUGHS)
Just got a couple of slices of Wonder White,
tear them up, add them into the flour and fry them
and then just put it straight through the sauce.
Wow. How good is that? Yeah.
Oh, Daniel.
(LAUGHS)
Thanks, guys.
Well, how about it?
You've had an absolute crab-ful today with us two.
Next up, you're off to see Mel and a very special guest.
See ya later.
Good. Thanks, Jock!
And you really want to do that?
So exciting.
Hello!
Hey! Hi.
Everyone's very cool today.
All the denim jackets.
We didn't even send a memo.
Now, today, I want to introduce you to a very close friend of mine.
With a huge, huge cult following,
this tiny bakery has already become a Melbourne institution.
Please say hello and welcome,
owner and pastry chef at Beatrix Bakes,
Natalie Paull!
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you so much.
That was so nice. Was that good?
Really chuffed.
Nat, tell us about Beatrix Bakes and how it started.
It started because I thought that I was at the end of my career,
so I tried a lot of ways to make myself fit into pastry cheffing,
but nothing really worked, and I just felt tired
and really burnt out.
I had a break for a couple of years and then I found this corner shop
just around the corner from where I live.
And I went, "You know what?
"I'm just going to give it one last roll of the dice."
And I did it, and that was 11 or so years ago.
I try not to keep count.
It has all my purpose and all my joy in that shop.
I mean, every single time you go there, the line goes out the door
around the corner.
We've been so blessed that we've been so busy.
I used to make, like, one or two cakes a day.
Now we're up to about 40 or 50 cakes a day
and then 800 pieces of cake a day.
Wow.
What are we making today?
We're going to make a carrot cake, but not as we normally know it.
So, what I've thought is if a cake brings joy,
if we put two cakes together, can they bring double the joy?
So, we're going to bake a cheesecake layer
and we're going to put it inside the carrot cake. Wow!
Yes.
(LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE)
Come on! OK. So where do we start?
We're going to start with our cheesecake layer
'cause we're gonna get that in the oven and cook that in a bain-marie.
So, first things first,
I've set the oven to 120, so nice and low and slow
for your cheesecake baking.
And now I'm going to assemble the ingredients.
So, I've got 70 grams of caster sugar, one gram of salt,
250 grams of full-fat cream cheese.
Never go half fat.
Yes. I agree.
And I'm just going to turn that on low
because I want it to be like a really dense and creamy mixture.
I don't want to get any air in it because when it starts to bake,
if that air starts to activate, it'll puff.
Beautiful. Great.
Then I'm just going to pop my egg in.
And, gorgeous.
I'm going to get my tin ready.
Nice little spray of canola spray, and then lining the...
So, it's really the only time butter is not a good idea.
Exactly.
I use my canola spray as a bit of glue.
Yep.
So, that's my preference.
So, now that's nice and smooth.
We're going to add 150 grams of sour cream,
and I'm going to add the vanilla.
So, one bean thoroughly scraped.
20 grams of the lemon
because I like things a little bit tangy. Yep.
And when you think about that they'll end up in between two layers of cake,
that little extra tang is going to be a nice counterpoint.
Beautiful.
I mean... Come on. It's just beautiful.
The gloss on that is insane.
So next up, into the tins.
And then we just scrape it in.
Offset spatulas.
I refer to these as important to baking, like air and underpants.
You cannot live without them.
Noted.
So, just get into deep areas.
Beautiful. Yep. OK, so...
We are going to put this into our water bath tray.
Alright. So, paper towel. Paper towel.
To stop it... Yep. OK. Stop it from moving around. Yep.
And then we put our hot water in.
And I'm just going to do to the first knuckle.
Beautiful.
Put this in the oven now.
That goes for about 30 to 40 minutes.
It just needs to lose its complete wobble.
Because we're taking it that extra step further to make it a layer,
I don't want it to have that classic cheesecake wobble.
ANNOUNCER: Coming up...
A little bit of... Ooh!
..texture on the top.
Chef Natalie Paull assembles her cheesecake-stuffed carrot cake.
How big a slice would you like?
Ohhh, nothing stingy. (LAUGHS)
And later...
We're going to make my midnight snack.
..Aldo makes his decadent pistachio and Nutella crepes.
It's a 5am snack when I'm coming from a disco.
After the disco...crepes?
Correct. ALVIN: Yes, Aldo.
NATALIE: That's right. What do we have here?
So, we've made a silky-smooth cheesecake mix,
we've put that silky-smooth cheesecake mix into the oven,
and now we're gonna start our carrot cake layers.
Awesome. OK. Where do we start? Getting our foam on.
So, we get another mixer bowl.
If you're lucky to have two bowls at home, good on you.
I don't, I have one, so I have to clean it out between each mix.
I think you could probably spring for a second bowl, Nat.
I like to feel the pain of the home baker
when I'm making these at home.
(LAUGHTER)
And then I'm going to pop my foam on to mix.
I like to get it really active, 10 minutes.
So, while that's mixing, what can we do?
I'm going to get my nuts and carrots ready.
Just going to weigh this out.
Did we hit 240?
'Grate'. Grate. (LAUGHS)
(GROANING)
We're so grateful you're here. Aww! (LAUGHS)
So, we're going to chop the hazelnuts.
So, they're, like, deeply, deeply toasted,
because they get a really deep flavour.
And then, straight into your bowl.
So, we've got a nice, creamy and stable-looking foam.
(ALL EXCLAIM)
I've used a hazelnut oil, which is very luxe.
Thank you, MasterChef budget.
(LAUGHTER)
And just stream it in.
These are my dry ingredients.
Plain flour, baking powder, bicarb, freshly ground cinnamon.
I'm going to give this a little swizzle,
and then we're going to start putting it together.
I'm going to show you my wacky folding technique
that I know works a dream,
and it's spinning the bowl AND turning the whisk.
And then I just give it a really nice fold,
and that's all come together beautifully.
I'm going to sift over my dry ingredients.
You can feel it when it's starting to get a little bit taut
so that flour's, like, sucking up all that moisture and going,
"Yeah! We're making a structure, guys! Let's go!"
(LAUGHTER) "Do it!" (LAUGHS) "Let's do this!"
I mean, look at that.
BILLIE: Yum.
I'd eat that just as is. (CHUCKLES)
OK, let's fill, because... So...
..I need cake immediately.
So... (CHUCKLES)
So, filling.
Shimmy, shimmy, steamy.
OK. Temperature? 170.
And for 35 to 45 minutes.
We're going to crack on with the cream-cheese frosting.
Fantastic.
You know, when you bake cake,
sometimes there's cracks in the middle, it domes up?
I was just about to tell... I was about to say it.
Oh, sorry. (CHUCKLES) No, no, no. This is exciting.
No, I'm so glad I get to talk about this.
It's usually oven temperature. Ah!
So, what happens is, usually, most cake recipes will say,
like, a fairly hot oven, like 180 degrees Celsius.
And what happens is the cake will, like, pop up in the centre
and get those cracks on it
because the heat is just really forced into it.
But if you lower your temperature,
you get this layer that bakes nice and flat
and you lose all those cracks on top.
And that's how you avoid that cracking.
Beautiful.
Um...
See you guys later. (LAUGHTER)
Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.
Hey, hey, hey. Come back here.
OK, so, what's next?
So, we've made our frosting
and we'll move on to the assembly.
Wonderful.
(ALL EXCLAIM)
That beautiful toasted colour.
So perfect. ALVIN: No cracks.
No cracks.
So, we're just going to flip these out.
Hey, presto!
Paper comes off.
Got my cheesecake layer here as well.
Ooh. So, it's set really nicely.
Look at her. DANIEL: Wow. That looks great.
Assembly.
I would be terrified to just trim, and you just go straight in there.
(CHUCKLES)
Any tips on trimming cake?
So, just coming in...
..a couple of millimetres in from the side of the cake,
holding it against our hand,
and just shaving that little bit of crust off, just like that.
I'm putting some of my frosting on, just to anchor the cheesecake.
Great.
So, now I'm going to turn this out.
Just give it a little warm-up.
Nice little tap.
There she is.
If only every single time we intended to turn something out,
it was that easy.
(CHUCKLES) Right?
And then we're just going to pop this on...
..and then smooth it out.
I'm going to use a little bit more frosting.
And then I'm just going to flip my cake...
..and position it.
(INHALES)
And now this little gnarly overhang,
bring it in and up the side
and then smooth it out.
Fill in the gaps.
You're kind of like a plasterer at this stage.
Mm-hm.
And I've got a nice blob...
..to put on the top,
and push her out, 45-degree angle,
and we get this nice little lip around the outside,
which we're going to accentuate
by doing a little bit of... Ohhhh!
..texture on the top.
I like what's inside to be reflected on top.
So, there we have our toasted hazelnut and carrot cake
with a cheesecake layer.
BILLIE: Yum! (APPLAUSE)
Oh, wow.
OK, the moment of truth.
Can we please cut into it? Yes.
While you're doing that,
I think, Julie and Billie...
(OTHERS PROTEST) JULIE: Eh?
How big a slice would you like?
Oh, nothing stingy. Does that look about right?
Yeah, looks great.
Looks beautiful.
Oh, my God. Look at the middle.
Oh, yeah! Yeah.
Thank you.
Oh, my God. It's delicious.
I really, actually, like the hazelnut.
It's quite light, without being too spongy, as well.
Yeah.
The tang in that is perfect. Mm.
Yeah.
There's something about it that's nostalgic.
Mm. Yeah.
It's heaven. So good.
My pleasure. God.
I understand if you can't finish the whole piece.
Oh, no. I do cut big slices.
Oh... There will be no trouble with that.
I will just take it back over here.
ALVIN: And eat it in front of us! Yes.
Great. That's my plan, Alvin.
Nat, we can't thank you enough for being with us today.
It's been a pleasure watching you do what you do...
Thank you so much. ..in the MasterChef kitchen for the first time.
Thank you to all of you. Thank you.
And good luck to all of you.
ANNOUNCER: Coming up...
If there's one steak that I don't want to ruin on MasterChef,
it's this one.
..Daniel whips up his signature midnight snack, loaded fries.
Alrighty. Cool.
Just trust. Just trust me. Trust me, Dan.
What the...? ANDY: Is she gonna throw them at us?
Dan, Aldo, you're up,
and you're showing us your version of a midnight snack.
Whoo! Yum! Great stuff!
How you goin', mate? Let's do this.
There you go. Thank you, sir.
MEL: You guys will have 45 minutes on the clock
to curb our late-night cravings.
And your time...starts now.
Yeah! Come on!
Let's do it.
Alright. What are we cooking? So, we're gonna do...
..Mexican loaded fries - carne asada fries.
OK.
And we're gonna do it with a bit of a guac
and a pico de gallo as well. Easy.
We're just gonna do a quick rub on the steak.
So, we've just got some coriander seed,
some cumin seed, garlic and onion powder,
a bit of oregano, smoked paprika, chilli powder.
Perfect.
What do you want me on?
I reckon if you want to start, do the salsa.
Start it off. Yeah? Get onto that.
Yeah, please.
We'll just toast off the whole spices, salt.
Get 'em fragrant. Grind 'em up.
So, midnight snack? Yeah.
I thought it'd be something easier.
Like what? Well, it's like...
There's a lot of ingredients here.
I mean, in its essence, it's a steak on chips
'Cause that's, like, the best.
Like, you get the steak and it's dripping its juices.
Yeah. The chips underneath just soak it all up.
It's the best thing on the planet. Watch a movie and get stuck in.
Gotcha. Yeah, OK. I'm sold now.
First of all, what are we making?
We're gonna make my midnight snack -
crepes with Nutella and pistachio cream.
Ooh!
It's actually not a midnight snack.
It's a 5am snack, when I'm coming from a disco.
After the disco...crepes?
Correct. Alright.
No-one's sneaking out of bed for this.
You're coming home.
Yeah. (LAUGHS) This is great.
Post-disco. Yeah.
What's next?
So, let's go the pistachio cream, for the filling of the crepe.
So, yeah, we go 200ml of cream.
And then we've got 55 grams of glucose.
OK.
We need to slowly bring to a boil.
Hey, Aldo? You're working with me. You're working tidy today.
Come on! No, I just...
I'm gonna clean down after.
No, we're... Today as you go. OK.
And you don't have to clean that after.
ANDY: So, you've got your spice mix now?
Yep. It's very fragrant. Yep.
It's doing the job.
Spice mix done.
This is, like...it's pretty boozy for midnight hour.
You reckon? Mate, you gotta get the deep fryer out!
It's a lot of labour for a midnight snack.
I do shift work.
Ah!
Ah, now I'm getting it. Yeah.
So, let it sit for 10 minutes, yeah?
Look. Look how clean the bench is.
Do you like it? It's great. Thank you so much.
Let me do this for you, chef.
Next for me is just to crush the nuts.
What's next, chef?
Add in 200 grams of the white chocolate and the pistachio base.
Whisk her in.
Yes, chef!
Please.
He's very demanding, this guy. MEL: Putting you through your paces?
I'm not demanding. I wanted things done my way. Sorry.
Aldo! Oh, my God.
I can multi-task.
Shall we have a little taste? Of course.
Mmm!
White chocolate-y, pistachio-y.
Rich.
Beautiful!
Are we gonna make some crepes? Yeah.
Let's start it.
OK, so...we go?
Yeah, let's go.
So, what now?
We gotta wait - the crepe is cooking,
and then we gotta assemble and that's it.
Yeah. Yes!
It's nice and beautiful now.
Dan, how you going?!
Oh, we're good, mate. Right.
We're basically finished.
Nearly finished?
Mate, it's a guilty pleasure - it has to be a pleasure
and not a sweat to get to the point. Yeah, it's Dan's guilty pleasure.
You just do your little crepe city over there
and we'll just do our feast over here.
But are you gonna eat a feast at midnight?
(LAUGHTER)
BILLIE: The sledging's started. I knew it wouldn't take long.
We're all on a clock here,
and we'd like to have some loaded fries.
So, if they could just move it along a bit quicker, it'd be great.
Make up some guac. You on the guac section?
Yeah. We'll do some guac. What do you need?
Um, avocado, funnily enough. Avocado. Yeah.
Definitely.
Two or three cloves of garlic. Two or three cloves of garlic?!
I love a garlicky guac, eh?
How's your missus feel about that? She loves garlic, too.
You rolling in at 1am, breathing that fire on her?!
She's all about it, mate. Righto.
What's going on with your sour cream?
Yeah, so, it's very simple. We got, um...
Sour cream? Yeah, we got a cup...
And then all we're going to do is grate maybe two cloves of garlic.
More garlic! Yeah.
No, I'm all about it.
If you're gonna it in one thing,
you might as well have it in everything.
It's humming through the dish.
And then we'll chuck in juice of a lime.
Yep. The zest as well.
Yeah. Make it really limey.
OK. Hoo!
These two knuckleheads over here,
they haven't even cooked the chips yet.
We're sweet, aren't we?
I think so. How long you reckon the chips will take to cook?
Don't fill me with too much confidence.
So, Dan and Aldo have been put to the task.
Daniel's putting in a lot of effort for a midnight snack.
Loaded fries with steak and cheese.
DANIEL: Chuck this on Doritos,
a baked potato.
Possibilities are endless.
This is absolutely Daniel food.
Aldo is going for something a little more delicate.
He's doing crepes with a Nutella and pistachio sauce.
Just taste it, make sure that it's OK.
What do you reckon about the steaky steak? Shall we get that on?
Yeah, we should probably get him on.
If there's one steak that I don't want to ruin on MasterChef, it's this one.
Confidence. Grrr! Confidence. Gee-up!
I'll get the chippies over here. Yeah. Let's get on the chips, eh?
So, steak, how do you want it cooked?
Um... It's not a trick question.
Medium-rare. Just tell me how you want it.
Yeah, medium-rare.
Just...as long as it's somewhat pink in the middle.
JOCK: So that's it? ALDO: Yeah.
Good? Happy? Beautiful.
Alright, next one.
(ALDO GASPS)
JOCK: Alright, so, you put Nutella on there, and hazelnuts?
Hazelnut, of course. Hazelnut goes with Nutella.
Alright, just...take it easy.
I am. I am easy.
Wow.
Aldo, this is...this is excessive.
I love it.
And more! Yes!
Wow. Wow.
Alright, that's it.
Hey, uh...Andy?
Yes?
We're finished.
Do you guys need a hand or...? No, no, we're fine.
Do you want to cook my steak?
Aldo? Yep.
You want to do a triple sucker.
So, three crepes? Exactly, yeah.
Alrighty, cool.
Just trust me. Just trust me. Trust me, Dan.
What the...? DANIEL: She's going hard today.
(LAUGHTER)
ANDY: Is she gonna throw 'em at us? ALDO: Are you gonna drop it?
Hey, Dan?
The steaks couldn't be higher!
There's 15 minutes to go!
Julie Goodwin!
You're welcome. You're welcome.
Should we load everything up? Yeah, let's do it.
ANDY: Oh, cheese on now.
JOCK: Alright, Nutella first.
And be generous. Don't be shy.
So, fold 'em over? Yep.
And then we do three...
Three on the plate.
Drizzle drizzles?
We don't want to go excessive.
I don't like to stick to the rules.
Oh, my God.
ALVIN: Yes, Aldo!
Nuts? Yep.
JOCK: That's it. We're done.
Come on, Daniel! Ho!
Ah, he's nailed it, the big fella!
Yay!
JULIE: Dan, Dan, he's our man.
If he can't do it, no-one can.
(CHEERING)
(LAUGHS)
DANIEL: Oh, that's hot. My fingers are burnin'.
Then you've got your sour cream with lime juice and lime zest.
Then you get a little spice rub on there.
Now we're going pico de gallo.
And then we're just gonna go
a few little dabs of guacamole
on the side here. A dab.
That's everything, isn't it?
(CHEERING)
Alright. three, two, one, go.
ALDO: We've got crepes with Nutella and pistachio.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
And I've made carne asada fries.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
OK, guys, it's your turn to judge, so let's go.
BILLIE: Alright!
What you got? What you got?
Let's do it.
MEL: Have a crepe time.
(SINGS) # You're havin' a crepe time
# Havin' a crepe time... #
(LAUGHTER)
JOCK: This is a very indulgent midnight snack.
MEL: Mmm.
ALVIN: That pistachio paste is beautiful.
BILLIE: Delicious. SARAH: Decadent.
JULIE: Mmm.
MEL: Keyma, how would you describe this plate of food?
This is indulgent.
I mean, all the pistachio paste, the Nutella and all the nuts in it,
it's amazing.
It's creamy, and it's not overwhelmingly sugary or sweet.
They're ethereal. They're, um... Ethereal...
They're indulgent.
ANDY: The duality of...
The duality of the chocolate and pistachio just...
(LAUGHTER)
Alright. I'll pay that. I'll pay that. Goodnight.
ANDY: Shall we get stuck into the loaded fries?
DANIEL: Yeah. Let's go for it. ALVIN: Oh, yes!
MEL: Alright, let's go, guys. ALDO: Let's spice it up.
ANDY: Oh! SARAH: The business.
DANIEL: The method - you just stab and eat.
MEL: Here we go.
JULIE: Which one?
(LAUGHTER)
Aldo, what do you think?
It's good. Flavour-wise? Flavour-wise, it's great.
I really love the spice rub on the steak
and the really hard char on the steak
and the really fresh, zingy guacamole just tops that off.
It's beautiful.
OK, so, now that you've tasted both,
we're going to do a cheer-ometer... Oh, no.
..based on which one we think wins.
So, let's give it up for crepe!
(CHEERING) JOCK: Yeah!
And let's give it up for steak.
(CHEERING) (ANDY WHISTLES)
I think, by just a little bit, by a hair, it might be...
..Daniel!
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
Alright, guys, take a seat.
Well, what a day.
The next elimination is just around the corner.
Yes, it is.
So, take all that you've learnt today on board, store it away,
because you never know when you're gonna need to draw on it.
Ciao. See you later.
SARAH: Thank you.
MINDY: See you, guys. Thank you!
ANNOUNCER: Sunday night on MasterChef Australia...
Please welcome Hugh Allen!
..a rising star of fine dining...
ALVIN: He's an amazing talent.
And he looks like a Disney prince.
..brings ingredients that could make or break them in the competition.
BILLIE: It's weird, thinking this dish
will either save me or send me home.
But with creations, this incredible...
MEL: This is just deeply impressive food.
JOCK: Looked a million bucks.
..the smallest thing could send them home.
Captions by Red Bee Media