NARRATOR: Previously on MKR.
From all across the country,
nine teams completed their Instant Restaurants.
Oh, my word.
(ALL EXCLAIMING)
Oh, my god. Cheers.
With top teams from round one, Radha and Prabha.
It was just a perfect bite every time.
And round two, Sonia and Marcus.
Woo-hoo!
It's just beautiful. Perfect.
Both earning fast track spots...
The score I'm giving you is a ten.
..into the semifinals.
Tonight, as the competition heats up in Kitchen HQ,
Manu Feildel and Colin Fassnidge
are joined by the iconic Nigella Lawson...
I'm so excited.
..as five teams fight...
We can't believe it.
We are very proud of ourselves.
We don't just do barbecue.
We are in this to win.
It's amazing to be here and after all this time.
Watch out guys, Tommy and Rach are back.
(LAUGHTER)
..for the last two.
The competition is on!
Go, go, go.
Semi-final spots...
Your survival depends on this dish.
I want to be in the grand final.
Come on guys!
Why are you doing that?
..as they look to stay in the race...
Looking good.
That's enough.
Oh my god, look.
..to be crowned this year's...
Make it count.
..MKR champions.
Now it's time to see who goes through to the semi-final.
This is it.
Wow.
(ALL EXCLAIMING AND LAUGHING)
I can't believe it's actually happening.
It's real.
This place is a pressure cooker.
Only the strong will survive.
Oh, here we are, mate.
Anthony, of course he's strong, he's married to me.
Check this out.
Oh, wow.
Hey Nick.
See who's over there.
Yeah.
Hello.
(LAUGHS AND SQUEALS)
It is really nice to see Rach again, that is for sure.
Rachel's got my heart.
How cool is this?
Imagine this in your home.
I'm like a little kid in a candy store.
Yeah.
I just wanna go and touch everything.
Yeah, absolutely.
Man, we're finally here. Eh?
Hey. Bonsoir. Good evening.
(CHEERING)
Welcome to our house.
Teams, welcome to Kitchen Headquarters.
You survived the Instant Restaurants
and I can tell you now,
it gets much easier from here.
(LAUGHTER)
No, it doesn't.
(LAUGHTER)
Every decision you make from here on in,
affects how you get further on in the competition.
It's tougher for us too.
So, do you know what?
We thought we'd get a little help today.
Please welcome the iconic,
the queen of home cooking, the wonderful, Nigella Lawson.
(CHEERING)
Hello.
Hello boys.
Mum is Nigella's biggest fan.
Kisses all round.
All I could do was just...
Just breathe, breathe.
So I'm getting to spend some time with you lovely boys.
See that smile.
(LAUGHTER)
See that?
I hope you all know there's,
there are few things in life
I enjoy more than seeing home cooks do what they love,
and I hear great reports.
We're about to cook for Nigella Lawson.
So how are you all feeling?
I look at Mum,
she's already crying, so ugh.
And I...
I think you should ask Sonia.
Sonia?
(LAUGHTER)
How are you? I'm...
Standing metres away.
(LAUGHS)
Oh, you know what? I'm not worth crying over.
I'm very approachable.
(LAUGHTER)
I've been a fan for a long time too.
But Mum's a super fan.
She would sit me down and make me do my study,
and the study was watching Nigella.
So let us tell you what's gonna happen.
Radha and Prabha,
Sonia and Marcus
as the winners of each group,
you are safe
and you've already earned your spot in the semi-finals.
Radha and Prabha, congratulations.
Thank you. Thank you so much.
And what kind of mindset are you in?
We're ready.
I love the way you look at each other before you talk.
(LAUGHTER)
What do you feel is the secret to your success?
That the fact that we can read each other's minds.
Yeah, that's a bit frightening.
Now, we told you in the Instant Restaurants
that every point would matter.
So, Tommy and Rach,
as the team
with the next highest score
from the Instant Restaurant rounds.
Guess what?
For this first round, you are off the hook.
What?
So sit tight, round one, round two, you are up.
A free pass into round two like...
(EXHALES)
But we've been out of the kitchen for so long
compared to everyone else.
We were the first team to cook,
so we are kind of a little bit out of touch.
OK.
So you can head upstairs, start observing, take notes if you want.
Don't need to write them down. I won't be testing you.
Thank you Nigella.
We have a bird's eye view of Nick, don't we?
It's very funny.
For the rest of you,
Nick and Christian, Aaron and Chris,
Claudean and Anthony
and Amber and Mel,
you'll be competing over two rounds.
After the first round,
one team will be eliminated
after round two,
two more will be sent home.
Teams, round one.
Behind you at each kitchen bench are four fridges
each with a different hero ingredient inside,
beef, pork, chicken,
and fruit and veg.
NICK: Oh, no. That's...
We don't cook much vegetarian.
Definitely across the board veg
would probably be the least favourite option.
I'm sure you all have your own favourites,
but these are all wonderful cuts and fresh produce from Woolworths
and each one can help you create something amazing.
OK, let's get into it.
Nick and Christian, between you four teams,
you guys had the highest score in the Instant Restaurant.
So you get to choose first.
What are you hoping for?
Pork would definitely be our first choice.
Do like a little bit of pork.
Aaron and Chris, what would you prefer?
Yeah, pork, chicken, beef.
OK, boys go pick a fridge.
Yep.
Getting the pork means that Aaron and Chris don't get the pork.
Oh, you better be nice to us fridge.
(LAUGHTER)
I don't like that smile.
(LAUGHTER)
OK, rip the band aid off, open that fridge.
Oh.
(CHEERING)
(LAUGHS)
Fruit and veg. Fruit and veg.
I was laughing.
I was so relieved just to see that veg was off the table.
Someone's happy.
Yeah. It's alright.
We'll knock 'em out with a veggie dish on their meat dish.
Aaron and Chris are puffing out their chest.
"Yeah, we've got some of the meat",
because they're meat cookers and it's on.
I can feel the tension in the room
between the BD energy boys.
Aaron and Chris, off you go.
Good luck.
This one? Alright, let's do it.
Open it.
Oh. Hey.
What did you get?
Pork.
They're the barbecue boys.
King of crackle. King of crackle.
They get the pork.
This is a huge moment. Yeah.
They cook pork more than any other protein.
Yeah.
It's a huge advantage.
Claudean and Anthony, it's your time to make a choice.
After you, love.
Chicken, beef.
I'm not a fan of chicken as everybody knows.
Open Sesame.
Oi.
So Claudean doesn't eat chicken and what do you know?
It's chicken.
Wow.
It's a lot of chicken.
(LAUGHTER)
Oh quack, quack. We get chicken.
Anthony loves chicken. Love chicken.
So, Amber and Mel, you got the final fridge
and as we know it's beef.
BOTH: Yay.
They know they're getting beef.
They get told they're getting beef.
Oh wow.
My god.
I'm just looking at the beef. Oh, the beef looks amazing.
Oh there's short ribs. Wow.
The marbling I could see from where I was standing.
Rack of prime rib at the top.
These girls have got options.
Teams to compliment your chosen hero produce,
in our storeroom you're gonna find
an incredible selection of fresh fruit and veg
from our fresh food people, Woollies.
Now teams, we told you all along
that your place on the leaderboard would matter.
Well in this round,
this is where that really comes into play.
Each team will start cooking five minutes after the next.
Oh.
It's OK.
Whoa.
Advantage Aaron and Chris,
advantage Nick and Christian.
Bring it boys.
So one team will be eliminated after this cook off
and Nick and Christian are already ahead of us.
So teams put your aprons on and let's go.
So veggies are not what we were planning on cooking today.
No, we wanted pork but I think this is an opportunity
for us to show our versatility. Exactly.
Alright, so pork, what about like the Dong Po Rou,
the Chinese braised pork belly? The one...
The same one we did at competition and we won?
Yeah. Yeah.
OK, so we've got chicken.
The first thing that comes to my mind is our family chicken,
Carusi Italian chicken. Italian chicken.
So, what about we can make the kibbeh balls,
we bake them and we make a beautiful yoghurt sauce, very traditional.
Nick and Christian, your time starts now.
Let's go.
Come on boys! (CHEERING)
Come on!
Alright. OK.
Got spices.
This Woolworths storeroom is incredible.
Cumin for the dukkha.
That extra 15 minutes that we get
means we can really focus on highlighting this fresh produce
and bringing together a dish that we wouldn't usually cook.
I'm gonna grab the silver beet.
Everyone else has a safety blanket of working with a protein.
We don't.
Oh, what do you reckon as well about maybe,
uh, getting some pomegranate arils over the top of that as well.
Bit of sweet. A little bit of sweetness,
a little bit of sour, a little bit of fresh.
We got one team going home in 90 minutes,
we can't leave any ideas behind.
It's, it's scary.
Alrighty, let's get some chopping boards up straight away.
Christian has the veggie fridge
and I know he's gonna pull some wanky recipe
out of his, wanky bag of tricks
and it's probably gonna have a name this long.
For this main, we are serving dukkha roasted pumpkin
with spanakorizo.
I'm gonna get the, the dukkha mix going.
Yep.
I'm gonna get this veggie stock on.
Spanakorizo is a traditional Greek dish
that translate as spinach rice.
So three tablespoons of white sesame.
So I'm just gonna combine all the ingredients
and then I'm just gonna blitz 'em up
and that's gonna be the coating for our pumpkin today.
Aaron and Chris, hope you are ready.
Your time starts now.
(CHEERING)
I got there in the end, man.
I'm looking around and I don't see any barbecue anywhere,
but Aaron and Chris are very confident.
Yep.
And they're the ones I've got my eye on.
Alright, so I'm just gonna trim up this pork belly.
We're gonna be cubing it up as well,
we wanna leave the skin on for this one.
So for the Woollies' Fresh food Challenge,
we are going to make Dong Po Rou,
which is a Chinese style braised pork belly.
Super important to get this right, need this nice and tender.
And I think it's gonna be something they're not expecting
in terms of the skin.
Always people think about crispy skin
when the word pork belly is mentioned.
We are not gonna deliver that today.
It's totally different, it's gonna blow their minds,
they won't expect what's coming.
Like it's just such a good like play on flavours.
It's truly a party in your mouth.
So we've done this before, we've won an award with this dish.
It has been proven in barbecue competitions.
It's one of our favourite dishes.
I cannot see us going home at the end of this round.
He's cutting the meat up.
They're halfway through their dish
and we're still sat here waiting to go into the storeroom.
That's alright. We're gonna catch them both.
Claudean and Anthony.
Yes. How you feeling?
Ready. Let's go. Let's go.
Your time starts now.
(TIMER BEEPS)
(CHEERING)
Go Claudean. Go Anthony.
Oh my god, look at this. It looks so amazing.
Oh my gosh. Kitchen HQ is next level.
We definitely need to up the ante.
Lettuces.
We'll get some tomatoes, some garlic,
of course every Italian needs good garlic.
I think we need to be a little bit more refined
and try and make it a bit more restaurant quality
as opposed to home quality cooking.
Time.
(TIMER BEEPING) Watching that clock tick down.
Yeah.
Yes. They've been in there for about two minutes now.
I'm so anxious just to get started.
Yeah, absolutely.
(CHEERING)
Today we are going to do our Carusi family chicken.
In Abruzzo, they call it housewives chicken.
Mm-hmm.
Um, it's well known.
Great for us with all our kids. Yeah.
OK. So these need to be washed first
and I need to get the chicken in there.
Yeah. So you need to do all that.
I'll give you the chicken. No, you do the veggies honey.
OK.
We eat chicken all the time. She just eats the skin.
Yeah.
It's good value.
You can feed a good size family with one chicken.
OK. Give it a good glug of olive oil.
I'm just gonna massage this beautiful chicken.
They are quite big pieces.
How on earth am I gonna cook this chicken
in the amount of time that I've been given?
(TIMER BEEPS) Hey Claudean?
Is this the same as cooking at home, mate?
You want me, you want me over there to come check on you?
Christian, we're in MKR now.
You don't have to be a wanker anymore.
(LAUGHS) You wouldn't,
you wouldn't love me any other way mate.
You wouldn't want me any other way. Maybe I wouldn't.
Amber and Mel. Yep.
Your time starts now.
BOTH: Woo.
Go girls, you got this. Come on.
(CHEERING)
We've got our Baharat spice.
I need onion.
So a staple in our home is beef mince.
Mince.
We use mince all the time, very home cooked meals though.
Um... Bit of spag bol.
Yeah. Lasagne.
Absolutely, some meatballs. Some meatballs.
Is that mint? Oh, what have I got?
But you know, look, we are in the quarter finals,
we need to step it up so we will elevate it
for it to be a competition dish.
For main course today we're serving kibbeh with yoghurt sauce.
Adding lots and lots of mint to this kibbeh,
that's really where a lot of the flavour comes from.
Kibbeh is Lebanese food.
Basically a combination of meat and fine grain wheat.
Lebanese spices.
Oh, might need to...
Oh, my eyes.
In our case today we are sort of taking it to the next level,
and we're gonna be stuffing it with minced meat, pine nuts,
those beautiful spices and onion.
Interesting choice of meat with a fridge full of...
Yes. ..all those cuts.
I suppose they were slightly alarmed
because they're at a time disadvantage
and those of us who fed children for many years know,
you know, rely on mince quite a lot.
Yes.
So this is of course my mother-in-law's recipe.
I'm an Aussie girl, you know,
learning how to cook Lebanese food.
We didn't get great scores in our Lebanese dishes
at our Instant Restaurant.
So there is a bit of expectation here for me to get this right.
Not making that same mistake again.
We're using the proper Lebanese spice.
The Baharat spice. Yes, and season, season, season.
(TIMER BEEPING)
So how long do we want them, the pumpkin in?
Pumpkin's gonna be in for 50 minutes.
OK, so Nick and Christian are doing
dukkha roasted pumpkin with spanakorizo.
No one wanted the vegetable fridge,
but it's the one I'm most excited about.
Me too.
This is looking good, Christian.
Looking good?
Pumpkin's in the oven bro.
Alright.
Let's go! Come on teams!
Come on.
Hey Nick, did you hear who's yelling for you up there mate?
Hi, Rach.
Hey Nick.
(LAUGHTER)
But soft, what light from yonder window breaks.
What's that? I can't hear you, you are so far away.
(LAUGHTER)
It is the east and Rachel is my sun.
Oh my god.
Oh, alright. Bromeo.
I think he's missed you Rach.
So I am tying this pork up so it holds its shape
and doesn't fall apart on us.
I know it's time consuming,
but I also know the benefits of tying it.
Um, do you want me to help you tie?
Yeah.
We need to get that in the pressure cooker
because that's gonna take the most amount of time for this cook.
OK, I'm gonna pop this in the oven.
So they're doing Carusi Italian chicken with roast vegetable salad.
Very large portion off.
Yes, very large.
I think we'll just get a nice brown crisp on that to start with.
Yep.
The chicken is the hero of our dish,
but I have decided to make a vegetable salad.
You know, I want it to be rustic.
Something I've never ever put
with this Carusi chicken dish before.
Um, if you could turn this oven up a bit, that would be good.
And I have also decided that I'm going to make the bread.
Smells good. Is that up? What's that on now?
It's all on 250.
250. That's as high as it'll go.
OK.
I'm hoping that I haven't over complicated things.
We just usually have it on the tray
in the middle of the table with the bread and the salad.
Claudean and Anthony.
They're people who love to share the food of love,
but it's more about quantity versus quality
and I hope they're gonna be able to serve something delicious.
I mean it, there's an awful lot going on
and I don't know whether they can get everything
as it should be in this time. Yeah.
(CHEERING)
I'm just gonna add a little bit more salt.
We have got the shells, the filling.
We're gonna spoon in our mixture, yeah?
Like just, you know, one in a bit.
Yep.
Amber and Mel. Hello.
BOTH: Hi. How are you?
What are you guys making?
Kibbeh in yoghurt sauce.
Yum.
It's one of my kids' favourites actually.
Mel, how many kids do you have?
Um, two girls. Eight and 11.
Aw. And Amber's got three girls.
Oh, three.
I know. Check out my figure.
(LAUGHTER)
Our girls. Oh my gosh.
Our girls, our family and friends are all cheering us on back at home.
I got messages... Yes.
..from the girls again. Yes.
Not to come back without the moolah.
Without the moolah. Oh my gosh.
"Mumma bring home that moolah."
So.
Yes, they're ready to go in now.
We need to get these kibbeh balls in the oven now so they cook.
I know. I know.
If they don't cook evenly,
if they're golden and crispy, we could be in trouble.
Amber, These are going in.
Yep.
(CHEERING)
(TIMER BEEPING)
The presentation with this string as well looks nice, right.
Yeah.
Chris and Aaron with that pork,
they're tying up individual pieces of kitchen string.
Little cubes.
Little cubes of pork... And he's tying it.
..getting tied.
They look like baby presents that you've put on the Christmas tree.
And why is he wasting so much time?
I am wondering how fast can he untie those little,
tiny pieces of pork in time to plate that up?
Why are you doing that?
Just, so when you're picking it up with the tongs at the end,
it's gonna stop all the layers from separating in the end.
I mean it's, it is taking a long time.
Yeah. Oh, it definitely does.
You're running out of time though. Yeah.
(TIMER BEEPING)
What do you think? I don't know.
Like, I mean obviously not tying it,
you run the risk of if you overshoot the pork in the pressure cooker,
it's gonna fall apart.
You're not gonna get a, you're not gonna get a shape.
I don't want to get to the end and have pork belly
just collapse on us or fall apart as we're taking it out of the pot.
No.
Uh... You still get the shape,
you can still sit it up in the ramekins.
I know time is ticking
but we're in an elimination cook off, every detail matters.
(TIMER BEEPING)
(CHEERING)
And why is he wasting so much time?
So I'm tying this pork for our Chinese style braised pork belly.
Nigella and Colin stop by.
Why are you doing that?
Just, so when you're picking it up with the tongs at the end,
it's gonna stop, stop it all the layers from separating at the end.
What do you think?
I don't know.
Time is ticking.
Do we continue tying them? Do we unstring them all?
I am not gonna disregard a comment like that from someone like Colin.
No, let's get it off.
So all the pork belly's now gonna go in skin side down
because we want to get that skin nice and soft.
Braising liquid is going in.
We need to now really be careful of the pork belly falling apart
as we remove it later on in this cook to plate it up.
Alright, let's get these lids on.
Aaron just undid his work in their main course.
They're pushed for time now.
Yeah. So we can see the pressure's like definitely getting to them.
Getting to them. Yeah.
(TIMER BEEPING)
Teams, you got 45 minutes left. Let's go!
(CHEERING)
Passing with knives.
We chef.
Turn it over. Turn it over and get it back in.
Oh, did we... We didn't put olive oil on them.
We're nervous.
I'm gonna have to pull these all the way out.
Yep. I'll just do it. Just hold it. Hold it...
No, because the heat's gonna leave. Oh, OK. Alright.
One team will be eliminated after this cook.
What's the dream, Christian?
What's the dream like being in this HQ, I want to be,
I want to be in the grand final.
Mate, I want to, I want to be looking up there
where the other teams are right now.
I want to see my mum and my brothers.
(LAUGHS) You didn't have to say that, you didn't.
I did have to say it.
Of course I had to say it, like that's what we are here for.
That's what... That's what we're here for bro.
Nick and Christian are very emotional guys.
Yeah.
Uh, I feel like they're very invested in the competition.
When you're passionate about something, you bloody cry.
I'm just really proud of you.
Don't say that, now you're gotta make me cry.
OK, boys. Nick, Christian, how you doing?
You look...
Oh, you've upset him now.
No, he, he made me cry.
He told me he was proud of me.
I hope it's happy tears not sad tears.
It's very, very happy tears.
Two men in their mid-30s having a little tear.
And then in swans Nigella Lawson.
Hi Nigella. Hi.
Now you've got a lot of elements going on, haven't you?
We do.
So you've got the pumpkin.
BOTH: Yep.
So we're gonna be topping it off with some pomegranate arils.
Yes.
Uh, so that's gonna be that sort of brightness and crunch.
I was gonna say 'cause you need a bit,
you need to make sure pumpkin can be very sweet and quite dense.
BOTH: Yeah.
Well you know, I may your confidence be rewarded.
Thank you very much.
And may I be rewarded when I eat it?
That's what we're hoping for, thank you.
Thanks you.
This is us. Yeah.
We're a couple of emotional wrecks.
How are you?
We're a little bit broken.
OK. Need to get the sauce on so it's got time
just to like get all the flavours in there.
We're gonna sit these beef kibbehs in a lovely yoghurt sauce.
So I just wanna mix the yoghurt in
with some water first
'cause I don't want this to curdle.
Putting lemon juice and yoghurt together on a heat,
there is a chance that it could curdle.
Yeah.
So I'm just adding all the lemon now.
But also I need enough heat in there to actually get it thick as well.
Amber and Mel start taking out yoghurt
and putting in a pot and cooking the yoghurt.
Should that be on low heat or what's going on?
I was like Prabha, are we getting split yoghurt?
OK, that's it. You've got 15 minutes left.
(CHEERING)
Alright man, my favourite part.
So Aaron and Chris are doing a Dong Po Rou
with special rice and bok choy.
Let's hope the rice is very special.
What makes this rice special is the vermicelli egg pasta.
I crush that up, I put it into a pan and then I start layering flavours.
Alright, so I'm just getting colour on this vermicelli egg pasta.
The star anise, the cinnamon, we've got garlic,
great compliment for Asian flavours.
This is like a specialty at my house.
We always bust this rice out,
we just change it up with the aromatics.
It's one of those days where you have to be on point.
You know, if you don't execute to your fullest potential,
you are going home.
In terms of serving,
should we make the fried bread like that?
It's nicer to rip your own bread open, no?
Yeah, but we're in a competition.
Do you just wanna dump a bit of fried bread on a plate?
Do you know what I mean?
Look, it's a real hard place to be in kitchen HQ.
It's actually quite confronting.
So this is very different to how we cook at home, isn't it?
It's totally, totally got me out of my comfort zone.
What we might do is we might serve one carrot like this.
Just wait, I've gotta carry them all the same.
I'm showing you, like that.
I'm worried about the presentation of our food.
But that's not the same. That's what... Oh, OK.
Is this going to be good enough for the judges?
Is this going to be a competition dish?
My goodness.
(TIMER BEEPING)
Alright, so that pork is looking good.
So opening the lid of these pressure cookers
to get the pork belly out,
we need to pick it up without it falling apart.
I pick a piece up...
..and it's held together.
Alright, sick.
One team is going home at the end of this round.
It ain't gonna be us.
We are the ultimate team. Are we the ultimate team?
Hell no.
That's not gonna happen.
What do you reckon Nico?
I reckon we're ready to start plating.
Yep.
Five minutes on the clock. Let's go!
(CHEERING)
My biggest concern about this dish is the texture,
we don't want it to be one note.
Do you wanna do this and then I'll start with the over the tops?
That's why we've got the arils of pomegranate,
why we've got the pepitas.
Where do you want the feta?
Sort of through the middle onto the pumpkin?
Yeah.
So the consistency's a little bit thinner
than I would like it to be.
Go, go, go need some tongs.
Tongs. Yeah.
(TIMER BEEPING)
Let's go. Final push guys, we got one minute left!
Come on!
(CHEERING)
Bit more crunch?
Yeah.
Just check that I've got every element on the plate
that I, not too much of that.
It seems Claudean and Anthony taking on this element,
a bread element, more vegetables, a salad.
There's a lot going on.
It's a risk.
Alright, all the bok choy's in.
I've plated 'em all. I'm just saucing them now.
The bok choy can just go up on the plates on my left side.
In, in.
Just gotta get that sauce on the plate.
Get a spoon so we can take some of this sauce.
Come on guys.
ALL: Ten, nine, eight,
seven, six, five,
four, three, two, one.
That's, that's it teams, move away from your bench.
(CHEERING)
I can't believe I did this with you, honestly.
Looks good man, looks good. Looks good. Done.
We good? Yeah.
Did we forget anything? No. You got the sauce on the plate.
It is what it is.
Come what, come may. Come what, come may, bro.
Round one, done.
This is the first time that we have plated up food in kitchen HQ
for the judges and someone is going home at the end of this tasting.
Oh, there's nothing more we could have done.
The pressure is incredible.
They actually all did it. Well done.
(CHEERING)
We are feeling good.
Chris and I have made this in a barbecue competition
and we actually won second place.
You know, even if it's viewed as simple,
which we know it's not, it's executed.
So we are in a great position.
Look how big our portions are.
I'm nervous, it looked too much on the plate,
but I was determined to have a green element on that plate.
You didn't need green though,
you had an orange and purple and yellow.
I know. I know. Yeah, I did.
Your survival in this competition depends on this dish.
We hope you've done enough.
Please take a break while we taste your food.
Thank you.
Well, it all comes down to this, so shall we taste?
Oh please. Yes.
Based on the protein we've chosen,
the star of this dish is the pork belly.
Bro, we're definitely not going home off the back of a pork belly dish.
No. Period.
It's cooked well, soft.
Mm.
There was this whole debacle
about tying up bits of little bits of pork and...
Can you imagine, you'd've been eating string now, I fear.
I love that gelatinous of the skin
when it soaks in that soy.
But look at that, it's just like eating pork jelly.
I'm really loving the rice
with the mixture of noodles in there, I think it's very clever.
I think I'm, I'm quite pleased with that.
I'm happy. Yeah.
It's very like...
Ooh.
..very Asian influence.
Yummy flavour.
I really like this dish, Prabha.
Next dish, let's see how we go.
AMBER: We got the beef.
These kibbehs are stuffed with beef, they're gonna be wrapped in beef.
So the beef is the hero of this dish today.
That yoghurt sauce could have been thicker,
but deep down in my heart,
I know that we've done our best today and that's all that we can do.
Now it's up to the judges.
I like that stuffing they've done.
The meat stuffing in the meat.
(CHUCKLES)
That kibbeh's got some good spice.
The yoghurt's soup type thing
I'm a little bit perturbed by 'cause it's sort of split.
Hmm. It's fresh.
I think there could have been a bit more filling.
I think we should try the next dish.
We need to showcase the hero of this dish, chicken.
Our usual style of cooking is big portions,
family size servings.
I am hoping at this point the judges can look past that
and just enjoy the chicken on the plate.
That is a plate full of food.
Comes from a generous heart.
Let me just see, Chicken's cooked well, on the bone.
Mm.
Great texture in the chicken.
I would've taken the vegetables a little bit further.
I know it's a roast vegetable salad,
but there is a bit,
I mean the fennel maybe should have been cut thinner
'cause it's...
Let's see, the carrots are a bit crunchy.
I would've concentrated on less vegetable
and make sure that that vegetable was cooked properly.
It is a full plate, as expected.
Boy, they're dishing up like it's Sunday afternoon at their place.
Chicken, bread, all the vegetables.
Next dish. Let's see how we go.
We are worried about having our entire competition
resting on a vegetarian dish.
NICK: Someone is going home at the end of this tasting.
Have we done enough?
(SIGHS) I don't know.
It looks very healthy, doesn't it? Yes.
I think it looks rather beautiful.
I'm loving that little caramelisation on the pumpkin
and the little pomegranates giving that little pop
and you got a little bit of saltiness from the cheese.
This is clearly a really, you know, gorgeous pumpkin
and it's been cooked very well.
I think for a team that wanted to open a fridge full of pork
and they're now showcasing a plate of vegetables,
I think they've done that very well.
That's some nuts in that pumpkin, isn't there?
That's actually quite nice. Hmm.
Seasoned very well.
They've nailed fruit and vegetables.
Mm-hmm.
So would you agree boys, it's sort of 50-50, this isn't it.
There is two dishes that have been very rewarding
and two, maybe bit disappointing.
100%.
Yeah. I think it's gonna be a tough decision.
Teams, tonight you each had to hero a different ingredient,
all while celebrating the fresh
and seasoned produce
the storeroom had to offer.
Unfortunately for one team,
the dish you made will be the last dish you cook on MKR.
In a moment one of you will be eliminated.
Knowing that one team's ride in this competition is over,
that's, it's tough.
It's time for our critiques.
Aaron and Chris, your dish with Dong Po Rou.
Boys, boys, boys.
I was watching you tie up little bits of pork,
I wanted to slap you two, I tell ya.
Never in my life have I seen that
and never do I want to see it 'cause it wouldn't have mattered.
The pork was perfectly cooked.
I love the lusciousness of that skin.
The pork was exactly as Colin says, luscious.
Thanks.
The rice,
I really loved it too.
Aaron and Chris, we were all in agreement,
that your dish was our favourite.
Done well.
And that means you are safe.
Thank you. Thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
Thanks so much everyone. Thank you.
We don't just do barbecue.
I think we've just shown everyone
what we can do in a kitchen.
It's time to keep going.
(CLAPPING)
Nick and Christian,
you made us dukkha roasted pumpkin with spanakorizo.
Now I have to say that pumpkin can often be a bit of a lottery
because it can become overpoweringly sweet and dense when it's cooked.
And I thought you cook the pumpkin absolutely wonderfully.
It had a sort of meatiness
and depth that was very luxurious.
Nick and Christian,
we all agree that your dish was also beautiful
and you are also safe.
Thank you. Congratulations.
(CLAPPING)
(EXHALING) Whoa!
Oh, my god.
We're through, we get, we live to cook again.
Amber and Mel,
you served us kibbeh with yoghurt sauce
and with tabbouleh on the side.
The kibbeh I was very happy with the spice seasoning,
thank god for that, we've had that chat before
and it was great.
But that yoghurt sauce,
it was split kind of in a curdled milk
in the bottom of your plate.
We didn't see that, didn't we?
No, we didn't. So it was a bit of a surprise
but is that going to be the thing that actually sends us home today?
Claudean and Anthony,
you made us Caruso roast chicken with roast vegetable salad.
You gave us this fabulously generous plate of food.
There were a lot of components.
The chicken, I have to say you cook perfectly.
Unfortunately, for me,
I just feel that the roast vegetables
were a bit of an afterthought.
There's no caramelisation whatsoever on any of the vegetables.
Fennel, we had to get a steak knife to get through.
I feel like the judge's feedback was probably on par
with what I thought.
I wasn't happy with the fennel,
but the chicken was perfect
and I'm glad that that's what shone through.
Are you awake, honey? Sort of.
You look like you've fallen asleep.
Claudean and Anthony, Amber and Mel,
one of you is about to get eliminated.
This was unbelievably close.
The final team through to round two
and live to cook again is...
(TENSE MUSIC)
..Claudean and Anthony.
BOTH: We're through!
(CLAPPING)
When I looked at Anthony and he hugged me
and said we're going through, I felt relief.
I felt proud of us.
I just really wanna beat Christian.
I wanna beat him up. (LAUGHS)
Amber and Mel, you've really have been wonderful
but, unfortunately, this is the end of the road for you.
Au revoir and good luck. Thank you.
BOTH: Thank you. Let's go.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
So proud. So proud, so much gratitude
that we've been able to get this far,
and I couldn't have done it with anybody else.
We've known each other for 34 years, mate.
No way. Stronger than ever, right?
Stronger than ever. Absolutely.
See you guys. Bye!
Now it's time for round two.
Tommy and Rach, you are up.
Come on down.
(APPLAUSE)
There is a 50% chance we can go home today.
Yep. So feeling pretty nervous.
Yep, agreed. Feeling nervous.
Now it's time to see who would join Radha and Prabha
and Sonia and Marcus in the semi-final.
From now on, two teams go to the semi, two go home.
We've just had our means.
It's not gonna be a total surprise that we're expecting some dessert.
Everybody knows that I am not very good at desserts.
There is a literal bad desserts club on MKR,
we are all in it except for Sonia and Marcus.
We were proud cardholders of the bad dessert club,
I believe we were the CEOs for a while.
We're not looking for just a basic dessert.
The fact that it's sweet is not good enough.
It has got to be something
that really demands you have a place in the semi-final.
So this is it. We're down to the line.
The showdown.
This is just us, Tommy and Rach
and the BD Energy boys.
Big D energy.
Now it's time for round two.
COLIN: Two teams go to the semi, two go home.
We need to get through.
I want that spot in the semi-final
more than I think I've ever wanted anything.
We've just had our main
so it's not gonna be a total surprise
that we're expecting some dessert.
The fact that it's sweet is not good enough.
It has got to be something that really demands
you have a place in the semi-final teams.
Teams, your 60 minutes start now.
(CHEERING)
Go teams, go team, go teams.
Oh, god, Tommy.
Apron, we're here.
OK. Alright.
What should we do?
Should we do what we do at our market?
Yep.
Everybody comes for miles to eat our Zeppole.
I'm gonna, do you wanna bake something?
Yes, I would love to do some baking.
Let's turn dessert on its head. Yep.
Neither of us are dessert people. No.
What did Nigella just say?
It needs to be memorable. Exactly.
I think we need a dessert that's gonna show off technique,
gonna have a wow factor.
Go. Yep.
Oh, my god. Nick's already gone.
Oh what, should we go? Go, go, go, go.
It started. It's begun.
Am I seeing a pineapple?
Ah, right in front of me.
We just made it through by the hair of our chinny, chin, chin.
So we need to really step it up or that's it,
we'll be leaving kitchen HQ
and that's something neither of us want.
Alright, laters.
Alright, time started, Chris has left.
Standing up there on the balcony, the main feeling was nervousness.
Who's the competition gonna be for the semi-final?
I know we've got Radha and Prabha next to us.
We can beat them, all good but who is the other two teams?
Good? Yeah, OK, so.
For dessert, we are serving Zeppole two ways.
For the Zeppole, the ricotta.
Yep. Make sure that's all mixed in.
The Zeppole is our Italian Ricotta doughnuts.
One of the ones we are doing is we are gonna put sultanas,
pineapple and apples in it. Yep.
And then we'll just make the plain ricotta one as well.
Yep.
We wanted to do Zeppole two ways,
because we do it at the markets, people love it.
We've gotta do a really good job on our dessert.
Yep. Make it count.
This is kitchen HQ. It's pressure.
It's the MKR monster.
It is stressful cooking.
I don't wanna mess this up
because we need to get through to the next round.
This dessert needs to be balanced so obviously, a lot of chocolate.
We need to balance the sweetness of the chocolate and the sugar.
For the dessert today, we are making a chocolate fondant
and a pistachio crumb.
So we don't want to add like really any other sugar into this dessert
because it's got so much chocolate.
So the wow factor is when you slice it down the centre
and you see this beautiful chocolate sauce just oozing out.
We want the ohs and the ahs.
Ah. Ah.
It's super important that that chocolate element is delicious.
We've just proven we are the team to beat now,
we put everyone else on notice.
We can cook in the kitchen, we're not just the barbecue guys.
I know we said we have to control the sugar
but we are making caramelised pistachio crumb.
To get caramel, we need sugar, alright.
Oh, my kettle wasn't even on. (LAUGHS)
Alright.
Tommy and Rach are finally coming outta hibernation.
We are so deep into the competition and they've cooked just once.
Right.
Getting into the kitchen, I was a little bit nervous.
Here. Come here.
Give me a hug.
Calm, calm, calm, calm, calm, calm.
Rach and I always have each other's back.
Everything's good.
Alright, let's go.
We just breathe.
We're just cooking.
We've got this.
Come on.
Tommy and I are serving sticky date pudding
with a butterscotch sauce.
Which has been reinvented.
I love that this is your mum's, like a play on your mum's recipe.
Yum, look at that orange.
So we are introducing Cointreau and orange zest
into the butterscotch sauce,
and we're putting banana and walnuts into the pudding.
So I love that, Tom, you add banana to your sticky date.
I think the main risk with our dessert
is a sticky date pudding is a very traditional pudding.
Little bit.
And by altering the makeup of this, maybe we're playing with fire.
Look at us making magic.
To make it through to the semifinals.
Mm-hmm.
We've gotta make sure that we keep pushing the envelope
but, there's always a risk that you can push the envelope too far.
So Tommy and Rach, is it a disadvantage
that you haven't cooked, you know, for all that time?
Well, listen I haven't been here
but my thoughts are the more you cook the better you get.
That's right.
It's like in racing the tyres are cold.
Yeah.
Like everyone else, the tyres are warm,
they're taking the corners.
These two, it's their first time back on the track
like everyone else has got experience under the belts
and they haven't.
Alright, so 375 is a cup and a quarter.
Yeah.
For the dessert round,
we are making blue cheese cigars with red wine figs.
I'm working on the mousse here for the blue cheese cigars.
I want to get these in as quick as possible.
Dessert is not something that Nick and I have a lot,
we are not sweet tooths.
But cheese and fruit is a match made in heaven.
So how do we make that cheeseboard into the dessert?
I want this mousse to be really smooth.
Alright Nick, timer is on for the nut crumb.
Yep.
We need to get these cigars rolled with as much time to spare
so that they can crisp up after we've deep-fried them.
Yep.
Blue cheese cigars are literally gorgonzola cheese and mascarpone
made into a moose and then piped into some filo
and wrapped like a spring roll.
I've got the red wine heating up.
The red wine fig is probably gonna take the longest
over the whole cook.
We wanted to create something funky,
really sort of outside-the-box thinking, savoury dessert.
Yeah.
That's a huge risk.
45 minutes to go.
Come on, guys.
(CHEERING)
Two teams are going,
two teams are proceeding through the semi-finals.
So it's exciting to observe our competition.
Like what do they do?
What's their strength, what's their weakness?
So you need to get the juice.
Yep.
Yep, yep.
Today we'll do the Zeppole two ways.
One we have just plain ricotta with a caramel sauce
and the other one we have with fruit and marsala in it.
And you can have it with a squeeze of lemon over it
and some powdered icing sugar.
We just wanna make sure that it's tasting very nice.
Yep.
Claudean and Anthony are offering us Zeppole two ways.
Well, I know what Zeppole is, two ways, I dunno what that means.
I feel a bit worried
because there were too many side bits and pieces going on
with the chicken. Yeah, yeah.
That's, I mean in a way just do one way that's really perfect.
That's right. Exactly.
I'm just very worried about this caramel sauce.
I just want it to be perfect and I don't want it to be too sweet.
Yep. I don't wanna overdo anything.
I wanna listen to what the judges said.
In the last round
and I wanna try and make this dessert look nice on the plate,
not have too much on the plate.
OK.
I've gotta get nice and even in there.
Our teamwork is so good.
We proved that in our main,
we had the best dish in round one
and we just want to continue to cook and show what we can do.
RADHA: Hey, Chris. Yeah.
What are you guys cooking today?
We are cooking chocolate fondants
with a pistachio crumb and a raspberry cream.
Oh, yum, yum. PRABHA: Yum.
I just wanna make sure every one of these ramekins
are like really sort of lubed up with heaps of butter.
The lining of these moulds with butter and the grated chocolate
is critical to this dish.
We don't get enough butter into these ramekins,
we're not gonna be able to turn out our chocolate puddings,
it's gonna be a disaster.
So whilst we're pushing for time, so we want to get it right.
Hey Rach, how travelling over there?
Oh, Nicky Boy.
We're good, mate. We're good.
I'm doing great. How you doing?
Do I need to stand here?
No, no, Rach, Rach.
I think the question you need to ask him is, how you doing?
How you doing?
You cooking up something nice there, Nicky Boy?
Are you guys cooking up sausage?
No, so we are making some blue cheese cigars.
Oh. Yum.
So imagine, imagine a cheeseboard and a baklava
had a couple of glasses of wine. Yes.
This is what we're putting up.
Wow, it sounds naughty.
Mate, it's naughty, nice and everything's spice.
And that's gonna cook,
that rosemary will start releasing those oils for it.
Yep.
And I'm just gonna dunk it full of honey
and that's gonna balance out that sweetness.
I love it. They've got a bit going on there.
Yeah. Cause they've got nuts toasting,
they've got pastry that they're looking after,
they've got oil
so they're obviously frying it at the end,
the cigars will be fried.
Lots of different elements.
The concept of Christian and Nick's dish,
I wasn't wowed by it.
I think they've taken notes of the fact that the judges
don't like too sweet desserts.
They've gone really far on the savoury end,
these cigars are filled with blue cheese.
These are raw in the middle
'cause that's seeming very doughy and thick.
I cooked a batch of Zeppole.
I opened one up and right in the middle, it was still raw.
I make hundreds of these.
How can this go wrong?
How can this happen?
I'm feeling like my Zeppole is not turning out.
I'm ripping the Zeppole open,
I'm seeing that they're raw in the middle.
I open another one, it's raw in the middle.
Why is this happening?
This never happens.
I don't believe it's our most beautiful, simplest dessert.
We are in the second part of the quarterfinals,
the pressure on us is massive.
No good, way no good.
I just told you they're not cooking inside.
We need to get this perfect.
What's going on?
(TENSE MUSIC)
(CHEERING)
We really need to pull together now.
Oh man, we're gonna come down to the wire in this one.
Huh? NICK: Almost there, two more.
So four desserts, two teams stay, two go home, big night.
NIGELLA: It's brutal.
Two go on to the semis, it's a massive night ahead of us.
These are raw in the middle
that's seeming very doughy and thick.
Claudean and Anthony,
they seem to having so many batches of these little doughnuts
and they don't seem they're happy with themselves
at those at the minutes.
They've tasted a lot.
Yes.
The pressure is unbelievable in this kitchen.
Yep.
I'm ripping the Zeppole open.
I'm seeing that they're raw in the middle.
I don't believe it's our most beautiful, simplest dessert.
I am really starting to get nervous.
I never second-guess myself at the market.
People love what we produce,
but this is a whole other realm.
What's going on here? Are we good?
I am trying my hardest.
This is something we make all the time, but...
Well, you do that at the market, don't you?
Yes. You do this every weekend?
We do it every weekend. I know.
It's the pressure. Is it time for you to go home?
Uh, no.
OK, so do something about it.
I'm not going home. Come on.
We have to stay here.
I'm just gonna try something.
I'm adding a little bit of this Zeppole dough
with the other one with the fruit
and seeing if this turns out a little bit better, not so doughy.
Teams, you've got 30 minutes left, that's halfway through.
Let's go with it!
Aaron and Chris, Chocolate fondant with pistachio crumb.
It's gonna need a bit of freshness I think on this dessert.
If you've just got sugar upon sugar.
Yeah. We're in trouble,
we're gonna need something to cut through it.
Bro, I'm under the pump.
I know, we are gonna be down to the wire on this one.
Aaron and Chris, they've got nothing in the oven yet.
They're still mixing.
We haven't got the cake mix in the ramekins yet.
I know we need 15 minutes bake time for this.
I'm gonna start pouring these.
Can you come behind me with the chocolate pieces
and get a scale? Yep.
I want 135 in total.
Do we have time for it? We got 24 minutes left.
Well, it's pretty important. Let's go, come on.
We wanted these cakes in at 25.
Chris is messing around wanting to weigh up each individual ramekin.
Alright, we might not have time for this.
No, we don't, just... Alright, I'm gonna pour half.
Do one with 135.
No, just put half chocolate, chocolate.
Weigh 135 and then one, eyeball the rest.
Dude, put a piece the chocolate in.
If you weigh each one,
that's gonna be another three or four minutes off the clock
and we are not gonna get these desserts turned out.
We're gonna end up serving 'em in the ramekin.
Move that outta your way.
That hour's going by really, really fast.
That clock is ticking and it's waiting for nobody
and everyone's still got a lot to do.
These are a little bit airy.
You like an airy sticky day though.
So, mate. Hey, how you going?
Are we getting half portions, are we?
Oh, they'll rise. (LAUGHS)
They're gonna rise. Hopefully, they rise.
Are they airy, are they, they're not usually airy anyway.
Taste everything before you do it. Yes.
Absolutely, thank you. You're welcome.
They said they're not usually airy.
Colin says those sticky dates are looking quite aerated,
puddings aren't usually airy.
Maybe we've missed the mark, maybe it's not a pudding anymore.
Should we whip up some more of that or not?
No. You sure?
Going in, Rach. 20 minutes?
Yep.
We know that our pudding is a little bit lighter in texture
than a dense pudding.
But look, this dish with the additions that we've made,
is a Tommy and Rach special.
Every plate has risk
and we bloody hope the judges love them too.
20 minutes.
I hope you are on track!
Alright, get ten minutes on the timer
we'll count it out from ten every minute for 15.
Come on, guys. Come on guys, you've got this.
You've done it before, you can do it again.
You ready to pipe and roll? I'm ready to pipe and roll.
Pipe, rattle and roll, brother.
Nick just laid out this beautiful, filo pastry,
a blue cheese cigar. Cigar.
I was like, wow, that's an interesting dessert.
It is. It's very like fusion type.
Yep, they're definitely pushing the boundaries in that dessert.
Alright, those four are ready. Those four are ready.
Do you wanna try a first batch of four?
Alright, first four are down and cooking, Nick.
Yep.
So I dropped the first four cigars into the oil
and these cigars are just sitting there in oil
and not frying and I don't know what's going on.
(SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC)
These ones are ready, yeah.
Yeah, just kept eh, just.
Falling apart.
These two we can work with.
Nick is not looking very happy.
Christian is looking like he's on damage control.
That deep fry and that pastry is causing them major stress right now.
Yep.
We are now seeing the pressure of what the HQ kitchen can do to you.
Alright, 13 minutes.
We wanted to be serving two cigars per plate.
If we need to just put one on a plate,
we put one on a plate, bro.
They're not colouring like they should.
I just, it's, we were so deep in the weeds
that we couldn't find a way out.
(TENSE MUSIC)
Nick and Christian are they've given up man.
Have they? They're done.
I feel like we're dead in the water.
(TENSE MUSIC)
OK guys, ten minutes left on the clock.
Let's go! (CHEERING)
I'm really concerned about Nick and Christian guys.
There's some on the side of it that hasn't worked.
Nick and Christian aren't gonna get anything on that plate.
I mean, like we were looking for like golden cigars
and that's not what we are getting.
Do you know what, there's not a lot of time left
and there's still a lot of work to do on every bench.
Well, let's talk about Nick and Christian,
they need to crisp the filo and melt the cheese inside.
And if it's not hot enough they'll be greasy, and...
I just hope those guys are, this team is a good team.
I really, no, and I love their spirit.
And I hope that this dessert is not gonna be the end of them.
I hope not.
We're having to make a really hard decision right now.
We're gonna have to cut the amount of cigars on a plate.
Yeah. From two to one
or else we're not gonna be able to plate up a dessert.
So raspberry into the cream.
The chocolate fondant dessert is gonna be really rich.
It's all chocolate,
so that's why we need to introduce a raspberry cream
to cut through that richness.
Alright, putting the raspberry cream in the fridge.
Yep. So I can stay cooked, right?
BOTH: Oh.
Oh, my god, look.
Oh, my god.
He dropped his cream.
They've just got a hustle, they've done it before,
they can do it again. There's still enough in there.
I see the bowl on the floor and it's the right side up
and it's still half full of cream because it's been so well whisked.
Chris. Yeah.
There's still enough in there.
Enough in where?
There's still enough in the bowl. Like how much is in the bowl?
There just look.
Alright, ladies and gentlemen, you've got five minutes left.
This is stressful. This is stressful.
We've got five minutes to go on the clock,
our fondants are still in the oven.
They look alright man, the cakes look OK.
The cakes look OK.
Five minutes to go
and we've gotta get something on this plate.
(DRAMATIC MUSIC)
How are we?
We got enough to plate.
We need to put all the cream on. Yeah.
Hopefully, we can just nail these flavours.
Over this side if you need, Chris.
So I'll pull the cakes out of the oven.
I'm hoping to unmould one of the fondants.
MANU: Come on boys, let's go.
Do your tester, do your tester.
You know you've got a lot to turn out.
This has to work.
That chocolate fondant slides out.
Boom. It was a magic moment.
Alright, let's go. You've got three minutes.
Let's go. Go, go, go, go, go, go.
Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go.
(TENSE MUSIC)
This is a massive amount of pressure in the HQ kitchen.
I'm feeling all the different Zeppole.
I want the firmest Zeppole that I can find
to go on the judges' dishes.
Are you happy with this?
Let me have a look.
No, I'm not happy with that.
Well, that's what we got. So we have to plate it.
We've come back. Yeah.
One minute left!
(CHEERING)
Come on guys, one minute!
(TENSE MUSIC)
I think we could go more sauce, yeah?
Yeah, and a little bit and more cream.
We're just doing our best just to try and balance everything.
Do we have enough sauce on the plate?
Is there enough cream-to-sauce ratio?
Too much. That's way too much.
No, I don't think so.
All of those things are going through your mind
because you want the dessert to be the best that it can be.
Ah, you're right, just a tiny bit too much.
OK, we've gotta move,
we've gotta get the orange segments on.
30 seconds left.
COLIN: Come on guys, let's go.
I mean this is. This is not.
This is not where we wanted to be.
But it's here, but it's where we are.
We've got some that look like we want 'em to.
Yep.
Is it the perfect dessert?
No. Is it the dessert we're putting up?
Yep.
GROUP: Ten, nine, eight, seven, six,
five, four, three, two, one!
That's it!
Stop cooking, move away from your benches.
Hey!
(LAUGHTER)
I look over at Nick and Christian's
and I couldn't quite make out what they had served,
but they looked like they'd been defeated.
We'll be right.
That cook did not go the way that we wanted it to be.
Nah-uh.
Here we go.
I don't know.
See, I haven't tasted anything on this plate.
Well done guys, take a break, we're gonna taste your desserts.
Well done.
(SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC)
This is it.
Two teams progress and two teams will be eliminated.
Ah, it's an awfully big deal when you put it like that.
Should we taste?
Let's do it.
Thank you.
What we put on a plate with our dessert
was a very technical dessert.
I'm about to plunge in.
The wow factor that excites me the most,
it's a self-saucing cake
and you want to see a nice ooze of that chocolate centre.
Oh, you got the ooze,
it does everything that fondant, says it's gonna do.
It's sort of set. Yeah.
Crusty on the outside, soft in the middle.
I mean, I think for me it's just very, very much too sweet.
Yeah.
I don't think a bitter enough chocolate's been used.
I think so too.
Mm, that is so decadent.
Let's try the next dish.
(SOFT MELLOW MUSIC)
It's rather enchanting.
I was very happy with the appearance of our dish,
very creative, aesthetic.
It's very Rach and I.
Let's see consistency.
Oh, it's light and airy.
It looks lighter than I'd expect.
It's fluffy too.
There's quite a lot of salt in the cream,
which is, I'm rather enjoying.
Mm.
It's not, but it's done in a very different way.
I think the orange segments,
I think you know none of us are eating them, are they?
No, but I think they're just too chunky.
They're just too fresh for that kind of dessert.
Still a worry of mine
that we can't play with the traditional dish too much
and we had, so who knows?
We've done our best. The flavours are there.
Let's see what happens. It's with the judges now, yep.
Wow.
That's moist in the middle.
Hmm.
That's sauce is amazing.
I think they've done a really good job of it.
Thank you.
If it's deep-fried, I am first in line.
CLAUDEAN: This is a dish very special to us
and this is a dish that people come back for.
So this was a massive amount of pressure
to put this dish out not 100%
was a real kick in the pants for us.
Well, there's a nice crisp crust.
The caramel could use a kick of salt, I reckon.
More salt.
Well, I feel it could do with a bit more burn.
Yeah, a bit more bitterness.
It hasn't been taken far enough.
And the plain seem to be better than the fruit.
Yes, the plain ones are better. They've risen better.
It's a dish of two stories here.
One of mine's a little bit doughy in the centre,
but otherwise, they're quite well cooked.
I think it's a good dish.
Alright, last one, shall we?
(SOFT MUSIC)
Thank you.
Wow.
We have just gotta pray
that the flavours that we wanted are balanced
and coming through.
It was tense watching. I'm surprised they got anything up
'cause at one stage they were fighting with the fryer.
Well, it's oozing.
I just, firstly,
I love the fact that we give them a dessert challenge
and they went outside the box.
It's really.
I love the saltiness of the blue cheese,
crispy filo and this deep rich red wine
with some sweetness of the fig.
And they've made the honey work too. Yeah.
You know, they really have.
It's incredibly well tempered.
I can't stop thinking that two teams are going home now.
Have we done enough to save ourselves in this competition?
I don't know.
They said it will remind you of a cheese platter
and that's got cheese platter like vibes to it.
You know, this is a very serious decision,
you know, we are gonna have to send two teams home.
Game over for two teams, that's for sure.
(TENSE MUSIC)
We have come this far, we have worked very hard,
we have given up a lot to be here.
I'm really hoping and praying that we get through to the next round.
This is the most nervous I have ever been.
Have we done enough to save ourselves in this competition?
I just can't think that we have.
Well done everyone. I know it wasn't easy,
I mean, I dunno how you felt but I was pretty tense.
Teams, as you know, the dessert that you prepared for us
will determine who goes through to the semi-finals
and who will head home.
Tommy and Rach,
your dish with sticky date pudding with butterscotch sauce.
Sticky date pudding, it's something I grew up with.
I was expecting a bit more of a big chunky square.
What I got was the little pudding with nuts,
which I was quite surprised.
But it had great flavour.
I like the nuts, like the sauce.
The cream was refreshing,
but those orange squares, I mean like very childish
and this is the quarter-finals.
You need to give us a little bit more finesse.
Childish.
We might have delivered a delicious dessert
but it may not have been enough.
Aaron and Chris chocolate fondant with pistachio crumb.
Technically yes, got it on point.
We cut that out when we got the oozy centre,
everybody's like, oh, wow, you know, that's what we want.
But very sweet on eating it.
I think you were so focused on all these elements
and getting it technically right
that you didn't think enough just about the flavours
because if it's quite and not enough depth,
it can make it too one note.
I do have a sweet tooth. I love this dessert,
I thought it had everything going for it.
It was all tick, tick, tick. Uh, yeah.
Your personal preference would've been to have it sweeter.
Absolutely.
Claudean and Anthony, Zeppole two ways.
I think one way would've been great.
One good way.
It was very inconsistent, unfortunately.
You got a really lovely crisp sort of carapace on the edge
of some of those, which is just what you want.
But the fruited ones didn't quite work in that way.
I definitely agree with Nigella's critique
that the fruited one was too damp.
We could be going home.
Nick and Christian blue cheese cigars with red wine figs.
By the end of that cook, I looked down and you two were done.
I'm surprised we got actually anything to eat at one stage.
So am I. Yep.
And then somehow, I dunno how you turned it around,
but my cigar that I got was crisp.
The filling was oozing.
The flavour combination of blue cheese, red wine, and figs,
it just bloody works.
(EXHALES)
As far as we three are concerned.
Yours was the best dessert of the night
and you are through to the semi final.
Thank you. (CLAPPING)
Congratulations.
It's alright, we're through.
What has just happened?
I don't know, but we're true to the semi-final.
Aaron and Chris, Tommy and Rach,
and Claudean and Anthony,
there's one spot in the semi final left
and just one of you will take it.
What we put on a plate is a competition dessert
that is good enough, more than good enough.
I feel sick.
Mm, me too.
I'm feeling nervous, my knees are shaking.
The pressure is unbelievable.
This was a tough decision, very close.
All three great dishes but after analysing every detail,
the second team into the semi-final is...
(SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC)
..Tommy and Rach.
(LAUGHTER)
Congratulations.
(CHEERING)
We're going through to the semi-finals.
The sticky date got us out of a sticky situation.
(LAUGHTER)
Oh, my god.
So Aaron and Chris, Claudean and Anthony,
that means unfortunately, you will not be progressing any further
in the competition.
At the end of the day,
I'd be happy to go out on that dessert, that's what happened.
Gonna go out with our heads held high.
I can't wait to get back into more cooking,
more barbecue, more competitions, and more time with my family.
Yeah, it's made us stronger people overall in so many aspects.
We're heartbroken we didn't make it through.
But in saying that, we have tried really hard,
we've both grown as people
and I think that the MKR kitchen
is going to be a very quiet place without us in it.
(LAUGHS)
Aaron and Chris and Claudean and Anthony,
au revoir and good luck.
Two more eliminations
and there's been this great fierce rivalry
between us and the two of them.
(CLAPPING) See you guys, all the best.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
Here we go, semifinals.
Radha and Prabha, Sonia and Marcus.
Alright, people, the competition is on.
(CHEERING)
Captioned by Ai-media ai-media.tv