An evil mastermind is born.

Recapping and Screenshotting? LOADS OF SKILLS, MATE!

The Shellfishness of Man

Kicking off this episode’s Skills Tests was Monica with the task of creating Popcorn Clams and Mussel Fritters with a Bloody Mary Mayonnaise

Please take note of a what a fritter looks like, because you won’t be seeing them again!

I was sceptical of mussel fritters, but apparently they’re a New Zealand classic so I shall hold my tongue. Besides, the main set of skills Monica wanted to see on show was the chefs’ ability to make two different batters. A simple task and no amount of Gregg Wallace shouting like he’d just seen a dog doing a handstand could convince me otherwise

Then Rohit took to the stage and between the two different shellfish and two different batters he was herding cats and ended up serving Popcorn Mussels and Clam Fritters

the judges claimed this was extremely noticeable. I… don’t think I would have noticed had I not been witness to Rohit going through a shellfish and batter recreation of the body swapping scene from the Scooby Doo movie

add this (incredibly poorly aged) scene to the list of Egg Cracking moments little pre-transition Ariadne went through.

Rohit’s preparation of the shellfish had at least been… adequate. Beth, for reasons known to absolutely nobody, including herself, decided to cook her shellfish perfectly well and then… bathe them

twice

“At least she still has her mayonnaise” I hear you whisper. No. No she doesn’t. What she had is a bowl of eggy oil as she proceeded to just upend the entire bottle of olive oil into her bowl without a care in the world

in contrast, this was Monic demo-ing the mayo

you can actually pinpoint the precise moment that the eldritch entity possessed Beth and forced her to go through this 20 minutes of culinary sleep paralysis

Rohit also ended up with a bit of a misfire on his mayo because he’d had the gaul to add Vodka to a Bloody Mary Mayo

I’m sorry, you do not get to chastise someone for making EXACTLY what was asked of him, sir. Vodka is essential to a Bloody Mary, it would defy logic to not put it in. If that’s not what you wanted, then just say you wanted a Tabasco Mayonnaise. Or a Virgin Bloody Mary Mayonnaise. ROHIT DID NOTHING WRONG! ^{_{except for everything he did very wrong.}}

Burger It!

In a return to the classic pitfall trap of culinary hubris that was the Chicken Sandwich Skills Test of 2019 in which three professional chefs completely failed to make a grilled chicken sandwich, Marcus was challenging his pair of contestants to make a Cheeseburger

First up to face Trial by Optimistic Overconfidence was Gareth, who might be the unnecessary villain of the series

they absolutely set this man up – let him wax lyrical about his achievements of working in high end restaurants and love of reinventing classics and then BAM! Wind him with a cheeseburger to the gut

I am positive that Gareth could probably fillet a fish with his eyes closed, make choux pastry with 1 hand tied behind his back and has at least a passable sense of object permanence when it comes to shellfish. The plebian cheeseburger is however his Kryptonite as he served up a burger that even a Hungry Horse pub would call unelevated

and I have never in my years of watching MasterChef seen a contestant filled with as much rage as Gareth while he brooded in the greenroom

I feel like we witnessed his final synapse snapping as he becomes a burger-themed Batman villain. I love him. I can fix him.

The second in this line up of Death by Gourmet Burger Kitchen was Callum

and he had the exact same trajectory as Gareth: an introductory VT brimming with confidence followed by a slow descent into the fog of poor decision making as he too served up a burger that I would maybe be proud of if I made it myself at 10pm because I got second-dinner-hungry

my favourite part was when he put his cheese-covered burger in the oven to melt the cheese and the cheese came out completely unmelted and you could hear Monica’s smirk in the cupboard

and you know how I said “I have never in my years of watching MasterChef seen a contestant filled with as much rage as Gareth” scratch that, because Callum was on the verge of looking up instructions on making a death ray

the systematic humbling of men through the medium of sandwiches is MasterChef’s greatest contribution to the feminist movement.

Your Signature Here

The red mist that had descended over Gareth had cleared enough for him to finally show his love for reinventing classics rather than planning the downfall of civilized society. His classic of choice in this tale of gastronomic metamorphosis being…

Sir. This is the 17th series of this show, there is not a single thing you can do to a piece of cod that hasn’t already been done in the name of “reinventing a classic”. And sure enough, the reinventing was to serve the batter as a topping of scraps, make 50% of the dish a loose interpretation Tartar Sauce and magic the potatoes away like Hugh Jackman in The Prestige (I can only imagine there’s a bunker of unused drowned potatoes under the MasterChef warehouse)

I am so bored of this. I’m sure the cooking was great and it tasted lovely, but you can absolutely not champion this as a twist on Fish and Chips. It’s just a fairly bog standard fish course.

Gareth’s dessert however was intriguing and better lived up to his persona of being daring and inventive than Baby’s First High End Fish Supper did

everyone was sceptical of what the combination of a Salted Milk Panna Cotta and Chocolate Cremeux with Sourdough Crumbs and a drizzling of what little Olive Oil hadn’t made it into Beth’s mayonnaise would result in, but the judges raved about it!

Rohit had the best second showing of anyone having gone from treating two bowls of shellfish like a waking nightmare about GCSE Maths to serving up a perfect piece of Lamb Cookery

I was so happy for him, I was worried that the pressure of the TV studio environment was perhaps proving to be a little much for him, but he really proved himself with this and his Rice Pudding dessert with a Tutti Frutti topping

Marcus’s main critique of the dessert was that he needed to work on his presentation which I can only imagine he brought up as his main course was very well plated up because I didn’t think the presentation was any better or worse than Gareth’s dessert which was also a texturely divisive dessert with things sprinkled on top of it.

Beth and Callum were also serving up a pair of similar desserts. Beth’s being a Chocolate Cremeaux with a ring of Passionfruit Pate de Fruit (which is French for Fruit Pastilles) around it

and Callum making a Salted Chocolate Cremeux with an Espresso Gel

Callum’s worked better on the count it was vaguely a Tiramisu and therefore an actual dessert. Beth’s was an unconvincing science experiment that nobody could quite work out if they liked or not but showed promise

a bit like Dr. Frankenstein’s first showing at a high school science fare. A+ for effort but the school would really prefer it if you didn’t bring 3 rats nailed to a posterboard into the assembly hall.

Callum’s main of course was Treacle Beef with a Wasabi and Pea Croquette in an Asian Broth

there’s definitely a good dish in here somewhere – the pea and wasabi croquette sounds like it would be a really delicious starter but didn’t quite work here because it had gone quite soggy given the broth and vegetables.

Beth’s main course also proved to be a bit of a dud, with her cooking of the lobster being slightly questionable and overall the dish just not quite living up to the luxurious feel that one expects when they get a lobster dish

I really liked Beth but both of her courses this round felt a little bit like they were desperately in need of a second opinion.

A Signature Dish Ranking:
1. Gareth’s Chocolate Salty Panna Cotta
2. The Lamb of the Hour
3. A Tiramisu But Any Other Name Is Less Egregious
4. Tutti Frutti: 2 Furious
5. Where are the Chips, Gareth? WHERE ARE THE CHIPS, GARETH?
6. Bethenstein’s Science Experiment
7. Welcome to the stage, Miss Soggy Croquette!
8. Beth, You’re Paying For Your Own Lobster

This was a very cut and dry episode, it was a very decisive axing of Beth and Callum with Gareth and Rohit moving on to the first quarterfinal

one of their journeys will in end in bloodshed and you’d never have guessed which one.