The editors’ approach to rehashing this episode.

Welcome to Never Learning From Your Mistakes Week on MasterChef.

Basic to Brilliant

Once again we start with our MasterChef hopefuls trying to elevate a selection of everyday ingredients to new lofty heights. Immediately I had the highest of hopes for Trevor when he started putting together a ramekin of sausages

if there’s one thing I love on this show, it’s a big man cooking sausages

which sadly doesn’t happen a lot because I think sausages are to MasterChef as vanilla ice-cream is to Come Dine With Me – there’s always a risk you’ll be overly penalised by a tweed wearing wanker for not having made it yourself. JUST EAT THE CARTE D’OR AND BE HAPPY, AMANDA. IT COST A WHOLE £3.75.

Unfortunately Trevor was not serving the sausages in the ramekin (boo!) nor were the sausages the basic ingredient he was showing off – that role belonged to The Humble Onion which was being done three ways. And after talking a big game about being a ~gastronomic~ chef who dabbles in spherification and other… trendy things… as he threw MasterChefisms at the wall to see what stuck

Trevor served “Posh Sausage Casserole” – “posh” now being the operative word to avoid saying “deconstructed”

I love him. He’s perfect. The judges also had no problem with the dish and were extremely complimentary of it all. Or at least most of it, they sadly forgot to comment on the flavour profile of the Tesco Cumberland Sausages – I’d recognise them in any line-up.

While Trevor is here to learn what gastronomic actually means after he read it on a menu one time, Hazel is here for the classic storyline of MOTHER GETS HER GROOVE BACK!

her Eat Love, Pray journey beginning with Pan-fried Cod, Creamy Cannellini Beans, Burnt Leeks and a Leek Vinaigrette

the Cannellini Beans were the intended basic ingredient – I’m not sure they end up being the star though. I don’t think Cannellini Beans could ever be the star of a dish. I mean, they take up the most room but there’s both more individual Leek components and the Cod, which was overcooked, is obviously the centrepiece. It is however at least a cohesive plate of food which is more than can be said for Aileen who should’ve stopped listing components sometime between “soy sauce” and “confit tomato”

I do think she realised which is why the baby carrots are hiding under the Chilli Braised Short Rib – get rid of them, the fennel and the tomatoes and it’s a significantly stronger dish. That beef dripping crumb was enough of a twist on the concept to have not warranted any of the other gubbins.

I was really interested in the dish that Marcella was making because I’d never heard of a Tahchin – a layered Iranian rice dish that is meant to look something like this

unfortunately for Marcella, hers did collapse but as someone who was unaware of what a Tahchin was meant to look like before, I was still fairly impressed by it

it’s like the Colosseum – we still think it’s impressive even if like a quarter of it is missing and you can’t feed people to lions in it anymore. I think we need to start feeding people to lions again, some of you have become far too relaxed amidst the lack of risk of Death by Lion.

We only have 1 chef left as this is an episode with a contestant that has chosen to be removed from the show. You can play a fun game of spotting the extra footage used to bridge the gaps which is usually an incredibly tight and poorly composed shot of Aileen because the edited chef was obviously behind her

or the three times they use the exact same 2 second, almost static clip of Gregg Wallace with a rictus smile to both cover something he said and buy time. *Chef’s kiss* – you’re doing great, The Editors. I hope every day they regret not taking me up on my completely serious offer to edit the series for them by replacing Gregg with gently wobbling aspic jelly salads and the sound the teacher makes in The Peanuts.
And clearly, The BBC have learned so much from The Gregg Wallacing and The Wynne Evansing…

bring me the tent and the bolt gun, pals. I have a broadcasting corporation to put down and turn to glue. (Thomas “grilling sausages with JD Vance” Skinner will not be appearing in any of my Strictly content)

ANYWAY. The final chef is Sam, who was making a Thai Slow-cooked Pork Shoulder dish

it’s a very simple but very effective dish and I have to admire his confidence in a relatively simple dish when it’s stood next to Trevor’s sausage casserole in a tuxedo and Aileen’s list of ingredients as decided by the Strictly Come Dancing ballpit of blindfolded ferrets.

A Basic to Brilliant Dish Ranking:
1. Carrying The World Upon His Pork Shoulders
2. Sausages in Cravats
3. The Rice Colosseum
4. Hazel’s Bean Swamp
5. Aileen’s Compulsing Listicle of Elements

With the two of the having the only “faultless” dishes it was a pretty cut and dry decision that Trevor and Sam got the first two aprons

KISS!

Boxed In

This episode’s Mystery Box ingredients were Tinned Sweetcorn, Spam and Tinned Pineapple – a set of ingredients singing a siren song to just crash your MasterChef journey upon the jagged rocks of just frying an egg and serving it with fried spam, grilled pineapple and some hastily made chips that definitely wouldn’t be cooked in the time

all of the contestants managed to avoid that fate, however Aileen changed course and promptly got trapped in a whirlpool because from ALL of these ingredients to use for a Sweet and Sour Pork

she grabbed a fistful of raspberries and some wild mushrooms

personally I love a woman who refuses to learn a lesson and just repeatedly walks into the same glass door that says “pull” on it. Aileen, *I* think you’re perfect.

Marcella was attempting to use all three ingredients – the Ham and Sweetcorn Pie being perfectly fine but the Braised Cabbage and Pineapple atop Buttery Mash very much being a brainfart too far

and then we have Hazel who the judges were confident would be really good at this challenge on the grounds that all three of these ingredients are in tins and she cooked cannellini beans from a tin in the last round. Ignore the fact she’s facing possible elimination because of it, they’re trying to force her into a pigeonhole labelled “Mumsy Food Hacker” and Hazel is powerless against it

Sometimes a woman is 4 tins in a trench coat.

Hazel’s resulting take on a Donburi was probably the best dish of this particular round though purely on the grounds it makes sense as a fairly cohesive whole and isn’t hiding a raspberry anywhere

it was a low bar but she cleared it!

A Mystery Box Dish Ranking:
1. Hazel, Queens of Cans
2. Marcella’s Pie-napple
3. Aileen’s Sweet and Raspberry Pork

There was zero tension as to how this was ending – I imagine it was probably more of a toss up between Marcella and The Missing Chef, who was ultimately also eliminated at this point alongside Aileen

I’ll miss the incredibly tight close-ups most of all.

A Two Course Race

For this deciding match, the contestants were cooking for King of my Heart, Larkin <3 <3 <3, The Queen That Robbed Him: Natalie Coleman and Smugness in an Ill-fitting Button-down: Tim Anderson

and in the theme of Not Learning a Lesson (The BBC is on the verge of announcing Tom Kitchin and The Two Bone Broth Sisters as the new hosts of this show) Marcella was continuing to serve very fruity cabbage with mashed potato like Gretchen Weiners trying to make “Fetch” happen

GIRL, LET IT GO. Most of her dish did sound really nice and I know she probably added the mashed potato for a bit of moisture but a nice flatbread and a yogurt dressing probably would’ve gone a long way to fixing the issues that the diners had with her dish. However, her dessert of a Lemon Basil Posset that had been stabbed with a Pistachio Brittle and left to bleed out like Batman’s parents after the opera, was much more successful

granted everyone complained about it being far too sweet and not tasting strongly enough of basil – all of which was largely delivered in a tone indicating “Thank God!”

Hazel and Marcella ended up with quite similar menus with Hazel managing to wriggle out of building up a reputation of being The One That Likes Tins™ with her Moroccan-spiced Rack of Lamb with a Parsnip Puree, a Fig Red Wine Sauce and a conspicuous lack of cabbage

given that racks of lamb are quite often a death sentence when you’re given anything less than 90 minutes to cook them, she did astonishingly well by them with this being a strong contender for Dish of the Day.
She was following this up with a Cardamom Creme Bruleé

it was a little looser in texture than it should have been, but filled the most important aspect of a dessert: wanting it to be served in a bucket

although Natalie may have just been demanding buckets of custard because she was fighting a clearly losing battle against Sam’s food

she had developed a very pronounced lisp by the time she was done with his Thai Beef Salad and Ground Rice Dressing

it does look and sound incredible but also like something the waiter at a Thai restaurant would ask “Are you sure?” if I ordered it and I’d spend the next 20 minutes asking for tap water refills. I still sometimes experience the phantom pain of the Som Tum Pou I ordered. I DIDN’T SEE THE THREE RED CHILLI MARKERS ON THE MENU. I WAS SO NAIVE.

Sam’s main course was a Chicken Khao Soi which he was even making his own noodles for

the diners were all incredibly impressed by it – or at least I think they were, Natalie by this point was ripping the doors off fridges looking for that fabled bucket of custard, thankfully Trevor was making something of a Schrodinger’s Panna Cotta for her to dull the pain

it was meant to be flavoured with Lemongrass and Ginger. And sometimes it tasted of lemongrass but no ginger

and sometimes it tasted of ginger but no lemongrass

but it at least had the necessary wobble a panna cotta needed and Tim Anderson was very fond of the Nature Valley Bar confetti on the side

sir, that’s just a crushed up Digestive bisuit, calm down.

Trevor’s main course was definitely his strongest dish, and so it should’ve been, it was Venison!

the only real complaint he got was from Natalie who had a marginally undercooked fondant potato – but it certainly wasn’t enough to really knock the dish all that much.

A Two Course Menu Dish Ranking:
1. Sam vs Natalie: ROUND 2! FIIIIIIGHT!
2. She’s Breaking Out of Her Cans And She’s Doing Just Lamb
3. Sam vs Natalie: ROUND 1! FIIIIIGHT!
4. Are You Winning, Veni-son?
5. A Bucketful of Creme Brulee for the table, please.
6. The Martha Wayne Posset
7. Schrodinger’s Panna Cotta
8. Stop Trying To Make Fruity Cabbage and Mash Happen

Given that the show seems to have already set up storylines for Hazel gets Her Groove Back, Trevor Discovers Fine Dining and Sam Doing Thai Dishes We Haven’t Seen Before – I was not surprised to see Marcella eliminated ahead of the quarterfinal

She came. She fruited and cabbaged. She left.