A new supreme rises.

This recap is worth one (1) duck breast worth of effort.

Basic Batches

One thing I am very hopeful for is that a pair of new hosts (I’m still manifesting Andi Oliver and Matt Tebbutt but will also accept any combination of the Dolmio puppets) bring with them is a new format because I need this round to die a death. I feel like I’m endlessly screaming “That’s not a basic ingredient!” into a void because, in my mind at least, there’s a distinct different between a basic *ingredient* and a store cupboard staple – Rice is on thin ice but the more egregious take on this was Hannah championing sugar

especially when she could’ve just said apple, her basic ingredient was apple – she made a Spiced Apple Cake, the basic ingredient was APPLE

the complete erasure of the apples’ contribution to the dessert aside, it was very good and I would order this on a menu without hesitation. (At the risk of sounding like I’m a shill for the British Apple Advisory Association, I am begging restaurants to explore other apple-based options beyond a crumble. They exist.)

There was a lot of pasta happening this episode and I think I’ve reached saturation point, I struggle to be impressed by pasta making anymore, everyone has to find a new skill to scrape up easy brownie points for. Might I suggest knife juggling? The first member of the three way pasta pile-up is Elisha and the basic ingredient of his pasta dish is

excuse me while I go and scream into a hole like Florence Welch

if she doesn’t get the guest slot on Strictly’s Halloween Week with a spooky peripheral pro dance happening around her, I will buy one of those rent-a-witch curses off of Etsy

I would do it myself but have you tried finding the blood of a goat in this economy?

Elisha had made a Ricotta, Egg Yolk and Spinach Raviolo as well as a mushroom fricassé and Parsnip Chips

his pasta making was very good and the egg yolk was still soft and runny so there’s nothing wrong with his processes and technique, which were honestly maybe the best of this particular round. The problem is it’s not really a real plate of food, it’s just a sort of amalgamated buffet of things the MasterChef judges might like to see. Which has a logic to it but there’s a better way to marry it together than what ended up being two starters in a trench coat.

The winner of the Pasta skirmish was Sophie’s vegan mushroom tortellini with a mushroom and cashew puree and white wine foam which is just Elisha’s starter conglomeration but an actual plate of food

it’s really good and presented beautifully – it has a real autumnal feel to it. It would probably have been the most “foraged” looking plate of food on show but then Yen served low tide in Whitby Harbour

as someone who loves crab, I was most intrigued by Yen’s dish, especially the Crab Custard which sounded like it was the best part of her dish because unfortunately the broth for her noodles was on the subtle side. I’m mostly just confused by the completely unnecessary pork and prawn spring roll

I’m beginning to doubt if I ever knew what a spring roll is because this isn’t spring rolling to me? That’s just trying to make your leftover takeaway seem healthier by wrapping it in an iceberg lettuce leaf.

Back to our regularly scheduled pasta battle content, we have my new favourite contestant of all time, Gabriele. Why is he my favourite? It’s more to do with the next round, but also his beautiful wife dresses him up like the squeaky toy penguin from Toy Story and makes him cook for her

and she never compliments him

this is a potential Mother.

He was championing Mussels which he was filling his tortelli with and serving them in a Cannellini Bean Broth with confit tomatoes, broccoli and more mussels

it’s a very… pallid dish but I also think Gabriele might be one of the Volturi form Twilight so that tracks. Unfortunately the pasta was too thick and undercooked which is pretty devastating to an Italian man cooking his nonna’s recipe

that clip of Gabriele’s smile faltering is already my Gif of the Year. I think he’s perfect.

Lastly we have Mark who was championing Rice

Mark is a sweetheart, he can do what he wants. The man wants to start a cookery club for fellow widowers – he might want to *go* to a cookery club for fellow widowers given his chicken and prawns were very undercooked

those prawns hadn’t been anywhere near above room temperature, sir! But the actual rice of his Nasi Goreng was good

just eat around the ambiently cooked prawns.

A Basic to Brilliant Dish Ranking:
1. Sophie Wins The Pasta Wars
2. JUST SAY “APPLES”, HANNAH!
3. Two Starters, One Plate
4. Low Tide at Whitby Harbour
5. Gabriele’s Vampiric Pasta
6. Mark’s Cursed Tome of Family Recipes

The first pair to get their aprons were Sophie and Hannah

I was hoping Elisha would pull through over Hannah, but I am also relieved she got one because there was only so much of the frilly tradwife one I could take

between this one and Penelope’s incredibly niche slogan apron from the first episode, I might have to do a full apron ranking post.

All Boxed Up

This heat’s Mystery Box Ingredients were Chocolate, Coffee and Plums

a trio of ingredients clearly trying to bait everyone into making a dessert, which for the most part worked. Gabriele was immune to the call of the pastry section because while Mark contemplated seppuku with a bread knife

Gabriele was locked in with the focus of a sleeper agent whose activation phrase had just been uttered

he had one mission and that was to spend the next 45 minutes pan-frying a single adequately cooked duck breast

the offense in his voice when they asked if he was going to cook anything other than a duck breast and a plum sauce <3 <3 <3

the disasters on MasterChef are fun and I enjoy watching them unfold, but I truly think Gabriele’s singular duck breast and plum sauce touches the sublime. It was arguably the best showcase of technical skill this round but… IT’S ONE DUCK BREAST, YOU SILLY LITTLE GOOSE!

On the completely opposite end of the spectrum, you have Mark just throwing things into a cauldron and hoping he can call it a posset by the end of it

of all the flavour combinations available to him, for some reason Mark was possessed to combine Coffee and Lemon which tastes like the second stage of grief and we’re certainly not popping into the 90 year old family recipe book, are we? It’s seen war, but the Horrible Posset might be too far

if nothing else, I do at least enjoy that Mark plated his abominable posset of unaddressed anger like a novelty children’s breakfast in a motorway cafe that’s meant to look like a clown

that perfectly placed raspberry is the sign of a man that knows he’s cooked. I salute you Mark. You went down with your ship like only the best captains do.

Mark wasn’t the only making faces with their dessert, Elisha’s deconstructed cheesecakes looked like a muppet had just seen a dang fine broad and was doing the “AWOOGA!” Tex Avery eyes

in the grand scheme of deconstructed cheesecakes, this is one the better ones – it’s not even that deconstructed to be honest, I think the only reason he didn’t go for a proper one was because he was worried about setting times, which is fair given you’ve only got 45 minutes. Which, and I cannot stress this enough, is more time than one needs to cook a single duck breast

He’s already in the Top 10 MasterChef Contestants I’d Want To Cook Me Dinner. He might suck my blood and steal a liver afterwards but that’s a risk I’ll have to take.

Lastly we have Yen who was attempting to make a coffee and chocolate mille feuille and did end up doing remarkably well considering she was winging it – I’m not sure if she made her own pastry, I somehow doubt it, but I want to believe she did because that makes Gabriele’s lone duck breast much funnier

the only real problem is that it was too bitter but she had made a creme diplomat and a chocolate ganache which are worth at least 1 and a half duck breasts in the MasterChef Units of Effort Scale.

A Mystery Box Dish Ranking:
1. Elisha’s Horny Muppet Cheesecake
2. Yen By Virtue Of Cooking An Actual Dish
3. One Duck Breast To Go, Please
4. Mark’s Horrible Posset Clown

Mark’s clown-faced flag of surrender was a success and he was liberated from the MasterChef experience he wanted to escape the moment he looked across the room and saw Yen making crab meat into custard

I salute you, King!

The second contestants to leave was unfortunately Gabriele

I fully understand, IT WAS ONE DUCK BREAST, but he was special *to me*. And I know they say “if you love them you should let them go.” So fly free Gabriele, wear your silly little chef outfit and soar! I’ll never forget you!

A Two Course Race

Most of this week’s guest judges were from the 2021 series, which is the first one I recapped and despite that I appear to have Mandela’d myself into believing that Alexina was the winner of that series but it was in fact Tom

Kenny Tutt is here as Generic Man No.2 in place of Generic Man No.1, Mike, who came a decidedly third place to Tom and Alexina.

First up to the pass was Sophie who was starting with a Baby Leek and Chamomile Tarte Tatin. Despite everyone’s trepidation over the use of chamomile, the most troublesome aspect still proved to be the pronunciation of “Tarte Tatin” – it’s a real dice roll as to where the emphasis ends up

the chamomile did end up really working for everyone and it was a very strong start for Sophie, who would only continue her successes with her Pulled Mushroom and Aubergine Stew on a bed of Whipped Tahini

this looks and sounds incredible – MasterChef has long been looking for a vegan or vegetarian chef to crown as Champion and Sophie strikes me as being of a level of skill and creativity that she could easily take it this year. On the subject of creativity, Yen was painting with all the colours of the wind for her fusion menu starting with Mushroom Spring Rolls covered in Truffle Honey and served with a Blue Cheese Dipping Sauce

I’m just relieved that I do actually know what spring rolls look like and I’m not going insane. The dish as a whole however is like eating that box puzzle challenge that made no sense in the first episode of Destination X

I don’t think anything so thoroughly destroyed this show’s chances of endearing itself to the general public than THIS being considered a clue

THAT’S JUST A MODERATELY FASHIONABLE GIRL IN A CUTE CO-ORD! If you want it to be a proper clue have her strut across like My Fair Beetlejuice

I inch ever closer to creating that three hour deepdive into Destination X. I need to fully expunge my thoughts of it from my body, they are a toxin.

Nobody really got on with Yen’s Spring Roll and everyone was equally confused by her Pho-spiced Risotto

the general consensus being that pho spices just don’t get along with dairy. I just want to know if I’m being uncultured by wondering when risotto and steak became such a thing? I don’t deny that it works and I’m relieved Big Men finally have something other than quintuply cooked chips (or however many stages Tom Kerridge has added now) but it’s just become a very pronounced trend and I hadn’t really noticed before.

I did also think Hannah was on to a brainfart with the liberal amount of pickled pineapple she’d topped her curry-poached cod with

but everyone really loved it – I just can’t get my head around pineapple with savoury things, it’s one of my real big food icks.
It was overall a very good showing for Hannah, who ended her menu with a deconstructed cheesecake (Can I use the Florence screaming meme three times in 1 recap?)

I might have been more readily accepting of it if we hadn’t seen one already – but it was good. I warmed up to Hannah a lot in this challenge, she’s much more relatable when she’s walking around like a zombie instead of doing TikTok tradwife cosplay

this is the vulnerability the judges are looking for!

Lastly we have Elisha who was starting his menu off with a Sweet Potato Chaat and a batch of Papri

this sounded delicious – I love a chaat and I was just pleased that Elisha was doing well, not to doom him or anything but I shall tentatively declare him a Blog Fav whomst I shall be way too invested in.
Elisha was continuing his self-proclaimed tour of India with a main course of a Keralan Pepper Chicken Fry

which again, everyone was full of praise for.

A Two Course Menu Dish Ranking:
1. Get Your Coat, You’ve Pulled Mushrooms
2. We Need to Chaat
3. Sophie’s TAHTAHTAHN
4. My Pickled Pineapple Trust Fall
5. Elish’s Currying Favour
6. Hannah’s Deconstructed Will To Live
7. I Believe The Risotto Is Pointing Us To Turin
8. Yen’s Spring Trolling

With Elisha, Sophie and Hannah all barely getting any negative feedback and Yen’s food leaving everyone debating whether they were going to Pisa or San Marino (My Queen Judith was IN THE TRENCHES that episode) it wasn’t any surprise that Yen was going home

but she doesn’t really lose, she gets to go home to the Mondrian painting that she married

she’ll be just fine.