Whenever Henry’s not on screen all the other contestants should be asking “Where’s Henry?”

The salt is for decorative purposes only.

Basic to Brilliant

Well, I came into this episode ready to celebrate the end of the Basic to Brilliant challenge only for the next quarterfinal to reveal THERE’S ANOTHER WEEK OF IT! WHY DO WE HAVE 5 QUARTERFINALS? It never ends, my basic ingredient is a boulder and I am Sisyphus. At least everyone was cooking with basic ingredients and nobody was smuggling in lobster under the guise of a tomato. Instead the most expensive thing in the room was the risk of having to license Pink Pony Club if Henry played a cover of it on the breadknife

and to be fair, I think he earned it with his striped Cappelletti with Spinach and Ricotta filling

I personally wouldn’t have done a tomato sauce with it and rather done some sort of infused oil dressing. I think the redness of the sauce diminishes the impact of the striped pasta. But, the striped pasta alone is a pretty big flex to whip out in the first round and I was kind of surprised he managed to keep his cool as well as he did considering the fact he looks like an anxious potoo doing everything in its power not to be seen

I fear that I love him. I will stand by Sausage-fingers Trevor and Big Sweaty Darren until my dying breath but I am powerless to a man that looks like a bird riddled with social anxiety.

Henry wasn’t the only one doing novelty pasta though as Gabi was hot on his halluces with her Mushroom Tortellini in a Mushroom Consommé

I don’t know if it’s the most appetising looking plate of food – it looks like the discarded teabags sitting in the sink as you all play a game of chicken to see who does something about them but I do appreciate the extra effort into making a different kind of pasta dough even if it does really accentuate how much tortellini looks like the ears of woodland fey folk.

While Gabi and the nightjar popping propranolol like Smarties battled over Pasta, the two default setting dads in the room, Michael and Dan, were both cooking chicken. Although Michael’s basic ingredient was bell peppers with which he was making Jollof Rice and Efo – a Nigerian spinach and pepper stew which he served alongside a chicken thigh and crispy chicken skin

the skin of the chicken hadn’t crisped up quite enough and while the food was very tasty, it hadn’t packed the punch that the judges had anticipated, which Michael agreed with so I can only assume he over regulated his deployment of the Scotch Bonnets.
Dan’s dish was Tarragon and Marsala Chicken with Mashed Potato and a pair of carrots that he’d whittled into a pair of shivs that would’ve made him the king of Belmarsh

although, he will have to battle Gabi who wields a piping bag with the deadly ferocity of Michelangelo the Ninja Turtle

they were going to get those aprons by whatever means necessary, so now Henry has even more reasons to be anxious. Luckily domesticated chickens are capable of unihemispheric slow-wave sleep and can literally sleep with one eye open.

Lastly we have Anjeza who definitely had the dish of the day with her Albanian dish of Sea Bass and Beans

it’s a deceptively simple looking dish but just the combination of the beans, anchovies and Iberico ham sounds really, really tasty. I also just really liked Anjeza from the moment they did her intro and I briefly thought they were saying she was a money launderer because there was a definitely pause in this sentence

can she call up a buddy in the insurance fraud investigation department, I have suspicions about Dan

it’s just a bit of community supported arson!

A Basic to Brilliant Dish Ranking:
1. Anjeza’s Magic Beans
2. Henry’s Pasta, Striped for Your Pleasure
3. Gabi’s Bowl of Teabags
4. Michael’s Joll-ish Rice
5. Dan’s Stabby Carrots

Anjeza delivered on flavour and Henry delivered on effort so I wasn’t surprised to see the two of them getting the first two aprons

but it could easily have pushed through Gabi as a third wheel on this couch.

The Madness and the Mystery Box

This episode’s Mystery Box ingredients were Poussin, Bell Peppers and Apples

I was surprised that all three of the contestants went with the poussin because nothing on this earth could’ve made me try to cook it in only 45 minutes. Even more surprising was that there was only one instance of raw chicken

but the breast meat that Michael had served was at least cooked, which is a good thing because it was 80% of his dish having only been accompanied by a smear of mashed potato

the fact it is only two things on a plate is kind of forgivable given that Michael had thought he was meant to be cooking two courses in the 45 minutes

I do think it was for the best that he ended up going home because there was a real chance of a self-inflicted aneurysm if they let him continue and potentially try to cook a 5 course tasting menu in the next round by accident. But he can at least go home knowing that he has the best novelty career of the series as Uncredited Gorilla Number 15

you join the lofty heights of Mayonnaise Heiress, Fire-breathing Pigman and that woman on Pointless who claimed playing Farmville was a career.

As for Gabi and Dan, the only real jeopardy they faced is that Gabi burnt her crispy chicken skin

and Dan was doing potentially odd things with capers

ultimately they really did love Dan’s risotto and thought the capers were a good addition to the plate of food even if heating them in the saucepan with the asparagus was not strictly necessary

and they liked Gabi’s Chicken and Mash even if it wasn’t a complete plate of food

she didn’t even have the excuse of thinking she was having to make a cake as well.

A Mystery Box Dish Ranking:
1. Dan’s Great Caper Caper
2. Gabi’s Four Fifths of a Meal
3. It’s Really Nice If You Eat Around The Salmonella

serving raw food is never going to end well for someone on this show, so it was goodbye to Michael

does this make him my rival? Are we enemies? Must I destroy him?

A Two Course Race

This episode’s special guest diners were previous champions: Simon Wood and Saliha Mahmood Ahmed as well as the 2015 finalists Tony Rodd and Tony Rodd’s Statement Moustache

Tony is also another former MasterChef contestant I would happily put forward as a potential host of the next series, if only because I want to see the full extent of his glasses collection – a single annual appearance doesn’t do him justice.

First up in this round was Henry who was starting with a Prawn and Tamarind Curry served with rice and a slightly unusual take on a sambal made up of Samphire, Coconut and Mango

the sambal proved a hit despite everyone’s hesitation about that particular combination of ingredients and he’d also cooked the prawns perfectly.
The dessert is where Henry loses me slightly because there’s only so many nice things you can say about half a stone fruit and some mascarpone

the combination of a roasted nectarine with cardamom-spiced mascarpone sounds delicious – I can’t knock his conceptualisation but to me this shows no technical process and I was SHOCKED that nobody questioned this but somehow Anjeza making meatballs, brown butter and a yoghurt sauce was “not enough cookery technique”

HENRY WATCHED A NECTARINE BAKE FOR 15 MINUTES WHILE HE LIGHTLY STIRRED SOME MASCARPONE! And you didn’t even get a whole nectarine at the end of it!

I didn’t think they had to go so hard on Anjeza’s main course, which to me sounded really delicious because the fact her Coffee Creme Brulee hadn’t set was probably grounds enough for elimination based on the curve of everyone else’s successes

it was so unfortunate because it sounded like a really lovely dessert with the combination of the espresso custard and black sesame crumb along the top.

On the other end of the amount of processes spectrum was Dan with his main course of pan-fried sea bass with buttered samphire, a fondant potato, pea puree, roasted courgettes and a beurre blanc

it’s a really lovely fresh looking plate of food – the courgettes could possibly have been more interesting but the only real problem was that his Beurre Blanc was very thin and vinegary. That wasn’t the end of his problems though as the chantilly cream he was meant to serve with his Chocolate Fondant had split

so he ended up serving it with just some pouring cream and a questionable deployment of cornflower petals

but a chocolate fondant hinges entirely on that all important gooey middle, so important in fact that they played the clip of Dan talking about how important it is twice in 30 seconds

really doing a seamless job in the editing room, lads. Thankfully Dan’s fondant did have the runny middle or that clip would’ve been even more egregious

the general consensus was that it was too rich – which I understand being an issue when you’ve had to sample 8 plates of food and you know a the Birth of Venus rendered in cheese and potato is just around the corner, but in combination with Dan’s very light main course, I think he gets away with it.

Lastly we have Gabi who was starting her menu off with Coquilles St Jacques lightly perched on a bed of rock salt that she’d caught Gregg licking like a sodium-deficient barnyard animal, so had to make sure Simon didn’t do the same

her cooking of the scallop was perfect. However, there was a little bit of debate about her cheese to mashed potato quantities. In fact, Gabi’s quantities were a bit questionable across her menu as she piled so much pea puree onto her Rack of Lamb main course that it threatened to become a pea stew

although the cookery of the lamb was perfect which she deserved a lot of praise for because again, a lamb rack in this particular round is a real risk.

A Two Course Menu Dish Ranking:
1. Henry’s Curry and Remixed Sambal
2. Gabi’s Pea Stew and Lamb
3. JUSTICE FOR ANJEZA’S MEATBALLS
4. Chocolate Fondant² – Chantilly Cream = X
5. The Birth of Cheese and Potatoes
6. Dan’s C+ Bass
7. It’s Half a Nectarine, Babe
8. Anjeza’s Espresso is Thicker Than Water

I was really sad with the outcome of this episode – I loved what Anjeza was doing and really appreciated her point of view and approach to food. I get excited when someone is cooking things we’ve never seen before and I was looking forward to seeing what else she could’ve done. But ALAS, it’s goodbye to her

I’ll die on a hill for your meatballs.