He’s my favourite bassoon playing octopus.

What’s wrong babe? You’ve hardly touched your Chicken Freakshake?

Basic to Brilliant

If you heard the battle cry of the Eumenides at approximately 20:05 last night, there is no need to panic, Erebus is not rising to consume the world into darkness just yet. It was only me when Paddy the Bassoonist revealed that his basic ingredient was 00 Flour

of course it was being made into a pasta and I’m sure you could really tell that his spinach and ricotta stuffed ravioli were made with that 00 flour… However, I do think that the more important aspect of his dish was probably the promised Mountain of Parmesan

and I think I might have to forgive Bassoon Boy for the 00 Flour because I am absolutely obsessed with this Great Pyramid of Cheese’a 🤌

the ravioli? Great. Fine. Whatever. I am the Howard Vyse to this parmesan tomb – I simple want to understand it, to explore its internal structure and unlock the secrets of the Ancient Egyptian Ravioli society. As it turns out, the ancient curse lurking within is that the orange zested creme fraiche filling tasted more like a cheesecake than an accompaniment to a pasta dish

don’t worry Paddy, I still love you, you bassoon playing goober.

Paddy probably could’ve just said the Spinach was his basic ingredient but that would’ve meant he was in direct competition with living saint, Fareeda, who was in fact using Spinach as her basic ingredients

and you could certainly tell it was a Spinach curry more visibly from space than whichever man-made wonder of the world Paddy next renders out of Italian cheese

she absolutely nailed this challenge – between the curried spinach sauce and the spinach pakora she’d more than showcased and elevated spinach. She was in good company on the curry front with Kayleigh’s Triple Carrot Katsu (also an ice skating move)

The remaining two contestants, Francesca and Keith, both opted for desserts. The latter of the two opting to use Nuts In General as his basic ingredient because if it all went tits up, he could just serve them a bowl of mixed nuts

he didn’t have to resort to Plan B though but he did throw a fistful of the spiced pistachios that you end up eating too many of on Christmas Day and ruining your appetite before dinner on the side of Chocolate Ganache Tart

I just really love how homemade that tart looks – nothing about it is even, you can could tell me he made that on Saturday afternoon with help from a 5 year old and I’d believe you. Which is NICE.

As for Francesca, she was making a Lemon Meringue Pie except because Francesca is barely able to keep herself together

it was of course a deconstructed Lemon Meringue Pie

the thing with a deconstructed plate of food (other than STOP DOING IT IMMEDIATELY) is that you’ve still got to have the correct proportions and that ungenerous smear of lemon curd is absolutely not cutting it. LOCK HER IN THE FRIDGE ALCOVE

strong cryptid energy from this one.

A Basic to Brilliant Dish Ranking:
1. Popeye’s Favourite Curry
2. Kayleigh’s Triple Carrot Katsu
3. Paddy’s Ancient Egyptian Ravioli
4. Keith’s Homemade Tart
5. Francesca’s Undone Lemon Meringue Pie

With a pair of perfect dishes, it was no surprise that Kareeda and Kayleigh were the ones getting their aprons

Miss Terry & Mister E

For their Mystery Box Ingredients, the contestants were handed Almonds, Cherries, Vanilla and a great big neon sign reading “MAKE A FECKING DESSERT”

however, Keith twirled his moustache like a cartoon villain

before running to that table of extra ingredients and grabbing a duck breast

with the other two instantly caving to peer pressure and deciding they too would go with poultry so not a single dessert was seen this round. Unless you count the cherry milkshake that Francesca had dumped over her duck breast

I had to stop and breathe into a paper bag during the scene where Gregg found out that to make her what-was-VERY-generously-being-called-a-Foam involved her just dumping milk into her cherry sauce and shoving an immersion blender in it for a bit while she prayed to whichever ancient deity would listen

her prayers may have fallen on deaf ears, however I do think her serving up a milkshake covered chicken breast to Gregg Wallace is one of the most powerful displays of feminist solidarity I’ve ever seen

nothing but respect for my Woman of the Year.

The other two had more successful dishes – Keith’s was a relatively normal Duck and Chips with a cherry sauce that they very politely ignored the quacking sound the duck was still making

and Paddy was sort of jazz fluting his was through a duck recipe

and like every jazz composition, it really needed more cowbell chilli

I have to assume he spooned some of that out because John Torode wasn’t vaporised on the spot but I still refuse to believe his Frube Couscous and Duck was as delicious as they made out it was

but it was one hell of a grading curve – to get through to the next round you just had to serve up something that didn’t taste like an American diner waitress called Doris had dropped your order of Fried Chicken and a Shake on the floor.

A Mystery Box Dish Ranking:
1. Keith On Account Of Making Real Food
2. Paddy’s Improvised Explosive Duck
3. Francesca’s Horrible Freakshake

She burnt brighter than any star in the heavens, but it was a perfectly reasonable decision to send Francesca home

if only she’d grabbed the ham, because we know a milkshake works well on a gammon.

A Two Course Race

This week the boys were back in town as this batch of quarterfinal hopefuls were cooking for the 2010 finalists: Tim Kinnaird, Alex Rushmer and Dhruv Baker’s slightly panicked look to camera every time someone put something spicy down in front of him

this was the start of Fareeda’s menu which was based all around The Sisterhood of the Travelling Spice Rack

and if she doesn’t win purely for the saleability of her culinary scrapbook of global mercenarism I will eat my hat

And if I’m wrong, it’s the world’s loss because her Turkish Meze starter sounded incredible

in the nicest way possible, that gnarled tangle of spiced carrots looks like something you’d put on your porch to tell the neighbourhood kids that you are indeed partaking in Halloween this year – it’s very… homely witch-core. I really love her style and deeply appreciate food that isn’t manicured into an inch of its life like a topiary peacock. Like her main course of Aubergine Stew is not a pretty plate of food by any metric

but there’s something about it that just looks inherently delicious. I think she’s a phenomenal cook and has a point of view and persona that could go really far in the culinary scene.

Kayleigh’s menu got off to a really good start with her Jolly Green Cod of a starter that was laced with every herb she could legally use

but while she was busy subjecting her pommes puree to herbaceous gamma radiation, she’d unfortunately run out of time to really get started on her dessert which rapidly became a deconstructed lemon tart leaving Francesca to watch at home like that outraged taxidermied cat

I’m intrigued to know what this was meant to look like and how she was originally going to serve it. But despite it being an IKEA flatpack tart, everyone was really happy with the flavours. Sadly, despite the shots of rum pooling around his plate, the same graces could not be said for Keith who at some point had just given up on trying to chop his own pineapple into salsa-sized cubes so everyone just got a pile of chunks next to his panna cotta

however the bigger problem was that the texture of said panna cotta was being compared to mozzarella

proving once and for all that you should probably never trust a baby for culinary advice

there had been less generational interference with his main course of Venison Loin with a Stilton and Broccoli Puree, Carrots and a single lonely Hasselback Potato

the important thing was that he’d cooked the venison perfectly and while his sauce needed a fraction more reduction, it had a very good depth of flavour. But the stilton was quite overpowering and his carrots were undercooked.

Lastly we have Paddy who was starting with what must feel like the 15,000th risotto to John so in order to feel something he’s started just describing it as Rice Porridge

Paddy had run a pistachio pesto through it and topped it with breaded prawns. The pistachio pesto was a bit strong and an overpowering presence in the dish but ultimately the consensus seemed to be that it was a good thing and at least his prawns were well cooked and the crunch of the breaded coating had held up. However, it was his dessert where Paddy truly shone. You’d be hard-pressed to find a better executed chocolate fondant anywhere even if the plating could’ve been made a little more elegant

and he’d changed it up a little bit with the addition of the Ancho Chili for a smoky hit and the flamed tequila, which the diners couldn’t really detect but the judges enjoyed.

A Two Course Menu Dish Ranking:
1. Fareeda’s Witch Carrots
2. One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila, FIRE!
3. Kayleigh’s Hulked Out Cod
4. Fareeda’s Anti-topiary Stew
5. Paddy’s Italian Rice Porridge
6. Keith’s Single and Ready To Mingle Hasselback Potato
7. Kayleigh’s Flatpack Tart
8. Keith’s Generationally Traumatised Panna Cotta

Kayleigh was in a little danger on account of not fully completing her menu as imagined, however it was unarguable that Keith’s Panna Cotta was the bigger misfire, so he was just missing out on the quarterfinal

and that’s why we don’t trust children.