I for one fully support Leyla Kazim’s ascent to YA Novel villainhood.

Bean There, Done That

For the last of the Quarterfinals, the contestants were set a brief by Leyla Kazim who wanted them to showcase the humble bean – none of those officious lentils

this was of course a challenge that Molly was feeling confident in, a little too confident in

unsurprisingly she uses a lot of beans in her day-to-day cooking and so she was cooking her husband’s favourite midweek meal, so this is all his fault actually

and whomst among us could’ve seen the critique that the bowl of midweek beany miscellania would feel like you were eating a bowl of midweek beany miscellania

it was a fine bowl of food but again with Molly, this is something I lived off as a Uni student that had a terrible relationship with food and hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep in 3 years. I don’t get joy from her food, it feels like something you eat in the artisanal vegan café purely to feel slightly smug that you’re eating in the artisanal vegan café and not because you want to be in the artisanal vegan cafe

is this my trauma? I need to unpack a lot of things about beans and cauliflower apparently. I do think the show in part killed Molly’s chances and appeal by really slamming her into that ~nutritionist~ pigeonhole by asking her leading questions

keep your antioxidants and superfoods out of my MasterChef. I simply do not care.

While Molly worked through my university food trauma, Paddy was reclaiming Old El Paso meal kits once and for all

and out of everyone, Paddy probably had the best showcase of beans purely because his entire plate of food was made out beans – it was nothing but beans as far as they could see

it was an extremely successful dish with all three of the judges really loving it (we’ll see what their families think in about 2 hours when the Bean Toots hit) which was a bit of a surprise because Paddy spent the entire time mumbling to himself about how bad the tortilla making was going

they’re just rustic studenty

which means their tired, falling apart at the seams and up to their eyeballs in debt.

The biggest hurdle in this particular challenge was creating a dish that centred the beans without them becoming more of an accompaniment. Gabriel wasn’t entirely successful in this as his Feijoada, the national dish of Brazil, was kind of a pork dish first and a bean dish second

however, it was an extremely well cooked plate of food and given we don’t really get South American food cooked all that often and truly authentically on the show, Gabriel feels like a real asset to the line-up this year so I’m happy to forgive this dish for walking in trotters-fist. I could also just watch Gabriel having religious experiences every time he tastes his own food all day

meanwhile Olivia Whomst Is Italian, was just hoping for divine intervention

she had a really interesting angle, choosing to make gnocchi from cannellini beans while simultaneously forcing the BBC to issue a broadcast statement about Cacio e Pepe at gunpoint

and the result of this simple 3 ingredient blackmail was a really beautifully cooked plate of food, which is honestly not that surprising from Olivia now that she’s stopped cooking as though she has a grudge with the entire format

it was so good in fact that Leyla wanted the recipe

just make sure to get it first-hand from Olivia, the BBC might add some errantly spine chilling cream

Italy gave us 12 points in Eurovision and we took EVERYTHING from them.

Saint Fareeda and Kayleigh both opted for a meze-like approach of lots of little bits and pieces, which seems to be how Fareeda prefers to cook. Unfortunately she’d given herself just that little bit too much to do bewteen the hummus, the broad bean falafels, the lamb chops, the additional chickpeas and the bread

the lamb chops seemed completely unnecessary and were definitely the weakest part considering how underdone they were

and if she’d just nixed them, she could’ve concentrated on the Egyptian Falafels a little more and it still would’ve felt like a complete plate of food. The judges were really trying to softball the critique too and you can tell they were trying to machinate a potential save for Fareeda but Paddy, Olivia and Gabriel all just did too well.

The judges however had no qualms in going for the jugular over Kayleigh’s glorified buffet pickings

her falafel wrapped scotch egg was at least successful but that and the hummus weren’t really enough to sell this artistic rendering of the Black Duck from Courage the Cowardly Dog as a bean dish

Quack! Quack!

A Bean Dish Ranking:
1. Paddy’s BSc Quesadilla
2. Olivia’s Diplomatic Cacio e Pepe Mission
3. COME TO BRAZIL!
4. Kayleigh’s Duck Sculpture
5. A Midweek Bowl of Beans
6. The Martyrship of Saint Fareeda

For the pure underwhelmingness of their showcase of beans, it was a very swift drawing of the curtains for Molly and Kayleigh

and really there was no way they could wangle Fareeda over the other three so unfortunately, despite the fact I think she could’ve been a very worthy winner, Fareeda’s MasterChef journey ends as a quarterfinalist

while Gabriel forces Olivia and Paddy to samba into Knockout Week

God bless this trio of goobers, I’m ride or die for all of them.