And that’s all we can hope for in 2025.

Bertie Bassett is an enemy of the people.

Love to Hate You

In order to decide who was going through to Finals Week, the contestants had to create a dish that showcased an ingredient that they dislike or have taken a restraining order out against

while most of the contestants were just cases of mild preference or childhood trauma, Harry will be running for Prime Minister in 2029 on a platform of complete blue cheese prohibition

during the end of Knockout Week, I said that Harry could very well win the competition but in order to feel like he deserves it he has to suffer a little bit. I think he’s suffered enough now

this is the vulnerability the judges are looking for! And despite having to mentally disassociate while cooking most of the dish, it was a pretty phenomenal plate of food

of all the dishes cooked this round, this Blue Cheese crumbed Pork Tenderloin is the one I’d be most likely to order in a restaurant.

Challenges like this are always interesting because I get to wonder what I’d cook with. I’d probably do a dessert focused around wine – you know how there’s the gene that makes coriander taste like soap? I’m convinced I have that but wine just tastes like gasoline to me. My other option is Vienna Sausages – I threw up while eating a hotdog watching Mary Poppins as a child and can’t eat them or watch Mary Poppins anymore.
Hazel was also going down the childhood trauma route with Pears as her disliked ingredient

however, she was not going for the obvious option of a dessert and was going full on Mum Mode by mushing it up and stirring it through a risotto like you’re trying to trick your child into eating peas

there’s also a lobster there doing a sort of sexy Bugs Bunny distraction routine to hopefully preoccupy you from noticing you’re eating A PEAR RISOTTO????? It did not pay off

I have to wonder if Hazel had ever made this dish before or if she’d just spun a wheel of ingredients that morning to decide what she was making because even she seemed a little shocked about what she’d ended up with when they called time and she’d exited her fugue state

🎵I lost all hope today🎵

Sam was going for the riskiest option, deciding to cook offal because he doesn’t like the entire concept of it having never cooked with it before

he must have been *so* relieved when they turned up that morning and Hazel said she was going to stir pear-flavoured baby food into a risotto because that does give you a real safety buffer when you’ve turned up with a sack of ambiguous pig organs

but he pulled off his Offal-stuffed Wontons and take on Kway Chap, a Chinese offal soup, extremely well

Olivia stares down from Blog Favourite Heaven muttering “they’re ravioli”.

The last of the main courses was from Claire who suffered at the hands of Bertie Bassett one too many times as a child

I’m convinced that nobody actually buys Liquorice Allsorts, they sort of just appear in your house one day like some sort of folkloric fae creature. I have strong memories of eating them in the car except I’d separate the fondant from the liquorice and just throw the liquorice out the window, leaving a Hansel and Gretel style trail that nobody in their right mind would ever follow between Marondera and Mutare. I also once threw my shoe out the window. I was a liability on car journeys.
Claire was using a variety of different ingredients to showcase liquorice – rubbing her pan-fried duck with liquorice root and serving it alongside a Star Anise Blackberry Sauce and a few Fennel components

I thought it was a really clever approach to the challenge, however she’d started cooking her duck just a little bit too late so some of it was erring on the side of being unpalatable at best and unservable at worst. Which she was well aware of, but still took the time to go over and hype up Sophie who was beginning to have a crisis of confidence over the stability of her vegan Sticky Toffee Puddings

as it turns out, there wasn’t much need to worry for Sophie because her dessert went down phenomenally with the judges

it does look like a particularly amazing pudding and the whiskey toffee sauce sounded divine.

A Disliked Ingredient Dish Ranking:
1. Harry’s Zero Tolerance Blue Cheese Policy
2. Sam’s Not Awful Offal Wonton
3. Sophie’s Uncollapsible Sponge
4. You’ll Pay For This, Bertie Bassett!
5. Baby’s First Lobster Risotto

They REALLY tried hard to add suspense into who would be sent home this episode. However, it was blatantly obvious that Claire wasn’t going home over Hazel on account of having not reduced luxury shellfish to mush and served baby food in a risotto. So it was Hazel who misses out on Finals Week

we will lose one more contestants during Finals Week – I think my ideal Final 3 are Claire, Sam and Sophie – I think they offer a good range of culinary outlooks. Harry to me is a little too classic and ordinary but I can still see him making the final quite easily.