I have never seen anyone less convinced by a vibe.

How long could it possibly take to dig a hole?

Are You Winning, Venison?

Obviously there has been a VERY WELCOME change to the line-up of this show that had gone through its Annus Horribilis with Matt Tebbutt joining the show

and Matt certainly suits the title of “Judge” better than the TikTok pan flogger that preceded him, but the role is still very much a glorified seminar moderator because Monica and Marcus cannot be trusted to lead a conversation.
Another interesting tweek is that Monica and Marcus are no longer setting the Skills Tests and are instead bringing in previous contestants to do so. I really love this, even if the reveal of who set the Skills Tests is now met with a blank stare from the contestants <3 We’re 18 series deep and with such a vast roster of incredibly successful alumnae, you might as well show them off! It does also mean that both Monica and Marcus get to watch firsthand with the guest masochist being banished to the store cupboard to audio describe the events to us – I can only hope that that one guy who worked at a garden centre with an extensive toasted sandwich menu is lined up to return! This episode it was of course Gary Maclean who unfortunately had not brought his big goblet of fish in to work with him

and despite talking up a big game about being a predominantly seafood chef, neither of his Skills Tests involved doing terrible things to a piece of premium halibut. Instead Gary started with a request for the chefs, Mario and Terry, to butcher a saddle of roe deer and serve it with a Chasseur Sauce and Gremolata. Both of them seemed at an advantage for this, Terry is thoroughly and intimately aware of the ins and outs of a deer

and Mario… umm… he lives in the woods like a druid

however he is apparently unfamiliar with a Chasseur Sauce and upon being asked if he knew what it was made the same face Lisa Faulkner made when she put a whole raw scallop in her mouth by accident

given they don’t plant an obscene misdirect amongst the ingredients in the Skills Test (would it kill them to just put a punnet of nectarines there for shits and giggles?)

Mario was able to engineer a fairly decent Chasseur Sauce to go with his perfectly cooked venison and slightly too garlicky gremolata

Terry however blacked out and went so pale that he looked like a pile of anxious hotel pillowcases trying to make a sauce by just dumping everything into the pan at the same time

my favourite moment being that as Marcus began prompting him that time was running out, he just started garnishing the pan with a few whole cherry tomatoes that had no hope of cooking <3

the bigger issue for Gary was that Terry had chosen to squeeze just about an entire lemon into his gremolata and was then slathering £25 of venison with his horrible lemony lawn clippings

his venison was at least well cooked though so he knows how to strip one, he just doesn’t know how to dress it very well.

The Katsu’s Out of the Bag

For the second Skills Test, Gary was asking the next pair of chefs, Emma and Ismail, to make a King Oyster Mushroom Katsu Curry with an Apple and Radish Slaw

neither of the two chefs had made a katsu curry but definitely understood the vague concept of it. Emma was definitely the more confident of the two and went on to have one of the best Skills Tests we’ve had a in while! She even managed to bang out a perfectly julienned slaw in the dying minutes of the challenge

apparently the secret to a good skills test is proficiency in pilates and badminton

but I’m sure the 19 years of cheffing experienced certainly helps at least a little bit.
Ismail was a lot more nervous, giving up on making a Katsu Curry almost immediately and just going with a Bangladeshi variant

which I think is honestly probably the best thing to do when you’re adrift and flying by the seat of your pants. He did unfortunately not deduce that the carrot was intended for the curry and it instead went into the slaw. However given that he plated the whole thing up like a display of global warming’s effects on Tuvalu, it was kind of part of the curry in the end

I think he was hoping that he’d added enough salt to the sauce to keep everything afloat like the Dead Sea

Gary’s entire life flashed before his eyes as he saw the sauce become inhospitable to organic matter

he did balance it out with honey but there’s only so much you can balance 3 days worth of your daily salt intake.

As-tu Une Signature?

In order to decide which of the two chefs would move on to the first Quarterfinal, they would have to go through the Signature Dish Round which has become something of a recession indicator and pared down to preparing a single dish instead of a main and a dessert. However, the chefs are still milking the ingredient budget for all its worth with Mario showing up with a bucket of turbot heads

it’s the Gary Maclean’s Big Goblet of Fish we have at home.
The boiling Turbot Heads were being used to make the base for his veloute that was accompanying the star of his dish, a piece of steamed turbot that Marcus was giving affectionate pet names to

and luckily the dish didn’t disappoint even if Mario had had to fold the mussel mousse intended for stuffing the morel mushrooms with into his veloute

his cooking of the fish was perfect, the preparation slightly less so on account of Monica finding a few stray bones here and there but as a dish the whole thing hung together really well.

Emma and Terry were both going for lamb dishes and both of them were making smoke a core element. Although Terry’s was more of a passively smoked lamb

lamb that once stood next to someone smoking a sour apple flavoured vape at the bus stop, if you will

which is a shame because his dish, which heavily featured wild garlic, sounded amazing – especially the potato and wild garlic roll cooked in lamb kidney fat

but beyond that the dish was a little bit of a let down because aside from the fact his lamb had tried one huff of a cigarette behind the bike shed in year 8 due to peer pressure, its fat was also unrendered

which at least gave Emma time to prepare for her raking over the coals

which would be the only raking of coals this evening because she was basing her dish on a traditional New Zealand Hangi in which food is cooked in a pit oven on hot volcanic rocks. It’s a nice concept in theory, however Birmingham isn’t known for its access to volcanic rocks and even with 80 minutes she didn’t have enough time to dig herself a hole in the courtyard-and-occasional-barbecue-area and once you remove the hole from a hangi you’ve kind of lost the meaning of hangi and there’s no such thing as a vibes-based Hangi

Her solution to this was to smoke the plate under a cloche at the judges’ table

it’s just a concept that didn’t work and was probably doubly disappointing because Monica knows what a Hangi is and Emma was in the trenches trying to make the whole thing sound more intriguing than it was

they were just not featuring this dish from the conception and I really don’t think it showed off Emma’s ability to her full potential.
Emma may have failed to enthrall Monica with hangi-induced nostalgia, however Ismail stirred some butter through his rice and suddenly Monica was 8 years old again

his dish did sound lovely though – I’m an absolute sucker for a beef short rib curry of any sort and his Beef Bhuna looked a prime example of something excellent

I do think the presentation could’ve been better, I personally find the astro-turfed fondant potato to look very dated and 1970s, the judges not so much

but they really couldn’t stop heaping praise upon him and it was undoubtedly the dish of the day that showcased a lot of very intelligent decision making, like popping the fondant potatoes into the pressure cooker to ensure they were fully soft and soaked up some of the Bhuna flavours

We’ve never seen anyone do this on the show before and I find myself wondering why!?

An Unofficial Signature Dish Ranking:
1. Oh, and since you girls need a new vocal stim, you can use this one: OOH-BHU-NA-OOH!
2. Marcus’s Little Fishy Poppets
3. Terry’s Lamb with A Candy Cigarette In Its Mouth
4. The Hanged Lamb (this is a Tarot joke)

Given the truly sublime reentry into our Impossible Lamb Era, it was no surprise that Emma and Terry were baa-ing out, making Ismail and Mario our first pair of quarterfinalists!

Mario, I’m heavily invested in your jewellery collection, do not let me down!