And that was a threat.

Eyes on the prize, lads.

Snatched Waste

Kicking off Semi-Finals Week Which Is Different To Knockout Week, was a challenge for the 8 remaining chefs to cook a dish that left no waste, DO YOU HEAR US, LUKE?

or you could get away with cooking with ingredients that often go to waste

it is still the challenge but I don’t know, selectively choosing parts of a chicken and doing spooky fingers at a tray of chicken feet to try and freak Marcus out a little bit kind of feels like a disingenuous approach to the original brief when you’ve got someone like Gareth all but deatomising a cauliflower

don’t get to excited, one those “ways” was just “raw” which… sure? I guess it was left alive as a warning to every other part

Caroline wasn’t the only one just doing Waste Bits, Luke had also gone for that approach in his Trout dish as he made a witch’s brew sauce with pancetta skin and burrata milk, a cauliflower stalk puree and didn’t let a single drop of a jar of mustard go to waste

A LITTLE BIT? Monica’s sinuses have never been so open

but she was the right person to be throwing chunks of trout belly shellacked in english mustard to

the only thing that Luke was really picked up on was his presentation being a little bit ordinary

given that the last time he cooked for you Marcus, you got a twelfth of a short rib, the fact he wasn’t walking out of that kitchen with a pocketful of trout is an improvement. Sadly Mark wasn’t setting a short rib example and was instead doing Salmon and not letting a single idea the Irish have ever had go to waste

the biggest point of intrigue was the Sloke, which I’d never heard of, and by the general reaction to it am lead to believe it is like someone turned high tide into mayonnaise

the whole dish was a bit of a misfire for Mark and not living up to his other successes and generally suffering from being an excess

well babe, you did make him use the whole fish?

Shellfish was a popular choice because once you’ve got the meat out of the shells, you can just shove your assortment of crustacean limbs and appendages into a pot and call it a bisque

it was Sel and Polly bleeding the budget dry with their need for Lobsters and Langoustines (my favourite TTRPG) leaving Gareth to have to busk for cauliflower money on New Street

jokes on them all, The Cauliflower Song has gone multi-platinum in my household.

Polly was cooking a fairly ordinary Langoustine Tortellini that didn’t see much in the way of inventiveness or intrigue beyond the addition of the Chawanmushi (a Japanese savoury custard) on the side

unfortunately the custard hadn’t quite worked for her and brought the overall enthusiasm for her dish down a bit. Without it, she may well not have had to cook again because there was some solid process and technical skill in display.
Sel was much more successful and taking the bigger swing with his combination of Lobster and White Chocolate

we never actually saw how much white chocolate was being used and I would be interested to have seen the quantity, especially because it was used throughout the dish, including the peripheral croquette. I am on record as having issues with elements of a dish orbiting the main plate like satellites – in this instance it works because you don’t want the croquette to go soggy. And it’s also presented normally and not like an art instillation for the atrocities of battery chicken farming

there’s literally no reason not to have those feet on the plate and I think the use of the corn for that ~aesthetic~ foot trough is actually antithetical to the spirit of the challenge… I think at some point I decided Caroline was my op and the recipient of my Inexplicable Grudge but I do think this dish was a stroke of genius and one that wouldn’t have been out of place in the final. I would however like the judges to stop being weird about things like Chicken Feet – I just don’t think in the year of our lord 2026, the judges of a cookery competition should be treating them as strange anymore? But before I go too Woke 2: Woke-yo Drift… tick tock, it’s Horrible Rabbit O’clock

as squeamish as a tempura eyeball does make me, I think my bigger concern was WHY WERE THERE THREE OF THEM?

that’s a wrong number any way you split it!
I do also really want to know where she decided the line was – confit rabbit tongue? Rabbit Brain Escabeche? A lovely rabbit tooth friendship bracelet to forever immortalise Georgia’s soft reboot of Fear Factor?

as it turns out, the eyeball was a bit of a pointless gimmick and only really served to prove that maybe sometimes, a bit of waste as a treat is ok

the rest of Georgia’s dish – including the deep-fried leg and offal-stuffed saddle were extremely well received and admired for her cookery skill

and in that case, I can kind of see why she decided to swing wild and claim the title of being the first person to intentionally serve an eyeball on MasterChef. I’m sure there must’ve been a stray prawn eyeball at some point.

Lastly we have Ismail who was cooking Poussin and insistently calling it Poussin so that he didn’t feel like he was directly competing with Caroline too much. Everything about it sounded really lovely: spiced potato croquettes and yoghurt marinated poussin with the chilli jam

and then he had to go and ruin it all by saying something stupid like “and a mushroom sauce”

Georgia served 1 and a half rabbits’ worth of eyeballs and somehow this is the weirdest addition to a plate of food this episode and without it he *might* have just managed to outcook Georgia and save himself. BUT ALAS.

An Unofficial Zero Waste Dish Ranking:
1. Release The White Chocolate Cut
2. Chicken Feet Pics
3. In ‘n’ Trout
4. Stream Cauliflower by Gareth
5. The Mystery of the Missing Eyeball
6. A Custard Too Far
7. There’s Wasn’t Much Room For The Mushroom Sauce
8. Putting the Ire in Ireland

Following the Zero Waste Challenge, 4 of the contestants were deemed safe, this being Caroline, Sel, Luke and Georgia. Leaving Polly, Gareth, Mark and Ismail all vying for the last 2 spots at the John Chantarasak meet and greet.

How The Vegetables Have Turns

In order to decide who would be eliminated, the chefs at risk faced an Invention Test, but not just any invention test – all your precious meat had been taken away!

they were just really worried that Georgia had given everyone ideas – but you’re the one asking for gourmet burgers, MARCUS

and yet, still not a single burger on the horizon for poor Marcus – not even a slice of bread

I get why Mark probably didn’t choose to put a slice of bread on there given that he’s been critiqued mainly for a lack of finesse and a slice of sourdough does not in fact serve eleganza. Also this show has often treated “brunch” as a bit of a dirty word and I can forgive him for wanting to swerve that as much as possible with his ~gourmet~ Shrooms and Grits.

I was surprised that we didn’t get a single dessert with Gareth managing to not slip through the MasterChef Larder’s frangipane wormhole this time

and did in fact get to make his Thai Curry. Or at least the sauce which he served with a roasted Hispi Cabbage, Tempura Aubergine and Aubergine Puree

it is a very Invention Test dish (complimentary) with the judges all really loving the diverse textures and flavour profile – especially the hit of citrus from the lime glaze on the tempura aubergine.

Ismail had also gone for a curry, keeping to his Bangladeshi heritage, opting for curried Butternut and Chickpeas with Rice and what was called a “bhaji-esque fritter” made with courgette and sweetcorn

it was kind of just a fine dish that lacked any surprise or twist to elevate it to the heights of what Gareth, Mark and even Polly were doing – the latter going for a Caramelised Onion Tarte Tatin inspired by a cheeseboard

Monica had some issues with the presentation and you’d think that would mean because it looks a bit like a potato that’s been living behind the fridge for 7 years and is ground zero for at least 4 new contagious diseases BUT NO, she just needs it to be centred

I’d argue that really what it needs is to not be on a mains plate – it also needed more of the goat’s cheese mousse, which to me just sounds like generally good advice in all situations. More goat’s cheese ALWAYS.

An Unofficial Vegetarian Dish Ranking:
1. Gareth Completes His Thai Curry Quest
2. Shrooms, Grits and Determination
3. Polly’s Culture of Onion and Figs
4. Ismail’s Very Pleasant Midweek Meal

I was going to be sad whoever got eliminated from these four and while none of them had a disaster, there was a pretty big divide between the great dishes and the good dishes meaning unfortunately Polly and Ismail were both leaving

I think it’s always a real detriment to the competition when we lose a chef like Ismail that’s so dedicated to showcasing a specific culture and cuisine but he did just fall a fraction short this episode. With Polly, she’s always been on the knife edge of elimination and I think once she really nails down her own point of view as a chef, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see her cropping up on other cookery shows as a guest or competitor, she’s got a great personality that I think really shines on TV.