New euphemism for farting just dropped.

Nobody looks at the rabbit!

Just Saffron Time

For this week’s Invention Test, the chefs were having to create a dish that put saffron front and centre

and some were more comfortable with this than others – Morteza had the twinkle in his eyes you’ll only ever see in someone that just won the lottery as he practically vibrated with glee

and Ibz just looked like he was trying to make it all go away with sheer force of his mind alone

as ever, they had access to the MasterChef Larder which this time starred a single Brill for them to wrestle over

and a whole rabbit to unnerve everyone

and because the larder is a place where all logic goes out the window and if you spend more than 2 minutes in there you begin to forget who you are and why you ever stepped in there

Ibz, reduced to nought but the husk of a man, was powerless to the terrifying allure of that skinned rabbit he made the mistake of making prolonged eye contact with

and while this challenge wasn’t a huge success for him, I think a paella was just a little too on the safe side of things, he did go about deboning and preparing the rabbit extremely well, but the judges wanted a variety of saffron elements instead of something like a bowl of paella

which was also the problem that Morteza had as he played a little too into his comfort zone with his Sholezard – a Persian rice pudding that he’d topped with a raspberry jam and caramelised figs

it’s a beautiful dish and perfectly balanced but I think ultimately the judges were probably a little disappointed purely because initially his rice had been a just about retina aching shade of Delhi Bazaar 4 that Linda Barker would’ve painted an entire mid-terrace living room with because the owners said their favourite dessert was a Lemon Meringue Pie

and then after he’d run the cream through it, the saffron flavour and the colour was muted down to something more along the lines of the bedroom walls of a sensibly priced B&B that scores high on cleanliness but low for breakfast on Four In A Bed because they only serve store-bought croissants billed as a continental option

it just made saffron a bit of a background player, even if the dish itself was very tasty. Ben also struggled to really being saffron to the forefront of his dish even with multiple saffron elements like his saffron aioli running through his potato salad and the beurre blanc that was accompanying his brill

on a technical level it’s extremely good – I think you’d be hard pressed to find someone in the competition that’ll be better at preparing and cooking fish than Ben but he’s still struggling to bring real impact to the flavours of his dish

but if nothing else, that’s at least a storyline investment for him and once they send him to the Heavy Spicing Bootcamp for Tearaway Boys he’ll be a whole new man.

Lastly we have Clara who was truly embracing the invention test side of things by backwards engineering her own vegan XO sauce

which was going to be an accompaniment for her Saffron Brown Butter Cabbage and Saffron Pickled Onions

and after how much they raved about this dish, I don’t think Monica and Marcus will mind if she spends the rest of the series imprinting on them like a baby bird

to be fair, Monica is Mother and I’ve seen Gay Twitter, I know how you all feel about a man that looks like a regionally specific bird of prey

peak year for death by ellipses on this show.

An Unofficial Saffron Invention Test Dish Ranking:
1. Love You Mum and Dad, XO(XO)
2. Morteza’s Exploration of the Dulux Colour Wall
3. Ben’s Brill-ish Dish
4. Ibz Falls Down The Rabbit Hole

A Cri-ticking Timebomb

This week’s trio of critics helping Marcus and Monica decide who gets to make it to the next stage of the competition were Xanthe Clay, Leyla Kazim and new face on the roster, David Ellis who looks a bit like William Sitwell if he started doing DIY blood transfusions with his son, Albert Norman Francis Sacheverell Sitwell

and he was very much trying a little too hard to play the role of hard-to-please-judge-on-the-end and generally just being a little too dismissive, especially to the first couple of dishes which meant that Ben unfortunately bore the brunt of it, especially with his take on Cullen Skink

nobody else had much of an issue with it, least of all Xanthe Clay who has put in a very specific order at the terrazzo tile company for the ensuite that this gig is paying for

I hope my nail tech is ready for me to give her the weirdest inspo picture of all time!

I think she’d be relieved after last time in which I made her paint these cats while holding her at gunpoint, a nori and leek mosaic is a walk in the park

friends fear she has found another way to make all of this about her nails.

Even if the cloud of sadness someone let in wasn’t enamoured by Ben’s Cullen Skink, all that really mattered was that Marcus and Monica felt that he was finally hitting that level of flavour they were looking for him to

and his starter of Tempura Smoked Mussels on a fermented chilli and asparagus sauce was similarly successful

it’s a really interesting combination of ideas and influences that makes a dish sound genuinely new and interesting which is always a real tick in your favour on a show that’s been going for so long it’s old enough to legally drink. Morteza’s fish starter was a little more ordinary, and very proudly so

unfortunately during the prep process he seemed to have cut his finger

and while that has happened a few times, I think it’s very telling how bad it might have been because they don’t actually show it and in the past they have been known to show someone’s hewn off fingertip clinging to a knife blade

and all we see of Morteza’s battle wound is just an ever increasing amount of plasters, wrappings and gloves falling just short of making him work with one of the foam fingers from Gladiators

and having to sort it out clearly ate into his time something fierce because I don’t think I’ve ever seen a plate of food look as unloved than this Sea Bass Ceviche in a pea puree garnished with the trimmings of an economy hotel’s fruit salad

and I don’t blame him at all for feeling like he had to explain himself but my God you’ve never seen three people look more like they’re worried about the quantity of human blood in a pea puree

I honestly think it might have just been kinder to let him forgo the starter course and just serve his main of Lamb, Orzo and 20 minutes of solo improv theatre on the side

Dropout won’t be calling Morteza any time soon because all this improvised garnish ended up being were some thinly sliced radishes

it is at least certainly a better plate of food than the ceviche of infinite sadness. It is however a little bit too on the simple side – there’s simple and then there’s literally two things on the plate (3 if you count the discs of improv radish comedy.) I think Clara’s main course is a great contrast because on paper it’s also quite simple, it is mostly just Clara saying “I just think they’re neat” about her root vegetable of choice

but then you get it in front of you and yes, it looks like three carrots reenacting Batman’s parents being gunned down outside a theatre

but also the garnishes and accompaniments on top create a sense of enticement and intrigue that really elevates a plate of food. Speaking of the garnishes, the carrots were coated in a yeast extract marinade and covered in puffed rice and celtuce – a type of lettuce with a flavour similar to celery. It was a resoundingly successful dish, which she somewhat needed after her Laksa Corn Chowder was a little more hit and miss

much like Morteza’s main, it probably just needed one thing extra to elevate it above just being Good Soup™

but better to be just good soup than the dreaded “soup…”

Peak year for death by ellipses on this show.

Finally we have Ibz who was starting with his take on a Jamaican Fish Tea, also a type of soup! Which he was serving with Red Mullet

and I think we can safely say he won Soup Wars because Xanthe Clay, given the privacy of her own room, would’ve gone at it like a shih-tzu at an unsupervised slipper

and there’s no higher compliment than a soup you’re willing to give up your dignity for.

Ibz’s main course was a little more hit and miss, he’d gone for a Guyanese Duck Curry and alongside that was a small genetically modified pithivier filled with curried duck leg

the curried duck breast was not much of a crowd pleaser – if there’s one thing everyone on this show immediately hates it’s flabby duck skin

but the Pithivier? Everyone loved that and kind of just wanted more of it

Leyla, I think you just want pie and chips?

An Unofficial Two Course Menu Dish Ranking:
1. 24 Carrot Gold
2. Dignity Losing Soup
3. Ben Finally Makes a Flavour Bomb
4. Edward Cullen Skink (is this anything?)
5. Clara’s Just Good Soup
6. More Pies, Always More Pies
7. “I’m hearing ‘radishes’?”
8. “Soup…”

Given the events surrounding the potentially not entirely blood-free pea purée, it wasn’t entirely a surprise that Morteza was leaving us at this stage

It’s a fair decision but I do just so wish it hadn’t been such an unfortunate wipe out. I think he was just getting settled in as well! He came across as such a loveable goober this episode and I loved seeing that side of him.