MasterChef Australia – Sun 7:30pm; Mon-Fri 7pm, Ch10
http://www.masterchef.com.au/
Last week on Masterchef, the top 24 was decided and in no time there were mystery boxes, an immunity challenge and, sadly, elimination. Ben won the right to challenge for immunity but failed when faced with the insurmountable road block of twenty seven years experience and three pairs of bright sneakers. Team Andy avoided elimination when they collected more money on the till than Team Emma, which saw Kevin the first one eliminated. Tonight, we do it all again, on MASTERCHEF!

People arrive and they marvel at how similar the Masterchef kitchen looks as last week. It’s mystery box time, which, unfortunately, is not a game where contestants try to work out who the famous person is based solely on a picture of their vagina. George asks them to guess what’s in the mystery box, and TK thinks it might be something sweet, while Beau thinks it might be some lubricant for when he SHOVES IT UP GEORGE’S ARSE FOR ASKING SUCH A STUPD QUESTION. But instead it’s crab and pomegranate and eggs and coconut and other stuff. Preston says it represents that great Aussie idea of having a crack, in that cracks are like opinions, everyone has one.

Gary tells them there are also staples under their bench, useful for making certain food stay together and also if the contestants feel the need to hamper one of their competitors by stapling to the bench. Then it is announced that the winner of the mystery box will get an advantage in this year’s first invention test. Cooking experience? An extra set of arms? The ability not to cry? We’ll find out later.

Debra is making an upside down crab pudding and admits to having never cooked with crab, or other crustaceans, being something of a loner. Matt is making crab custard for dessert because he is a teenager and hates everyone. Kath is an old hand at crab having once been a sailor and visited many a port on shore leave where she collected plenty of crabs in her pubic ‘nets’.

Aside, the boys talk about how tough the ingredients are, while Filipo notes that as soon as he saw the lemon he thought of his mother. Ungrateful wretch! Mindy is redundantly making egg nets, as the crab has already been caught for her. With 5 minutes to go Filipo has his cake out of the oven but can’t get it out of the tin, as he experiences the difficult process that so many mothers around the world face. He pushes and breathes, pushes and breathes, until eventually the cake’s head can be seen followed closely by the rest of the body. Filipo’s cake is perfect, weighing in at 6 pounds, the spitting image of Filipo and he’s as proud as punch. Everyone plates up with pained expressions on their faces as the music reaches its inevitable crescendo, and then it’s over.

The judges will only taste three dishes, but which three? The camera jumps from contestant to contestants, as we see their hopeful, sweet little faces, while Lydia performs a little dance.

Deborah, Mindy and Filipo are called up. Deb’s upside crab pudding sounds disgusting, but in fact tastes okay, a bit like crab according to Gary, which is a plus. Preston says the dish shows “you have a sense of the type of food Deborah should be cooking”, leaving Deborah to wonder who the other Deborah is. Mindy’s crab and egg net is very pretty and very delicate according to Gary, “and nothing like the ape standing next to me”.

Filipo’s cake is the last to be tasted. George accuses him of confidence, but Filipo only admits to liking the cake, leaving us with the impression he hates his caramel sauce and crème anglaise. But his hate is misplaced as he wins the mystery box challenge. Filipo says it’s his mum’s recipe and that she’ll be stoked, though it’s likely she won’t be stoked when she hears him use words like “stoked”.

The invention test is next, and Gary says it’s a popular dish, one of the first things you might learn to make as a kid.”Is it poopy?” asks Lydia “Poopy is one of the first things I learned to make?” But she’s wrong again because it’s a sandwich. In fact, they have to make their own bread and fill it. Filipo gets to choose the core ingredient out of bacon, lettuce and tomato. It appears that Filipo is on the verge of refusing to choose, until he is thrown into the flames of purgatory for his insouciance, where the children from Glee incessantly reach the nationals, whatever they are.

When we come back, Filipo has beaten down his conscience and chosen a tomato as the core ingredient. Preston says the three least impressive sandwiches, by which he means the worst, will go to elimination. Beau is making a baked beans jaffle. TK says she sucks at making bread. Filipo is making walnut bread, and Rosemary and Thyme bread, as well as Cagney and Lacey bread. Sam is frying his cheese sandwich in duck fat because he can’t find his gun to kill the judges with.

Lydia is making polenta bread which is technically not bread. But then again Lydia is technically not smart so it balances out. Delvindra is making an Indian based Naan bread sandwich. Mindy is making something that doesn’t look like bread. None of them appear to be making a sandwich. Perhaps the instructions weren’t clear.

Debra is making actual bread with walnuts in it, and as it’s in the oven she can start thinking about the ingredients. She’s going for goat’s cheese and roasted tomato. Filipo is doing something very similar, but probably slightly less well. As he takes it out of the oven and tastes it, he ironically uses words, to describe his bread as “no words necessary”. Meanwhile TK’s bread has failed to rise and with only 15 minutes to go now is as good a time as any to start to panic.

After a break, Gary advises her to make a flat bread, saying it takes three minutes to cook. Alice jumps up and down and earns herself a shiny forehead. TK burns her flatbread, while everyone gets busy looking busy. Then times up and everyone is either happy, not happy, or couldn’t care less with their efforts.

Filipo is up first and he gets raucous applause. He has a trio of open sandwiches, which is one sandwich short of a barbershop quartet. He is neither here nor there. Sam is next with his sandwich called Collateral Damage, which he tortures with butane. Preston confirms our suspicions that he’s filthy rich when he mentions he has his own cardiologist, As far as Sam’s dish went, the bread, or Sam, was too dense.

Lydia is next and she insults Prestons heritage, who criticises her polenta sandwich. He says if you can pick it up and eat it it’s a sandwich. And if you can choke someone with it it’s a lethal weapon. Out of the three, Preston thinks it looks like a sandwich, but George and Gary disagree, so use a knife and fork like the pampered poodles they are. Gary doesn’t like the oiliness’ of the dish. This is the same Gary that puts butter into everything, including his coffee.

Mindy brings up her murtabak, which she made because it represented her heritage in some unidentifiable way. Then TK comes up, and she thanks Gary for his help. She explains that she used boiling water when making the bread, which would have killed the yeast and her chances in the competition. However, her replacement flat bread doesn’t pass muster according to Preston.

Alice, Delvindra and Wade pass by quickly with various derogatory and complimentary comments, before Deborah comes up with her walnut bread and stuff on top. George calls her a great cook, while Gary goes a step further by grabbing her roughly and causing her to cry.

Gary names the best dishes of the day as belonging to Mindy, Deborah, Delvindra, and Filipo. Preston makes a reference to Highlander that only one person gets, until Mindy is named dish of the day.

But there has to be a bottom three, because it’s in the bible or something. TK, Wade and Lydia are called out. Wade would be well served sharing some of his eyebrows with Lydia. TK, Wade and Lydia will face off in a pressure test, which causes Amina to cry. She says she’s got to know them all so well and she “just needs to get the boo boos out”. Lydia is tempted to, once again, refer to the situation as “poopy”.

Tomorrow, Mindy will go up against Peter Gilmore for immunity, while on Tuesday, either TK, Wade, or Lydia will go home, all on MASTERCHEF!