MasterChef AustraliaSun 7:30pm; Mon-Fri 7pm, Ch10
http://www.masterchef.com.au/
Last night, Andrew went home in a blaze of whatever the opposite of glory is, as he was reunited with his over styled family for what was definitely not the last time. On the flipside, Beau proved he’s more than just a pipe laying fire fighting loving just happened to stumble on Masterchef wannabee when he produced a faultless rendition of a Charles Aznavour classic. Tonight, Kylie storms into contention as she battles it out against someone for the ultimate prize amongst pins.

Morning breaks over the water, as we get a close up of the flower the contestants apparently live in since being shrunk to microscopic size by the evil Scientologist Cruise. Kylie dresses on the balcony: either she’s auditioning for a part in Being Lara Bingle or the presence of Filippo still haunts the rooms. “I’m really excited this morning waking up” she says, as this is only the third time she’s ever woken up. Like Beau last night, Kylie had set a course for being something other than a chef, but the lure of cooking before two cheeky chefs and a colourful giant proved too much.

She arrives at HQ, alone but fulfilled, like a teenage boy caressing his first playboy. Gary, George and Matt stand before a big red curtain, which may or may not be there to cover the big red car behind it. George holds up “this beautiful immunity pin”, catching Mindy’s Disease. The challenge is to beat a chef who has worked with Blumenthal at the Fat Duck, the one hatted Tomislav Martinovic. He admits to only managing a year at the Fat Duck, but proudly explains he spent 10 years at the Burleigh Heads RSL. He’s brought his Sioux chef Mark, unnecessarily raising his ethnic background.

Kylie cottons on that she’s only against two and Gary confirms she can only pick one other to help her, which Kylie confirms again by explaining to camera, just in case someone at home had suffered a major stroke and memory loss in the intervening seconds. One of two ingredients must be picked, and the red curtain parts to reveal bread and butter. Admittedly it’s Coles’ bread, and more than likely day old Coles’ bread. Kylie jumps straight in and picks bread. When asked who she is going to pick, she replies “Somebody who’s not unfamiliar with being in an immunity challenge, Mindelicious”. Mindy is shocked that Kylie would pick her, as she thought she made it clear she was only interested in undermining other contestants in immunity challenges.

Mindy and Kylie have 90 minutes, while Tomislav has only 60 minutes, to prepare an entree, main and dessert from bread. Meanwhile, somewhere Filippo sharpens his knives as he salivates over the prospect of a challenge involving bread, as well as over pictures of the contestants he took while they slept. Gary, George and Matt talk bread, both the grain based product and the 70s supergroup. Kylie and Mindy run in an out of the pantry in scenes resembling a Benny Hill classic. Kylie delegates the main meal to Mindy and takes on the rest. Her entree will be a tomato gazpacho with toasted bread ice cream. For main, Mindy will make a bread crusted blue trevalla with vegetables, while for desert, Kylie will make burnt caramel panacotta and bread flavoured Chantilly cream.

Mindy says her first “beautiful” for the night but then proceeds to make up for lost time, referring to the ugliest of cheeses as a “beautiful parmesan”, before the far from beautiful Matt Moran reminds her to season the fish. “I’m going to take Kylie’s inspiration and cook this beautiful dish” she adds. Tomislav attempts to psych them out by suggesting their menu is ambitious. It is, and in this era of every child being a star, Kylie is just setting it up for future failure and heartbreak. Tomislav offers to help Kylie and she uses him like a prediscarded tissue. He tastes the caramel and suggests adding salt would be nice, as well as darkening the caramel. Tomislav goes back to his side and suggests to Mark they’ve taken his idea for the ice cream, though he is forced to admit it was a terrible idea anyway. .

Kylie channels Alice cooper as she bites the head off the cream, While Tomislav channels nobody as explains his menu. For entree, there’s a scallop tartare with fried bread. For main, there’s scotch fillet steak with a ginger bread sauce, while for dessert he’s making fruit and nut French toast. But to his horror Moran informs him he can’t use butter, as he tries to make sense of the odd instructions at the start of the challenge about using EITHER butter OR bread.

Matt Moran reminds them to do an “entree, main and dessert” before Kylie falls victim to the dreaded Mindy’s disease as she calls something beautiful. She briefly redeems herself by comparing the colour of her soup to baby vomit, before falling back into bad habits after adding some tomato, claiming it’s now a “beautiful red colour”.

Tomislav, unaware of the rules about calling everything beautiful, refers to his sauce as “nice”, and we wonder if this could be his downfall. Mark thinks his bread sauce is too “gingery”, and removes several red headed children to tone down the flavour somewhat. Kylie says having a savoury ice cream is a “foreign concept”, forcing the Liberal Party to develop a policy to deal with it, while Tomislav improves his bread sauce by making it better.

Matt screams that this is the ultimate way to break bread as he announces there’s 30 minutes to go. Tomislav says he’s anxious, because he would like butter, revealing himself to be the first person ever who has a security butter instead of a security blanket. He suggests that the fried bread needs colour, while Mindy unexpectedly pan fries her fish in a “beautiful” olive oil, displaying her mastery of the English language once again. She says the most challenging part is nailing the fish, because it has high and exacting standards. But tragedy strikes when she puts it in too early. The fish that is. In the oven.

Hey Mindy’s family! Stuck for a git idea for her for Christmas or an upcoming birthday? Why not consider Roget’s thesaurus.

After a break, Mindy suggests she doesn’t want to risk Kylie’s immunity, because she’s so lonely as the only person with a “beautiful” immunity pin. So with five minutes to go everyone starts plating up and BY ODEN’S BEARD they manage to do so with little trouble.

It’s time for tasting and the lads are excited. Kylie’s gazpacho and Tomislav’s scallop tartare are served first. They like the look of both, and also express and interest in the smell. George serves and they taste. Uplifting piano music provides an indication that the gazpacho is a success. Matt says “my mouth is watering” but surprisingly Gary finds fault with the Rye bread ice cream, as if that is possible. Gary also picks minor fault with the scallops, as they write down their scores.

Next as the mains are brought out Gary suggests it’s “so not what I expected”. Perhaps he expected the Spanish Inquisition, but whatever he expected, he got two plates of food: Kylie’s blue Trevalla and Tomislav’s scotch fillet and ginger bread sauce. Gary is not impressed with how Kylie’s dish looks, but Matt is not a fan of the modern presentation of the other one. “The fish is nicely cooked”, says Gary, providing a lesson for young chefs that adjectives like “beautiful” need to be used sparingly less their value be diminished. They taste as some surprisingly robust drums play in the background. They like the dish, but they don’t seem to “LIKE like” the dish, if you know what I mean. Then Tomislav’s dish is served up and tasted, and they love it, though George laments the lack of size. Yet Matt’s not that impressed, reckoning he “lost the meat”, which must be a euphemism for something.

Finally it comes down to the dessert: French toast from Tomislav and burnt caramel panacotta from Kylie. They taste the French toast with poker faces, but the piano music gives it all away before Gary does. George suggests Kylie’s dessert will have to knock their socks off, though I must admit I’ve never tasted anything so good that my socks have removed themselves as a result. While George, Gary and Matt prepare to be possibly rendered sockless, Kylie pretends to be anxious.

Then it’s time for the scoring, but first a word from our bald gargoyle, as Moran tells the judges how things went in the kitchen. First up, Gary reveals the gazpacho was their favourite entree. Then George reveals that the scotch fillet was their favourite main, leaving things at a totally unplanned one all tie. Finally, the winning dessert is revealed and, somewhat surprisingly, considering Mindy’s attempts at sabotage, it’s Kylie’s.

So Kylie walks away with the prize: a small brass pin which she can use to smite her enemies. Wow!

Tomorrow, more cooking than you can poke a stick it, if poking sticks at cooking is your thing.