ANNOUNCER: Previously on MasterChef Australia... You need to run, run, run! ...our contestants had to reinvent a French classic. But Ava skimped on a crucial ingredient,... Where's the orange? ...and she farewelled the MasterChef kitchen. Tonight it's the most baffling mystery box yet,... Oh. We're going to show you how less really is more. Disaster. ...designed to test their creativity... Would you normally eat pear and chicken wings? No. ...courage... But today I am. ...and kitchen wizardry. You've achieved a bit of magic. I absolutely loved the dish. Then, a MasterChef legend... Curtis Stone. Stop it, stop it. ...drops by... He'll be expecting a lot. ...with an invention test... It's a disaster. ...that will shake up the competition. I think we need to chat. We'll see you soon. The grand prize in Australia's biggest cooking competition ` the chance to work inside the country's best kitchens, a monthly column in Australia's leading premium food magazine, Delicious, a stunning Alfa Romeo Giulietta, $250,000 to kick-start their food dream and the title of Australia's next MasterChef. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Able 2015 Ready? AMY: Let's do it, guys. JACQUI: Yes, let's go. Start of a new week. I narrowly avoided elimination yet again last week. It's a fresh start, so I want to come in with fresh attitude, and I need to make the most of it. ANNA: It's a mystery box. GEORGIA: It's a mystery box. JAMIE: Mysterious box. Oh, there's one at the front. That's never good. MATTHEW: One of the things that I'm really striving to do always is to show the judges that I have been listening to what they have to say. So, you know, I'd like to do really well today. A brand-new week in the MasterChef kitchen and a brand-new mystery box. The magic of cooking is all about taking simple ingredients to create delicious dishes. We've been telling you, "Don't overcomplicate things." We're going to show you how less really is more. (JACQUI LAUGHS) Are you ready to find out what's underneath your lids? (GROANS) You can lift the lids... now. Oh. MATT: Very familiar ingredients there. And they've all got something in common. They're a kind of a weird little mix of ingredients under here. It looks like the contents of my fridge when I haven't been to the supermarket for a while. This is the MasterChef dollar box. Every ingredient in this box costs a dollar or less, whether it's the one dollar of chicken wings, the one dollar lemon, the 75 cents of dry ginger ale, the dollar of black olives, the 75 cents of pear, the 95 cents of salami, the 75 cents of beans, the 85 cents of peanuts, three onions for a dollar, what a bargain, and the can of cannellini beans for 80 cents. MATTHEW: It's a weird bunch of ingredients, but we have to create a high-class meal and that's really amped up the pressure. I'm going to have to work really hard today to make sure I get a great dish up for the judges. It's about doing what all great chefs should do ` it's about spinning gold out of straw, proving that amazing food doesn't have to come from amazing high-end ingredients. SARA: It's very easy to get wagyu or caviar and make it taste great. The trick is how can you make something so humble into something extravagant and delicious? You have 60 minutes to cook us one beautiful dish, and you have a little pantry of staples, as usual, under your bench. It includes flour, eggs, sugar, butter, cream, vinegar. The other thing you need to know is that we're only going to taste the three most appealing dishes of the day. And you want to win this, because if you win it, you get the advantage in the invention test later on today. Are you ready? BILLIE: Yep. STEPHEN: Yeah. Your time starts... now. JACQUI: What I have tended to do with mystery boxes is just do the very first thing that comes to my mind. I need to prove that I can come up with the MasterChef standard dish using ingredients which cost under a dollar and trying to come up with something that will impress the judges. Six weeks in ` we've given them open pantries, we've given them gardens laden full of beautiful ingredients. This is going to be a challenge for them. GARY: Yeah. MATT: Tightening the leash, George. This box is designed to show us who are the everyday cooks and who are the exceptional cooks. Absolutely. What do you need in terms of space on here, Jac? Um... This is a real budget set of ingredients. I need to make this dish enticing for the judges. Today, I'm making a ginger-poached pear with lemon meringue. My daughter, Emily, and I love to make lemon meringue pie, so it's sort of a variation on that idea that I've brought from home and tried to refine a little bit for MasterChef. I'm trying to incorporate a little surprise in the meringue, so rather than piping the lemon curd around the outside it's actually going to sit inside and hopefully surprise the judges. I've never put a lemon curd inside of a meringue before, so this is something a little bit new for me. It's really important that I get this meringue on a soon as I can. It needs to bake for a reasonably long time, but then I need to cool it down before I fill it with the lemon curd and get it on the plate. Today's mystery box challenge is all about using budget-friendly ingredients to make MasterChef quality food. Today, I'm going to make crispy chicken drumettes with a white bean puree and a pear and ginger ale chutney. I can only get two drumettes from the dollar's worth of chicken wings, but I really want three ` one to give to each judge and I know that they're always on the lookout for new skills, so what I'm going to do is remove a bone from the offcuts and wrap some of the chicken flesh around it,and that will make up my third drumette. To do this to the chicken, it does take a little bit of time and a little bit fiddly work, but it's really important,because it's all about how it presents and using these simple, really cheap items to make something amazing. 15 down, 45 to go! Come on! Come on, let's push it! Move it along! Let's go! JOHN: Seeing these cheap ingredients that we're using today, I really want to put my spin to it and make it look spectacular. There's a lot of pressure, because only three dishes are going to be tasted and I'm going to have to work a lot harder. So, today I've decided to make your traditional Filipino dessert, and it's called halo-halo. Halo-halo is a cheap version of an ice-cream. I grew up on this, basically, because we couldn't afford ice-cream, and on a hot day, it's just perfect. Normally in halo-halo you would have red beans, purple yam paste and bananas. My biggest concern is I don't have them today. I'm going to be really experimental and use the pear, peanuts and also the cannellini beans to create the flavour that I grew up with. It is a risk, but I'm really pushing myself. It's a one dollar mystery box, but you need sense to win it. 30 minutes left! GEORGE: Come on, guys. I've really taken my time and thought a lot about what I'm going to do with the ingredients from this mystery box. I've decided to use some of the savoury elements and make a really nice soup. This is something I do at home, and I know it tastes good. I hope it pays off and gets tasted as one of the top three dishes today. Jacqui, what are you cooking? Hi, Gary. I'm going to do a... I'm doing soup. Soup? Yeah. Have you written something down, written a recipe? Yep. I'm using the chicken and the onion to make a stock. Yeah. I'm going to use the white beans and caramelised onion for a garnish. Um... That's a quick dish. I see the pitch as everyday ingredients that you'd see in everyday kitchens, but taken right up the ladder to something beautiful. Coal to a diamond. Yeah, righto. Something clever would be good. The question is, is soup enough? Yeah. OK. I really wanted to show the judges that I'm a contender. Soup isn't enough. I've already wasted half of my cooking time. I have to start again. I need to think quick and try and come up with something that's going to save me. I'm starting a one-hour challenge with half an hour to go. I might not get a dish up at all. 1 I'm just a bit concerned you've got a couple of disparate elements... Yeah. ...and the question is is soup enough? Yeah. OK. Gary's concerned because the soup on its own might be nice, but it's not enough. I've already wasted half of my cooking time. I have to start again and try and come up with something that's going to save me. I need to make a quick decision. Those caramelised onions, I'm looking at the pear and I know that that's a really beautiful combination. So, I'm going to use some of the ingredients that I already started prepping, but instead I'm going to do a caramelised onion, pear and salami tart. I am rushing for time. I know how much I need to do, and it's going to be down to the last second with this one. This mystery box might be all but budget, but don't skimp on flavour. 20 minutes to go. Come on, guys. Let's go. JAMIE: Today, I'm making a chicken wing sausage with a cannellini bean and kalamata olive filling ` a sort of play on a sausage in bread. I'm going to go out on a bit of a limb here and just do something that I haven't done before. GARY: So, what's the dish? I'm making a little sausage using the chicken wings. Are you going to put that stuffing inside the chicken wing? How are you going to cook it? I'm going to fry it. I must be honest, that does not look very attractive. Taste it. What is that? Beans, onions, olives, salami and... yeah, zest of lemon. At the moment, I'm struggling to visualise the dish. If you've got it clear in your head, you bring it home, yeah? I think I'm going to go with it. Yeah, no. If that's it, you go, "Look at that, Gaz, that's what I'm doing." Yeah? No worries. All right, mate. I think today I'm just going to stick to my guns. I'm happy with the flavours. I think I can pull it off, so I'm just going to keep going. I've got 15 minutes to go, and I need to start working on my granita. The way I'm going to make it is with some ice cubes and blend through fresh milk. So, John, another Filipino dish. It is, yes. What are you making? So, I'm making halo-halo. You've got no tropical fruits. You've got really nothing that makes halo-halo halo-halo. No. And halo-halo's all about tropical fruits. I mean, although it supposed be something you just throw together... It is, yes. What I've got today in the mystery box is pears,... Yep. ...so I'm using some of the poached pears. I've got peanuts, which I'm going to use as the crunch elements. I'm going to make peanut brittle. I've also got the cannellini beans which I've cooked in a syrup. Are you going to use crushed ice like the original recipe, or are you going to make a... I'm making a milk granita for this one instead of crushed ice. Have you reduced the milk first to give you that kind of evaporated saltiness? No, I haven't. Maybe you should. Just thinking. Just thinking. I think to myself, "Why have I done this? Why have I cooked halo-halo without the ingredients that I need? Without the evaporated milk, I'm a little bit worried that my dish could end up tasting bland, because I'm using fresh milk, and it's not going to taste like the halo-halo I grew up with. This dish needs another element to give it its full flavour. I'm adding tocino de cielo which is a really rich creme brulee. Basically, sugar and egg yolks. I'm worried about the flavours of the milk, because normally you have evaporated milk which is a really concentrated milk flavour. I've got the really rich creme brulee, so I'm hoping that flavour together with the granita will create that same flavour of the evaporated milk that we normally add into the dish. So, boys, what do you see walking around? GARY: Well, I go to Jamie's bench, and he goes, "I'm really pleased. "I've made a great stuffing. I'm going to do stuffed chicken wings." So I go, "Great, let's have a look at the stuffing." There's salami and there, there's olives in there, there's pureed cannellini beans and he's mushed it all together, and it's taken on this kind of weird kind of creamy, bitty texture with flavours of salami and olive in there. It's not quite right. John is doing a Filipino dish... Halo-halo. That's the one. And I love the fact he's hanging his hat on his culture and his background. Tricky though, because, I mean, halo-halo's all about tropical fruits and there ain't a lot of tropical fruit in that one dollar mystery box. There are always three that stand out. Surely Georgia ` every single mystery box invention test, she's put up something that's different from the pack. I've got my three chicken drumettes ready to deep-fry later. The next thing I need to do is make my pear and ginger ale chutney. Right, thinking left of centre as usual. I'm doing a really creamy white bean puree. Yeah. And I'm going to do a crispy fried chicken with a pear ginger sticky sauce. Hm. And would you normally eat pear and chicken wings? No, I wouldn't. Hm. But... today I am. I have this moment of a little bit of concern. I might not be in the top three today. I've never made a pear chutney or anything really like this, but I'm not going to give up on it. I think it's fantastic. I'm going to go with my instincts and plate up the dish that I initially thought of. So, I'm hoping it works today. MATTHEW: There's only about 5 minutes left. I've piped the curd into the meringue. Next step is to cut a nice little cylinder for the biscuit base. It's now time to try and get those meringues out of the mould. It's critical that I get these meringues out. If they don't come out, I don't have a dish. The meringue's sticking to the side of the ramekin, so I run a knife around there and try and loosen it up a little bit more. But it still doesn't want to come out. This is going to be a problem. I'm starting to panic. I'm running out of time. It's looking terrible. It looks like a scrambled egg. It's just a mess, and I'm in all sorts of trouble. I've got a spare meringue there. If I don't get this one out, I'm done for. 1 1 We're only tasting the best three dishes, and you've got 3 minutes to make yours that! Come on, guys. MATTHEW: The meringue hasn't come out of the mould. It's kind of broken everywhere. There's lemon curd in the middle. It almost looks like a scrambled egg. With only a few minutes left, there's a real danger that I actually won't plate up a dish today. I've really got to get moving on the second meringue. There's a real problem for me. You know, both of these meringues were cooked the same way, so if the first one didn't come out, there's a real risk that the second one's not going to come out either. I'm relieved. It looks like I'll be able to put something onto the plate. I've just got to get that caramelised pear and carefully put it onto the top of the meringue, and I'll be happy. This is it! One minute to go! Come on! Come on, guys. JAMIE: As I'm frying my sausage, I look into my pot... Disaster. Hey? Disaster. My sausage has exploded. The whole thing's burst out. Has it? Yeah. I might be heading towards a bit of a train wreck. Come on. (CLAPS) 10 seconds. Nine! GEORGE AND GARY: Eight! Seven! ALL: Six! Five! Four! Three! Two! One! Tools down! That's it. Looks great. (ASHLEIGH SIGHS) I might have a nap now. How did you go, guys? Did you have a win today? No. It didn't work out the way I'd hoped. I took a risk. It could have been great, or it could have been a disaster, and it's turned out as a disaster. Well done, Stephen. Well done, the boys on the back row. I'm definitely proud of myself, because I've made a halo-halo without the ingredients that normally go into this dish. But what have you done with the beans? I cooked it in sugar syrup. Oh, so they're sweet beans? Yeah, it's sweet. I'm really happy with how my dish turned out. It looks beautiful. It's something I'd really like to eat, but from Gary's comment, pear and chicken don't really go together. I'm probably not going to get tasted, but the fact that I put that up in an hour with those ingredients, I'm really, really happy. It's a huge feeling of relief to have gone from what was looking like an absolute disaster for me to actually having something that looks beautiful and, you know, hopefully will be something that impresses the judges. Not bad for a half-hour challenge. JACQUI: Yeah. (CHUCKLES) (LAUGHS) Given that I started this tart with only half an hour to go, I'm actually really, really happy with what's on the plate. The mystery box today was all about ingredients that you could buy for a dollar or under a dollar. And I don't think that was as easy as you thought it was going to be. There's some of you that certainly struggled. Remember, at the beginning of the challenge we said we were only going to taste the three most appealing dishes. The first one up... is Georgia. Oh. (CHEERING, APPLAUSE) Georgia, are you a little surprised? I was a little. I'll be perfectly honest with you. When I wandered round and said, "What are you doing?" And you said, "I'm doing chicken wings with a pear chutney," I was like, "Aw..." The reason we picked you is it looks great. We love how you've trimmed those chicken wings. Yeah. We love crispy, crunchy chicken. Nothing wrong with that. Crispy chicken drummettes with a white bean puree and a pear and ginger ale chutney. You only had two chicken wings. There appear to be three here. Yes. And we want to know... I think you've achieved a bit of magic. (LAUGHS) So, you've made a fake drumette, have you? Yes, I have. That's very, very clever and we love it. Thank you. Do you know what I like? It's a clever dish on a budget. And I also like the fact that those chicken wings have been beautifully prepared. Take a chicken wing, everybody at home would normally just leave all the bones in and roast them with, I don't know, Coca-Cola or some sweet-and-sours and I like the fact you've spent time and made it a really special. That little drumette's delicious. I'm really impressed by this. Good budget cooking, Georgia. Well done. Thank you. Thanks very much. (LAUGHS) (CHEERING, APPLAUSE) I'm really happy that they liked the technique I used and it's paid off. It's just a really rewarding feeling when you get that positive reinforcement from the judges. And to win today would be awesome. Next dish we'd like to taste... belongs to Matthew. (CHEERING, APPLAUSE) MATTHEW: (LAUGHS) Happy days. GARY: That looks good. MATT: Oh, it's cute. Yeah. It looks good. It's nice. I'm going to congratulate you for technique. You know, using a box of ingredients that are budget-driven to create something that's quite sophisticated with a bit of wow factor as well. So, as you cut into it, you know, something else appears. So, wonderful. I love how far you've come, Matthew. I love the fact that you're learning. I love the fact that you're practising. I love the fact that you're then showing it in a mystery box with a very constrained set of ingredients. Keep cooking like this and you're going to be around for a long time. Thanks, guys. (LAUGHS) (APPLAUSE) There is no doubt that my daughter, Emily, would be ecstatic at the moment. I think she'd be really proud of the dish that I've made, and I'm sure she's sitting at home waiting for me to come back so that we can make this together and she'll probably put her little spin on it as well and improve it for me. We told you the competition was getting harder ` harder for you to stand out and harder for us to pick which dishes to taste. We could've picked Jacqui. You did so much with so little time. However ` (LAUGHS) There was just one dish we couldn't go past, who stood up there with Matthew's and Georgia's... and that's John's. (CHEERING, APPLAUSE) MATTHEW: Good work, Johnny. It's a Filipino dessert. It's called halo-halo. Looks spectacular. Honestly. Looking forward to it. You've used, other than the peanuts, nothing that would go in a traditional halo-halo. Yeah. That's why I love this dish. Love it. I absolutely love the dish. I think it's clever, it's creative, it's interesting. Particularly that little dense custard. The ginger, the sweet syrup. The question is, is it going to be good enough to take out the challenge? Thank you. (APPLAUSE) This morning, I've learnt to basically cook from the heart. It's food that I've grown up with, and the judges love it, and I think moving forward in this competition I'm just going to cook from my heart, follow my instinct and cook food that I love. This may be the one dollar mystery box, but in this kitchen the buck stops here. It stops at our decision on who's done the best dish out the three of you. 1 This may be the one dollar mystery box, but in this kitchen, the buck stops here. It stops at our decision on who's done the best dish out of the three of you. And that's John. (CHEERING, APPLAUSE) GARY: Ooh, yeah. JOHN: I've made a cheaper version of ice-cream, basically, and I've done it. I've won the mystery box challenge against all these other great cooks. I just can't believe it. Well, John, congratulations. You've won the mystery box, and that means you get to pick the core ingredient for the invention test. These ingredients are very special, because they've not been chosen by the three of us. They've been chosen by one of Australia's most famous chefs. A chef who plies his trade both here and overseas. A long-time member of the MasterChef family, whose new restaurant in Los Angeles, Maude, has been named the best in Los Angeles. Be still, our beating hearts ` Curtis Stone! (CHEERING, APPLAUSE) Whoo! Stop it, stop it, stop it! Be still, my beating heart. (GIGGLES) Girls are always happy when Curtis is in the room. Jessica... (LAUGHS) You know, I get a little flustered. He's a little bit nice to look at, so that's exciting. Um, but I'm also` I know that he's really innovative. He'll be expecting a lot. So, Curtis, Maude's been such a huge success in America, but it's a restaurant that's built around this love of the core ingredient. Absolutely. Yeah. Seasonality ` it's one of the most important things when coming to selecting your fruit and vegies, so that's what it's all about. So, this is the bit where normally we'd go, "John, let's go to the pantry and see what the choices are." But today, there's a little bit of a twist, something you need to know before we go into the pantry. Today, you're not going to just be cooking one dish. You'll be cooking two - a sweet and a savoury. Not only that, John ` you're not going to be cooking alone. You'll be cooking in teams of three. ALL: Ah. You'll be cooking with whoever you're standing next to. That's right ` bench by bench. MATTHEW: Let's do it. Let's nail this. Come in. Huddle in, huddle in, huddle in. (CHUCKLES) Oh, you're all happy about that, eh? John, let's go and find out what everybody else is going to be cooking with. I was not expecting that. (LAUGHS) Curtis, do you want to do the honours? For sure. Are you ready, John? I certainly am. Your first ingredient is pumpkin. I just saw a light bulb go off. Good. That's good. (GARY CHUCKLES) Next... beetroot. And finally... pomegranate. John, you're looking at some of the best ingredients for this time of year. What's the most important thing about cooking with seasonal ingredients? It's when they're perfectly ripe. It's when they're the sweetest that they're going to be. It's when the ingredients are shining at their absolute best. GARY: Choose wisely, because whatever you choose, every team must cook with, and obviously, they then have to cook a sweet and savoury dish from. The competition is all about being creative and being inventive, so it's an advantage for me picking something that I'm familiar with. Made your mind up? I think so. Let's go and tell the others. John, you ready to tell them what you chose? CONTESTANTS: Pomegranates. Yeah. I love pomegranates. Yeah. For me personally, that is the last thing I would have chosen. I'm not all that familiar with pomegranate. BILLIE: I've cooked with pomegranate a couple of times before. I think it's a hard ingredient to hero a dish. It's going to be tough. So, one simple ingredient that you're going to have to interpret in two complex and delicious ways, and what could be a better ingredient to pick than pomegranates? The challenge today, though, is two dishes. So you have to work as a team. You have to support each other. You have to communicate. You have to collaborate. Because remember, if your dish... is the one that sends your team into the pressure test where one of you will go home, how will you feel? Not good. However, if you fire as a team, if you bring us two delicious dishes and you find yourself in the immunity challenge fighting off for the right to compete for that pin, how proud will you feel? Rules couldn't be simpler ` 60 minutes, teams of three, two pomegranates dishes ` one sweet, one savoury. You got it? CONTESTANTS: Yeah. Well then, cook. Let's go. ASHLEIGH: Go, go, go. JOHN: Have you thought of anything? Hang on, hang on, hang on. What have you thought of? So, time starts and all the other teams rush straight into the pantry. Me, John and Reynold decide just to hang back and have a little chat about what John's thinking. He's obviously chosen pomegranate for a reason and wants to, sort of, go with that. SARA SCREAMS JOHN: Today's challenge ` for dessert we're cooking caramelised pineapple, which is infused with saffron. Our savoury will be a scallop cured in pomegranate served with crispy pork belly. It's a Filipino dish, and this is what we call kilawin. Filipino surf and turf, hey, Johnny? Yeah. So, the pork today will be cooked in a pressure cooker which will be cooked in a stock with some garlic, vinegar, and they will be pressure cooked for about 30 minutes. If we don't get that pork belly out in time and nice and crisp, so we've got to get that on very, very soon, then we're going to be trouble. A bit of a concern that we've only got 60 minutes to get that right. You know, we've got to braise the pork and then get the skin crackled up. Is 60 minutes long enough? I'm not sure. If we don't do it, then we could be in the bottom three. JESSICA: Beautifully frenched, Matthew. MATTHEW: Thank you. For our main dish today, we are going to make a pomegranate glazed lamb cutlet and backstrap with a little red capsicum sauce and a yoghurt sauce. I'm working on the dessert. It's going to be an orange blossom panna cotta with a pomegranate liquid centre, a cinnamon crumble, some pomegranate syrup and a pistachio praline. Today, it's important to hero the pomegranate in the dish and providing a liquid centre in the middle of that orange panna cotta will provide the judges with little surprise, and it's a bit different then to just chucking on a few pomegranate seeds. I need to get those pomegranate liquid centres into moulds and into the freezer. There's a lot of risk in today's dish. There's a lot of elements. They've all got to hero the pomegranate. There's a lot that can go wrong, and we've got a lot to do in the time given. Georgia. Hi. Jessie, come in, come in. JESSIE: Hello. Give us a sense of what you're cooking. OK. We're going to do scallops with obviously pomegranate. We're going to have a, sort of, toasty, nutty crumb, a cauliflower puree, a little bit of cucumber, sort of like a fresh, sort of, dish. Very nice, and really great winter ingredients there. So, tell us about the dessert? Pomegranate, rosewater and raspberry dacquoise, so, little almond meringue cakes with, like, a raspberry curd, some rosewater cream and then pomegranate syrup and then the pearls of the pomegranate in there as well. Sounds delicious. I'm pushing it with this dessert today, but I think it's definitely a time to push it. We want to stand out today, and as a team, we really, really want to go through to that immunity challenge. 15 down, 45 to go. No time to waste. Come on, guys. Let's go. JUDGES CLAP There's the cure. I'm going to go get some raspberries. The savoury dish we're going to cook today is a pomegranate cured salmon with a pomegranate gel and powder, and that's going to be accompanied with some creme fraiche and a crunchy fennel. The sweet we're making today is a pomegranate sorbet, and that's going to go with a pistachio siphon cake and rosewater cream. ROSE: I'm still making juice, but I need to make this sorbet. I need a huge amount of liquid. Is there an easier way to get that juice out? That's what I think. I think just banging it and put it in the` Yeah, yeah, there is. It's just squeezing it. It comes out really` Yeah. Just squeezing it? Yeah, OK. I really, really need to get this going. This sorbet isn't going to set in time if I don't hurry this up and just get this juice going and get this sorbet in the freezer. Rose, we need to get a hurry on, babe. Yep, yep, yep. I am working on the dessert today, so I'm just getting the pomegranate sorbet on. BILLIE: In our team, Ashleigh decides to go on dessert, because she's really comfortable with that. We're doing a pomegranate sorbet, a chocolate mousse and a chocolate soil. Our savoury dish is pomegranate glazed lamb. So we need to make pomegranate the hero of the dish. I'm putting some pomegranate juice, some star anise, juniper berries and peppercorn in a pan and just heating that up, reducing it down to a glaze. 40 minutes to make a really good glaze ` that's really pushing it for time. I just hope I've got the flavour there in that pomegranate glaze to, sort of, get us through. ROSE: All right, Amy, have you done a sorbet before? Pomegranate juice, little bit of water, glucose, that's it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In the chiller, churn it, in the freezer, yeah? Yeah. Yes. Just want to make sure I'm on the right track. Yes. I finally have all the juice that I need to make this sorbet. I put some glucose syrup and some pomegranate juice into a saucepan. I just need to blend those together on a low heat and get that chilled down as quickly as I can so I can get it into that ice cream churner. I need this element on this dish. If we don't have this sorbet, then, yeah, it's not going to be good. CURTIS: Hey, Jessica. JESSICA: Hi. How are you? Hey, Matthew. Hey, Curtis, how's it going? Hey, Jacqui. Hello. How are you? Very well, thank you. Tell us about your pomegranate sensation. (GIGGLES) All right. So, main dish I'm doing a little bit of the backstrap and the cutlet together. I'm making a little spiced glaze for it with pomegranate juice and, sort of, like, cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, paprika, those kind of flavours going on. What's the dessert? We're doing a cinnamon crumble. We're doing a pomegranate syrup, fresh pomegranates seeds around. Orange panna cotta with a pomegranate liquid centre. What else have we got going on? Where's my list? A pistachio praline. That sounds like a lot to do in an hour. I personally would have thought an hour is not long enough to set the panna cotta. It's this morning's mystery box all over again. I'm starting to question, "Should I have attempted this in such a short time?" We'd better leave you alone. Today's essentially a team challenge, so if I muck this up, I don't only put myself, but I put my teammates through to a pressure test also. 1 That sounds like a lot to do in an hour. I personally would have thought an hour's not long enough to set the panna cotta. JACQUI: It's this morning's mystery box all over again. Today's essentially a team challenge, so if I muck this up, I don't only put myself, but I put my teammates through to a pressure test also. JESSICA: How are you going, Jacqui? Yeah, all right. It's all resting on that panna cotta. If it doesn't set and it just forms a puddle on the plate, then it's going to look pretty messy. I pop them into the blast chiller. I certainly hope this is enough time to set them. There might be little relief when you're cooking as a team, but if you find yourself in a pressure test, there's going to be trouble. 30 minutes to go. GEORGE: Come on, guys. CURTIS: Come on, guys. SARA: We need to get a hurry on with the sorbet big-time. Yep, it's gone in the blast chiller. I'll put it in the churner now. We've got 30 minutes left, and I don't know where our sorbet is. It's not in the ice cream machine, that for sure. I grab my sorbet mix from the blast chiller. It's cooled down. Pop it into the ice-cream churner. It's a small amount. I'm hoping that within 20-25 minutes this thing will churn, and it'll actually start to turn into a sorbet. Have we got the sorbet on? Sorbet's chilling in the ice-cream churner. I don't know how this is going to come together. I'm really worried that it's just not going to set at all. So, we're in, but it's going to be close. For today's invention test, I'm in charge of the sweet dish. I'm going to make a pomegranate sorbet with chocolate mousse and chocolate crumb. I'm going to whack the oven up. Don't let me forget the crumb's in there. I've got the sorbet in the churner. I put the crumb in the oven to crisp up. And now I need to start working on the chocolate mousse. Oh, I think my chocolate... What's wrong, Ash? ...is no good. What? The bowl has gotten way too hot which has made the chocolate seize. I'm not going to be able to use it anymore, and I'm going to have to start again. I run back into the pantry and grab some more chocolate for my mousse. I really hope this isn't going to cost us. How are you going, Ash? Got the crumbs? I'm a little bit stressed. We're running out of time, Billie. A little reminder ` pomegranate, sweet, savoury, but only 15 minutes to go. Come on. GARY: Come on. CURTIS: Come on, guys. This guy just needs to hurry up. You know, there's not a lot in there; we can always chuck it in the freezer. Looking into the ice cream churner, and my sorbet ` it's exactly the same consistency that it was 10 minutes ago. I am freaking out now. I can't serve a puddle of liquid onto the plate. Can you put the ice cream machine in the freezer? Yeah, I'm going to put the sorbet in the freezer. No, I mean like, the whole machine. Can I put the whole machine in the freezer? No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. No. I grab a tin and pour the sorbet mixture into a nice long tin... Oh, it's thickening up. ...pop it into the blast chiller. It's going straight in. Every few minutes I'm just going to have to run over, give it a bit of a stir and just hope that that blast chiller can start to set it quicker than the ice cream churner is right now. All right. Come on. Time is running away very, very quickly. So, we need to keep really, really pumping on. I need to turn one of my panna cottas out and see if they've got any chance of setting. I grab one from the blast chiller, turn it out onto the board... Oh, not quite. Not set. Oh, Jacqui, what's going on? I'm doing a tester. Perfect timing. It's not there yet. We've got another 10 minutes. Gee, I hope it sets in time, don't you? Yeah, I can see what you're doing there. That's risky, isn't it? It is, it is. I'm not going to lie. But you know what? Sometimes the biggest risks pay off in the biggest volumes. Yeah, pull them out of the bag. I've put everything on the line here today. I've put all my energies into this panna cotta. My test batch has turned out to be a disaster. I get some liquid centres out of their moulds and pop them into the panna cotta moulds. And I pop them into the blast chiller, and I'm holding out hope that this last few minutes will be just what it needs to be perfect. I haven't got the luxury of time, so if it's set it's set, and if not... it's a disaster. Guys, you need to know this ` 10 minutes to go. JOHN: 10 minutes to go, and I've just taken the pork out the pressure cooker, and I'm hoping I've got enough time to crisp up that skin to serve to the judges. Is this our crispy crackling moment? Let's have a look. Johnny. CURTIS: Ooh, hoo, hoo. Is it crispy? Not yet. The question ` is it going to be soft and beautiful, and is the crackling going to give us a bit of crunch? I'm feeling a little bit nervous, because time's running out, and I really need to render the fat out of this pork and hopefully get a crispy skin on the pork belly. We've got another two minutes. My dacquoise are out. I'm just putting another batch in just in case. JESSIE: All right. 10 minutes to go, and I'm feeling OK. I'm definitely pushing it for time, but I really feel like it's going to be an amazing dessert. That's good. Yum. It's really good. Pomegranate is definitely going to be the hero of the dish. You're going to see it everywhere ` see that beautiful red colour, and I just can't wait to see it plated up. We've just got to make sure we put up good food today. I don't want to go up against Jessie and Jamie. BILLIE: Today, our savoury dish is pomegranate glazed lamb. Putting the glaze on the lamb, it kind of turns a grey colour. It doesn't look very nice. ASHLEIGH: Oh, it's pretty runny still. If I'd spent more time on the glaze ` making it more pomegranatey and more sticky, I think that would have been a much better outcome than just a grey pieces of lamb on the plate. One ingredient, two dishes, three of you and only five minutes left. Five minutes to go. Come on, guys. Come on. MATTHEW: Oh, beautiful. Good work. JACQUI: Hand-cooked lamb rack. (LAUGHS) Hand cooked... 5 minutes to go, and I check my sorbet. It hasn't set. Look, it's thickening up, but I'm not sure that it's solid enough. Slushy, mushy pomegranate syrup. It just hasn't worked. This is the only pomegranate element we've got on this dessert. This is a pomegranate challenge. If we don't have a pomegranate element on there, then we're going to elimination. 1 1 5 minutes to go, and I check my sorbet. It hasn't set. Look, it's thickening up, but I'm not sure that it's solid enough. Slushy, mushy pomegranate syrup. It just hasn't worked. If it still is not quite right, we'll chuck some ice in it and we'll serve an ice through it. Yeah. So, it'll be good. Got to do something with it, so we're going to take it from a sorbet to a granita. Putting a pomegranate granita with a sponge cake ` it's not great. Wrong textures, but it's better than having no pomegranate element at all. MATTHEW: What do you need, Jac? JACQUI: All resting on that panna cotta. I might you to help me. We might un` de-mould one together. With a couple of minutes to go, whether those panna cottas are set or not, I have to get them out of the blast chiller and onto the plate. It's a tense moment. This is make or break. It is just holding together. It's threatening to break and I'm just thinking, "Hold on. Hold it. Hold it". Hey, they got a sexy wobble if nothing else. (LAUGHS) They're about to break ranks. They're in one piece. It's done. Thank God. You have two minutes to go. JOHN: Time's running out really fast. I need to think of another way of cooking this pork, so I decide to finely slice the pork and cook it that way. It's tender. STEPHEN: Is it tender? Mm-hm. Get it on the skin. Yeah, the skin's so... It's almost getting... This is getting serious now. If we don't get this pork on the plate, then we're probably going to be in the bottom three and into a pressure test. Time to get a wriggle on. You should be plating up by now, because there's only one minute to go. Come on. Come on, let's go. ASHLEIGH: Oh, Goddy. I've been so focused on fixing my chocolate mousse that I've completely forgotten about the soil in the oven. Whoa, my crumb is too bitter. I'm having one disaster after another. I'm worried about all the elements on the dessert. BILLIE: We'll have to use it, Ash. I know. It's definitely not my day in the kitchen. 30 seconds, come on! GARY: Come on, let's go. CURTIS: Come on, guys. Final touches. STEPHEN: 30 seconds. Do you want this pork, John? Come on, quick. Just put something on the plate. 10 seconds to go! Nine! ALL JUDGES: Eight! Seven! Six! Five! Four! Three! Two! One! That's it! Time's up. JUDGES CLAP STEPHEN: Well done, team. SARA: Good job, girls. Good job. BILLIE: How fast did that go? Jesus. It's really weird cooking with people, isn't it? GEORGIA: It's so weird. (LAUGHS) Our two dishes look absolutely beautiful, and I just can't wait for those judges to see what we did in an hour with the pomegranate. You had 60 minutes to cook us two dishes ` one sweet, one savoury, and pomegranate was the core ingredient. There's always a bit of pleasure in sharing the stress, the creativity with a team, but there's also a little pain, because if you lose today's challenge, you all go into a pressure test. Not good place to be. First team's dishes we'd like to taste ` Jessica, Jacqui and Matthew. Up you come. (APPLAUSE) JACQUI: Today is definitely my proudest moment in the kitchen. I've been striving to put up a dish that I was super proud of, and that reminds me exactly why I'm here and exactly why I want to make food my career. So, I've done a cutlet and some lamb backstrap which was done in a spiced pomegranate glaze with a roasted capsicum and pomegranate sauce underneath, a lemon and herb yoghurt, pickled red onions, fresh pomegranate, mint ` all that jazz. Brilliant. And dessert? Yeah, dessert is an orange blossom panna cotta with a liquid pomegranate centre, a cinnamon crumble, pistachio praline and a pomegranate syrup. Fantastic. They both look like they've come straight out of the same kitchen, so I love that. I think it's very pretty, and I think the use of pomegranate is great. Can I also say that I saw that panna cotta when you turned it out at the end of time. We haven't seen a panna cotta that good for a long time. (WHISPERS) Wow. All right, main course first? I'm excited about this dish. It looks beautiful. GEORGE: Gorgeous. But it's just amazing, Curtis, isn't it, how that glaze, the carrots, just pop off the plate. Really good. Can we please? Look at that. Look at that wobble. Matthew? We all love a wobble, George. WOMAN LAUGHS Aw! Curtis? Huh? Right, Curtis, come on. This is the most exciting part about a panna cotta like this is when you break into the centre and you reveal this beautiful, sort of, liquid. It's a beautiful idea and a very, very ambitious one to try and do a soft-centred panna cotta in an hour. I really commend that enthusiasm. (JACQUI CHUCKLES) All right. Main course first. What do you reckon, guys? Guys, there's something I love about this dish ` the carrot ` the flavour of the carrot is really, really delicious. And I think the spice used in the dish is also really clever, well-balanced and complementary to the lamb. Let's have a look at your dessert. Did you all have a hand in this dish? Did someone drive it? (LAUGHS) I think it's one of the best things we've tasted this year. And it's great, because it looks like panna cotta, very sticky syrup, and you think, "Oh, it's going to be too sweet with a crumb," and what you get, is you get this not too sweet panna cotta that's got the perfect texture with its really sweet syrup. The cinnamon flavour in that crumb is delicious and I'm going to talk until Gary finishes the plate. ALL LAUGH Um. But the thing I really love about it is the surprise when you cut the panna cotta open. You're going, "Oh, OK, that's a great idea, a little bit of pomegranate in the middle," and then it's that flavour of orange blossom, and that suddenly brings out the flavour of the cinnamon so clearly. I think it's spectacular. Absolutely spectacular. Great team effort, but can I say, Jacqui, I don't know where you've been, but I don't really care cos this is where you're going, yeah? Great. Welcome. That's amazing. Well done. When you told us what you were doing, I thought, "Oh, she's a little crazy, that one, because there's no way that's going to happen in an hour." But you pulled it off. And I really commend the ambition, you know? Especially in a competition like this where taking a chance can go horribly the other direction. That's truthfully where I thought you were going, but you nailed it. Great job. Gee. Well done, guys. (CHEERING, APPLAUSE) JACQUI: After a frantic cook and plenty of tense moments there, to hear that this has been a really brilliant dish and to get the feedback that I've been craving so badly is fantastic. Maybe I should do more panna cottas. John, Reynold, Stephen. Your turn's next. (APPLAUSE) STEPHEN: Come on, boys. Wowzy-woozy. So, what we've got today is a scallop and pork belly kilawin, which is a Filipino dish. We also added pomegranate jelly and some of the seeds as well. REYNOLD: For dessert it's saffron caramelised pineapple with coconut yoghurt and a coconut yoghurt granita, pomegranate gems and gel with pomegranate granita and a coconut husk ash. DRAMATIC MUSIC GARY: All right. Main course first. I don't like it. 1 GARY: All right. Main course first. I don't like it. I'll be perfectly honest. I think you've got plenty of possible heroes in that dish in terms of ingredients ` the pork, the scallops, the pomegranate, for example, and none of them are singing. And all I'm tasting is vinegar. And I know that's kilawin, right? It's vinegar. But when you're trying to hero particularly the pomegranate, that's a big problem. GEORGE: All right, dessert. I think it's a really interesting dish, and I really admire the technique you've tried to pull off. I think that you've gone for a bunch of different applications of the same ingredients, and I think it's refreshing, and I think it's really quite delicious. Thanks, guys. STEPHEN: So, our main course has gone down like a lead balloon with the judges, you know, but Reynold's had some good feedback from Curtis. Hopefully the dessert is enough to get us over the line. The next dishes we'd like to taste come from Amy, Rose and Sara. (APPLAUSE) I'm really worried. This granita is just mushy, watery mess on the plate. I'm really worried this is going to send us to elimination. (APPLAUSE) Tell us what your savoury dish is. We have done a ` Amy, what's the dessert? AMY: We've got a pistachio siphon cake and rosewater cream and pomegranate granita. Do you want to dress the... Curtis? All right, main course first ` I love the cure on salmon, and I love the lemon cream and the fennel. I also think this glaze, this pomegranate glaze has got bags of flavour. Let's have a look at your dessert. You had a few problems with your granita, didn't you? Yes, we were wanting to do a sorbet, but we had to change the plans in the last minute because it was struggling to set in time, so we went for a granita instead. I think you've got a lot of depth of flavour in the cake, which is great. The pomegranate ` it's a misstep, because it turns into a soggy sponge, you know? Even if was a nice sorbet, it would still melt and would still make it soggy. You know what, though? It did give us lots of pomegranate flavour. Thank you. (APPLAUSE) Well done, girls. ROSE: I know that pomegranate really came through, but that was only half the brief. The other half is to execute it, and I just don't want to go to elimination because of a granita. Next up ` Anna, Billie, Ashleigh. (CHEERING, APPLAUSE) ASHLEIGH: I am feeling so nervous walking our dishes up to be tasted by the judges. I'm not happy with the dessert. The texture of the mousse isn't good. The texture of the crumb isn't good. Pretty much worried about every element that's on the plate. Dishes? Let's go. Savoury first. BILLIE: It's a pomegranate lamb with pomegranate pickled vegetables. Dessert is a pomegranate sorbet with chocolate mousse and chocolate soil. Let's dig in. That's nicely cooked though. GEORGE: What chocolate did you use? It was just the 70% chocolate in that one. It's quite bitter, isn't it? MATT: For me, the soil is so dry that it kind of sucks all that lovely freshness out of the sorbet. It's bad enough letting yourself down, but to think that I could be letting down the whole team and sending us into a pressure test is pretty much my worst nightmare. Right, savoury course. Look, I'm loving the flavours of mint, lamb, cauliflower. They're the things that sing to me. But then where's the pomegranate? All right, guys, back to your bench. (APPLAUSE) I definitely feel responsible if we end up in a pressure test. The dessert was not good at all, and I think that could definitely be what pushes us over the line and gets us in that bottom three. The next team we'd like to taste is Georgia, Jamie and Jessie. (APPLAUSE) What have you cooked? Uh, for the savoury, we've got a pan seared scallop with pomegranate vinaigrette, fresh pomegranates, fresh cucumber and a cauliflower puree, and a nut crumb. Georgia? Yes. I've made a pomegranate and rosewater dacquoise. Great. There's definitely pomegranate there. (LAUGHS NERVOUSLY) How good does that look? That looks like a cover of a magazine. Yeah, looks amazing. Yeah. Looks really good. Thank you. All right, let's eat dessert. GARY: Don't even need a spoon, do we? We can kind of get our own. Pick it up. Dressing? Are we going to give one to our guest? Yeah. Right, savoury course. I think this is a really beautifully composed dish. The textures are really nice, your dressing's delicious. It could've used bit more olive oil for me, to round it out, so you've got a little bit more balanced vinaigrette, but all in all really delicious. Thank you. What you've managed to do is bring us something that's absolutely pomegranate, and I really like that nut crumb. It goes so well with the scallops and with that little toasty ring around the edge of the scallops. What I am looking at is two styles of pomegranate used there and also two there, and that's wonderful. Awesome work, guys. Let's have a look at your dessert. Curtis? I think this is a delicious dessert. I really do. I think the perfume of the rosewater, the sweet and, sort of, sharpness that the pomegranates bring, you've reduced some of the pomegranate down to make it really sweet, and then you've left fresh pomegranate seeds on that have that little burst of acidity. It's really, really quite outstanding. Good job. GEORGIA: Thank you. JESSIE: Thank you so much. Yay! Yay! (APPLAUSE) Well done. Thank you. Good job, guys. That's a really interesting tasting, and a difficult one for us to judge, because each team's given us two dishes. So even if you put up a fabulous dish and the other one doesn't hit the mark, then, of course, there's a big question mark. You know what that means, don't you? I think we need to chat. We'll see you soon. 1 Two teams really nailed today's challenge. Three didn't fare quite so well. But let's start with some smiles on the faces. Georgia, Jamie, Jessie ` we loved the combination of that scallop and that nut crumb, that pomegranate sauce ` the perfect combination. Jacqui, Matthew, Jessica ` we love that combination of that herb yoghurt, the carrots, the capsicum and pomegranate sauce. And as for desserts today, Georgia, you gave us one of the best desserts of the competition so far. Wow. But Jacqui... yours was even better, and that's why Jacqui, Matthew and Jessica are going through to play for immunity. (CHEERING, APPLAUSE) MATTHEW: Good work. JACQUI: Couldn't be happier. This is a rare opportunity that I've been given, and I don't intend to waste it. Well done. Bring the immunity on. (LAUGHS) SARA: Oh, Jacqui. (LAUGHS) And for the rest of you, there was certainly some good dishes, but there were also dishes that shot wide of the mark. Anna, Billie, Ashleigh ` you didn't give us enough flavour of pomegranate, and that's why, I'm afraid, you are in tomorrow's pressure test. (SNIFFS, SOBS) Ashleigh, head in hands? Yeah. This was the worst thing that could have happened ` to go up against these guys in a pressure test is going to be awful, because they're two of my closest friends so, yeah, it's not a good position to be in. OK. This is the downside of a team challenge, and this is what this invention test was. Curtis, thank you so much, mate. Any advice for the guys in general? You guys are in a competition ` a fierce one. So, what you have to remember is, "Does my dish meet the brief? "Am putting delicious first?" If you can say yes to those two things, you'll be going on to the next round every single time. You guys have got a golden opportunity. You're going to learn so much about food. You're going to walk out of here an incredible cook ` I know that. Good luck, guys. Thanks, Curtis. CONTESTANTS: Thank you. Well, another day's done in the MasterChef kitchen, and I'm sure all of you have learnt something and that's the most important thing. You three, you can't let this competition get the better of you. Because tomorrow, you are going to be under the pump ` a pressure test that is going to push you to your very limit. Off you go. ASHLEIGH: The thought of going into a pressure test at all is terrifying and awful, but knowing that I'm going to have to go up against Anna and Billie ` I can't think of anything I would less rather do. ANNOUNCER: Next time ` they've been friends from the start. Knowing one of us is going to leave is really hard. Now, their fate will be decided by British master Marcus Wareing... I can't even explain how hard it's going to be. and his two Michelin star masterpiece. Are you in the zone? This pressure test is so formidable, it will push them right to the edge. I'm not in a good place. You can do this. And whoever buckles under the stress will be going home.