1 ANNOUNCER: Previously on MasterChef Australia ` Jessie gave her all... I would really like to win the pin. ...in a high-stakes immunity challenge,... All our eyes on you. ...but she couldn't match the creative brilliance... All right, let's go. ...of guest chef Ross Lusted. Wonderful cooking! 10 out of 10. Tonight ` we're sparking up the barbie for a low and slow pitmaster challenge... So, essentially, if you're looking, you're not cooking. ...headed by the world champion himself. They look a little tight. Come on, let's go! With only the winning team safe from elimination,... There's no middle team. You're either in the bottom or you've won. ...the race is on... I'm completely overwhelmed. Ow, ow! ...to produce perfect ribs... They're amazing. ...for a few hundred meat-loving guests. Sorry, dudes ` won't be long. So which team will flame out... Oh my God. ...under the pressure? I can't do this right now. # Burning up in my heart # like a flame, # like the brightest shooting star. # In our souls, we all know # our dreams make us who we are. # Burning up in my heart # like a flame, # like the brightest shooting star. # Supertext Captions by Red Bee Media Australia redbeemedia.com.au Able 2016 SARA: Oh, exciting. Oh my God. (CONTESTANTS EXCLAIM) We walk into the MasterChef garden,... Oh my God! Oh wow. ...and it's looking completely different. It's been all changed around, and there's three beautiful stalls there, with big old barbecue pits. And I'm getting really excited ` this is awesome. Well, welcome. As you can see, it's a very different MasterChef day today. Gary's at the wrong end of the line, I'm doing the introduction, and we've left the MasterChef kitchen to come out into the MasterChef garden. What is one small step for you is a huge leap in your culinary adventure. Today is an American-style low and slow barbecue challenge. I'm nervous about today being an American barbecue challenge, but I'm excited as well. I love eating barbecue food, but I haven't really cooked a lot of barbecue at home, and I've certainly never cooked on barbecues that look like this before. So, it's a team challenge. We're gonna be cooking in three teams of three. We're last nine now, and we're getting closer and closer to end of the competition. So the need is all about one thing ` it's not about not losing, it's not about not being in the bottom three ` it's all about being in the winning team, it's all about winning. And today, the winning team is safe, but the bottom two teams,... you're all going into an elimination tomorrow. Wow. (EXHALES) SARA: There's a lot on the line today. If you don't win this challenge, you're 100% going through to elimination. For me, that means there's no option other than to win. I do not wanna go through to an elimination. Right. So how do we organise the teams? Look at that. Ah. Who wants to go first? Come on. (LAUGHS) Oh, look at that. Jessica's up for this one today. We're gonna pick little pigs out of that bucket... Blue! Ooh! ...to show what colour team we're on today. Next! Oh, there you go. Yellow. Yeah, baby. Blue. Blue? On the blue team, it's myself, Jessica and Reynold. I'm pretty happy with that because Jessica loves barbecuing. Yellow. Yellow. Yay! That's the yellow team complete. All done. Red. Come and grab your aprons. JESSIE: Today my team is Billie and Georgia and myself. I'm really happy with my team. I think we get along really well. So I'm glad that I'm with these two girls. So, to help you out in this challenge, we're delighted to have a Pitmaster Grand Champion 25 times over. Far out! His pork alone has earned him two world championships. Wow. All the way from Kansas City, please welcome Andy Groneman. (CHEERING AND APPLAUSE) How's it going, guys? How's everybody doin'? This guy has huge titles under his belt, and we've gotta impress him. Hello. Welcome to the MasterChef garden. So, in the US and in Kansas particularly, it's low and slow. It's not what we do here in Australia, which is grilling. What does that mean? So, the low and slow is really about taking those secondary cuts. We cook those down longer. There's collagen, there's fat, you've gotta break that down, and you get a really luscious product out of it. So when we're talking about Kansas, what kind of food comes to mind? So you've got that luscious pulled pork, you've got pork spare ribs. Brisket burnt ends ` that's really kind of the signature Kansas City dish ` the point or the deckle of a brisket that are just full of fat. And as they cook down, the outside gets crispy, they form a bark, but that interior of that cut stays luscious and rich. Did you see how Jessica just got a bit weak at the knees? I did. She looks a little... I love that. Now, obviously, they've got some fancy kit over there, which are these smokers. But what's important? You've got to have that nice low temperature. We're cooking with natural wood, right, so you're gonna get some of that smoke and flavour from the wood. You're gonna get the fats rendering into the cooker, and you're gonna get all of that steam and smoke built up into the process. On a slab of ribs, I'd like to have a little bit of sweet, and then a little bit of heat at the back end, right? And that pairs up with that smoke and really gives a nice round flavour. If I'm cooking something like a brisket, I want some of that pepper and chilli to come through. Beef can take the extra seasoning, right? But you can definitely add a little glaze or a sauce at the end to brighten something up. MATTHEW: Smoky flavours, sticky fingers. You know, meat falling off the bone. It's flavours that I'm familiar with, but it's the cooking technique that's gonna be a challenge for us today. GEORGE: Right, here are the rules. You're gonna have six hours... Wow. ...to prep and cook. JESSICA: Awesome. Each team must prepare enough food to feed 150 customers. Oh wow. Six-hour time frame sounds fantastic, but 150 people ` that's a really big barbecue. Your menus must feature a meat plate with three options ` one that must be low and slow ribs of pork. You must also do three vegetarian side dishes. You'll be judged on your creativity; most of all, deliciousness. Hope you're fired up ` literally, cos you're gonna be soon. Andy's gonna be around, so use him wisely. Remember what's at stake. Are you ready? CONTESTANTS: Yes! Your time starts... now. MATTHEW: Are we gonna do lamb leg? Are we gonna do lamb leg? SARA: What's this? Lamb? JESSICA: Cutlets. First thing we need to work out is what meat we're going to cook with. What's that? It's first in, best dressed when it comes to produce. Yeah, beautiful. And there's these beautiful, big scotch fillets. Do you reckon 50 serves? So it'd be cut quite thin shaved? Yeah. 50 serves, I think. Is there another one? I'd really like to cook with chicken wings. I think they kind of go really nicely with American-style food, so I grab a couple of bags of those as well. (GROANS) If we can all get the ribs on first,... Yeah. ...I reckon. One of the biggest things we'll judged on today is our pork ribs, so we really need to make sure that they've got a lot of time in the barbecue and that we give them a lot of love and care. All right, so, should I start a rub for marinade? The pork? Yep. Today for the ribs, we wanna have a bit of sweetness, we wanna have a bit of smokiness and a bit of heat as well. So we're using some chipotle chilli, spices, a bit of brown sugar and lots of salt and pepper. The ribs ` ideally we'd like to marinate them for a little while and then get them on. They're gonna take four and a bit hours, I reckon. You wanna take your time so they're nice and soft. I haven't actually done anything like this on these huge machines before, so... it's gonna be a little bit of, I guess, just trusting your gut instinct as you go along. SARA: Today is definitely not, "Oh, let's put some meat on the barbecue "and sit back on our lounge chairs for four hours while they cook". We have so much to do. How thick are they gonna be? Like, if you got a rib, a drumstick... If I got A rib, I'd be pissed off. I'd want two ribs. REYNOLD: Yeah, that's fair. Yeah. From the moment we get started, Jessica's taking the lead, and I honestly couldn't be happier. I think you can even go a little bit closer. She's so passionate about American barbecue, and she definitely knows what she's talking about. Yep. Beautiful. So, for the meat tray today, they're gonna get two ribs per person, and then they're also gonna get a chicken drumstick and a lamb cutlet. The main focus for me today is getting these ribs absolutely spot-on. I'm doing a coffee and chipotle spice rub. So you've got brown sugar, coffee, lots of paprika, cinnamon, allspice, coriander, cumin ` all the delicious things. Really good American barbecue is just full of flavour. Not only do you get really amazing smoky flavours, but you'll have a lot of spices and stuff going on in there as well. So it should actually be really complex. Let's win, guys. I don't wanna be safe. I want to bloody knock this out of the park. Have you got an idea what you're doing with these ribs? What's the plan? I'm gonna do a dry rub first. I would really like to do the foil wrap on them, do a little braising liquid, and then a little glaze again. She seems to have... This is her kind of food. Ah. You can't tell by the way she's dressed, but it's kind of... I could tell when we were standing out front. ...dirty bar food. I have a fair bit of knowledge around this subject, so there's a lot of pressure being put on our team to do well today, and especially on me. AMY: Let's have a race. I'm already one-up on you. MATTHEW: Looking across at the other teams, there's some strong team players on all of the teams. Flavour today is obviously gonna be king, and making sure that we get that right is gonna be really critical to win today. ASHLEIGH: The first thing I'm working on today is the rub for the pork ribs. We are using paprika and lots of other spices, like cinnamon and clove and allspice. And then I think we're going to use the same spices in a barbecue sauce that we'll glaze the ribs with later. I have to be really careful that the rub for the pork ribs is well-balanced. I could make it too salty or too spicy, and it'll just completely ruin the whole dish. More salt, more sugar. Ashleigh's working on the rub, Amy's working on the pork, so I just take charge of the barbecues. Let me just turn these on. Andy's briefed us on how to turn our three smokers and how to operate them. (SIGHS) Just hang on for a sec. Fortunately, they seem to be fairly straightforward to use. You know, we fill them up with the wood pellets. We just need to make sure we select the right wood pellets, set the temperature, and away they go. Do we pour it in there? Yep. Yeah? Yeah. Positive? Running these barbecues is gonna be really critical. If we don't have the temperatures right, if we don't have the timings right, if we don't have the smoke right, then our meat's not gonna be cooked well. Oh, that WAS on. Winning and losing is gonna come down to how well we cook this meat. Is that smoking? It's smoking! Yay. Yay! The ribs are gonna take, what, four hours ` a good four hours ` to be just cooked, so they've really gotta get motoring on the butchery. Any thoughts, outside of the ribs, that they've gotta cook perfectly about what you would do? There's some beautiful lamb loins that I saw in there. You could take those, put a nice little bit of smoke, get a grilled finish on that, and then glaze it up with something with a nice little bite at the end, with maybe a little balsamic or something in it, right? Yeah, really nice. Just gorgeous. These bad boys are under here. Yeah. That's you. GEORGE: The challenge might be low and slow, but that doesn't mean you don't go, go, go! One hour down, five hours to go. GARY: (CHUCKLES) Come on, guys. ANDY: Let's do it. Oh my God. That was an hour. MATTHEW: Let's go, guys. Come on. Let's keep pushing it. JESSICA: So four and a half hours ` we need be done cleaning down and setting up for service. REYNOLD: Yep. SARA: Happy. Give me... Give me the hat. Hatting up. The first hour has just come and gone. It's taken a really long amount of time to prep all this food. Jessie is all over the ribs, Billie's on to making the spice rub for the scotch fillet, so I'm on to the chicken wings. I'm just making the spice mix for the chicken wings. So as they come out of the buttermilk, they'll go into this. There's lots of hot paprika, I'm gonna put some cayenne in there. The chicken wings, they're going to be saucy, they're going to be spicy, but I don't want to blow 150 people's heads off. Do you reckon that's enough for 300-plus wings? I don't think so. Cooking for 150 people, you really can't afford to fall behind today. It's the day to move as fast as you can and make as little mistakes as possible. But... I'm tipping in the packet of cayenne, and a gust of wind comes through the MasterChef garden. Ow. Cayenne pepper in the eyeball! Oh my God. Burns like crazy. JESSIE: George. No, it's really bad. It's getting really bad. Well, go wash it. Ow! Go wash it, go wash it. Ow, ow! Ow! It's the worst thing that could happen at the start of the day. I can't believe this is happening. MYSTICAL MUSIC PLAYS There I am back in my turner-upper days, giving the volume button a work-out because, to be honest, my hearing wasn't as fit as it once was. Welcome back, everybody. So up it would go. TV BLARES TV BLARES Oh, Grandma! Nowhere was safe. RADIO: A course of likely fiscal policies, the ones that... MYSTICAL MUSIC BLARES But you can only turn it up so much before Noise Control turns up too. That's when I decided to go to Bay Audiology. I had a free hearing check and discovered how tiny the hearing aids are now, all with a 60-day money-back guarantee. Perfect. Call Bay Audiology to book your free hearing check on... UPBEAT MUSIC 1 Ow. Cayenne pepper in the eyeball! Ow, ow! It's like getting pepper-sprayed right in the eyeball. Oh, it's stopping, it's stopping, it's stopping. Oh my God. I can't believe this is happening to me. There's so much to do, and we're losing time because of this. Oh my God. That hurt SO much. I just need to pull it together and keep going. Ow! BILLIE: Yeah. Don't do that again. No. Today we have to prepare a meal for 150 people. Oh my gosh. So if we don't get a move on, we'll be in big trouble. GARY: The secret to a good barbecue is timing. Two hours down, four hours to go. Come on! Let's go. JESSICA: All right. Let's load 'em in. MATTHEW: Let's get moving. I've gotta get this pork on. The key to these ribs is to cook them for as long as we can at a really low temperature. They call this low and slow for a reason. We're looking at somewhere between 105 and 120 degrees for around about three to four hours, and that should cook them perfectly. It's really important to keep the lid shut. That's how you maintain the temperature that you want inside the smoker. JESSIE: And so bone down. BILLIE: Bone down. It's not hot, is it? GEORGIA: It smells good. GEORGE: Wow. That looks amazing. SARA: Thank you! You wanna win today, yeah? Absolutely! This is super scary today because only the top team is gonna be safe. The bottom two teams are gonna go through to elimination. It's win it or nothing. Six,... nine, 12, 15. That'll do. I really want to be able to do around 30 racks of ribs today. I think it's really important that every customer gets two ribs. But I can only fit 15 racks into the big smoker. We're not gonna get any more than that in. Ooh, shit. It's chock to the rafters. SO I think we're gonna have to also use one more. The ribs are the most important bit today. I think that we're gonna have to sacrifice one of our little smokers to ribs. Guess you have to, don't you? So we gotta think about this strategically now. We've only got one smoker left to use, and our menu has to have three choices of meat. I'm looking after the chicken, and Sara's doing the lamb. So, where are you gonna do the other meats at? Are you gonna do that just in this pit? Think so, yeah. Because if we have ribs in these two, they're booked. Yep. Since we've only got one smoker for the lamb and the chicken, we're gonna have to share that. I'm just worried about your cook time, so just make sure you get your time lines lined up. Cool. All right. We really need to be careful with our timings and who goes first. I think that my lamb needs longer in the barbecue, so I'm gonna be putting my lamb in first. Once that's at a good place, I'm gonna free up the smoker for Reynold to cook his chicken. We're taking a massive risk. My concern is that my lamb needs a long time in the oven, and I won't get enough time to cook it in. At the end of the day, if the lamb's not cooked right, that's enough to put us into elimination. Are we gonna cook the lamb next? MATTHEW: What are we gonna do for flavours? We're still try to figure out what we're gonna do with the lamb. We can make, like, a balsamic honey glaze. Yeah. That'd work. You know, it's our three meat dishes that are really going to be the hero today, and if we don't get the flavours right, we could be in a bit of trouble. And maybe don't do lots of herbs, just pick one herb and really make it... Thyme, balsamic, honey. I wonder if there's any lemon thyme in the garden. Yeah. Yeah. We need to create something with a little bit more wow factor, because we're competing against two other teams for that one spot in safety. Is that big enough? Thank you. Just grab heaps and heaps and heaps. Instead of doing just a normal herb rub on the lamb, we decide, "Let's do some lemon thyme "and really capture that flavour profile." You know, if we've got lemon thyme in the rub, then finishing it with fresh lemon will work, won't it? Yes. A lot of lemons to squeeze, though. With 150 people, it's a lot of everything. Using lemon thyme's a bit of a risk. It's not what you'd call a traditional American barbecue flavour, but neither's lamb. Hopefully, the lemon thyme is going to differentiate us from the other two teams. Oh, that smells so good. You can smoke all different types of meat, whether it is lamb or pork, but then it's about, I think, trying to get a balance. If they've gotta put a tray up and they've gotta put three accompanying dishes, all vegetarian, then you need a combination of sweet, the sour, the salty, the fresh, the clean. I think the side dishes are where they can really let their imagination go wild and give us something that's unexpected, but plays to all the strengths that the smoker's got. All right, so, this has got three cheeses in it now, cos, you know, why not? JESSICA: Because cheese. To go with our meat, we have blue cheese broccolini with pecans, we have sweet potato that's smashed, and we also have a pickled watermelon salad. I'm sorting the watermelon into both fresh and a pickle. So, I've got some cubes of fresh watermelon that are going to go in the fridge, and then I'm going to pickle the rinds, which is a really kind of hip thing in kind of Southern cooking. The watermelon salad is there to really refresh the palate. It's got a really lovely kind of vinegar hit with some crunchy fresh watermelon to just cleanse the palate so you can go back to the ribs. Oh, this smells so good. Mmm! There's one thing for sure, Andy ` you're not in Kansas any more; you're in the Masterchef kitchen. Three hours to go. BILLIE: Oh God. Come on! Let's go. ANDY: Get it done. What happened in there? OK, next job. Let's start this fresh timer for three hours. Really soon, 150 people are going to come through the gates, so there's so much work to do. We'll get there. We'll get there. Making three side dishes, the quantities are huge, and it's really time-consuming, especially making a salad. Our sides are sweet potato mash with a maple cinnamon butter, corn with a blue cheese sauce... I really like that, George. ...and a leek and pomegranate salad. GEORGIA: That looks amazing, Billie. Mmm, they're beautiful. I have to get all of the elements ready so that I can hopefully plate them with a bit of time to go so they're ready to serve. How smooth do we want this? Probably really smooth. With my sweet potato, I want it to have a nice maple syrup flavour and have some pecan nuts with a bit of bourbon. Hopefully they're really delicious. Is there any chance we can get corn in soon? My role today is to look after the corn. Are your leeks OK if the temperature goes right, right up? Yes, yes. Yeah? Cool. I need to make sure there's half a cob of corn per person, so I need 80 cobs of corn. That's a lot of corn. All right, we need to hustle, guys. Whoa, this is gonna get in everyone's nostrils. ASHLEIGH: We've still got lots left to do. We still need to finish prepping all of our sides. For our sides, we're making corn with smoked yoghurt, we're doing a pickled apple, fennel and brussels sprout slaw and beetroot, orange and pecan salad. 45... That's 50 oranges. MATTHEW: Yeah. So, we'll just do all those. Holy moly. It will take us forever. There's definitely a lot of pressure on us being creative and inventive with our menu, and I'm really hoping that the pickled apples are a little bit different to what you'd see in a regular slaw and will make it stand out. I'm trying to cool down the pickling liquid a little bit faster so that it doesn't wilt the apple, so it stays nice and crispy. GARY: Just a little bit of advice here. Are you paying attention? So, you want to make sure that your ribs are starting to take on some of the colour on the top. You wanna see little fat nodules forming on the ribs and starting to see some pullback on the bones. That's a good sign that they're into that process of rendering. Because as you move into the last couple of hours of that cook, then you want all that to be going on. So probably make sure if they're not there, push them a little bit right now, all right? Put a little push on. What we're saying is if it's not happening, you may be in trouble. So, we'll just check? Yeah. BILLIE: This is not hot at all. Our ribs are like they have never had heat on them. I don't really know what to do. So I ask Andy for his advice. I'd keep it shut. Yeah, and add a little heat. You're meant to keep it closed, so we just close the lid and we have to crank the oven a little bit up. I don't wanna put it too hot, because I really don't want the ribs just to go really dry, but we've gotta do something or else they're just not gonna cook. MATTHEW: I might just check these barbecues. I'm in charge of the barbecues for my team, and it's a bit nerve-racking, knowing that so much relies on running these barbecues. I have to constantly top up the hopper with chips. If the hopper runs out of chips, the barbecue will automatically switch itself off, which is the last thing we want to happen today. GEORGE: Guys, listen up, yeah? You've been working really hard for a long time now. Ask yourselves the question ` what can you do more? Do you wanna win or do you wanna go through to elimination? 90 minutes to go. Come on! Push! BILLIE: Yes, George. Yes, George. An hour up on that corn yet? JESSIE: It is one minute away. Cool. There's only an hour and a half to go, so I decided to check on the corn that's now in the barbecue. And I've opened it up, and all the corn is cold. Oh my God. It's not even warm in there. Yeah. The barbecue's not hot at all. I can put my hands on the walls. It's literally cold. Something's really wrong with that barbecue. So, tell me what's going on? This one seems to be... It's been cold for a while, I just assume because we've... Oh, yeah, she is off. Did it run out of pellets? If that auger empties and it can't feed fuel, it'll burn the fuel off, and then you have nothing to light the next batch. Oh, OK. The panic and the worry is just building and building and building. Oh my gosh. We have no idea how long it's been off. It's probably been off since I put the corn in. Things are turning off, the ribs aren't cooking as well, so at this rate, we're not going to have any food to feed anybody. '80S ACTION MUSIC Get down! Brandon! Brandon! Don't worry. I've got my vest. I'll just slip this on. (SIGHS) SCREAMS: No! SEAGULLS CRY 1 Oh, yeah, she's off. Yeah. If that auger empties and it can't feed fuel, it'll burn the fuel off, and then you have nothing to light the next batch. GEORGIA: This is not good. There's been no heat going into that barbecue, and it's literally been sitting there, just decreasing in temperature. All right, so, pull the cord, and we'll do a quick reset. OK. You might wanna pull those out. If you pull them out, the grill will get hotter quicker. Your metal will get hot. Yep. And then go ahead and put those back in. We've really cost ourselves a huge amount of time with this barbecue going off. We're running way behind with the corn, and I need to cook the chicken in that same smoker. I'm so worried about being ready for service. It'll probably be 10, 15 minutes. So I don't touch this now? Yeah, don't change that. Just let it ride. Yep, cool. Thank you so much. No problem. I'm just so worried about the meat now. I am really dreading the moment everyone starts coming through the door. I just hope that we've got something to serve people. We've lost so much time with that thing. Yeah. If you don't wanna be on the losing teams, you've gotta ask yourself, with one hour to go, have you done enough? Come on! Let's go. SARA: All right. Let's go. Come on. REYNOLD: We've gotta serve 150 people. That's a lot. So we've gotta think fast, and there's lots to do. Argh! Told ya. I know. AMY: Ooh, that's looking good. MATTHEW: The ribs are looking good. The lamb's cooking well. It smells delicious. It's got some really nice flavours ` the lemon thyme and the honey in there. Hopefully, that's gonna be inventive enough, but it's a risk going with this lemon thyme flavour profile. So we've decided to do a classic American sticky barbecue glaze for our ribs. I am making the glaze for the pork, which is a bit of a barbecue sauce. So we're gonna just add a whole bunch of different flavours to it, to give that beautiful stickiness to it. We're adding molasses and smoked paprika and honey bourbon as well. They're gonna be beautiful, sticky, spicy, barbecue pork ribs. What's not to love about this? SARA: Let's get this done. Hustle, hustle, hustle. There's no middle of the road any more. I think since we've all come into top 10, we know that there's no buffer. And today's challenge is exactly that. There's no middle team. You're either on the bottom, or you've won. JESSICA: All right, I'm gonna do, um, barbecue sauce for the ribs. I'm gonna make a barbecue sauce today. I'm gonna use it for a braising liquid in the wrapped ribs. I start with some garlic, grated onions, apple and some stout. Let that cook down with some of the leftover spice rub from the ribs. And then I wrap each rack of ribs in a double layer of foil with a little bit of braising liquid and put them back in. At home, if you're doing it with one rack of ribs, it doesn't take very long, but I've got 30 racks of ribs here to do it with, so it's definitely adding a lot to our prep time. OK, I'm halfway through getting these wrapped, and they're looking good. (GRUNTS) SARA: My lamb's been in the smoker for about three hours. I'm gonna free it up so Reynold can cook his chicken. Get in as many as you can. REYNOLD: I don't know how long the chicken's gonna take. It's hopefully gonna cook properly and fast enough. SARA: I think we need to crank this chicken. I'm a bit worried. Ideally, I would have given my lamb a lot more time in the smoker. If I have under lamb, that could just be the one thing that sends us into elimination. All right, let's hurry up. It's hustle time now. I'm just getting my wings prepped to put into the barbecue, so I'm putting them from the buttermilk that they've been soaking in, into the spice rub. I have to be careful when it comes to the chicken wings. I want them to be spicy, but I don't want them to be blow-your-head-off hot. Hopefully, it's balanced. We have the salad being finished off, the ribs are still cooking, the scotch fillet's still cooking. It's like, where did the time go? JESSIE: Do you wanna just check the ribs and the beef? Uh, yep. I'm just worried that if we don't look at the stuff now, then we won't know if it's not ready. Yeah. Yep. Andy said opening the barbecue isn't such a great idea, but we're cooks ` you just wanna see how it's cooking. I can't tell. That feels... Those ones feel less. Yeah. 150 hungry people descending on you in 30 minutes. Push, push, push. Come on! GARY: Come on, guys. JESSIE: Where the hell did that time go? It's only half an hour till service, so that's a pretty scary prospect. I'm gonna start cutting ribs now. SARA: OK. I've started carving up our ribs to get them ready to serve, and Andy has come into the kitchen... Oh, let's have a look at those ribs. Andy, what do you reckon? They look a little tight. Yeah. This is really really disheartening. I've spent a lot of time on them. Yeah, I'd... I'd keep 'em on. This cooking should be my forte, but they are still too tight. Put back in... the heat? Yeah. Do you need help? Now I've only got half an hour left, so I have to put them back in the smoker. It needs to be perfect today. Only one team's gonna be safe, but I just feel like it's all kind of crumbling around me right now. (TEARFULLY) My ribs have been in for the entire time, cooking today. Um, I can't... do this right now. SARA: Jess, come on. 1 I can't... do this right now. SARA: Jess, come on. These ribs have been in there for, like, four hours, and Andy's told me that they're still too tight. Come on. We can do this. Come on. It needs to be perfect today. Only one team's gonna be safe. But I'm just completely overwhelmed. GARY: Can I tell you something? Yep. I reckon you're in a really good spot, right? You look at what you've got ready and what you've got good to go. Yep. You just need to keep it together. Yeah? Yeah. Thank you. Come on. You're in a good spot. Let's go. Come on! Let's go. The only thing I can do is to add some more braising liquid in there, and I'm hoping this is gonna save them. So, just gotta... cross my fingers. MATT: If you wanna avoid getting burnt in the next elimination, you need to win this barbecue challenge. 15 minutes to go! Come on. Not long. 15 minutes? What's this? All right! The countdown begins. Oh God! JESSIE: When the doors open and everyone starts piling in, I just know what it's gonna feel like. It's gonna feel like there's heaps of people just swamping us and they're gonna be expecting to be fed. Um, this chicken's gonna take a while. 15 minutes to go, and I'm finally getting the chicken into the barbecue. But we have so much left to do, and our ribs aren't coming along as fast as we'd like. I'm 100% worried about the ribs. They just seem to not be cooking fast enough. It's all about ribs today, and if they're not right, then we're definitely going through to elimination. ANDY: I've seen the door open a lot. Yeah. MATT: What's happening when the door opens? Um, you're losing heat. Yeah, so every time you check it, it sets you back. Yep, yep. So, essentially, if you're looking, you're not cooking. OK. GEORGIA: If you're looking, you're not cooking. It's starting to dawn on us that we've been lifting our lids on the barbecues just a little too much. Don't open the door, let them cook, leave it shut. OK. Yep? The penny-drop moment has come kind of too late. People are going to start coming in really soon, and we need to start opening the barbecues and getting food out. You're gonna make it cool when you take 'em out, so those ribs have got to be perfect. Yeah. OK. Yes. Thank you. GEORGE: Five minutes! That's all! Just five minutes before your customers enter the MasterChef garden. Come on! All right, guys, are we ready to finish these plates? We need the rest of the meat out. That's what we need. Yeah, OK. MATTHEW: So, I'm cutting up the beef, and Amy's gonna start working on portioning out the lamb. What do you reckon? Yeah, I'm happy. And it looks like it's cooked nicely. It tastes beautiful and, hopefully, the lemon thyme and the honey is gonna differentiate ourselves from the other two teams, which is gonna be really important. ASHLEIGH: I'm worried about these salads. They look a bit sad, don't they? I'm not happy with how the slaw looks. It's not very vibrant in colour. It's gone a little bit brown from where we pickled the apples. But we just need to get this food out and keep working as fast as we can. MATT: Let's start prepping corn. Do we need to smoke the yoghurt a little bit more? Yeah, I've got another lot in there right now. AMY: We're about to be swamped by 150 guests. I'm just really hoping that we've not bitten off more than we can chew today. SARA: All right, let's get some plates. Come on, come on, come on. Two minutes till service, and the ribs still aren't ready. JESSICA: We haven't got any of our sides ready to serve. We haven't set up an area, figured out how we're gonna serve at all. Um, we can move this station out of the way. This is gonna be a meat station. I need salads being made somewhere else. This is not how we planned the day to go. I don't know how we're gonna start feeding people as soon as they walk in. This is the bit, as always, where the pressure's on. Last push, cos in one minute, 150 people walk in through those doors. Come on! Let's go! Oh my God. (JUDGES APPLAUD) AMY: OK, I'm gonna start carving that lamb. We really need to start plating, so I pull out a rack of ribs and start carving them. The meat is beautiful, it's tender, it's almost falling off the bone, just the way that I hoped it would be. Winning is gonna come down to how well we cook this meat. My God. I check on my chicken wings. These are nowhere near cooked. BILLIE: OK, well, keep that door shut, George. It's a complete disaster. The beef and the pork pretty much are riding down to the last minute. Oh my God! None of the meat is ready. We're really far behind, and we're in so much trouble. I just... don't know how we're gonna get it done. GEORGE: 30 seconds! SARA: Oh my God! Come on! MATTHEW: Let's go, guys. Come on. Push, push, push. GEORGIA: Oh my God. All together. We're just really rushing right now, and we're not ready to start serving, so I'm just stressed. GARY: Well, here goes. 10 seconds,... nine,... JUDGES: ...eight, seven, six, five, four... MATTHEW: What do you need? What do you need? What do you need? two, one... Service time! Come on. MATT: Here they come! Good... Lord. The gates are open and we have nothing ready. We have corn, we have mashed sweet potato and we have salad. BILLIE: I can't look at them in the eye. Holy Dooley. We're really, really... I don't know... I can't think of a polite word. Hi. We're in a lot of trouble. Have you got anything ready? Uh, it shouldn't be too much longer. They're away, cooking right now, so... as soon as possible. (LAUGHS) I wouldn't be happy if I was one of them. Thank you so much. Service starts, and we're actually getting plates out to our guests right on service time. I'm a bit surprised. I didn't think we'd actually get there. Thank you, guys. It's such a rush. We've been working all day, six hours straight. This is my favourite bit, by far. Really really excited today, and proud of what we're putting up. SARA: Hi, guys. How are you? REYNOLD: How are you? There is a lot of people going through, and we've only got a handful of stuff prepped. Won't be a moment, guys. JESSICA: I've started pulling out ribs again to carve, and I am absolutely wishing, with all of my might, that this has worked. They're lookin' pretty good. They've actually seemed to kind of loosen up a little bit. The braising liquid got them nice and juicy, so I'm happy with that. Sorry, dudes. Won't be long. But we've just actually gotta get head down, bum up and serve people now. There you go. Thank you. You're welcome. Look at that. Whoo-hoo! GEORGIA: Hi, everyone. We're really sorry. And thank you so much for waiting. We're going to do our absolute best to serve you as fast as we can. So, we've got chicken cooking, and there's just our three little sets of hands. So, we're gonna do it as fast as we can. Panic starts to set in. BILLIE: This is absolutely awful. God, I feel so bad. There's hungry people waiting. JESSIE: OK, so, when do I want to check those ribs? As late as possible? We're not ready. God. It just feels like a massive train wreck. Oh no. (LAUGHS) When are we gonna start serving? We are asking for a miracle, if we even remotely, maybe even a little bit, think that we are going to serve barbecue to 150 people. I need help up here. I don't have a system. I'm gonna freak out. I'm freaking out. 1 Sorry, we're not really ready for you. But it'll be worth the wait. Yeah, waiting for some smoky pork ribs and some corn with some... I think it's blue cheese sauce. It sounds really good if it ever comes out. Let's hope, hey? I need help up here. I don't have a system. I'm gonna freak out. I'm freaking out. GEORGIA: We're trying really hard. You're pushing yourself as much as you possibly can, but it just feels like you're going nowhere. I know you're busy during service. I know you're busy on service. Oh my goodness. Sorry. You seem like you're totally demoralised. You need to pull it together. The food's gotta be good, all right? So just get it together, try and ignore the pressure of all these people looking at you. Yep. And see if you can get a system going. OK. We're definitely not gonna give up. I definitely want to try and feed everybody. But are you gonna make salads up here, like...? I'm going to have to do it here. All right. But if we start service now, we're just gonna run out of food straightaway. So if we kind of get a bit more stuff cooked, we might be able to get some people fed. It's coming, folks. Sorry. SARA: How are you guys today? MEN: Good. You weren't waiting too long, were you? Good. ASHLEIGH: There you go. Thank you so much, guys. Our ribs look really good. The meat's starting to fall off the bone. It looks really delicious. MATTHEW: Look at them. Oh my God, they're amazing. The ribs are looking good, but we've taken a bit of a risk with the lemon, thyme and honey on the lamb. Today, it's all about the taste, and I'm just hoping that our meat dishes taste good enough to save us from going into elimination. We've got the yellow team's food here. We've got sticky ribs. The meat looks nice ` good colour, nice bark on the ribs. Beautiful smoke ring on Gary's rib. Look at that. Let's taste and see, shall we? (CHUCKLES) That's it. It's a full-contact sport. It is ` full-contact sport. (CHUCKLES) I like this. It's a sticky, sweet, glazed rib. It's big on the smoke. It's very clean. We gotta bite away from the bone. A little bit of tug, maybe a touch under, but it's close. Thank you so much. Cheers. Right. The rest of it. I'm going right into the lamb. That's great. Oh, yeah, the lamb's beautiful. That is delicious. So, you get the smoke. You get that nice zing from the lemon. You get the herbs in there. It's really got a great balance. It's cooked perfectly. MATT: The lemon thyme is such a clever idea. Really beautiful, elegant way of bringing out the flavour of the smoke and bringing out the flavour of the lamb. GEORGE: All right, let's taste the coleslaw. Oh... That's nice. Yeah. I like that. Crunchy. MATT: Have a little bit of that lamb with that coleslaw, and the two are made in heaven. ANDY: Fresh and light and pungent. Just really nice. Yeah. This is sophisticated barbecue. I love it. The lamb's the star for me. It's really... The lamb's just... AMY: There we go, guys. MAN: Thanks. Thank you so much. Cheers. I thought the yellow team's lamb was really beautifully cooked tonight. Cool. There we go, guys. WOMAN: Thank you. Enjoy. SARA: Thanks. Cheers. Hi, guys. We're in a routine. And I did not think we'd be in this position at all. There you go. Enjoy. REYNOLD: I'm trying to focus on getting the food up. And I feel like our line's getting shorter and shorter. And I think we're doing pretty well. Have you guys got the trays ready? We're gonna check the ribs. We're going to bite the bullet and just... (GRUNTS) Go. I haven't had a chance to try any of the ribs, but we've gotta just serve people. GEORGIA: Thank you very much. Thanks for waiting. BILLIE: Thanks for waiting. Thank you. And sorry. We finally get a couple of trays of food out. But it's not happening quickly. Thanks for waiting, guys. Thank you so much. The chicken wings are still cooking, and we keep having to stop and re-plate. Um, OK. Well... It's slow. Two more. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much for waiting. Much appreciated. Sorry we're late. You're welcome. JESSICA: I don't know by what miracle we've made this happen, but it's actually working. The chicken looks really nice. The sides look beautiful. And, yeah, the food's absolutely flying out of our kitchen. SARA: There you go. Thank you. I'm worried about my lamb. Ideally, I would have given it a bit more time in the smoker, but hopefully it will be perfect. Let me just get this tray ready for you. I have literally ` maybe not blood, but there's definitely sweat and tears gone into the ribs today. I've put everything that I have into them and if they're not right, I can pretty much resign myself to being in elimination tomorrow. Let's just go one thing. How good does that meat plate look? Every single one of them. It looks amazing. Oh, the glisten on that bark. ANDY: Yeah, it's gorgeous. And I can already smell the coffee in the rub and just great. The question is really are they cooked enough? That is the question. I don't think we should delay. Let's lay into one of these two ribs cos they look brilliant. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Andy, there's that falling apart you were talking about. Yes. It just comes clean when you bite. This is really nice. It's super-soft, but it's still hanging on to the bone. That's exactly what you want. You have to tell the whole story in one bite. And it did ` well balanced with the smoke, not too much heat, not too much sweet, just a little mix of everything. Really nice. Do we have to move on or can we just eat ribs now? George is still going. Look. He's still going. How good is that? What's next, Matt? What should we eat? Let's just go with this cutlet. You know what I like about it is just this lovely... this pink, this smoke line around the outside. That mustard sweet sort of honey glaze that they've got on there is really delicious. OK. Let's look at the chicken. I don't mind 'em. I think they're really delicious. And they've got this lovely kind of paprika, you know, speckled flesh that's cooked beautifully. It's got a lovely texture. And I think that chicken and those ribs, the combination of the two, really really strong because it's really juicy. GEORGE: Shall we taste the vegetable dish? That watermelon salad, I can't wait to taste. I like that. I mean, that salad, with the balance of the acid in the dressing, the sweet juiciness of the watermelon, the pickle on the rind, and then also those radishes, it's a beautifully balanced salad that goes so well with the chicken, but especially with those ribs. You're cleansed now, aren't you? Yeah. You feel refreshed and ready to tuck in again. The blue team's ribs were fantastic. The meat was falling off the bone, and they were spicy, and they were very, very tender. The chicken drumstick was great. Really lovely and spicy. Hi, guys. MAN: How are you? Well. How are you? Good. Super. (CHUCKLES) There's someone served. Thank you very much. Thank you. GEORGIA: Judging by the amount of people that are still waiting, I'm really concerned for us as a team. Oh my God, look at our line. It feels like we've been putting up all these plates of food, but we are just not getting anywhere. And it looks like we haven't even hit the surface. Uh-oh. Oh, now there's a fire. I have been cooking chicken wings for ages, and then there's a fire. Argh! This has gone so wrong. They're really on fire. Ow. I can't believe that it turned so pear-shaped. Oh God. We have a flambe situation of the chicken wing. It's not meant to be like this right now. GEORGIA: Oh God. They're really on fire. Half the barbecue is alight. I don't even know what to do. I'm just going to focus on the chicken wings that aren't on fire and make sure they're cooked perfectly. Oh... swear words. Our customers are waiting for our food. I just hope I can salvage some of this chicken. Oh God. I hope they taste good. Well, here we are, the red team's efforts. ANDY: And I believe these are spicy wings. So hang on, George. It's a dirty, smoky... Yeah, there's a little bit of burnt char. Absolutely. And you can taste it. (COUGHS) The chicken's certainly cooked, but as we can tell by the coughing here, and by George's sprinkler head, GEORGIA: Oh God. They're really on fire. Half the barbecue is alight. I don't even know what to do. I'm just going to focus on the chicken wings that aren't on fire and make sure they're cooked perfectly. Oh... swear words. Our customers are waiting for our food. I just hope I can salvage some of this chicken. Oh God. I hope they taste good. Well, here we are, the red team's efforts. ANDY: And I believe these are spicy wings. So hang on, George. It's a dirty, smoky... Yeah, there's a little bit of burnt char. Absolutely. And you can taste it. (COUGHS) The chicken's certainly cooked, but as we can tell by the coughing here, and by George's sprinkler head, there's a lot of chilli in that. A lot of chilli. Yeah, it's still coming. Still coming. Yeah. There's so much spice in there, that has absolutely killed my palate. Their rib is quite interesting. They've smoked that with the hickory smoke and the cherry. The question is, really, are they cooked? Because they, uh... Yes, that is the question. They struggled, didn't they? Interesting to see what it tastes like. Oh dear. That is seriously salty. Yeah. Mine's salty and tough. Yeah, it's got a tug. A little under. This meat plate demonstrates to me they haven't really thought about temperature and just the balance of spice. Side dishes, shall we whip through them? Corn? I like that. Blue cheese and corn, who knew? Sweet potato with bourbon, maple and pecan. Oh, yum, that's delicious. It's fudgy, it's sweet. It tastes like pie filling. The bourbon adds another layer of smokiness to the sweet potato. And then the pecans on top just give you that nice bit of a sweet with it. It's really nice. The balance of these dishes is so good. The thing that's been out of balance with the meat is patently there in the vegetable dishes ` the balance of salt and sweet and sour and heat. It's beautiful. Yeah. It's as if the red team were born just to do barbecue sides. It's the wrong way round. Those two are ready. Thank you so much, guys. Thank you. 90 seconds. Come on, red team! (CHEERING) We're almost at the end of service. But I'll feel so relieved when the last customer is served. Come on, red team, you have 10 seconds! Let's go! Let's go! Let's go! Nine,... ALL: ...eight, seven,... six, five, four,... three, two, one... That's it! How many more countdowns can we do? What a day! MATTHEW: I'm really excited about the way that our team has worked today. I think our food's been great. Hopefully it's going to be enough to keep us out of elimination tomorrow. Well done. I'm all sticky and ribby. If I go through to elimination off the back of this challenge, I'll be really really upset. It's my favourite kind of food. But it's such a small chance to be safe today. ASHLEIGH: The craziest thing of my life. Well, there's no doubt about it ` the essence of today was a low and slow barbecue. But can I tell you, it was a marathon in the kitchen and you guys had to push. You guys did a phenomenal job. Every team had a standout dish today. Unfortunately, the bottom two teams... will go through to an elimination tomorrow. But one team, they really struggled. Although two of your vegetarian sides were absolute hits, your ribs, your chicken, lacked the finesse and the balance of a truly great low and slow barbecue. And that's why the first team into tomorrow's elimination is... the red team. I'm feeling disappointed in my effort today and in our team's effort today. We know that we could have done a lot better. So, yellow, blue, it comes down to you two teams. One of you will be safe. Yellow team, we loved that lamb. It was the perfect way of elegantly bringing out those flavours, not just of the lamb, but also of the smoke. And that slaw ` fresh, crunchy, perfect balance of freshness of sourness and of sweetness. Blue team, those chicken drumsticks were perfectly cooked. Super-succulent, lip-smackingly good. And that watermelon salad ` beautifully balanced. But our decision came down to this. There was one rib that would stand up even in a Kansas City barbecue competition. And I think as Andy is the pitmaster here, he should let you know whose rib that was and which team has won. Andy? The winning team... is the blue team! I am so proud of Jessica. I know how much this meant to her. Blue team, that rib told the whole story in one bite, and we loved it. Oh, just so happy to have won this challenge. There was such a slim chance today. And Andy's comments are just amazing. (CHUCKLES) And with that, we have to thank Andy Groneman for coming in and sharing a little bit of his pit-master wisdom. What we don't know about barbecue is... Yeah, it's kind of... Yeah, we've got a lot to learn, but it was absolutely brilliant. It's been the best day ever. Yellow team, that means you join the red team in tomorrow's elimination. Ashleigh, you've got the immunity pin, you've got a big decision to make. It's been a big day, marathon challenge. I reckon you're gonna have a long, hot shower at home. And you deserve it, every single one of you. After all that cooking and all of that effort to then be into an elimination tomorrow, I'm absolutely gutted. I'm just hoping that I put up a good effort tomorrow. Get some rest, and we'll see you back here tomorrow. Well done, guys. Massive day. Great work. Well done. JESSIE: We had a bad day today. The food we put up just really didn't represent who we are as cooks. I'm going to fight really hard in tomorrow's elimination and prove to the judges that I deserve to be here. VOICEOVER: Next time ` it's a challenge they'll never forget... The man we like to call the cod father... ...as legendary chef Rick Stein... I totally have to pinch myself right now. ...takes our contestants on a culinary trip around the world. And French. That'll be interesting. This cook will test even our seafood experts. I'm worried about you. I'm worried about me too. Because at the end of it all... You've done a good job there. That means a lot. That is a fabulous dish. Houston, we have a problem. ...someone will be going home.