The Mastercheffers are at Jacob’s Creek Winery in the beautiful Barossa Valley for this team challenge.
Before the left on the road trip from Adelaide to the Barossa they picked teams and Reece is captain of the Blue Team and Khanh is captain of the Red Team.
Reece’s Team
Chloe
Samira
Sashi
Gina
Sarah
Kristen
Khanh’s Team
Jess
Aldo
Jenny
Lisa
Hoda
Ben
Khanh says he drinks a lot of wine, so I know the perfect card we would get for him!
If you know a wine lover who also has a birthday you can get one here.
They are making a three course menu for 30 people with a pantry featuring the best from the Barossa, supplemented with produce from other parts of SA. They have 2 hours to prep and each course must include table grapes.
The least impressive team will go into elimination tomorrow.
Red team start prepping by scoffing grapes.
Blue team start prepping by planning:
Entrée is a salad with roast beetroot and grapes.
Main is pork belly jazzed up with stuff
Dessert is smoked chocolate mousse and the usual Masterchef dessert bits and bobs: soil and ice cream.
Red team stop scoffing grapes and start planning:
Entrée is calamari
Main is steak and veg
Dessert is a play on a cheese board with a savoury tuille
Khanh looks like he is watching everyone like a hawk. Nobody is stuffing up in his kitchen, not during Khanh week.
Masterchef have created an outdoor kitchen that offers a tent like covering that is not good at keeping water out but is good at creating great light for TV. Sashi is not impressed, even thought he is beautifully lit.
Reece says everyone is getting wet, but they need to just shut up about it and keep positive to get through the cook.
Samira loves beetroot because it reminds her of Russia. It’s the supermodel of the vegetables.
Reece is making a red wine reduction for a vinaigrette. Lisa is chopping grapes for a pickled grape. Gary has grape expectations.
Sashi and Sarah are doing pork belly, a dish they know takes ages to cook, yet they are attempting it despite not having ages. What makes them think they can pull it off? Magic ovens? Magical Barossa air? Knowing Maggie Beer is close by?
Ben is doing meat and three veg.
The oven has revolted and somehow switched off and have been off for the last 30 minutes.
Pork time facts: it needs at least two hours to cook, they plannedon it cooking for 1.5 hours and then the judges moaning that it was cooked too quickly at too high a temp. It’s spent 30 of that 90 minutes in a cold oven. YALP!
George asks what they are going to do, and Sarah realises George is asking a very good question, what are they going to do? They do not know. Reece and Sarah start hunting for other pork options in the fridge, they come across the loins and decide to go with these. They are officially doing loins now. Sarah tells us loins are a scary cut of meat, because loins can go dry.
The judges come to chat to Khanh and Gary is worried about their main course as it sounds like it’s just meat and veg. What else is Gary after? Deep fried bits and bobs?
Khanh is happy he has Ben in the kitchen because he is an absolute gun.
Gina and Samira are cool, calm and collected making their entrée for the blue team.
The camera pans across the beautifully set table for the 60 diners and a few of the wooden seats are wet from the rain. Who will get a soggy bottom?
THE DINERS ARE HERE!
Khanh wants more char on his calamari.
George calls Khanh a big boy.
George shows Lisa how to chop faster.
Aldo screams “COME ON” with a mouthful of food and is disappointed in his volume level.
Gina and Samira are loving their red wine reduction.
Entrée Tasting
Blue Team
Beetroot and Goats Cheese Salad
BAGS OF FLAVOUR, a ripping start.
Red Team
Calamari Salad
Calamari hasn’t got enough char, but it is a fresh, light dish.
They have used three types of grapes!
They’re sure if they ask the other diners what they thought they would say they enjoyed it.
Blue team check on the pork and Gary eyes it and says it looks boily. It is officially a nightmare. Gina tells them not to put it on the plate, but what are they going to serve Gina? They don’t want to serve nothing! They’ve decided they are going to serve the best, non boily parts of the pork fillet.
Red teams beef is perfectly cooked. Jenny declares their beetroot cones genius. They are using tiny tweezers to plate up and George would be impressed. It looks like it should be in the Noma book, it’s the prettiest thing Jenny has ever made.
Mains Tasting
Blue Team
Beef with vegetables like carrots and a potato and onion puree.
Gary tells the other judges they travel a lot and they eat a lot. Cool story.
The beef dish looked very pretty when it arrived at the table. Matt says it is a straight bat, a solid dish. A diner, a man with a bun, says it was great.
Red Team
Boily Pork Loin
Sarah says they are serving the pork, it is better to have something on the plate with a small flaw than nothing on the plate with no flaws.
Gary says he is surprised they got a dish up and he is interested to see how it tastes.
Gary loves it as a fennel dish, but not as a pork dish. Too boily!
A diner, a man without a bun, says the pork was too dry. Another diner, a woman without a bun, says it was wonderful and she wouldn’t change a thing.
Khanh tries Jess’s blue cheese mousse and it tastes like cream mousse. He commands Aldo to try it and Aldo tells Jess he can’t taste blue cheese. Khanh demands Jess puts more blue cheese in the mousse. Jess doesn’t know if she can get more blue cheese in the mousse, she is worried she won’t get a dessert up. Hoda helps her melt more cheese to add to the mousse.
Dessert Tasting
Red Team
Smoked chocolate mousse with red dirt and wine sorbet
Kristen is happy with how their dessert looks.
The judges love it. It is a very clever dessert.
Blue Team
Not enough blue cheese mousse
They’ve not tasted all the components together.
The judges think it's whack out of balance. A play on a cheese plate needs to be better than the cheese plate, not worse and this is worse.
Results
Dessert
Blue team: we loved the way you captured the red dirt in the dish.
Red Team: not so good, it needed a bolder blue cheese flavour.
Mains
Red team: perfectly cooked beef, well done.
Blue team: You struggled with the pork.
Entrée
Both were great dishes but one stuck its head out above the others, Blue team's salad of beetroot.
Blue team wins!
Jess, Aldo, Jenny, Lisa, Hoda, Ben and Khanh are in tomorrow night's elimination.
Khanh week plot twist!