Welcome to the Able And Game recap of the Masterchef Australia Thursday Night Elimination Challenge.

They are at Maggie Beer World. Where the dams are a beautiful blue and the dresses a crisp white.

First things first, Khanh plays his immunity pin, he might have been the captain, but he isn’t going down with this ship.


Today they are cooking with an ingredient they all know and love. The chook.
The challenge will run over three rounds and they have only have one chook each.

Round One/45 minutes/Top two dishes are safe
Round Two/30 minutes/Top dish is safe
Round Three/20 minutes/Bottom dish going home

Ben says coming up with three dishes is mind boggling.

Jess is making a chicken dish her Dad made at his restaurant.
Jenny is going with a braised dish. Maggie says don't overcook it.
Aldo is doing Involtini, Maggie likes the sound of this.
Ben is making a sausage. He is using half a chicken to do this.
Lisa is making a restaurant quality drunken chicken. Maggie likes the smell of this.
Aldo is whipping up a quick sauce, a sauce not worth of his Nanna, but worthy of George.

Tasting

Lisa
Drunken chicken with spring onion oil
Absolutely delicious! It’s moist!
It’s a three chord opera and it is beautiful!

Aldo
Involtini and gremolata
The flavour punches you. Maggie would have preferred skin instead of prosciutto. It’s overtaking the chicken, not celebrating it.

Hoda
Moghrabieh
It’s too plain.

Jess
Grilled chicken with Chinese broccoli
Flooded with a salty sauce.

Jenny
Vietnamese ginger and chilli chicken
It’s aggressive and proud, a tasty plate of food.
I wish you cooked the chicken a little slower so it was more moist.

Ben
Chicken sausage with onion potato puree and chicken jus
Gary tells him he would have preferred it presented, not like a fried dong, but cut and flipped up.


The sauce is amazing.
Matt uses the words “combined mouthful”

Results
There were four good dishes

Best dish:
Lisa – it was all about the chicken!

The other good dishes:
Aldo, Ben, Jenny – tasty! tasty! tasty!

Second best dish and safe:
Ben - left us with the abiding flavour of chicken.


Round Two
Hoda is not even thinking about the third round, she is making a stuffed chicken breast.
Hoda then demonstrates an amazing skill, she can deal with a tangled roll of glad wrap, while stress cooking with a time restraint and answering questions about what she is doing while remain friendly.



Aldo is going to give all that he has got.
He is making Chicken breast with mascarpone and zucchini trifolati.

Jess is making Korean fried chicken. She would normally use the thigh but she’s used them up already. The judges tell her to be careful, because it is going to dry out.

Jenny is worried about the time frames. She is using the wings and skin in a thai chicken salad.

Aldo pipes some mascarpone cream under the breast. The judges say the challenge will be the stopping the mascarpone melting.

Matt asks Hoda why her cauliflower isn’t cooking for her puree. She realises time has slipped away and is ditching it and frying it instead.

Aldo is worried his chicken isn’t going to cook.

Jenny isn’t happy with her chicken skin and will only be able to use a small portion of it.

Hoda is worried about her fried cauliflower, but she is happy with the chicken breast.

Jess is worried her KFC is dry.

Tasting

Hoda
Rolled chicken with pan roasted cauliflower in verjuice
The chicken is great.
Gary isn’t a big fan of the crunchy cauliflower. It promises something roasted and soft and it doesn’t deliver.

Jenny
Thai glass noodle, chicken and mango salad
Maggie finds it alive
Matt wants more chicken skin and fresh Thai basil and all that jazz.

Jess
Korean fried chicken with a spicy but sweet sauce
Overcooked!

Aldo
Chicken stuffed with mascarpone and zucchini
He doesn’t have a single idea what the chicken looks like on the inside. He is worried it is raw.
It’s another cliff hanger cut into a bit of meat to see if it is raw moment!
Aldo asks for them not to kill him. Cut to an ad break.
All the judges all look in, waiting for the big reveal.

UPLIFTING MUSIC. UPLIFTING ALDO JUMPING AROUND.
Gary says he is going to go in for more. He asks Maggie if she is also going to go in for more. She says yes. Aldo says to save some for George and Gary shushes him.

One of the best dishes in the competition so far. He rammed flavour into zucchini!
The chicken was shimmering, it was so perfect.
This is Aldo announcing himself in the competition.
He is safe!

Round Three
Hoda says this is now battlefield. She unleashes a bottle of oil into a pot. IT’S TIME TO DEEP FRY.
She is making fried chicken wings with a szechuan sauce.

Jess is going to make her Dad’s amazing lemon chicken.

Jenny is making a grilled chicken salad.

Hoda pulls apart the pantry looking for spices.

Jess is making her Dad’s batter. It doesn’t even have eggs. Just tap water and some strong whisking arms.

Jenny doesn’t know what salad she is going to make so goes with avocado and corn salad. It’s going to be a cobb salad.

George tells Hoda she is going to turn her apron white with flour and she says
“Yeah, whatever …..
….. will get me through.”

Jenny starts a fire in her fry pan while George screams DON’T PANIC NOW.
Jess starts deep frying some chicken and the batter sticks to the bottom pan and peels off, so she solves that problem by putting more batter on it. This is either going to be the biggest crunchy element Gary has ever seen, or it is going to be a soggy blob under a crunchy element.

Tasting
The judges are now at a table for this final round of eating.

Jenny
Chicken Cobb Salad
Have you done enough? I think so.
What if it isn’t enough? Sad.
They try the dish.
Matt makes a face and it isn’t a happy one.
Gary says the chicken is cooked well.
The chicken doesn’t go with the salad.

Jess
The biggest crunchy element ever seen lemon chicken
Matt loves it and says she saved the best till last.
Maggie says it’s actually not that bad.
George and Gary got lumpy bits, not crunchy bits.
Matt now regrets saying she saved the best till last.




Hoda
Sticky szechuan chicken wings
Have you got a funny feeling you’re going home? I think I could be.
What’s it going to look like if you go home? Hug my kids.
George can cut wings right down the middle. The long way. This has impressed everyone, because otherwise Maggie and Matt would have to bite each end of the chicken wing until they met in the middle.



Maggie wanted more.
You only gave them one chicken Maggie!
Gary didn’t think it would taste as good as it does.
She is safe.

It’s a tough call between Jess and Jenny.
Gary, George and Matt know who should go home, but Maggie isn’t sure.

Verdict
George tells Maggie they love her, this is god’s country, she is the best.

But unfortunately one of you is about to go home.

Hoda
had the best dish because Maggie wanted more.

Jess
The sauce was the perfect balance of sweet and acidic and the batter was crispy, but George and Gary’s was doughy in the middle.

Jenny
The chicken was moist and tender but the salad didn’t work together.
This is why Jenny is going home.

Uses of the word moist this episode: 145



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