Will pepper ice-cream and stuffed peppers prevail in an invention test that leaves us all feeling less than sunny-side-up?
After the tragic departure of Alex left the MasterChef kitchen far less Scandinavian, the amateurs enter the next morning to find bad news waiting for them. “You should know never to let your guard down,” says Andy, before giving nipple cripples to everyone in the room.
Even worse, it’s a surprise elimination, and another contestant will be joining Alex in Valhalla before the day is out. More than that, though, the best dish will win its maker a mysterious prize. Little do we know just how devastating things are about to get.
It’s an invention test, and the task is to come up with an interesting take on bacon and eggs. First, though, they all pause to mock Sofia for saying “eggs and bacon”, the poor naive fool.
Harry finds himself at something of a loss, as neither eggs nor bacon is a kind of fish. He declares his intention to “shoot for the stars”, by building a small but powerful rocket. He explains to Poh and Sofia that he plans to make a “nitrous oxide scrambled egg”, which may technically be illegal.
The soundtrack switches into theme-from-Halloween mode as Mimi begins describing her terrifying dish: a blueberry pie with bacon on top, and a black pepper ice-cream. “I like it,” Poh stammers nervously, not wanting to risk antagonising someone so obviously unstable. Sofia agrees, knowing that the important thing with a person who is trying to make black pepper ice-cream is to humour them until trained professionals arrive.
A timer goes off, annoying everyone. After several minutes of beeping, Sav realises that it’s her timer, which she set to remind her when it was time to annoy everyone.
Oh, Lachlan is still here. That’s nice. He tells Andy and Jean-Christophe that he is stuffing a pepper with bacon and eggs. “So you’re stuffing bacon into the pepper?” asks Jean-Christophe. “Yes,” Lachlan replies. Jean-Christophe and Andy stare at him, completely failing to grasp the concept.
Andy advises Lachlan to do something more inventive. Personally, I think stuffing a pepper with bacon and eggs is pretty inventive. I mean, it sounds awful, but it’s definitely inventive, and historically, awful-but-inventive is what wins on this show.
But no, the judges reckon a stuffed pepper is painfully dull, so Lachlan will have to make a bacon and egg cheesecake or serve it in the mouth of a live horse or something.
Josh is making a cake, and he knows the time it will take to bake will mean he’s running it dangerously close. “I’ve just got to back myself,” he says, which is what people usually say when they know they’re screwed. He gazes mournfully into the oven, failing to take care that the oven does not also gaze into him.
Elsewhere, Harry is explaining the concept of “nitrous oxide scrambled eggs”. They are like normal scrambled eggs, but lighter and bouncier and suitable for use on dental patients. He tastes the eggs and begins laughing hysterically.
Sav’s timer goes off again. For god’s sake, Sav.
Nat is boiling some duck eggs, but making sure the water isn’t too hot, for fear of arousing the ire of PETA. Andy and Poh mutter darkly to themselves about Nat’s poor egg strategy. “Just fry an egg,” says Poh, whipping out her legendary catchphrase. They make sure Nat doesn’t heat them though, as they know it will be funnier if she fails.
Meanwhile, Lachlan has overcooked his peppers, which is pretty inventive, right? The judges should lap that up: none of the other amateurs have had the guts to overcook their peppers.
Sumeet takes her stuffed naan out of the oven and is pleased. She takes out a blowtorch, as the recipe calls for the naan to be welded to an iron frame. The attractiveness of the stuffed naan is in stark contrast to Lachlan’s stuffed pepper, which looks like the remains of the exploding squid monster from the end of Watchmen.
In the blink of an eye (17 hours), time is up, and Josh is presenting his bacon and pecan slice with eggnog ice-cream, which should, if nothing else, get the judges nice and drunk. Josh’s dish is a success and gets Jean-Christophe to say “fantastic”, as we have all been waiting for.
“The Pezza sitting opposite us is not the Pezza who walked in on day one of competition,” says Sofia. After the imposter is apprehended and taken into custody, the tasting continues.
Next to serve is Mimi, with her blueberry and bacon-biscuit cobbler and black pepper ice-cream. “That looks pretty epic,” says Andy, but the other judges make him stop watching Godzilla x Kong so he can taste Mimi’s dish. It is weird and gross so obviously the judges love it, apart from Sofia, who risks social ostracism by timidly suggesting that maybe black pepper ice-cream doesn’t go with blueberry cobbler. “But is that just because I find it challenging?” she asks herself. No, Sofia. Trust your feelings.
MasterChef is a surreal and disturbing place, and today it has truly lived up to its reputation as hell on earth.
Here’s Harry with his nitrous oxide eggs, which have become so bouncy it takes half an hour to catch them as they careen away down the street. Served on little rolls with bacon, they are marvellous, and prove that Harry can, if backed into a corner, cook something that doesn’t smell like a sardine trawler. “There’s a lot of ticks here for me,” says Andy, but it tasted so good he forgives the swarm of parasites in the roll.
Darrsh serves his kottu roti. It’s nice. Next.
Sav serves her milk rice with treacle bacon and a runny egg. It tastes lovely but Sofia notes that Sav has not reinvented her egg component and therefore must be shunned by decent people.
Nat plates up ginger congee with duck eggs and bacon. The eggs are underdone, as prophesied by Poh and Andy, though Poh says she’d be happy if she went to her aunt’s house and was served the dish, so…sick burn on Poh’s aunt, I guess?
Lachlan knows his stuffed pepper is not his best dish, and the fact that it looks like a dead animal left out in the sun does not raise hopes particularly high. However, the judges agree that although the dish may look ugly, it actually tastes even worse.
Sumeet’s stuffed naan looks fantastic, and it tastes…kind of bad? But…Sumeet is good! What’s going on? None of this makes any sense!
The judges announce that the worst cooks today were Sumeet and Lachlan. They both stuffed up, but Lachlan put an egg yolk on top of his dish, and so Sumeet has to go home. It hardly seems fair that one’s greatest dream can be destroyed just because a guy puts an egg yolk on top of a pepper, but MasterChef is a surreal and disturbing place, and today it has truly lived up to its reputation as hell on earth.
Sumeet, the purest soul ever to have a sauce available in Coles stores Australia-wide, leaves to the sound of tears and rending garments. God only knows what the point of proceeding with the rest of the series is, but on we go.
Andy announces that the amateurs are all going to Hong Kong, but Sumeet won’t be because life sucks. Harry cooked the best dish and therefore gets to fly business class, which is oddly underwhelming news.
Tune in next week, when the exciting and beautiful metropolis of Hong Kong thrills everyone but not Sumeet.
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Ben Pobjie is a columnist.