Masterchef (2010) s02e07 Episode Script
Top 15 Compete
Previously on MasterChef, the home cooks faced their first team challenge.
You've got two hours to serve 350 guests.
I've been cooking meat for twice as long as he's been alive.
Disaster! The losing team faced an intense pressure test, ending another amateur home cook's dreams.
Tony, your time's done in MasterChef.
Tonight Game on.
Show us you mean business.
And the competition intensifies.
Why are you crying? Some will crack under pressure.
Complete disaster.
And the judges take it personally.
This gives what I do a bad name.
I would send you home now.
I feel like giving up.
At the end of the night, a shocking elimination.
It was inedible.
Over the next eight weeks, the remaining home cooks will face extraordinary challenges.
My mum has flown halfway around the world to come here and eat that dessert.
Aah! For the winner, a quarter of a million dollars You're unstoppable.
That's a party in my mouth.
And the title of MasterChef.
Let's go, guys.
Stand in front of your station, please.
Let's go.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Now In your previous challenge, another talented contender for the title of MasterChef was sent home.
Look, there's just Oh, it's awesome to be in the top 15.
But I'm in the middle.
I don't want to be in the middle anymore.
I want to be on top.
I need to step it up.
Today's challenge is about inspiration and creativity-- your second mystery-box challenge.
You'll each have to prepare, cook, and present one absolutely fantastic dish.
The trick? You're only using the ingredients hidden under those boxes.
We will taste only the top-three dishes.
The person with the best dish from that three will have a huge, and I mean huge, advantage in the next challenge.
If you win this challenge, you're going to have a huge advantage.
I don't know what the huge advantage is gonna be, but whatever it is, I want it.
Any of you ready to go home yet? No! You've got one hour.
Show us that you mean business.
On the count of three, you'll lift those boxes and find out what you're up against.
I love mystery boxes.
I'm a savory cook, so I'm hoping for a nice, savory protein.
I am so hoping that under this box, there are the ingredients I need to make some sort of pastry.
Slowly.
One Two Three.
Wow! Rack of New Zealand lamb, stunning.
Peaches, romanesco cauliflower, fresh fava beans, feta, white rice, thai chili peppers, tarragon, creme fraiche, pie crust, heavy cream, and eggs.
The ingredients that you have in front of you, they are so diverse.
You can really go either way, right? Sweet, savory-- there's so many opportunities.
Make this the best dish you've ever cooked in this competition, because the next stage is an elimination test.
And your time starts From now.
Off you go.
Ow.
Lamb is something that I use at home, and I'm just gonna brown it off, and then glaze it, cut them into little lollipops, and then maybe just a little cauliflower, some fava beans.
I think I'll be in the top three.
I have no idea what this is.
And it's scary, and it reminds me of a Christmas tree.
The mystery-box challenge is where we separate the men from the boys.
Right.
You gotta really have the combination of intelligence and speed.
You gotta conceptualize and execute, not second-guess yourself, take it all the way to the bottom line.
What would you do? I'd do a roasted lamb, and I'd do a little fava mixed salad, some crumbled feta with it, and maybe a little romesco puree.
I need to capitalize big-time on this challenge.
I need to be at least top three to show them exactly who I am and just be right in their face.
Talk to me about the dish.
What are you doing? I'm going to poach some peaches, maybe do a little creme fraiche with mint and some of the chilies, and I did a little test run on my lamb chop, with pomegranate molasses.
Yes.
Coated in it, over that.
Very, very sweet.
Great for a glaze, but it is incredibly weighted, and it's incredibly thick and very syrupy.
Right.
Get it together, yes? Yes, chef.
Good luck.
Thank you.
I'm gonna make some lamb lollipops, and I'm going to fry up some of the feta cheese and kind of do a sweet compote on top of the feta cheese.
Derek, talk to me.
What do you got? Uh-oh.
Wow.
He took the rack of lamb and made hamburger out of it.
Jeez.
Are you out of your mind? A little bit, little bit.
That's like taking a Bentley and crashing it into a wall.
I just want to stand out a little bit.
Don't risk everything to distinguish yourself.
You know, a rack of lamb is a rack of lamb.
Give it the respect it deserves.
Wow.
A lot of butchering.
I thought they would have left those rack of lambs whole.
Everyone's taking it apart.
That's kind of, like, freaking me out.
To cut each one into individual slices-- very risky.
Lamb's that thin.
It's overcooked the minute you touch the pan.
That's the advantage of a rack.
Ugh! I'm a little lost right now.
Hello, Alejandra.
What are you doing? I'm doing a curried rack of lamb, and it's right now in the oven.
It's finishing up with the roast, and I'm gonna make a peach chutney, mix in some mint.
One thing I'm worried about, though, is your rack of lamb is in the oven with 30 minutes left to go.
I'm pulling it out so it can rest, and all the liquids can distribute.
Okay.
Perfect.
Good luck.
Thank you, chef.
As far as my lamb, I'm feeling good.
Gonna try to cook it very quickly, because this type of lamb will burn if you cook it any more than a minute and a half.
Right, Suzy.
No lamb, no peaches, and you're going for a vegetarian cauliflower, spiced-rice dish.
It's a very big gamble.
It is, chef.
Yeah.
I'm having fun.
I'm having fun in the kitchen.
Okay, just under ten minutes to go.
You cooking the rest of this, too? Yep.
I'm gonna cook the rest of that up also.
Graham comes over to me and says, "Oh, you're gonna use the full rack?" And originally I was just gonna stick with my lollipop chops.
They're really nicely seared.
And I was like, "You know what? Maybe I should try to throw it on there.
" I figured that I would have enough time to let it kind of cook itself through to a nice rare to medium rare.
It was not my original game plan.
Last two minutes! Now you should be having your meat resting or thinking about plating it.
Finishing touches.
Keep it going, guys.
We're only tasting the top-three dishes.
Make sure yours is in those top three.
Ten Nine Eight Seven Six Five Four Three Two One And stop! Chef Ramsay yells time, and I'm thinking, "Damn.
I should have left that rack on my board.
" Finishing touches.
In the mystery-box challenge, the judges will taste just three dishes.
TenNine The winner will receive a huge advantage going into the next round.
SixFive Four Three Two One And stop! Chef Ramsay yells, "time," and I made a hasty decision, and now I wish I would not have plated that.
We've been watching you all very closely And observing all those techniques, studying that level of creativity and really seeing you take this challenge face-on.
I'm gonna single out one dish that stood out.
Jennifer Your dish definitely stood out Unfortunately, for all the wrong reasons.
Jennifer.
This I have to make a point of, because this is not even about cooking, about technique.
This is a complete disaster.
This lamb is raw.
It's completely raw.
You can't-- you take this thing, and you cut it in half, it would be dangerous to serve a piece of lamb like this to a judge.
This is raw.
Raw.
Do you see this? Raw.
What are you thinking? What are you thinking about, trying to serve us raw food? We're here to judge this thing.
We're watching you cook.
We're not idiots.
You know, if it were me--this is not an elimination round-- I would send you home now.
This is a serious cooking competition with a serious prize.
Don't come in here and waste our time, because we will throw you out of this competition if you do something as stupid as to serve us raw, unsanitary food.
I didn't trust my instinct and tried to plate a bigger plate than I really wanted to.
I should have stuck with just the chops, and I don't like looking like a fool.
It sucks.
Three of the dishes that stood out for all the right reasons The first dish belongs to Alejandra.
Right, describe the dish, please.
Okay, this is a curried rack of lamb.
I have a cauliflower steak that I've roasted in the oven.
I have made a chutney with the peach and the pomegranate molasses, and the rice I've made a pilaf with the fava beans that I've blanched just in salted water.
So, 60 minutes, one stunning dish.
You've done that times four.
Four individual tough techniques that even a professional chef would struggle to get done in 60 minutes-- you've done it brilliantly.
And that's the peach chutney? Yes, sir.
It's delicious.
Great job.
Thank you so much, chef.
This is one of those rare occasions that, like, you nailed it.
You nailed it, you nailed it, you nailed it, you nailed it.
Thank you so much.
After Alejandra's chosen, I'm like, "Please call my name.
" I'm sending, like, little messages to Chef Ramsay, Chef Elliot, and Joe.
So the next dish that we want to try is a dish that I think would certainly win the award for being the most restaurant ready.
Tracy.
Tracy.
And that dish belongs to Adrien, why don't you come down here and show us what you did? Well done.
Tell me about the reduction, the pomegranate reduction.
How did that come to you? I did, like, a dummy lamb chop with just the molasses, but it was pretty heavy, so I kind of put in the blood-orange juice.
Then once I seared them, I used that marinade and put it into the port reduction that I poached the peaches in.
It's like fireworks on your palate.
You have heat in the back, you have acidity in the front.
What's the heat from, the chilies? The thai chilies and the creme fraiche with walnut.
I thought you were sort of disappearing in this competition, but it's remarkable.
Absolutely delicious.
Good job.
I appreciate it, chef.
Well done.
Thank you.
Well done, well done, well done.
All right The next dish out of the three that we are tasting, the contestant had some of the best, most beautiful plating skills that we've seen so far.
Tracy, please come forward.
All right.
Walk me through it.
Okay, so basically I wanted, not only the lamb to be the star, but also the feta.
So I sliced up those blood oranges, kind of grilled them on the stovetop so they were nice and caramelized.
Mm-hmm.
Also fried up the feta cheese so that it would have a crispy exterior.
The walnuts and the feta alone look beautiful with the little blood orange.
I mean, you set that aside, and that's, you know, like its own little vegetarian course or something.
Right, right.
It's really nice.
So this lamb, you know, as we cut through it, should just be that beautiful pink, you know, almost sensuous color.
I mean, absolutely beautiful.
Thank you.
Right.
Thank you, chef.
Great flavor.
I really like that use of the creme fraiche and the balancing of the sweetness with adding some of that salt and pepper that gives it some heat that's really needed.
Thank you very much, chef.
Thank you.
This is a well-thought-out, intelligently constructed entree.
I think that the feta and lamb is one of the winning combinations.
Delicious, Tracy.
Thank you very much.
Congratulations.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
Three amazing, remarkable dishes.
Tracy and Alejandra are awesome, but I know my dish is spot-on.
We're definitely on a new level here.
This is really kind of raising the bar.
These dishes are complex, complete, and intriguing.
I finally made it to the front of the judges as one of the top three.
At this point, my strategy has to be, "Keep going up.
" For us, so far, in this contest, the toughest decision we've had to make.
I don't want to be second place.
I want to be number one.
You know, I want to be the best.
The winning dish today from the mystery-box challenge Congratulations goes to In the mystery-box challenge, the top-three dishes have been tasted by the judges.
Adrien's farmers-market lamb, Alejandra's curried rack of lamb, and Tracy's sweet and salty feta with lamb.
For us, so far, the toughest decision we've had to make.
The winning dish today from the mystery-box challenge Congratulations goes to Adrien.
Well done.
Really good job.
Thank you, chef.
Excited? I don't even-- I don't know what to say! So, thank you.
I won a mystery-box challenge.
I got their attention.
I want to go celebrate.
It's completely a dream.
It's a great dream.
Are you ready to find out what your advantage is? Yeah.
Okay.
This way.
Let's go.
Congratulations.
As the winner of the mystery box, Adrien enters the MasterChef pantry.
Here, he will be put in control of the next challenge.
In the elimination test, at least one person will leave the competition.
And now Adrien will be given a huge advantage as he gets to pick the ingredient everyone else must cook with.
But the one thing he can't control is the theme of the challenge.
As always, that is in the hands of the judges.
The first bit of news is You could still be up for elimination today, okay? The theme of today's elimination challenge is desserts.
I'm freaking out, just because I don't make any desserts at home.
I never order dessert when I go out, but if I can come out strong in this, it's gonna gain some real, real respect.
So we're about to show you three amazing ingredients for dessert.
But before that, let's talk about your two huge advantages.
First of all, from these three ingredients, you get to choose the ingredient that you want To be the star across your dessert.
And then you get to choose A different ingredient for your competitors.
Be clever.
Okay, so the first ingredient today is Coffee.
As a component of desserts, it's a game changer, because inherent in coffee comes acidity, bitterness, things that you have to really consider when you create the most sophisticated desserts.
All right, ingredient number two Is pineapple.
It's both sweet and sour, right? There's these different acidic notes that can really help set a dessert apart.
Your third ingredient Nuts.
So complicated to get right.
Think very, very carefully.
Remember, it is an elimination test.
My advantage is kind of like a catch 22, because it doesn't matter what I pick.
I could pick any three of those things, and someone is gonna hate me.
So, which ingredient are you choosing for you and for your competitors? Wow.
The theme for today's elimination test is Desserts.
I feel really confident doing desserts.
As a chef, you need to know how to do pastries as well as culinary, and I think I can do both.
When I hear I'm cooking desserts, I'm pretty pissed off.
I don't feel comfortable with them at all, and I'm a little worried, to tell you the truth.
Adrien had a choice of three ingredients to pick from-- pineapple, coffee, or nuts.
Adrien got to choose the main ingredient for his desserts, and he got to pick the ingredient that the rest of you are gonna have to cook.
Wow.
So he chose for himself, the most diverse ingredients, and they are I picked nuts.
Is there anyone who is a little bit jealous of Adrien's nuts? You are going to be using Don't pick coffee.
The most amazing Not pineapple.
Coffee.
Come on, seriously? Yes! Coffee's something I love.
It's something I know.
I want to run over to Adrien and just give him a big hug right now.
Remember, we're gonna be tasting all of your dishes today, including Adrien's, and on the back of that, one of you will be going home.
You got five minutes in the pantry to get your ingredients, then 90 minutes to make the most exquisite dessert.
Your time starts Now.
Off you go.
With coffee as their main ingredient, the contestants now have five minutes in the pantry to get everything they need to create a dessert that can keep them in the competition.
Immediately I think of an espresso, chocolate flourless cake.
Part of the reason why I chose a flourless chocolate cake is that there's minimal ingredients, so I could focus on some other flavors.
I'm making a coffee cheesecake.
I bake a lot of dessert, but I just bake a lot of cookies.
This isn't cookies.
It's a lot more scientific.
Oh, come on! Baking and pastry and desserts are all chemistry, and I really understand the science of food, so I'm hoping that carries me through today.
In the back of my mind, I always see myself, at a minimum, cooking in the finals, if not winning this whole competition.
Just under 60 minutes left.
Who do you think can bring it in the baking department? Who's shown us some baking skills thus far? I think Tracy is a very clever but reserved individual.
A technical cook.
What about Alvin? We've seen him take a molecular approach, which means he has some science background.
Does he apply that to the sweet food now? Yeah.
I mean, fingers crossed.
And I thought it was a very smart move for Adrien to have chosen the nuts, because there's so much more diversity.
But a lot riding on his shoulders now.
If he doesn't produce, you know, he's got his neck on the chopping block like everyone else.
Yeah.
What are you doing, Alvin? I'm gonna do a beignet, and I'm trying to pull off coffee spheres to put in the beignet-- so like a liquid center-- yeah, liquid center, powdered sugar, maybe a little coffee dust on top.
Are you out of your mind? Make us dessert! It's not a chemistry experiment.
You need to convert him.
Max, what are you doing? There's a little cream over your nose, buddy.
You got a little bit here as well.
There you go.
Excellent.
What are you mak-- .
What are you making? I'm making a layer cake with crepes and a cream cheese and mascarpone coffee infusion.
Good luck.
Hi, Alejandra.
Hello, chef.
What are you making? It's a black-bottom coffee cream tart.
Wow.
What's this? That's like a whipped cream with instant espresso and a little bit of sugar, a little bit of Brandy.
That's instant coffee and whipped cream? Yeah.
Well-- where did you-- where did you learn that? My mother.
That is, like, so ghetto delicious, it's awesome.
It's like kool-aid.
Thank you so much.
Okay, guys.
So you're doing like a-- almost like a short-crust tart.
I'm close on time, but I'm just gonna push for it.
The pastry's still raw, so I suggest you get them in the oven.
Yes, chef.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Mm-hmm.
We've got some weak desserts.
We've got some strong desserts.
The most important thing in this challenge is, you don't want to be in the bottom three.
I think Alvin and Christine are my potential sort of weakest desserts.
Okay, ten minutes to go.
They're coming out perfect.
This dish is definitely gonna be a top competitor.
I'm pulling my tart out of the oven, and it looks like soup.
It's just not even coming together.
So I have no clue what I'm gonna do.
I have leftover coffee filling that is still kind of liquid-y, and I did make melted chocolate, thank God.
There's six minutes left, and I look over, and I'm realizing that I have all these eggs left, and I still have sugar.
Be back.
So I'm like, "mousse, mousse, mousse, mousse, mousse!" I can make a mousse in six minutes--coffee mousse.
I mean, there's nothing else I can do.
Okay.
Five minutes to go.
Make it count.
Start finishing that amazing dessert.
I'm here for my son.
I'm here for myself, and I'm not going home.
! Last 60 seconds.
Put those finishing touches.
screw this, screw that.
Oh, where's the chocolate chip? There's no chocolate chip.
There's a raspberry.
Ten Nine Eight Seven Six Five Four Three Two One And stop.
Well done, well done, well done.
Good job.
I literally just whipped this together.
I'm thinking I'll do great, or I'll go home.
All right, Adrien, let's do it.
As the winner of the mystery-box challenge, Adrien got to choose his main ingredients, as well as those of his competitors, but he could still face elimination.
It's a chocolate torte, and I have pistachio, hazelnut inside, and, also, I made a coulis of raspberry, strawberry, pomegranate, and amaretto.
What's really odd is it seems like you chose chocolate as your ingredient, and the nuts are just kind of a garnish on top.
The sad news is you can't really identify what you've done different from the nuts on top to the nuts inside that mixture.
How many different nuts did you use? All of them, sadly.
Every kind.
Is that, like, a normal thing you've seen before-- a cake with every nut known to humanity in it? No.
So what were you thinking? I think you took an incredible advantage and squandered it.
Christine, please come up.
I make mousse at my house all the time, but I have never, ever made mousse in six minutes.
I was trying to make like a creamy coffee tart, but I didn't have enough-- I didn't calculate my time well enough.
Thanks.
The actual mousse tastes nice.
For me, it's not how you start.
It's how you finish, and on the back of a disaster with the tarts, I think you've done a pretty good job to bring that back, to be honest.
I think you should wait till five minutes to go on every challenge now, because I think we're seeing your strongest.
Okay.
I mean, I feel pretty awesome that they recognized the fact that I didn't give up.
Max, let's go.
When I present my dish, I'm really proud.
I like the presentation.
I think the judges are going to find it genius.
What in the hell is that? It's about 15 crepes 15 crepes.
Stacked together.
About that much.
Okay, in between the 15 crepes, what is it? It's a mixture of cream cheese, mascarpone, some espresso, a little cream, and some sugar.
Damn.
You have to do this with me.
You have to taste that.
It's like I've just gone to the doctor's for a skin graft on my butt and stuck it in caramel.
Yeah.
That is a horrible, weird texture.
That's rancid.
That good, huh? Wow.
You know, the fact that it's an elimination test It's serious.
There's no sweetness.
I don't get a lot of coffee flavor at all.
I don't get much of anything aside from the weird texture.
I would be worried, actually, with what you made here.
Alejandra, please come down and join us.
Now, this is not what I expected.
I thought those ingredients were gonna be, like, somehow cooked.
This is everything I tasted, I think, raw.
What happened? I am inexperienced with desserts.
I didn't give it the proper time to cool in the refrigerator before serving it.
I'm sorry.
This is a poorly executed dish.
I'm aware.
It's almost as if you stopped halfway through and assembled the dish and presented it-- a little strange.
I cannot believe, from what you've done in this competition, that you would come up with something as bad as that.
It's a mess.
And it's a great shame.
Damn.
It's so hard.
It's so hard for me to hear how disappointed he is.
I'm so disappointed by this dish already, and I'm just, like, crushed.
I think this is the challenge that is gonna send me home.
Jenny Kelly, will you join us up here? Hi, there.
Hi.
What is it? It is a tart.
I infused the tart with coffee.
Is it supposed to look like that? What is that? It's not cooked all the way through.
I put it in too late.
So it's raw.
It's not fi-- um, I don't think it's totally raw, but it's-- the top's edible.
Well, the opposite of being cooked is raw, right? So it's raw.
Blecch.
Okay.
I mean, it-- excuse me.
It's an embarrassment.
It's an embarrassment for you, and it's an embarrassment for this competition.
I apologize that you guys are even trying it.
If you had any sense, you'd stage a trip-up and smash the plate on the way up here, 'cause that is hideous.
It should come with a health warning sign.
I just expected a little bit more, especially at this stage of the competition.
I'm really sorry.
At this stage of the challenge, when there's only this many of you left, this is just unacceptable.
This cannot fly, and it has to end here at this challenge.
Putting up food that's not cooked, that's ill-conceived, is dangerous.
That is reckless.
I'm--Joe, I'm pissed off.
We give you every tool that's possible to make you guys shine.
And , I mean, we want you to shine, I swear to God.
But when like that hits the plate, I feel like giving up.
I feel like giving up.
I feel like giving up.
I just expected a little bit more, especially at this stage of the competition.
I'm really sorry.
When there's only this many of you left, this is just unacceptable.
It has to end here at this challenge.
Tracy, will you come join us? After the most disappointing day ever in the MasterChef kitchen, can Tracy put everything back on track? What do we got? It is an espresso, chocolate flourless cake.
It's covered with a caramel sauce and a very, very light dusting of coffee beans with a little bitter chocolate.
Wow.
This is amazing.
You've combined the sort of toffee and the caramelized toffee with the coffee, and it really works.
That dessert is the kind of dessert I'd love to see on my menu in my restaurant in London, because it's got that wow factor.
Delicious.
Well done.
Okay.
Esther, let's go.
After Tracy's dessert changed the mood in the kitchen, can the remaining home cooks keep it that way? What is that, please? It's a warm coffee cheesecake.
A coffee cheesecake.
Okay.
Here's the thing.
It actually tastes delicious.
It's got that wow factor.
It doesn't give you the instant impression that it's gonna bounce off the palate, visually, but the creamy texture of the tart is immaculate.
That is delicious.
Great job.
Okay, Suzy, come on up.
I've got a chocolate coffee brownie on chocolate hand-rolled truffles.
Mix of cocoa powder and ground espresso? You get the chocolate, the sweet, bitter, all those kind of things.
It's super rich and decadent.
Good job.
Jennifer, what do you have? I have coffee creme brulee, with a little bit of white chocolate in there, and then I did a little bit of macerated raspberries over the top to cut that richness of the cream.
It definitely has a pronounced flavor of both coffee and white chocolate, and, in fact, the berries do a nice job of bringing it up.
Right.
Quite light, and, quite frankly, pretty good.
Thank you.
Alvin.
The final contestant in the elimination challenge is Alvin.
Alvin is amazing, so intelligent.
He knows so much about food.
I really think Alvin's gonna be in the top five.
Inside the beignet is coffee with chicory, brewed pretty strong, mixed with sodium alginate, and that's set to cool, and that's dropped into a calcium chloride bath, which sets a gel around the sauce.
What is that? It's the coffee sauce, chef.
It's extraordinarily bitter.
It looks like a coffee blood clot.
I think the resting time may have set more of the alginate base than I would have liked.
It's not 'cause it's been sitting.
It's the fact that it was wrong before it even got put in there.
At my restaurant, we use some of these techniques, you know? But we never go around and try to trumpet that we're using it, because it works, and it speaks for itself.
But things like this give what I personally do day in and day out a bad name.
Whether it's got a cool ingredient or technique or not, that's just bad food.
It's disgusting.
With all the dishes tasted, the judges must decide the bottom three, one of which will be eliminated.
First, they'll reveal today's top-two dishes.
Okay.
Across that tasting, we had some highs and lows.
But there were some real highs.
The top two will become team captains ahead of our next challenge.
Good luck.
That first dish belongs to Esther.
Thank you.
Did he call my name? Did he just say Esther? Serious? What? Good job.
I'm shocked.
I'll take a win.
I'll take a win.
The second dish that was done to perfection That dish belongs to Tracy.
Congratulations.
Tracy is definitely not going home today, not today, people.
Congratulations, Esther.
Tracy, congratulations.
Good job.
This is a elimination test.
With that comes a departure.
And we're gonna single out the three dishes that we strongly believe deserve to be in the bottom, and at least one of you will be leaving MasterChef.
The first dish that wasn't up to par Belongs to Jenny.
Step forward, please.
At this stage in the competition when there's elimination up, trust me, you want to cook your ass off.
Today you didn't do that.
The second dish was almost to the point of being offensive.
That dish belongs to Alvin.
Knowing when to use restraint, when to come back inside the box-- important stuff.
Yes, chef.
The third dish was poor in its conceptualization and really rancid in its flavor.
And that dish belongs to In tonight's elimination challenge, the judges have already chosen two of the worst three dishes.
Ultimately, one home cook will be leaving the competition.
The third dish was poor in its conceptualization and really rancid in its flavor.
Max, why don't you come up and take your spot? You succeeded in creating one of the most disgusting things that, perhaps, I've ever tasted.
This is a elimination test.
With that comes a departure.
Okay.
Jenny, step forward.
You had one of the worst dishes of the day.
But there were two dishes worse than yours.
Back in line.
Alvin and Max Based on this elimination test, the worst dish of the day, and that person will be leaving MasterChef.
The inner voice in my head is just saying, "Please, please, please let it be Max.
Let me stay and prove to you guys what I can do.
" Alvin is asking 100% to be eliminated.
Even though my dessert was flawed, at least it was a true dish without chemicals and chemistry and wizardry.
That dish belongs to Alvin.
Please take your apron off.
Your time is done in MasterChef.
I think you're courageous, but you must understand the basics before you become adventurous.
Get that right, and you could be an exciting cook.
Thank you, chef.
Okay.
Thank you.
You know, hearing my name called, it sucked.
It's sort of instant snap back to reality that the dream of being the next master chef has ended.
But it's been an unbelievable experience, and it's something that I'll take with me forever, so I thank them for the opportunity and walk back to my station, take my apron off.
Bye, Alvin.
Everyone in that room was devastated when Alvin got sent home, completely out of left field.
You Back on your station.
Thank you, chef.
You're lucky today, Max.
I think that Alvin has more talent in his pinkie than Max has-- like, that he'll have in his entire life.
There's only 14 of you left.
Why are you all looking so miserable? Christine, why are you crying? I don't know.
'Cause I'm just happy to be here, man.
Oh, good.
I want it, man.
Game on.
Give yourselves a round of applause, for God's sake.
Okay.
Get some rest, 'cause you're gonna need it.
Well done.
Tomorrow night on MasterChef Welcome to Point Mugu.
The home cooks find themselves in the great outdoors Here come the bikers.
And face off in a team challenge of epic proportion.
Guys, guys, guys, guys! For one team, tensions erupt.
Just keep working.
Spoken like a true dictator.
Do we need a tutorial? I need to prove myself, so these other scumbags don't discount me.
The losing team will face the pressure test and one home cook's MasterChef dreams will come to a bitter end.
You've got two hours to serve 350 guests.
I've been cooking meat for twice as long as he's been alive.
Disaster! The losing team faced an intense pressure test, ending another amateur home cook's dreams.
Tony, your time's done in MasterChef.
Tonight Game on.
Show us you mean business.
And the competition intensifies.
Why are you crying? Some will crack under pressure.
Complete disaster.
And the judges take it personally.
This gives what I do a bad name.
I would send you home now.
I feel like giving up.
At the end of the night, a shocking elimination.
It was inedible.
Over the next eight weeks, the remaining home cooks will face extraordinary challenges.
My mum has flown halfway around the world to come here and eat that dessert.
Aah! For the winner, a quarter of a million dollars You're unstoppable.
That's a party in my mouth.
And the title of MasterChef.
Let's go, guys.
Stand in front of your station, please.
Let's go.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Now In your previous challenge, another talented contender for the title of MasterChef was sent home.
Look, there's just Oh, it's awesome to be in the top 15.
But I'm in the middle.
I don't want to be in the middle anymore.
I want to be on top.
I need to step it up.
Today's challenge is about inspiration and creativity-- your second mystery-box challenge.
You'll each have to prepare, cook, and present one absolutely fantastic dish.
The trick? You're only using the ingredients hidden under those boxes.
We will taste only the top-three dishes.
The person with the best dish from that three will have a huge, and I mean huge, advantage in the next challenge.
If you win this challenge, you're going to have a huge advantage.
I don't know what the huge advantage is gonna be, but whatever it is, I want it.
Any of you ready to go home yet? No! You've got one hour.
Show us that you mean business.
On the count of three, you'll lift those boxes and find out what you're up against.
I love mystery boxes.
I'm a savory cook, so I'm hoping for a nice, savory protein.
I am so hoping that under this box, there are the ingredients I need to make some sort of pastry.
Slowly.
One Two Three.
Wow! Rack of New Zealand lamb, stunning.
Peaches, romanesco cauliflower, fresh fava beans, feta, white rice, thai chili peppers, tarragon, creme fraiche, pie crust, heavy cream, and eggs.
The ingredients that you have in front of you, they are so diverse.
You can really go either way, right? Sweet, savory-- there's so many opportunities.
Make this the best dish you've ever cooked in this competition, because the next stage is an elimination test.
And your time starts From now.
Off you go.
Ow.
Lamb is something that I use at home, and I'm just gonna brown it off, and then glaze it, cut them into little lollipops, and then maybe just a little cauliflower, some fava beans.
I think I'll be in the top three.
I have no idea what this is.
And it's scary, and it reminds me of a Christmas tree.
The mystery-box challenge is where we separate the men from the boys.
Right.
You gotta really have the combination of intelligence and speed.
You gotta conceptualize and execute, not second-guess yourself, take it all the way to the bottom line.
What would you do? I'd do a roasted lamb, and I'd do a little fava mixed salad, some crumbled feta with it, and maybe a little romesco puree.
I need to capitalize big-time on this challenge.
I need to be at least top three to show them exactly who I am and just be right in their face.
Talk to me about the dish.
What are you doing? I'm going to poach some peaches, maybe do a little creme fraiche with mint and some of the chilies, and I did a little test run on my lamb chop, with pomegranate molasses.
Yes.
Coated in it, over that.
Very, very sweet.
Great for a glaze, but it is incredibly weighted, and it's incredibly thick and very syrupy.
Right.
Get it together, yes? Yes, chef.
Good luck.
Thank you.
I'm gonna make some lamb lollipops, and I'm going to fry up some of the feta cheese and kind of do a sweet compote on top of the feta cheese.
Derek, talk to me.
What do you got? Uh-oh.
Wow.
He took the rack of lamb and made hamburger out of it.
Jeez.
Are you out of your mind? A little bit, little bit.
That's like taking a Bentley and crashing it into a wall.
I just want to stand out a little bit.
Don't risk everything to distinguish yourself.
You know, a rack of lamb is a rack of lamb.
Give it the respect it deserves.
Wow.
A lot of butchering.
I thought they would have left those rack of lambs whole.
Everyone's taking it apart.
That's kind of, like, freaking me out.
To cut each one into individual slices-- very risky.
Lamb's that thin.
It's overcooked the minute you touch the pan.
That's the advantage of a rack.
Ugh! I'm a little lost right now.
Hello, Alejandra.
What are you doing? I'm doing a curried rack of lamb, and it's right now in the oven.
It's finishing up with the roast, and I'm gonna make a peach chutney, mix in some mint.
One thing I'm worried about, though, is your rack of lamb is in the oven with 30 minutes left to go.
I'm pulling it out so it can rest, and all the liquids can distribute.
Okay.
Perfect.
Good luck.
Thank you, chef.
As far as my lamb, I'm feeling good.
Gonna try to cook it very quickly, because this type of lamb will burn if you cook it any more than a minute and a half.
Right, Suzy.
No lamb, no peaches, and you're going for a vegetarian cauliflower, spiced-rice dish.
It's a very big gamble.
It is, chef.
Yeah.
I'm having fun.
I'm having fun in the kitchen.
Okay, just under ten minutes to go.
You cooking the rest of this, too? Yep.
I'm gonna cook the rest of that up also.
Graham comes over to me and says, "Oh, you're gonna use the full rack?" And originally I was just gonna stick with my lollipop chops.
They're really nicely seared.
And I was like, "You know what? Maybe I should try to throw it on there.
" I figured that I would have enough time to let it kind of cook itself through to a nice rare to medium rare.
It was not my original game plan.
Last two minutes! Now you should be having your meat resting or thinking about plating it.
Finishing touches.
Keep it going, guys.
We're only tasting the top-three dishes.
Make sure yours is in those top three.
Ten Nine Eight Seven Six Five Four Three Two One And stop! Chef Ramsay yells time, and I'm thinking, "Damn.
I should have left that rack on my board.
" Finishing touches.
In the mystery-box challenge, the judges will taste just three dishes.
TenNine The winner will receive a huge advantage going into the next round.
SixFive Four Three Two One And stop! Chef Ramsay yells, "time," and I made a hasty decision, and now I wish I would not have plated that.
We've been watching you all very closely And observing all those techniques, studying that level of creativity and really seeing you take this challenge face-on.
I'm gonna single out one dish that stood out.
Jennifer Your dish definitely stood out Unfortunately, for all the wrong reasons.
Jennifer.
This I have to make a point of, because this is not even about cooking, about technique.
This is a complete disaster.
This lamb is raw.
It's completely raw.
You can't-- you take this thing, and you cut it in half, it would be dangerous to serve a piece of lamb like this to a judge.
This is raw.
Raw.
Do you see this? Raw.
What are you thinking? What are you thinking about, trying to serve us raw food? We're here to judge this thing.
We're watching you cook.
We're not idiots.
You know, if it were me--this is not an elimination round-- I would send you home now.
This is a serious cooking competition with a serious prize.
Don't come in here and waste our time, because we will throw you out of this competition if you do something as stupid as to serve us raw, unsanitary food.
I didn't trust my instinct and tried to plate a bigger plate than I really wanted to.
I should have stuck with just the chops, and I don't like looking like a fool.
It sucks.
Three of the dishes that stood out for all the right reasons The first dish belongs to Alejandra.
Right, describe the dish, please.
Okay, this is a curried rack of lamb.
I have a cauliflower steak that I've roasted in the oven.
I have made a chutney with the peach and the pomegranate molasses, and the rice I've made a pilaf with the fava beans that I've blanched just in salted water.
So, 60 minutes, one stunning dish.
You've done that times four.
Four individual tough techniques that even a professional chef would struggle to get done in 60 minutes-- you've done it brilliantly.
And that's the peach chutney? Yes, sir.
It's delicious.
Great job.
Thank you so much, chef.
This is one of those rare occasions that, like, you nailed it.
You nailed it, you nailed it, you nailed it, you nailed it.
Thank you so much.
After Alejandra's chosen, I'm like, "Please call my name.
" I'm sending, like, little messages to Chef Ramsay, Chef Elliot, and Joe.
So the next dish that we want to try is a dish that I think would certainly win the award for being the most restaurant ready.
Tracy.
Tracy.
And that dish belongs to Adrien, why don't you come down here and show us what you did? Well done.
Tell me about the reduction, the pomegranate reduction.
How did that come to you? I did, like, a dummy lamb chop with just the molasses, but it was pretty heavy, so I kind of put in the blood-orange juice.
Then once I seared them, I used that marinade and put it into the port reduction that I poached the peaches in.
It's like fireworks on your palate.
You have heat in the back, you have acidity in the front.
What's the heat from, the chilies? The thai chilies and the creme fraiche with walnut.
I thought you were sort of disappearing in this competition, but it's remarkable.
Absolutely delicious.
Good job.
I appreciate it, chef.
Well done.
Thank you.
Well done, well done, well done.
All right The next dish out of the three that we are tasting, the contestant had some of the best, most beautiful plating skills that we've seen so far.
Tracy, please come forward.
All right.
Walk me through it.
Okay, so basically I wanted, not only the lamb to be the star, but also the feta.
So I sliced up those blood oranges, kind of grilled them on the stovetop so they were nice and caramelized.
Mm-hmm.
Also fried up the feta cheese so that it would have a crispy exterior.
The walnuts and the feta alone look beautiful with the little blood orange.
I mean, you set that aside, and that's, you know, like its own little vegetarian course or something.
Right, right.
It's really nice.
So this lamb, you know, as we cut through it, should just be that beautiful pink, you know, almost sensuous color.
I mean, absolutely beautiful.
Thank you.
Right.
Thank you, chef.
Great flavor.
I really like that use of the creme fraiche and the balancing of the sweetness with adding some of that salt and pepper that gives it some heat that's really needed.
Thank you very much, chef.
Thank you.
This is a well-thought-out, intelligently constructed entree.
I think that the feta and lamb is one of the winning combinations.
Delicious, Tracy.
Thank you very much.
Congratulations.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
Three amazing, remarkable dishes.
Tracy and Alejandra are awesome, but I know my dish is spot-on.
We're definitely on a new level here.
This is really kind of raising the bar.
These dishes are complex, complete, and intriguing.
I finally made it to the front of the judges as one of the top three.
At this point, my strategy has to be, "Keep going up.
" For us, so far, in this contest, the toughest decision we've had to make.
I don't want to be second place.
I want to be number one.
You know, I want to be the best.
The winning dish today from the mystery-box challenge Congratulations goes to In the mystery-box challenge, the top-three dishes have been tasted by the judges.
Adrien's farmers-market lamb, Alejandra's curried rack of lamb, and Tracy's sweet and salty feta with lamb.
For us, so far, the toughest decision we've had to make.
The winning dish today from the mystery-box challenge Congratulations goes to Adrien.
Well done.
Really good job.
Thank you, chef.
Excited? I don't even-- I don't know what to say! So, thank you.
I won a mystery-box challenge.
I got their attention.
I want to go celebrate.
It's completely a dream.
It's a great dream.
Are you ready to find out what your advantage is? Yeah.
Okay.
This way.
Let's go.
Congratulations.
As the winner of the mystery box, Adrien enters the MasterChef pantry.
Here, he will be put in control of the next challenge.
In the elimination test, at least one person will leave the competition.
And now Adrien will be given a huge advantage as he gets to pick the ingredient everyone else must cook with.
But the one thing he can't control is the theme of the challenge.
As always, that is in the hands of the judges.
The first bit of news is You could still be up for elimination today, okay? The theme of today's elimination challenge is desserts.
I'm freaking out, just because I don't make any desserts at home.
I never order dessert when I go out, but if I can come out strong in this, it's gonna gain some real, real respect.
So we're about to show you three amazing ingredients for dessert.
But before that, let's talk about your two huge advantages.
First of all, from these three ingredients, you get to choose the ingredient that you want To be the star across your dessert.
And then you get to choose A different ingredient for your competitors.
Be clever.
Okay, so the first ingredient today is Coffee.
As a component of desserts, it's a game changer, because inherent in coffee comes acidity, bitterness, things that you have to really consider when you create the most sophisticated desserts.
All right, ingredient number two Is pineapple.
It's both sweet and sour, right? There's these different acidic notes that can really help set a dessert apart.
Your third ingredient Nuts.
So complicated to get right.
Think very, very carefully.
Remember, it is an elimination test.
My advantage is kind of like a catch 22, because it doesn't matter what I pick.
I could pick any three of those things, and someone is gonna hate me.
So, which ingredient are you choosing for you and for your competitors? Wow.
The theme for today's elimination test is Desserts.
I feel really confident doing desserts.
As a chef, you need to know how to do pastries as well as culinary, and I think I can do both.
When I hear I'm cooking desserts, I'm pretty pissed off.
I don't feel comfortable with them at all, and I'm a little worried, to tell you the truth.
Adrien had a choice of three ingredients to pick from-- pineapple, coffee, or nuts.
Adrien got to choose the main ingredient for his desserts, and he got to pick the ingredient that the rest of you are gonna have to cook.
Wow.
So he chose for himself, the most diverse ingredients, and they are I picked nuts.
Is there anyone who is a little bit jealous of Adrien's nuts? You are going to be using Don't pick coffee.
The most amazing Not pineapple.
Coffee.
Come on, seriously? Yes! Coffee's something I love.
It's something I know.
I want to run over to Adrien and just give him a big hug right now.
Remember, we're gonna be tasting all of your dishes today, including Adrien's, and on the back of that, one of you will be going home.
You got five minutes in the pantry to get your ingredients, then 90 minutes to make the most exquisite dessert.
Your time starts Now.
Off you go.
With coffee as their main ingredient, the contestants now have five minutes in the pantry to get everything they need to create a dessert that can keep them in the competition.
Immediately I think of an espresso, chocolate flourless cake.
Part of the reason why I chose a flourless chocolate cake is that there's minimal ingredients, so I could focus on some other flavors.
I'm making a coffee cheesecake.
I bake a lot of dessert, but I just bake a lot of cookies.
This isn't cookies.
It's a lot more scientific.
Oh, come on! Baking and pastry and desserts are all chemistry, and I really understand the science of food, so I'm hoping that carries me through today.
In the back of my mind, I always see myself, at a minimum, cooking in the finals, if not winning this whole competition.
Just under 60 minutes left.
Who do you think can bring it in the baking department? Who's shown us some baking skills thus far? I think Tracy is a very clever but reserved individual.
A technical cook.
What about Alvin? We've seen him take a molecular approach, which means he has some science background.
Does he apply that to the sweet food now? Yeah.
I mean, fingers crossed.
And I thought it was a very smart move for Adrien to have chosen the nuts, because there's so much more diversity.
But a lot riding on his shoulders now.
If he doesn't produce, you know, he's got his neck on the chopping block like everyone else.
Yeah.
What are you doing, Alvin? I'm gonna do a beignet, and I'm trying to pull off coffee spheres to put in the beignet-- so like a liquid center-- yeah, liquid center, powdered sugar, maybe a little coffee dust on top.
Are you out of your mind? Make us dessert! It's not a chemistry experiment.
You need to convert him.
Max, what are you doing? There's a little cream over your nose, buddy.
You got a little bit here as well.
There you go.
Excellent.
What are you mak-- .
What are you making? I'm making a layer cake with crepes and a cream cheese and mascarpone coffee infusion.
Good luck.
Hi, Alejandra.
Hello, chef.
What are you making? It's a black-bottom coffee cream tart.
Wow.
What's this? That's like a whipped cream with instant espresso and a little bit of sugar, a little bit of Brandy.
That's instant coffee and whipped cream? Yeah.
Well-- where did you-- where did you learn that? My mother.
That is, like, so ghetto delicious, it's awesome.
It's like kool-aid.
Thank you so much.
Okay, guys.
So you're doing like a-- almost like a short-crust tart.
I'm close on time, but I'm just gonna push for it.
The pastry's still raw, so I suggest you get them in the oven.
Yes, chef.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Mm-hmm.
We've got some weak desserts.
We've got some strong desserts.
The most important thing in this challenge is, you don't want to be in the bottom three.
I think Alvin and Christine are my potential sort of weakest desserts.
Okay, ten minutes to go.
They're coming out perfect.
This dish is definitely gonna be a top competitor.
I'm pulling my tart out of the oven, and it looks like soup.
It's just not even coming together.
So I have no clue what I'm gonna do.
I have leftover coffee filling that is still kind of liquid-y, and I did make melted chocolate, thank God.
There's six minutes left, and I look over, and I'm realizing that I have all these eggs left, and I still have sugar.
Be back.
So I'm like, "mousse, mousse, mousse, mousse, mousse!" I can make a mousse in six minutes--coffee mousse.
I mean, there's nothing else I can do.
Okay.
Five minutes to go.
Make it count.
Start finishing that amazing dessert.
I'm here for my son.
I'm here for myself, and I'm not going home.
! Last 60 seconds.
Put those finishing touches.
screw this, screw that.
Oh, where's the chocolate chip? There's no chocolate chip.
There's a raspberry.
Ten Nine Eight Seven Six Five Four Three Two One And stop.
Well done, well done, well done.
Good job.
I literally just whipped this together.
I'm thinking I'll do great, or I'll go home.
All right, Adrien, let's do it.
As the winner of the mystery-box challenge, Adrien got to choose his main ingredients, as well as those of his competitors, but he could still face elimination.
It's a chocolate torte, and I have pistachio, hazelnut inside, and, also, I made a coulis of raspberry, strawberry, pomegranate, and amaretto.
What's really odd is it seems like you chose chocolate as your ingredient, and the nuts are just kind of a garnish on top.
The sad news is you can't really identify what you've done different from the nuts on top to the nuts inside that mixture.
How many different nuts did you use? All of them, sadly.
Every kind.
Is that, like, a normal thing you've seen before-- a cake with every nut known to humanity in it? No.
So what were you thinking? I think you took an incredible advantage and squandered it.
Christine, please come up.
I make mousse at my house all the time, but I have never, ever made mousse in six minutes.
I was trying to make like a creamy coffee tart, but I didn't have enough-- I didn't calculate my time well enough.
Thanks.
The actual mousse tastes nice.
For me, it's not how you start.
It's how you finish, and on the back of a disaster with the tarts, I think you've done a pretty good job to bring that back, to be honest.
I think you should wait till five minutes to go on every challenge now, because I think we're seeing your strongest.
Okay.
I mean, I feel pretty awesome that they recognized the fact that I didn't give up.
Max, let's go.
When I present my dish, I'm really proud.
I like the presentation.
I think the judges are going to find it genius.
What in the hell is that? It's about 15 crepes 15 crepes.
Stacked together.
About that much.
Okay, in between the 15 crepes, what is it? It's a mixture of cream cheese, mascarpone, some espresso, a little cream, and some sugar.
Damn.
You have to do this with me.
You have to taste that.
It's like I've just gone to the doctor's for a skin graft on my butt and stuck it in caramel.
Yeah.
That is a horrible, weird texture.
That's rancid.
That good, huh? Wow.
You know, the fact that it's an elimination test It's serious.
There's no sweetness.
I don't get a lot of coffee flavor at all.
I don't get much of anything aside from the weird texture.
I would be worried, actually, with what you made here.
Alejandra, please come down and join us.
Now, this is not what I expected.
I thought those ingredients were gonna be, like, somehow cooked.
This is everything I tasted, I think, raw.
What happened? I am inexperienced with desserts.
I didn't give it the proper time to cool in the refrigerator before serving it.
I'm sorry.
This is a poorly executed dish.
I'm aware.
It's almost as if you stopped halfway through and assembled the dish and presented it-- a little strange.
I cannot believe, from what you've done in this competition, that you would come up with something as bad as that.
It's a mess.
And it's a great shame.
Damn.
It's so hard.
It's so hard for me to hear how disappointed he is.
I'm so disappointed by this dish already, and I'm just, like, crushed.
I think this is the challenge that is gonna send me home.
Jenny Kelly, will you join us up here? Hi, there.
Hi.
What is it? It is a tart.
I infused the tart with coffee.
Is it supposed to look like that? What is that? It's not cooked all the way through.
I put it in too late.
So it's raw.
It's not fi-- um, I don't think it's totally raw, but it's-- the top's edible.
Well, the opposite of being cooked is raw, right? So it's raw.
Blecch.
Okay.
I mean, it-- excuse me.
It's an embarrassment.
It's an embarrassment for you, and it's an embarrassment for this competition.
I apologize that you guys are even trying it.
If you had any sense, you'd stage a trip-up and smash the plate on the way up here, 'cause that is hideous.
It should come with a health warning sign.
I just expected a little bit more, especially at this stage of the competition.
I'm really sorry.
At this stage of the challenge, when there's only this many of you left, this is just unacceptable.
This cannot fly, and it has to end here at this challenge.
Putting up food that's not cooked, that's ill-conceived, is dangerous.
That is reckless.
I'm--Joe, I'm pissed off.
We give you every tool that's possible to make you guys shine.
And , I mean, we want you to shine, I swear to God.
But when like that hits the plate, I feel like giving up.
I feel like giving up.
I feel like giving up.
I just expected a little bit more, especially at this stage of the competition.
I'm really sorry.
When there's only this many of you left, this is just unacceptable.
It has to end here at this challenge.
Tracy, will you come join us? After the most disappointing day ever in the MasterChef kitchen, can Tracy put everything back on track? What do we got? It is an espresso, chocolate flourless cake.
It's covered with a caramel sauce and a very, very light dusting of coffee beans with a little bitter chocolate.
Wow.
This is amazing.
You've combined the sort of toffee and the caramelized toffee with the coffee, and it really works.
That dessert is the kind of dessert I'd love to see on my menu in my restaurant in London, because it's got that wow factor.
Delicious.
Well done.
Okay.
Esther, let's go.
After Tracy's dessert changed the mood in the kitchen, can the remaining home cooks keep it that way? What is that, please? It's a warm coffee cheesecake.
A coffee cheesecake.
Okay.
Here's the thing.
It actually tastes delicious.
It's got that wow factor.
It doesn't give you the instant impression that it's gonna bounce off the palate, visually, but the creamy texture of the tart is immaculate.
That is delicious.
Great job.
Okay, Suzy, come on up.
I've got a chocolate coffee brownie on chocolate hand-rolled truffles.
Mix of cocoa powder and ground espresso? You get the chocolate, the sweet, bitter, all those kind of things.
It's super rich and decadent.
Good job.
Jennifer, what do you have? I have coffee creme brulee, with a little bit of white chocolate in there, and then I did a little bit of macerated raspberries over the top to cut that richness of the cream.
It definitely has a pronounced flavor of both coffee and white chocolate, and, in fact, the berries do a nice job of bringing it up.
Right.
Quite light, and, quite frankly, pretty good.
Thank you.
Alvin.
The final contestant in the elimination challenge is Alvin.
Alvin is amazing, so intelligent.
He knows so much about food.
I really think Alvin's gonna be in the top five.
Inside the beignet is coffee with chicory, brewed pretty strong, mixed with sodium alginate, and that's set to cool, and that's dropped into a calcium chloride bath, which sets a gel around the sauce.
What is that? It's the coffee sauce, chef.
It's extraordinarily bitter.
It looks like a coffee blood clot.
I think the resting time may have set more of the alginate base than I would have liked.
It's not 'cause it's been sitting.
It's the fact that it was wrong before it even got put in there.
At my restaurant, we use some of these techniques, you know? But we never go around and try to trumpet that we're using it, because it works, and it speaks for itself.
But things like this give what I personally do day in and day out a bad name.
Whether it's got a cool ingredient or technique or not, that's just bad food.
It's disgusting.
With all the dishes tasted, the judges must decide the bottom three, one of which will be eliminated.
First, they'll reveal today's top-two dishes.
Okay.
Across that tasting, we had some highs and lows.
But there were some real highs.
The top two will become team captains ahead of our next challenge.
Good luck.
That first dish belongs to Esther.
Thank you.
Did he call my name? Did he just say Esther? Serious? What? Good job.
I'm shocked.
I'll take a win.
I'll take a win.
The second dish that was done to perfection That dish belongs to Tracy.
Congratulations.
Tracy is definitely not going home today, not today, people.
Congratulations, Esther.
Tracy, congratulations.
Good job.
This is a elimination test.
With that comes a departure.
And we're gonna single out the three dishes that we strongly believe deserve to be in the bottom, and at least one of you will be leaving MasterChef.
The first dish that wasn't up to par Belongs to Jenny.
Step forward, please.
At this stage in the competition when there's elimination up, trust me, you want to cook your ass off.
Today you didn't do that.
The second dish was almost to the point of being offensive.
That dish belongs to Alvin.
Knowing when to use restraint, when to come back inside the box-- important stuff.
Yes, chef.
The third dish was poor in its conceptualization and really rancid in its flavor.
And that dish belongs to In tonight's elimination challenge, the judges have already chosen two of the worst three dishes.
Ultimately, one home cook will be leaving the competition.
The third dish was poor in its conceptualization and really rancid in its flavor.
Max, why don't you come up and take your spot? You succeeded in creating one of the most disgusting things that, perhaps, I've ever tasted.
This is a elimination test.
With that comes a departure.
Okay.
Jenny, step forward.
You had one of the worst dishes of the day.
But there were two dishes worse than yours.
Back in line.
Alvin and Max Based on this elimination test, the worst dish of the day, and that person will be leaving MasterChef.
The inner voice in my head is just saying, "Please, please, please let it be Max.
Let me stay and prove to you guys what I can do.
" Alvin is asking 100% to be eliminated.
Even though my dessert was flawed, at least it was a true dish without chemicals and chemistry and wizardry.
That dish belongs to Alvin.
Please take your apron off.
Your time is done in MasterChef.
I think you're courageous, but you must understand the basics before you become adventurous.
Get that right, and you could be an exciting cook.
Thank you, chef.
Okay.
Thank you.
You know, hearing my name called, it sucked.
It's sort of instant snap back to reality that the dream of being the next master chef has ended.
But it's been an unbelievable experience, and it's something that I'll take with me forever, so I thank them for the opportunity and walk back to my station, take my apron off.
Bye, Alvin.
Everyone in that room was devastated when Alvin got sent home, completely out of left field.
You Back on your station.
Thank you, chef.
You're lucky today, Max.
I think that Alvin has more talent in his pinkie than Max has-- like, that he'll have in his entire life.
There's only 14 of you left.
Why are you all looking so miserable? Christine, why are you crying? I don't know.
'Cause I'm just happy to be here, man.
Oh, good.
I want it, man.
Game on.
Give yourselves a round of applause, for God's sake.
Okay.
Get some rest, 'cause you're gonna need it.
Well done.
Tomorrow night on MasterChef Welcome to Point Mugu.
The home cooks find themselves in the great outdoors Here come the bikers.
And face off in a team challenge of epic proportion.
Guys, guys, guys, guys! For one team, tensions erupt.
Just keep working.
Spoken like a true dictator.
Do we need a tutorial? I need to prove myself, so these other scumbags don't discount me.
The losing team will face the pressure test and one home cook's MasterChef dreams will come to a bitter end.