It was a bittersweet cook last night as Masterchef’s top 7 became 6 as we head into finals week.
After failing the mammoth service challenge, Tamara, Sarah and Karlie found themselves in tonight’s elimination.
Having risked not using an immunity pin when she was in Japan, Sarah was not prepared to take the same chance again and played her pin, which meant Eliza had to battle it out against Karlie and Tamara.
The cook began with a letter from home containing a memory to inspire their dishes. Eliza’s boyfriend Alex wrote about a trip to Sorrento in Victoria. Karlie’s partner Adam talked about cooking in their Sydney home and Tamara’s husband Tim reminded her of their French honeymoon, eating and drinking through the countryside.
Reminded of the beach, Eliza picked up a rainbow trout from the pantry and planned to build her dish from there. She wanted to create a beetroot and gin cured trout with crème fraiche, fennel crackers and beetroot butter.
Tamara used the memory of gazing through pastry shop windows in Paris as her inspiration, collecting a bottle of rosé from Provence. She planned to make macarons filled with crème fraiche and goat’s cheese, and used strawberries alongside rose and tarragon.
Karlie wanted to use freshly-shucked oysters alongside an oyster cream, compressed cucumber and cucumber granita. She juiced lime, dill and cucumbers, and placed it in the blast chiller to make her granita.
With 15 minutes left on the clock, Eliza wanted to add another dimension to the plate, settling on fresh horseradish. Karlie also wanted to get as much gin flavour into the sliced cucumber, vacuum sealing it before blitzing salt and juniper berries to make her own ginflavoured salt.
Karlie’s dish received high praise in the tastings. The dish was bold, refreshing, crisp, clean and modern.
Tamara’s plate of macarons smashed the concept and the judges praised its balance. While Eliza’s dish was beautiful and tasty, it was slightly dry. In the end, that was enough to send her home from the MasterChef Australia kitchen.
Since leaving, Eliza has enjoyed work experience with the executive pastry chef at George Calombaris’ The Press Club and started her own catering company, The Grazing Table.
