In the most difficult and demanding pressure test of the season Aldo, Mindy and Montana arrived at the MasterChef kitchen ready to fight for their place in the top eight
Following their performance in yesterday’s mini mystery box challenge, .
Melissa welcomed back head chef and owner of Sunda and Aru, Khanh Nguyen, who arrived with his “Seafood Plate” which had 99 ingredients, 143 steps and a 13 page recipe. With four and a half hours on the clock, the trio raced to start trying to understand the complex recipe.
When it was time to taste, Mindy was first to deliver her delicate, refined and beautiful dish. Jock said her crab was beautifully cooked and the flavours were fantastic. Melissa said the seafood cooking across the board was really good and it allowed them to enjoy all the flavours.
Aldo was amazed that he managed to get everything done, but admitted the curry was a struggle. He was concerned that he hadn’t nailed the cook on the seafood, and his fears were founded when the judges tasted undercooked crab and clam. Khanh enjoyed the flavour of the spicier native green curry, and while the clam glaze and lemon myrtle oil were great, the cooking of the shellfish was paramount.
Montana was last to the tasting room, and while the judges loved her lemon myrtle oil and her scampi had great flavours, her storm clams and scallop were undercooked, and disappointingly Andy ended up with two pieces of shell in his oyster.
When delivering the verdict the judges said that multiple errors in Montana’s dish had left her vulnerable, and she was announced as the sixteenth contestant eliminated from the MasterChef kitchen.
