…Well, three MasterChef contestants anyway.
Rishi, Daniel and Christina enter the kitchen to verse Heston Blumenthal with the simple task and reward- beat him and they get an immunity pin. ALL of them could get an immunity pin! ALL of them may fail.
To even things up- the contestants get 90 minutes to plate up one dish. Heston has to cook 3 dishes in 90 minutes- an entrée, main and a dessert.
They have to cook with a key ingredient dependent on what course the contestants cook. Daniel will cook entrée, Christina will cook main and Rishi will cook dessert- decided by how they walked into the kitchen.
The hero ingredient for Daniel’s entrée is eggs. The hero for the main is wine. The hero for the dessert is milk.
Their 90 minutes begins. Daniel will be cooking a very elaborate 62-degree egg breakfast with wafters, mushroom custard and a salmon roe emulsion. Heston will be doing some cured mackerel and salmon roe.
Rishi is making a snowman! Elaborate. He’s basing it on a dish he’s seen on MasterChef 2011. Christina still doesn’t know what she’s doing. She ends up doing pan-seared beef with confited potatoes and all this different jazz. Heston is doing chicken braised with cherry.
Heston meanwhile is actually struggling with this challenge as he’s trying to remain simple- but he keeps seeing ingredients and picks them up- which requires more cooking and more utensils. He acquires what looks like 200 items in total!
Daniel’s mushroom sauce isn’t cooling and the pressure is beginning to get to him. Christina is also risking overcooking her beef. She begins working on her jus which she hopes isn’t going to be too safe.
Rishi’s snowman seems to be coming together quite well- hopefully the ice cream sets in time. Meanwhile, Heston is smoking mackerel in hay. That’s what inventive looks like. But he still hasn’t worked out what he wants to do for dessert.
Daniel cracks his 62 degree egg and it holds. Fifteen minutes to go. Heston is making an ice cream mix but it won’t freeze! Wow, Rishi may win this! He decides to super cool the ice cream and it looks good. Meanwhile, Rishi’s ice cream hasn’t set- so he decides to do the same as Heston. It works, but he now can’t shape the ice cream into a proper snowman shape.
Heston is now panicking that he won’t be able to finish ANY of his dishes as so little time remains and so many components are yet to be completed.
Five minutes remain. Rishi’s Ganache is melting and it’s supposed to be the head of the snowman. Heston doesn’t even think he will be able to plate up dessert. Of course, he does!
Time is soon up and it’s time for tasting.
Gary and Matt then judge the 62 degree egg and the mackerel. They will not score the dishes- but just choose their favourite. They call Daniel’s dish beautifully cooked and a twist on eggs on toast. Heston’s dish is called healthy, balanced and sophisticated.
The braised chicken (Heston) and beef (Christina) are next. They love the cherry on Heston’s chicken and Matt calls it country. The beef it cooked really well on Christina’s plate and the judges call it ‘more chef-y’.
Heston’s strawberry sundae and Rishi’s dish are next. Obviously Heston has done very well. Rishi’s dessert is obviously the clear loser here.
In the entrée stakes, Heston beat Daniel.
In the main stakes, Heston beat Christina.
In the dessert stakes, Heston beat Rishi.
Heston Vs. The World? Heston wins.
For doing the best today, Daniel will get to be Heston’s right hand man in tomorrow’s challenge- which means he won’t take part and cannot go into elimination. He’s basically won a type of immunity that takes him to next week!