Four will enter the kitchen and only three will come out. In an elimination like no other who will fall just shy of the Grand Finale?
The contestants arrive in the kitchen to start a huge day of cooking. Today they will cook in 3 duels where the losers will face off for the third and final spot. As the winner of last night’s Atlantic challenge, Rishi will get to cook in round 1 against whoever he likes. He will also pick the cuisine they will cook with and the protein they will use. The contestants are shocked.
The first duel will be Rishi and Emma. He chooses Indian cuisine and mussels. They will have thirty minutes. They are both off and racing. Rishi decides he will cook curried mussel soup. He has already put his mussels in the water despite only taking minutes to cook. He then starts on flat bread.
Emma decides to cook a curry and just throw the mussels in at the end to keep them fresh. At the 10 minute mark Rishi’s mussels are cooked and he then starts on a sauce which is a coconut milk based sauce. He is confident he can execute it well but it has to be balanced.
Emma is toasting off her spices but she doesn’t do it for long. Emma is flustered with 15 minutes left. Her sauce isn’t balanced and she has drawn a blank as to how to fix it. George manages to get her to focus to balance it out some more. With 5 minutes left, Emma cooks her mussels as rishi puts sauce on his plates. Emma plates up and time is called both are pleased with their efforts.
Rishi cooked curried mussel soup with puree while Emma cooked tomato curried mussels with spinach. Emma’s mussels are cooked perfectly. Rishi’s, due to being rested so long, have over cooked. The sauces are the opposite though with Rishi having a better sauce than Emma however the judges can’t overlook that Rishi’s mussels were overcooked so EMMA is the first grand finalist for 2013.
Samira and Lynton are next to battle it out one will pick the protein while the other will pick the cuisine but how they decide? They do the good old fashion coin toss. Samira calls heads and that is what comes up. She decides that she will choose middle eastern. Lynton sticks to his strengths as well and chooses kangaroo as the protein. They both played to their own strengths and throw the other a curve ball this shall be fun.
Samira is doing a pan fried kangaroo with humus and tabouleh and starts on her spice mix which she is confident in but not about the meat so she does a sample test. Lynton does a pan seared kangaroo with spicy tomato sauce and a herb yoghurt. He is taking a risk and doing the sauce first to give the tomato enough time to cook.
After ten minutes Samira decides she cooked her kangaroo tester enough to be medium rare but it’s still raw and she doesn’t have time to test again. With his sauce cooking Lynton starts cooking his meat as does Samira. Over the last few minutes both contestants are working hard and manage to plate up spectacular dishes
In the tasting the judges decide that they both cooked the meat and met the cuisine brief perfectly it comes down to whose dish was preferred more and that was LYNTON making him the 2nd grand finalist.
It now means that Rishi will fight Samira for the last spot in the grand finale. Like before, one will choose the cuisine and one will choose the protein and it will be decided by a coin toss which Rishi loses. Samira chooses French and Rishi chooses eye filet.
Rishi is doing a pan seared filet with a red wine vinegar jus garlic mushrooms and chard leak cream. The leek cream was a technique rishi discovered in MasterClass. He is charring his leaks. Samira starts on her celeriac. Rishi starts his jus and has completed his chard leaks. Samira has put her rib eye on and sets to work on her port jus. Samira is taking a risk by doing a port dew as she can’t consume alcohol but it’s showing initiate. When she pours the port on to her vegetables it flambés immediately, much to her surprise.
15 minutes remain and Rishi is blending up his leek cream except he forgot one crucial step to poach them first before charring rishi just continues working. Samira decides she wants a crunchy element so she does sweet potato chips but adding to her problems is the fact her dew isn’t reducing and her oil isn’t heating up. With 5 minutes left things finally are coming together as both beefs are cooked perfectly and with 30 seconds left Samira puts coriander on her dish.
Samira’s dish would have been better if she left the coriander off while Rishi’s cream has a ash flavour and therefore means Rishi departs while Samira is the third grand finalist.
After Rishi leaves the grand finalists discover that the first round of the finale is a savoury dish and they are looking for perfection…