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MasterChef recap: Lattice give thanks we'll never have to spend four frantic hours making pork wellington

Ben Pobjie
Ben Pobjie

Andy, Mel, Khanh and Jock strike a pose.
Andy, Mel, Khanh and Jock strike a pose. Supplied

"All your life is Channel 13/Sesame Street, what does it mean?" So asked Billy Joel, and rather than keep us hanging, he told us exactly what it meant: PRESSURE.

And so, in a neat segue, we come to MasterChef, where for last night's unhappy purple team, tonight is Channel 13 and Sesame Street, as they face a pressure test like none ever seen before, although also quite similar to previous ones in many ways.

It's Maja versus Pete versus Tommy versus Depinder, and one of them is going home to answer some pretty pointed questioning from their family about why they're home so early. "I don't want to go home today," says Depinder, so assuming the other three do want to go home, she's already at an advantage.

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The challenge is set by guest chef Khanh Nguyen of hatted Melbourne restaurant, Sunda, who Melissa says has taken South-East Asian cuisine "to the next level". Which I guess is North-East Asian cuisine? Anyway, the losers have to cook Khanh's Pork Wellington with lattice crackling and flavours of banh mi, and forgive a cynical old recapper for saying so, but it looks frigging amazing. It's pork, but it's in pastry, and there's crackling all round the outside, and there's pate, and there's prosciutto, and there's…stuff. So much stuff. Oh my GOD. Makes it hard to write…

The losers have four hours and 15 minutes to make this mouth-watering monstrosity, and once again we wonder why they can't sit down while they do it. Is there a special rule that says you have to stand up when you cook? This is just far too long to be standing up for.

Maja begins by assuming that she has so long to cook in that she doesn't have to rush, a thought that guarantees she will soon be running in a panic around the kitchen, arms flailing like Kermit the Frog. Pete, meanwhile, begins by musing that "being a perfectionist is a bit annoying at times", as if he's at a job interview and had to tell the boss what his biggest weakness is.

The judges gather to rejoice over the pain they cause. Andy notes that it's Maja's third pressure test, but the first for the other three. This could mean Maja has an edge due to her experience. Or it could mean Maja is quite obviously much worse at cooking than the other three and will definitely lose. Khanh tells the other judges that he is the only person who has ever made this dish before, and everyone has a good laugh over how much the innocent people in front of them are suffering.

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Pete gets to work on his pastry. Upon looking back at the recipe, he realises he left the egg out of his dough. He asks the balcony if they think he could just blend the egg in. They tell him he has to start again. For some unknown reason he assumes the balcony knows what it's talking about, and starts again. Melissa drops by to tell him to hurry the f--- up. Khanh reassures him that he's going OK. Melissa disagrees: she wants him to hurry the f--- up.

Maja is feeling insecure. "I know I should be chock-full of confidence," she laments, "but my head's just not in the game right now." Why should she be full of confidence? If I had her track record I sure as hell wouldn't be. She can't understand how a pate log works, and who can blame her? Khanh comes by and tells her how to do it, which is technically cheating.

Depinder and Tommy are cutting their skin into the lattice pattern. I mean, not their skin: the pork skin. The key to a beautiful pork skin lattice, of course, is…I have no idea, really. These people are making such painstaking cuts in pieces of pork skin and I assume they're doing the right thing but honestly 90 per cent of the actual cooking on this show might as well be magic as far as I'm concerned, and this is no different. Basically they are casting a spell on the pork so it turns into a pretty shape.

All of a sudden, the producers hit paydirt: Maja is crying. "I'm pretty exhausted," she admits, exposing the show's no-chairs policy in the starkest manner. Melissa comes over to comfort her. "Think about what you're capable of," she says, but it feels like it might've been thinking about that that made her cry in the first place. Still, Melissa's pep talk works – as it would, let's be honest, on any of us, because it's Melissa – and Maja gets her nose back to the grindstone.

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From the balcony Kishwar and Minoli order her to go faster, an instruction that becomes much more difficult when Andy shows up and tells her to stop and listen to him. When she does stop and listen to him, he tells her to go faster, which she was already trying to do but was forced to go slower in order to hear Andy tell her to go faster. Do you see how you're not helping, Andy? Kishwar and Minoli should be the judges.

It is time for the Pork Wellingtons to go in the oven, which means it's time for the judges and the balcony and the camera crew and the health and safety representative to all start yelling "IN THE OVEN! IN THE OVEN!" like a nightmarish Maurice Sendak book. Justin observes that Depinder's pastry doesn't look quite right but offers no convincing explanation for why we should want to know what he thinks.

45 minutes to go and everyone is yelling at Maja to get her dish in the oven as if she had no idea that was what she should do. She knows she has to get it in the oven, leave her alone.

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The losers now get working on their salads. "It's really important to get the salad right," says Depinder, even though everyone knows it's not. "Pete, how's your mayo?" calls Melissa. "It's sick!" Pete replies. "It's sick?" Melissa asks. "It's sick!" Pete answers. It is a horrible, horrible piece of television.

Time runs out, and the Wellingtons emerge from the ovens. The judges sit down to taste, because of course THEY get to sit down while they work.

Pete plates up his Wellington and lets us all know that he is a perfectionist in case we hadn't heard. The judges believe his dish is fantastic, although Andy believes that right on the edge the pork is slightly overcooked, which must cause Pete, as a perfectionist, untold agonies.

Tommy plates up his pork. "That was 99 per cent yours," Jock says to Khanh, levelling a serious accusation of theft at Tommy. The judges are in raptures over how tasty Tommy's pork is, though Khanh seems a bit down in the dumps. The news that he's not the only one who can effectively Wellington a pork has really bummed him out.

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Depinder enters with her dish. It has a weird texture. She's made a double layer of pastry, resulting in raw pastry which, as it turns out, was not in the recipe.

Maja comes with her tray of pork, heart beating like a jackhammer and sweat pouring from every follicle. Disappointingly, there are raw bits throughout, due to the pastry being too thick. "I feel for her, but you can't escape raw pork," says Jock, relishing the chance to break out his famous catchphrase.

At the denouement, Khanh says "I think you should all be proud of yourselves", but hanging unspoken in the air are the words "except Maja", and she must go home for the second time this series. Embarrassing, no? At least she's had some practice. Jock sings her praises. "Once you set your mind to something, you achieve it," he says, an assertion easily disproven by the fact he's making this speech in the first place.

Tune in tomorrow, when fists will fly.

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Ben PobjieBen Pobjie is a columnist.

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