MasterChef recap: Harry proves you can make friends with salad in week one's endless quest for immunity

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It's immunity time! Oh wait, no it's not. Before the immunity challenge comes the challenge that decides who gets into the immunity challenge. Yes, it seemed like yesterday was that challenge, but yesterday was only the challenge to decide who gets into the challenge that decides who gets into the immunity challenge. It may seem a little drawn-out, but we've got a whole week to fill here, people.

Today's challenge is based on a four-level food pyramid, just like the ones we used to learn about in school before they were widely debunked as unhelpful. Each team must decide which members tackle which layers of the pyramid. One member can cook only with the bottom layer (fruit and vegetables etc), one can cook only with the bottom two layers (layer one + grains etc), one member can cook only with the bottom three layers (layers one and two + proteins), and one can cook with all four layers (three layers +fats and sugar). The best dish from each layer goes into tomorrow's immunity cook.

If this sounds confusing, that's probably just because you're not operating on as elevated a mental level as the people who think up MasterChef challenges.

Julie, Queen of Hearts, is competing against Melanie and Jenn, which means she faces the prospect of trying to cook a balanced meal while listening to a constant monologue about the differences between cooking and dentistry. Disaster strikes when Julie realises that butter is not in the three layers she's allowed, forcing her to make her own butter, something that seems like science fiction but apparently can be done.

Steph, one of the most popular fans whose existence we have only this minute been made aware of, is cooking with all four layers and therefore is able to make something that actually tastes good. As such she has time for a quick flashback to her home life, where she makes cakes and regrets going into finance. She notes that her dish would usually take her a couple of days, but she only has 75 minutes, so she's using a technique she developed called "making it worse".

Everyone is hard at work putting their dishes together with an hour to go, while the audience continues to try to understand the challenge. Melissa and Andy visit Julie's bench to find out what she's cooking and distract her from her job. Julie explains that she's making cauliflower soup but honestly it's good. Next to Julie, Melanie is also making butter, like a big cheating copycat. Melanie is using a stand mixer, while Julie does it the way God intended.

Tommy, working with the bottom two layers, is intimidated by Harry, whose ability to burn vegetables is already legendary. Tommy is a favourite, but even he quails in the face of Harry's talent for not just cooking, but for constantly talking about how poor she is.

Michael is cooking with the bottom layer of the pyramid – fruits and vegetables – which means he has to try to make something good out of objectively bad ingredients. He explains that not winning MasterChef the first time around "didn't feel nice", which as tragic back stories go seems slightly weak. He declares his intention to cook carrots and passionfruit in coconut milk, sparking fears that his disappointment has driven him insane.

Next to him, Max tries to initiate a fistfight, but Michael stays focused.

On his other side, Montana – who as a professional TikTok cook should not be allowed to enter this competition – is worried that her dish might be too sweet, which seems incredibly unlikely as she has no enormous bag of sugar to pour over everything, which is the only way to make fruits and vegetables palatable.

Steph is feeling terrified because people are starting to call her "the cake queen". It's a poignant moment, and one wishes one could enter the kitchen and soothe her fears by reassuring her that nobody is really calling her "the cake queen" and in fact very few people can even remember her name.

Meanwhile Julie is engaged in her favourite pastime: assuming everyone is better than her. She suddenly realises that instead of making cauliflower soup she could've cooked some chicken, and look…she's right. Being given the option of cooking meat and thinking, "why not cauliflower?" is definitely an eccentric move. Luckily Julie realises she has time to add a protein, and whips out her speck to widespread acclaim.

With 15 minutes to go, Jock yells, "If you want to get into tomorrow's immunity challenge, all you gotta do is beat your bench", causing all the cooks to slap their foreheads with sudden epiphany. Up till now they really did have only the vaguest sense of what they were doing.

Tommy takes a moment to explain just how intricate the process of making daikon dumplings is: it involves not only delicate layering but several visits to the National Library and the extensive use of an arc welder. Meanwhile Harry has made some orange liquid and as long as it makes her happy that's what counts. "The execution of this dish is super integral to it really working," she says, setting her dish apart from all those other dishes, where it doesn't really matter how you cook them.

With bare minutes to go, Steph is panicking because her cream is looking a little bit loose, and there is no doctor on site. She is right to panic: her cake has collapsed. Up on the balcony there are gasps of alarm and fear: if the cake queen's cake can collapse, anything can happen! The spectator stampede, screaming, for the exits, their entire world view shattered.

Time is up, and the judges must now, to their deep regret, taste the dishes. First they taste the dishes of the second bench, for some reason. Keyma's vegan arepas is great but irrelevant because we've hardly seen her this episode so she can't win. Tommy's dumplings are fantastic because he's Tommy. Harry's salad is so good it could almost be a burnt cabbage.

Row three steps up. Julie, who has been on screen for 80 per cent of the episode, has, to widespread shock, has made a delicious dish. Melanie and Jenn have also done well but are fairly irrelevant.

In row one, Montana – who is on TikTok – Max and Michael excite the judges, partially with their food. In row four, Sashi has an impressive-looking curry, while Steph has a collapsed cake and Chris has a nervous breakdown.

In the end the winners are Montana (who is a TikTok cook), Harry (who made a salad), Julie (duh) and Chris (what?). So they go into tomorrow's immunity challenge, with the winner either to receive immunity or to go into a nationwide draw to decide who gets to compete for immunity over the next few months.