MasterChef recap: The kids were right all along, you can't actually make vegies a-peeling
The problem with the MasterChef "invention test", ever since the first season, has been that it doesn't really reward invention. If they really wanted to encourage the amateurs to be inventive, they wouldn't insist that what they invent has to be some kind of food. Then we'd see some truly wonderful inventions: contestants building igloos out of meat or turning vegetables into 4WDs. But nope, the producers stubbornly continue to think inside the box, and invention tests remain mired in "cookery". Tonight is no exception.
In this "invention" test, the amateurs must choose from brown onion, broccoli, carrot, potato or zucchini, and make something delicious out of the vegetable they pick. The obvious route is to pick potato, the only one of those that anyone ever actually wants to eat: but it is an invention test, so if you can, against all odds, somehow make something tasty out of broccoli, you may score extra points due to the degree of difficulty. "We want to see something that surprises us," says Jock – again, the best way to do this would be to serve a human head or a small retaining wall, but you know, whatEVER, MasterChef.
Tommy is baffled by the challenge. "Those are little side things, you don't really use them as the main part of the dish," he says, and he's right. But then, Melissa says they have to use the vegetable "in an inventive way", and what could be more inventive than just throwing the vegetable away and making something good?
Pete immediately declares his intention to make a "carrot steak", and the horrors of the invention test become clear. If good, decent men can be driven to carrot steaks, what hope have any of us? Andy asks Brent what he's doing and Brent replies that he has no idea but his wife likes honey-glazed carrots. Andy storms off in disgust.
Sabina has never smoked anything before, but today she is smoking something, which should help on the creativity front. She tells Jock and Andy that she's making a stuffed potato skin. Jock tells her she could get that at a pub. Sabina is confused: is he telling her she should go get one from a pub? Would that be inventive? Surely she should be cooking her own dish. Sabina thinks over her options: should she, instead, cook an empty potato skin? Should she stab Jock with a fork? Everything's on the table.
Tommy is in a good headspace, and tells Andy that he's wrapping his banh cuon in zucchini. "What's the greatest thing about zucchini?" asks Andy. The answer is clear: that it can be easily thrown in a bin. Tommy has a lot to think about.
Meanwhile Sabina has made ribbons of potato and now just has to decide what kind of hairdo she wants to tie up with them. Elsewhere Pete is cooking his carrot steak and it is just the most horrific thing Australian TV has ever seen.
The judges discuss the contestants' awful choices. Jock tells the others about Tom's plan to make a fake fried egg out of white chocolate and carrot. "That sounds fun!" exclaims Melissa, who has never in her life had fun. She then goes to Brent to ask him what the hell. Brent tells her he's making a carrot ice cream. She asks him what will make it stand out. He stares blankly at her until she feels awkward and leaves.
Sabina, chastened by Jock's pub-shaming, has switched to a potato mille-feuille to show off her inventiveness rather than her making-something-that-tastes-goodness. It will at least be far more appetising than Pete's carrot steak, which genuinely looks like an abomination sent by the elder gods of the netherworld.
Time is up, and one thing is for sure: Linda is safe because she hasn't even gotten a single line so far. Tommy claims his heart is racing because of the sheer thrill of zucchini, and it's hard to tell whether he's joking. Invention tests can do strange things to the mind.
First to serve is Tom with his weird white chocolate and carrot fake fried egg thingy. It's amazing how, with attention to detail and an artistic flair, Tom has made something that looks very little like a fried egg. Andy, drunkenly waving a finger, tells Tom that it's fantastic.
Tommy, still vibrating with zucchini-fuelled excitement, serves his zucchini banh cuon. He has overcome the essential dreadfulness of zucchini to make a good dish that is so spicy it nearly kills Andy.
Pete serves his carrot steak/offence against nature. The judges say it's delicious, and never has it been more obvious that they are lying.
Next, "Scott". He's made something halfway between a cake and a pudding, which places it squarely in the "I don't want to eat this" zone. "It's an interesting thing," says Jock, but then, so is World War Two.
Sabina, who was bullied out of making a lovely stuffed potato skin, serves her potato mille-feuille. The judges think it's delicious, but not inventive enough, thus proving that you really should never listen to Jock.
A few people who did nothing interesting enough to merit screentime on this episode rush by, and then Brent. His carrot ice-cream with carrot caramel is exactly the kind of dish you want when you're looking to make something nauseating from vegetables. "Brent, I think we've found your weak spot," says Jock, but as weak spots go, the inability to make carrot ice-cream is one that's unlikely to hold you back too much in life.
Eric serves his carrot and sesame balls. "I'm a little bit worried for you," says Melissa, but it's OK, she just means his dish sucks. Depinder then serves her green curry cake and coconut ice-cream and the judges of course love it because Depinder is the teacher's pet.
The four least "inventive" dishes go into tomorrow night's pressure test. Of course this means Pete's carrot steak goes utterly unpunished, while poor innocents Brent, "Scott", Eric and Sabina must risk elimination. The inherent injustice of the invention test is, not for the first time, laid bare.
Tune in tomorrow, when everyone suffers severe eye injuries.
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