MasterChef recap: You scream, I scream, we all scream 'why make onion ice-cream?'

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There's nothing like a mystery box to make you say, "hmm. A box with food in it". And tonight is no exception, as Masterchef's Superstar Week continues with yet another culinary titan who it's possible you may have heard of at some point – Clare Smyth, who is a, like, a chef, of some kind. In restaurants or whatever. "What a great way to be involved with the show," says Clare on her screen, even though of the two ways in which anyone has ever been involved with the show, this is definitely the worst one.

Clare reveals her butter poached scampi wasabi peas and rose geranium, which is something nice girls would never do in public in my day. This rather show-offy dish is the key to the mystery box, which contains all the ingredients of Clare's dish. Using at least one of these ingredients, the amateurs must make a delicious dish – or realistically, a dish that is one of the best five, so if everyone's dish sucks, they might only have to make a mediocre dish. Those best five go through to tomorrow's immunity challenge.

Clare asks the judges what they would do with her ingredients. They all agree they would make a chocolate cake.

Not really, but the dishes they do say are so predictable. Meanwhile Pete reveals he is not content to be a home cook, and he is hoping to infuse his scampi with the burning hatred he has for his own home.

"I don't want to make just another scampi sauce pasta – I really want to stand out," says Conor, which is why he's thought outside the box, deciding to make a chocolate cake.

No, not really, but he might as well be: he's making some weird biscuit with ice cream that sounds like the worst idea ever but will probably end up winning dish of the day because MasterChef always rewards inappropriate ice cream.

Brent is also making ice-cream, because he's missing his family. When he takes his little boy to the beach, the boy always drops his ice-cream in the sand, so he's making sure to fill his ice-cream with as much sand as possible. Andy and Jock drop by to ask him what the hell he thinks he's doing. He explains he's making ice-cream with rose geranium, which is a thing he's never heard of before. Andy and Jock wish him luck and then walk away to laugh at Brent behind his back.

Depinder is thinking outside the box by making…ice-cream. This proves the truth of the old aphorism "If enough people think outside the box, they end up inside another box". She's making wasabi ice-cream, because it's MasterChef and why the hell not, right? She tells Melissa what she's doing and Melissa looks at her like she's just said she's trying to crossbreed humans and crocodiles.

Linda, however, is being incredibly boring, by looking at the ingredients and thinking what would be a good dish to make out of them. She's making scampi tortellini, which sounds so sensible and so much better than any of the others' ice-creams that the judges will almost certainly hate it. She should be more like Therese, who is showing off how creative and innovative she is by making ice-cream.

It becomes clear that the kitchen is bitterly divided between ice-cream and pasta, with Dan, acting the role of Switzerland, making a scotch egg. Will tonight's mystery box challenge be the one that finally answers that eternal philosophical question: is pasta better than ice-cream?

Brent has a moment of euphoria when he finds that the crumb he's made looks just like sand – for who doesn't want to eat a thing that looks like sand? This happy moment is suddenly shattered when everyone in the kitchen suddenly starts pronouncing "microwave" in a weird way. A body-snatchers situation seems likely. Also, Therese's ice-cream hasn't set, which could turn out to be a blessing in disguise for all.

Time flies when you're doing inadvisable things with crustaceans, and suddenly there are only 30 seconds left. Therese's ice-cream has turned out fine, and only the people who've had almost no screentime are unhappy.

Clare tells the contestants what an honour it's been standing still and saying nothing for 75 minutes, and then goes off to continue her life. Meanwhile Aaron comes forward to present his scampi lasagne. Aaron's lasagne is so good the judges all bechamel their jeans over it. There is a huge round of applause, and so another episode ends.

Wait, no. There are still all the other contestants, aren't there. Shame, we were going out on such a high. Up comes Depinder with her bombe Alaska and its revolting wasabi ice-cream. "I hate wasabi," says Jock, causing Depinder to explode in shame and cut to an ad break.

When we return, Depinder is hoping against hope that she's such a terrible cook the wasabi isn't noticeable. "You've got a very different brain," says Jock, and apparently means it as a compliment. Obviously the judges love it because every time a judge says "I hate <insert food here>", it turns out that miraculously the contestant has made the one dish that can reverse a lifetime of hate. Andy doesn't like it though because he's sane.

Next is Amir, who passes so quickly you know he's not won. Then Conor, who has made olive oil ice-cream that the judges pretend to like. Then Dan and his scotch egg, which causes Melissa to declare her love for his brain – the judges' fixation on the contestants' brains is starting to raise red flags.

And now Therese, with her onion ice-cream, presenting the greatest challenge to the judges' ability to lie about terrible food that they have ever faced. "I like the fact it tasted like onion," says Jock, something that has never been said about ice-cream ever before in history, and for good reason.

Maja, who has made scampi linguine like a normal smart person, gets great acclaim for a delicious dish. Brent brings up his bizarre ice-cream-on-sand thingumajig. Will the judges like this clearly insane concoction? Well it's weird gross ice-cream, and it's MasterChef, so of course they bloody do.

Linda serves her scampi tortellini, which is brilliant despite being normal. Next is Pete, who is panicking about his scampi due to his unfortunate habit of burning to a crisp any piece of meat put in front of him. But today is not a day for tragedy, it is a day for joy and hope and consequence-free desserts. Obviously Pete has done beautifully and his hopes of never having to go home rise. Jock dubs him "saucier of 2021", which Pete takes far too seriously.

Time to decide who the top five are. And to put it with brutal frankness, they are Aaron, Pete, Linda, Depinder and…Conor? Seriously? Wow. There you go. Well played, MasterChef, ya got me.

Tune in tomorrow, when the amateurs enter the Matrix.

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