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Master Chef 2

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apskip:
MC2, Ep. 13

This episode started with a Mystery Box Challenge. The exclusive ingredients were large special scallops, eggs, arugula, cauliflower, pancetta, shelled peas, corn on the cob, bananas, avocado, red onion, croissants and brandy. The cooks had 60 minutes to create and, if chosen to be among the top 3, present their dish. The top 3 dishes were:

Ben – seared scallops with roasted bananas and corn salsa
Adrien – scallops 3 ways with corn, egg, and cauliflower puree
Christian - scallop succotash

Adrien won and discovered that the theme for the upcoming Elimination Challenge was cooking with cuts from a pig. He received the huge advantage of assigning to each of the 9 cooks a special pork cut which the judges urged him to use to try to eliminate a tough competitor. They stated that pork belly and pork cheeks were the most difficult to work with:
Adrien – double pork loin for himself
Alejandra – pork loin
Ben – pork butt
Christian – pork cheeks (acknowledged by the judges to be the most difficult)
Christine – baby back ribs
Derrick – St. Louis ribs
Jennifer – ground pork
Suzy – pork belly
Tracy – applewood smoked bacon

The cooks then had 60 minutes to create and cook these dishes:

Adrien – double cut pork chops with apple beer sauce and sweet potatoes
Alejandra – pork loin (generally regarded to be the easiest cut with apricot wine sauce; pork slice raw in its center on both sides
Ben – pork butt chili (he had problems with undercooked beans, so he took out as many as possible, but Joe actually liked them)
Christian – braised pork cheeks with apple fennel slaw
Christine – baby back ribs with a dry rub, Brussels sprouts and leeks
Derrick – braised St. Louis ribs, roasted tomato tartare
Jennifer – sauerkraut, ground pork, mustard
Suzy – spaetzele with pork fat + braised cabbage with pork with too many cloves
Tracy – not shown

The winners’ group was Christian, who excelled at the most difficult cut (disproving the judges theory that getting the most difficult cut was always a disadvantage), and Christine. The worst 3 were Jennifer for having an outdated uninteresting dish, Suzy for having the nerve to cook German food when she never had previously and never visited Germany and Alejandra for not testing either side of her pork slice properly and serving it raw. Joe during sampling had gone so far as to dump Jennifer’s dish into the garbage to emphasize what he thought of it.

The competitor eliminated was Alejandra. Ramsay called serving raw pork to anyone anytime a catastrophic error.

franxaverian:
Apskip, the one that has her dish thrown over was Jennifer's, not Suzy's

apskip:
MC2, Ep. 14

This challenge started outdoors in a suburban cul de sac with the captains picking teams for this challenge. Christian chose the Blue team of Adrian, Derrick and Jennifer. Christine chose the Red team of Tracy, Ben and Suzy. Every cook left in this competition had a degree of skill that varies depending on what type of cooking it is. This challenge will be to cook burgers and sides in 2 hours plus one hour serving time for 200 kids who will be the judges. The catch is no beef and no potatoes. The basic decisions on what to cook are made by the captains, but Christine listened to ideas from her team and Christian did not. Those menus were:

Blue – turkey sliders with cheese, ketchup, mustard and pickle; side of fresh apple slices with caramel sauce
Red – originally pan fried chicken nugget burgers with creamy ranch dressing, fried corn nugget

Jennifer got into arguments with Christian on the caramel sauce (which she asked him not to stir while she was cooking it because it subsequently crystallized; also whether the total number of items on top of the burger was not too much, particularly the mustard). Jennifer cited her experience with her 5 year old against Christian’s with a nine year old. She was right, as it turned out. Christian arrogance and autocracy cost both him and his team.

It was obvious early in the cooking process that Red could not finish 200 burgers using pan frying. They needed to switch to grilling to get higher throughput.

The 200 kids descended and went to either food station first, ate, then ate at the other station and decided how they would vote. It looked to me that about 60% went to Red, I believe drawn by the creamy ranch dressing. Only about 40% went to Blue. Victory went to the Red team, who would then be exempt from a nasty Pressure Test. All kids got a nice official MasterChef cooking box with unknown contents but sponsored by Ramsay, Bowles and Bastianich (so it can’t be all that bad), one way to accomplish surreptitious product placement.

At the beginning of that Pressure Test, the enmity between Jennifer and Christian was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Jennifer said some things on national TV that did not get by the censor. She was totally upset and determined to give Christian his come-uppance. Ramsay asked Christian which one other Blue team chef he wanted to compete head-to-head with, giving Adrien and Derrick the belief that they would be off the hook. Not so fast, as Ramsay was only faking you out. All 4 members of the Blue team have to compete on this one.

The end product of the Pressure Test was revealed and it was a cheese soufflé, one of the most difficult items any chef can ever face, and they have 90 minutes to make as many as they like but only one can be officially submitted for tasting. Judging criteria are texture, proper rise and taste. The chefs started by preparing their ingredients and getting their oven to the right temperature. It took almost 50 minutes of preparation before Derrick put in a test batch. Christian, Adrien and Jennifer did so just inside 1 hour. Given that each batch takes 14 to 17 minutes, that meant that they could submit just one of the soufflés from the batch of each one. Derrick made a minor adjustment and put another one in at just after 70 minutes (20 to go). Christian’s cheddar and parmesan soufflé completed and he submitted it. Adrien’s Gruyere and parmesan soufflé completed and he submitted it. Jennifer’s cheddar and parmesan soufflé completed and was submitted. All of them looked good and the judges sampled each one, but they made no comments at all. Derrick’s second souffle batch went right to the wire and he delivered His Gruyere and parmesan soufflé to the judges with no time left.

The verdict of the judges was delivered: Jennifer go upstairs, you’re safe; Derrick delicious, go upstairs; Adrien OK, go upstairs. That left Christian, who was led to believe that his was inferior to the others and that he would be going home. However, the judges had played a ruse on him to make him eat some humble pie (which he totally deserved). His souffle was also judged delicious and he was safe.  So all 4 survived and nobody was going home. The reason was exceptional souffles from each of the Blue team members.   

apskip:
MC2, Ep. 15

We were down to 8 home cooks. A Mystery box challenge started this episode off. The judges were looking for new levels of creativity and technique to create taste, texture and appearance. Proteins were revealed and they can be combined with anything from the pantry(first time that was allowed in any Mystery Box Challenge). There were short ribs, porterhouse steak, apparently (although not shown) bison steaks, rib-eye, NY strip steak, crayfish, large prawns and Alaskan king crab legs. The time was only 45 minutes, so the cooks got right to making stocks, broths and sauces while the proteins were cooking. The final dishes complete were (but only the top 3 were:

Adrien – beer basted short ribs and crab salad
Ben – not shown
Christian – orange carrot ginger emulsion and potatoes (huh?, no protein?; this is risky)
Christine – not shown
Derrick – crab salad and Porterhouse steak
Jennifer – risotto w/ crabmeat and shrimp stock, crab and short ribs
Suzy – shrimp bisque and bison w/ pan gravy
Tracy – not shown

The 3 chosen dishes were those of Adrien, Suzy and Jennifer. Christian was pissed, but he was told that his dish was underwhelming, particularly his use of simple potatoes. Adrien had hope of victory when the judges stated that it was a third time victory, but that also applied to Jennifer and she earned the win with a dish that blew the judges away. Christian was ordered to come up and taste Jennifer’s dish so that he was exposed to something excellent. He said he had tasted better risotto before and Ramsay flatly told him to adjust his attitude.

Jennifer got the advantage of seeing the judges in pictures taken as children and picking one of the childhood memory favorite foods. Joe had focaccia bread pizza with tomato sauce, Grant had macaroni and cheese and Gordon had tomato soup with a grilled cheese sandwich. Gordon’s favorite dish was the selection of Jennifer for all the cooks to make in 45 minutes, a time limit making flavorful soup very difficult to pull off.

The dishes presented (with the word sandwich left off after “cheese”) were:
Adrien – Crazy tomato soup, grilled Blue Cheese and goat cheese, foie gras on bread
Ben – roasted tomato soup and grilled cheese; Ben thought his soup was terrible as he served it but he had no choice
Christian – lobster and tomato soup, grilled cheese, foie gras, prosciutto
Christine – black bean tomato soup (high acidity due to vinegar), grilled provolone and goat cheese
Derrick – gorgonzola tomato soup, grilled Gorgonzola cheese
Jennifer – heirloom and plum tomato soup w/ lobster
Suzy – heirloom tomato soup w/ bourbon, bacon, roasted red pepper and 3G grilled cheeses: Gruyere, goat, Gouda
Tracy – Mediterranean style tomato soup w/ pancetta + grilled Fontina cheese

The winners were Tracy and Suzy. The worst dishes were Ben, Derrick and Christine. How would this get resolved? Ben made his admission of major sin of getting the wrong flavor to his soup and he was sent back to the group. Christine was told that her time was up.
Suspense was thick as the verdict for Derrick awaited. It was elimination, bringing the total left in this competition to 6 cooks.

apskip:
MC2, Ep. 16

This episode opened in the Los Angeles restaurant Patina, which is run by Executive Chef Tony Esnault and overseen by Master Chef Joachim Splichal. It has French cuisine focus and has earned one Michelin star. The 6 cooks remaining will run its kitchen and produce a limited list of its special dishes. Joe Bastianich would help as Front of the House and Gordon Ramsay would be the expeditor relaying orders from a group of 50 special customers of the restaurant, half of whom would dine Blue and half Red. A key factor in the evaluation of which team won or lost was feedback from those diners but maybe more important was the feedback from Splichal and Esnault, who dined in a special room. The objective was to match the way Patina routinely cooks these dishes:

lily risotto with edible flowers and black garlic oil
marinated hamachi w/ green apple mustard, avocado and crostini
pan-seared scallops w/ cauliflower, crostini, capers
prime beef tenderloin w/ short ribs, carrots

The teams chosen by captains were:
Blue – Tracy chose Adrien and Jennifer
Red – Suzy chose Ben and was left with Christian, whom she stated she would have picked 

The meal began with Ramsay knowing that none of these cooks had ever worked in a restaurant kitchen before. Ramsay pointed out that cooking risotto will take about 21 minutes, so if anyone screws it up their customers will have to wait that much extra to get their meal. Tracy put herself on the risotto and assigned beef to Adrien and scallops to Jennifer. Suzy assigned Christian the risotto and hamachi to Ben, leaving scallops for herself.

Ramsay implored for each team to communicate internally and work as a team to get the dishes out properly. Customer feedback was mixed. Splichal and Esnault rated each individual dish from each team and their feedback went to the 3 Master Chef creators. Ramsay, Bowles and Bastianich made the final decision.  That decision was a Red victory, which put Tracy, Adrien and Jennifer into a Pressure Test.
 
That pressure test would be easy for any fish chef, but was extremely difficult for home cooks. It was to scale, fillet, portion and cook one of at least 10 portions of a King salmon in 45 minutes. The raw fish looked marvelous. Ramsay warned that the proper way to cook it was to leave the skin on, cook it for several minutes with that side down and finish by cooking the other side down for the final 2 minutes.  Scaling started, with Adrien still at it 20 minutes into this competition. Tracy and Jennifer seemed to do that much better and certainly much faster. The filleting was a huge challenge for anyone not used to doing it; none of them were. Jennifer worked very cleanly and left little meat on the strip of bones and she took off the tail. Adrien was not as clean but he got it done. Tracy was overwhelmed by the filleting and had a huge amount of waste with meat left on the bones and she failed to take the tail off it. Portioning appeared to be about even between each competitor, but Tracy started much later than the other two. Jennifer and Adrien started cooking their selected portion well before Tracy, who did not start until 5 minutes left. She quickly discovered that the portion she had chosen was too thick to cook properly, but it was late to do an alternative piece. She knew that her piece was going to end up undercooked for the desired medium rare. Adrien took off the skin and got much more even cooking, but he ended up with an overcooked piece. Only Jennifer appeared to get it right. 

The judging was quick and easy. The judges asked the competitors to demonstrate their final bone structure and the low waste on Jennifer’s, slightly more waste on Adrien’s and high waste on Tracy’s was obvious. Jennifer was excused. Tracy was sent home, although Gordon did offer her a free one year in the Master Chef cooking training program, for which they clearly wanted to get in a plug, to encourage her continued culinary career. She also received an offer from all 3 of the judges that after that program she was welcome to work in their restaurants.

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