Starter

“And then there were twelve”

Halfway though season 2, the contestants woke up to no milk for their coffee and tea in their accommodation. Out of sorts, they arrived at the Nederburg kitchen to find the Masterchef judges, Andrew Atkinson, Benny Masekwameng and Pete Goffe-Wood, twinkling naughtily. The theme of this episode was ‘dairy’.

Three contestants in last Wednesday’s pressure test, Sanet, Jason and Tiron, had to quadruplicate a complex prawn dish by one of Cape Towns’ top chefs, Henry Vigar of La Mouette. For Sanet, the purple-haired former financial manager from Boksburg, it was an emotional drama, relieved for us by Tiron’s paprika corn popping all over the place and the Masterclass cutaways to Karen experiencing ‘proper’ naartjie-chocolate ice cream-making at The Creamery. Not coming up to the final scratch, however, tear-stained, protesting Sanet was eliminated from the contest.

Tuesday evening’s challenge was an invention test for the last twelve, requiring the creation of a sweet or savoury dish to excel, based featuring any dairy products. Everyone smiled.

Mains

“I’m hoping to see wild dishes today!”

This challenge contained a greater threat than before, in that more than the usual three could land in Thursday night’s pressure test if their plates disappointed.

After a pantry dash of ten minutes out of the allotted 60, Khumo covered her face. “I forgot the eggs!” Her mousse idea had to be rerouted drastically. Amanda forgot oil to fry phyllo samoosas of patisserie crème and had to rethink as well.

The conferring chefs noted a slew of panna cottas in the making and many deciduous fruits being utilised, but were hopeful, considering so few and such good contestants left in the running.

Karen, after her thought-provoking Masterclass, produced a phenomenally lovely coconut-fennel ice cream with mint-infused sherry syrup, alongside fruit carpaccio.

Another Masterclasser, Kamini, used gained wine-and-food knowledge to pull off her spiced panna cotta, with apple and pancetta stewed in noble late harvest wine. It was the only slightly savoury dish from the kitchen. Jason emerged from his pressure test stint to create an inspired, deconstructed cheesecake with peaches and thyme.

However, there was quite a lot that was not working, like panna cottas not holding up, phyllo not cooking through and tarts not baking. Mary was plating the oddest dish in the room. Even she admitted that it “looked like slop on a plate”.

Dessert

“Taking a risk sometimes does pay off”

For Jason, Karen, Joani, Kamini and Seline this was the case. For Kamini it rang so true she won the privilege of choosing her own team for the next MasterChef team challenge. For Mary, Khumo, Ozzy, Amanda and Herman it had not paid off at all – they’re in tonight’s pressure test, and it’s anybody’s guess as to who’ll be eliminated.

What we do know is that the next challenge will involve Johannesburg’s maestro-chef, David Higgs of Five Hundred at the Saxon, and that the judges will be making “a shocking announcement”.

By Maris-Lais Emond

Tune in on Thursday morning for a run-down of Wednesday’s episode, and check out our MasterChef SA page, sponsored by Nederburg, for weekly updates.