Reprinted with permission from www.healthywaytocook.com

Episode 7

The sixteen remaining cooks are in Pasedena, California for their Team Challenge—cook for 101 firefighters. Each team has ninety minutes to prepare a banquet-style dish that showcases a New York strip steak with a sauce and two side dishes using carrots, bell peppers, zucchini, mushrooms and asparagus. The two cooks with the top dishes from last time, Bethy and Bime, are team captains. Because Bethy won the last challenge, she also has a chance to swap one member of her team with one member of Bime’s team. She chooses Eddie because he is the grill master, and gives Krissi to Bime’s team.

Bime’s Red Team decides on sautéed mushrooms, cauliflower puree, and a simple reduction sauce. Bethy’s Blue Team goes with potatoes, red peppers, and, because Bethy can’t decide on a sauce, either a balsamic reduction or a chimichurri sauce. The Red Team was skipping a rub on the steak and despite Gordon’s plea to season the damned steak, Bime wants the flavor of the steak to shine. And, though Gordon advises Bethy to focus on one sauce and do it well, she wants to prepare both and decide later. But later may be too late, because she picks the chimichurri sauce just as the firefighters start arriving.

After thanking the firefighters for their service, the teams start serving their steak entrees. The Blue Team’s plates are coming out quickly but inconsistency. Meanwhile, the Red Team’s plates are trickling out at a snail’s pace. But there can only be one loser, and that loser is the Red Team. Which means the Blue Team wins. The Red Team will now face “the dreaded Pressure Test.”

Six of the eight members of the Red Team must compete in the Pressure Test. For some reason, the judges give Bime immunity because he was the team captain, and allow him to select one other competitor. He picks Jordon, and the two of them join the Blue Team in the gallery. For the remaining six, they must cook eggs benedict—poached egg on Canadian bacon on an English muffin and covered in hollandaise sauce. But, they only have enough ingredients to make one complete portion and thirty minutes in which to accomplish this seemingly impossible task.

Bri has never made eggs benedict before, and has never successfully poached an egg. Natasha is so confident that she waits to prepare the hollandaise sauce. Luca’s water is not boiling, and Beth is feeling good about her egg poaching skills. Then there’s Krissi, whose hollandaise sauce breaks. With only one egg left and the remnants of a bad batch, she whisks for her life. Kathy’s kind of an idiot and tries to transfer the most perfectly poached egg to the plate with a spatula instead of a slotted spoon, and splat.

Miraculously, Krissi pulls it together at the last minute. And Bri, who is, like, vegan or something, cooked the perfect eggs benedict. Everyone else, however, made a hot mess, including Natasha who whisked up some mayonnaise instead of hollandaise. Because the judges can’t decide whose dish was the worst, they reward the four rotten eggs—Natasha, Luca, Kathy, and Beth—with a trip to Las Vegas to compete in “an even greater challenge.” Which is weird, right? “You all are the worst, so we’re taking you to Las Vegas for the weekend.”

Episode 8

So now we’re in Burgr, Gordan Ramsey’s Planet Hollywood restaurant in Las Vegas. The cooks are split into two teams—Luca/Kathy, and Natasha/Beth—and give them one hour of prep and seventy-five minutes of continuous service to prepare a signature burger for the diners.

Luca decides that the Red Team is making a minimalist beef burger with caramelized onions, but no cheese. The Blue Team settles on something called a hangover burger with a sunny side up egg on top. Kathy is moving super slow with the onions, which leaves the Red Team no time to prepare a sauce. Meanwhile, the Blue Team forgets to make burger patties. Oddly enough, both teams dress their burgers with arugula.

With Gordon Ramsey expediting, things are sure to get interesting. When it’s time to send out the burgers, the Red Team’s burgers are raw. The Blue Team is having problems with its buns, which are burned. And diners are sending the Red Team’s burgers back because they are tartar raw instead of medium rare. Then, in walk the remaining contestants to vote for the best burger.

The Blue Team burn four sets of buns, so four of the contestants don’t get burgers from the Blue Team. Well, that’s four votes down. When all of the burgers are gobbled, it’s time to vote. The winning burger is the Blue Team’s Hangover Surprise, so Natasha and Beth are both safe. As the losing team, Luca and Kathy must compete against each other in a Pressure Test.

The Pressure Test is on the top of Caesars Palace, which has been transformed into Master Chef Kitchen. The cooks must prepare butter poached lobster with shaved fennel salad in only forty-five minutes. Gordon explains that the longer they cook the lobster in the salt water (the boiling detaches the membrane from the shell) the less time there is in the butter and the tougher the lobster will turn out. While Luca stabs the lobster in the head and rips its legs off, Kathy is focusing on her butter and hasn’t even plucked her lobster out of the tank. But Luca makes an error and cuts the tail instead of twisting, cracking, and pulling the tail off which causes him to lose a lot of meat.

With fifteen minutes left, Kathy finally grabs her lobster and gets the twist-and-pull technique correct. Oh right! The lobster still has to be shelled and there’s also a fennel salad to prepare. Rush, rush, rush, and both cooks get the lobster on the plate (though Kathy’s looks a mess). Kathy’s lobster is perfectly cooked, and her butter is beautifully seasoned. Her salad, however, is acidic. Luca’s presentation is excellent, though his lobster is lacking color. Gordon finds the cooking to be thirty seconds off, but good overall. Graham likes the seasoning, and Joe is his usual noncommittal self.

And the winner by a lobster claw is Luca. Which means Kathy is going home, or to the craps table.

Kathy is sent home despite her perfectly-cooked lobster.

Next week, it’s a mysterious mystery box and Joe’s mom is the guest judge.

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Reprinted with permission from www.healthywaytocook.com

A cooking competition for home cooks where contestants are subjected to extreme and often ridiculous challenges? Sign me up! Well, sign me up to watch. One of these cooks will be awarded a block of glass with “Master Chef” carved on the front, a quarter of a million dollars, and their own cookbook. The rest get novelty aprons. The hopefuls stream in, loaded down with ingredients and crushable dreams, and those dreams will be crushed by judges Graham Elliott, Joe Bastianich, and Gordon Ramsay. So who are these contestants? Let’s find out.

Natasha is young a stay-at-home mom who teeters around in heels. After one hour in the kitchen, she has five minutes to prep skirt steak and empanadas in front of the judges. Gordon tastes it and asks, “is that the best you can do?” She gets a unanimous apron.

Nineteen-year-old Christine is a bakery assistant in San Diego who has big dreams. She’s cooking Korean duck with kalbi marinade. Gordon pulls a giant string of fat off of the duck before eating it, and Joe gives her an icy glare. No apron for Christine.

Ostrich, wild bear, fried water bugs, rabbit, and Gordon vomits out the water bugs. None of them earn aprons. Then, there’s Brian who specializes in road kill. He is preparing shaved, stripped, Cajun beaver tail and frog chips for the judges. He slices the tail open and filets it before throwing it on the grill. He’s got crazy eyes that betray his desperation. Joe’s out, Gordon love it, and Graham gives him the apron.

Jordan is a delivery truck driver and prepares cilantro mint ancho chile tostada and puts together a very pretty looking plate. Graham calls it “so damned good and refined,” Gordon is a huge yes, and Joe says it’s the best opening dish they’ve ever seen. As Jordon puts on his apron, Graham goes back for seconds.

“Breast milk” leads to a Gordon Ramsey spit take.

Adriana is brewing prickly pear cactus soup, just like her mother taught her, with dried shrimp croutons. It looks delicious, and the judges are generally pleased. Graham is a yes, Gordon is a no, and Joe is afraid she’s too nice, which is utter crap—this is Master Chef, not Master Bitch. Here’s your apron, Adriana.

Apron, apron, apron, apron, and then there’s George cooking Greek wedding soup. Gordon is disappointed, Graham likes the broth, and Joe finds it way too buttery. Because television, George brings out his girlfriend and Gordon forces him to ask her to marry him. She says yes, but Gordon says no.

Krissi from Philly gives her son a shout-out while prepping the food. She’s making a rather vile looking meatloaf with a cheese sauce that she calls “Florentine.” The judges schlep her kid out there so that he can witness his mother’s success firsthand. Krissi gets an apron, and her kid gets a hug.

Bime is inspired by his three daughters, and cooks with energy. He fries up a dish with plantains called mofongo de camarones, and the judges are torn. Graham is a yes, Joe is a no, and Gordon worries that he doesn’t have what it takes. But, he takes a chance and gives Bime an apron.

Jesse is a yacht stewardess from the South, where they don’t have fancy ingredients like vegetables. She’s cooking sea bass en croute. Gordon calls it a dish “from the 80s,” Graham calls it “good” and mumbles something about acid, and Joe says it’s too much. In an effort to figure out if Jesse is the real deal, Gordon brings her two fish. He filets one into six portions, and hands her the knife to do the other.  Boom! Six stunning portions. Jesse just earned herself an apron.

A robot, a tractor, a fire-eater, it’s a parade of horribles and a pair of carved butternut squash.  Then there’s James from Texas, who needs a haircut something fierce. He’s cooking crispy pork belly. Graham calls it “simple and creative,” which makes no sense. Gordon is worried that James will crack under pressure, but gives him an apron anyhow because cracking under pressure makes great television.

Sasha sashays into the room with a “heeeeey y’aaaaalll!” and you know it’s going to be good. She made the judges fried chicken, but with Cornish hen. She’s a bundle of personality, and she has the judges on the edges of their seats. “Put a little Sasha in your mouth, baby,” earns her a unanimous apron.

Rudy is up next. He is a hero who saved his neighbors from a San Diego fire, suffering severe burns over most of his body. He cooks a Native American fried taco using buffalo meat. Unfortunately, the meat is dry and the dish is underwhelming, and Rudy earns encouragement, but no apron.

Eddie is a former NFL player whose career ended when he snapped his wrists during a workout. So he switched to cooking, and prepares jerk meatloaf with ginger, coconut and sweet potato mash for the judges. They like it, and Eddie gets an apron.

Some guy named Luca from Italy who did not receive an apron last year comes back again. This time, he prepares broccoli rabe ravioli for the judges. Graham says it has a nice “pasta filling ratio,” which is like winning Miss Congeniality. Joe gives him a yes, Graham didn’t like the sauce so gives him a no, and Gordon hands Luca the apron he’s been dreaming about all year.

Next week, half of the contestants will be sent home.

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