It was a pressure test like no other when yesterday’s losing blue team (minus winner Khanh) had to create their own pressure test.
Sent home to write a recipe for a dish that would WOW (in capital letters) the judges, Amina, Harry, Hayden, Laura, Poh and Sarah T had to impress.
With two hours to cook their dish, the judges left the floor with 30 minutes to go. The first time they saw the dish was when the cloches were lifted for tasting.
For Harry, it was a case of too many flavours fighting each other and he was the fourth contestant to be sent home.
It was WOW’s all round for Poh, Amina and Laura, but Sarah’s sweet and sour pork with pineapple sambal really stood out winning her dish of the day. While Sarah was worried that her dish was too simple, her perfectly cooked pork belly and her impressive plating was enough to take the win.
Hayden felt nervous and went out on a limb cooking a dessert. Not known for desserts he wanted to challenge himself and cook something nostalgic.
His take on the Violet Crumble – bee pollen parfait, honeycomb and violet gel saw him a little out of his depth. While the judges were impressed by the presentation, the dish was not executed perfectly, and Hayden found himself joining Harry in the bottom two.
Harry celebrated his love of Tasmanian rock pools and served poached southern rock lobster tail with coral cream, along with langoustine, pickled sea herbs, pickled wakame, fresh wakame, dried nori, dashi glaze, apple and fresh herbs.
Towards the end of the cook Harry decided he needed more to really WOW the judges and added further elements of pippies, uni (sea urchin) and pickled calamari.
The judges were certainly WOWed when the cloche was lifted, Harry’s dish looked incredible. But after tasting, Mel’s fears were realised – while the dish was visually impressive, it didn’t end up being a cohesive WOW dish to eat, and with so much going on there were too many flavours fighting each other.
In the end, Hayden was safe because his flavours worked well together, and it was Harry who had to say goodbye.
