Last night our ten finalists were dunked in the deep end and sent to work in the real world of five of Dublin's busiest restaurants for the fifth stage of the MasterChef cooking challenge. Alan Corr says yummy
So have we run out of lazy food puns yet? Have we scraped the bottom of the burnt-out barrel with lines like “the judges have trimmed the fat” and “out of the frying pan and into the fire” or even “one amateur cook bit off more than the judges could chew . . . ”?
Hell, no!
There’s a pundemic going on alright and it’s too late to stop now, especially when MasterChef has hit the half way mark and the amateur chefs are being peeled off one by one. The reason why cook off/show off series like this are so compulsive (dare we say more-ish?) is simple: we all eat, right? Some of us far more than others, but we all have our snouts in the trough at least once a day. Well, hopefully anyway (have you seen the price of food in this baNAMA Republic?).
Unlike the idiot savants on X Factor and The UK and Ireland’s Next Top Modd-al (must be said in vacuous London accent), few of us pretend we can sing or sashay down a catwalk in Manolo Blahniks; a hell of a lot of us, however, do think we are wizards in the kitchen.
Right, let’s leave the theory to one side of our plates (see! There’s a never-ending supply of rubbish puns) and consider last night’s episode of the continuing adventures of Ireland’s culinary wannabes. There were ten left and following last week’s frolics in the great outdoors and the great blue yonder, this week they were paired off and sent to work in the real world - the kitchens of five of Dublin’s top eateries.
Our hopefuls were lined up in the middle of The Powerscourt Townhouse Centre as the camera zoomed in and circled them like carrion while a coterie of the capital’s top chefs stared down, imperious and impassive, from the balcony. First to feel the furnace that is a working kitchen were Cynthia and Simon who sweated it out in Mexican eatery, 777. Simon, grappled with scallops, and Cynthia worked on a warm lobster salad, but they both learned an important lesson from their amiable head chef: “Cop on is a big thing in kitchens”.
Meanwhile over in Coppinger Row, Brian and the always yummy Sinead were set to work. Given that Sinead was described as “Bambi” last week, she had to keep a cool head as the world sweated around her and, indeed, she was less flappy and more resilient last night. Clearly she is far more relaxed in a busy kitchen than under the scrutiny of Dylan and Nick in the MasterChef kitchen.
The surviving 9 sweated it out last night in an episode charged with fear and adrenalin
Around the corner in San Lorenzo, it was a battle of youth and experience as hunky Conn and wise Andy found themselves head to head. Conn found himself doing the tricky work of making homemade tortellini shells while Andy had to butcher a whole lamb (relax, it was already dead). In Locks by the leafy banks of the Grand Canal, Nicha (my firm favourite for the MasterChef apron and that tasty 25,000 prize money) was hard at work and once again she had a cool head, a steady hand and a ready smile regardless of the pressure.
Over on Baggot Street restaurant, Isabel’s, which apparently specialises in “nose-to-tail dining”, Tamarin and Fidelma were judged on their ability to make a good char-grilled octopus salad and monkfish with a goat’s cheese mousse.
It was hard work. And all this with a barking head chef (actually, they were all very nice), the heat of a busy professional kitchen during rush hour, and a camera crew catching their every move.
This was an episode crackling with adrenalin and fear. Could the hopefuls really cut it in the real day-to-day life of a professional kitchen? The answer lay with the head chefs they'd worked under and there wasn’t a Ramsay among them. Their judgements were fair and constructive but five amateurs would still have to battle it out in a cook off to save their own bacon. Sinéad, Simon, Tamarin, Andy and Terry looked very worried as Dylan stood before them.
He plucked the lid off a silver serving plate and gravely announced, “This is a raspberry soufflé. Not as easy as it looks . . . ”
And so without an actual recipe, the Flambé five set about creating a soufflé just like the one gleaming so tantalisingly on Dylan’s plate. Oh yes, somebody was going to blow the raspberry alright and be sent home and you could tell within minutes it was going to be poor old Simon; he served up a sad and sunken soufflé within a mere 15 minutes of the full hour of preparation time.
Did he have a death wish? Had the pressure finally got to him? Was this kamikaze cooking? Who knows. He was a good lad, Simon, and he was magnanimous in defeat.
But bad timing waits for no man on MasterChef Ireland.
Alan Corr
