Rick Stein sets an elimination challenge

In all the great epic adventures stories, it is at the moment of greatest desperation that the heroes meet a kindly old wizard who guides them through peril to glory. And so it proves in the MasterChef saga, as the amateurs’ stress ratchets up further and further until suddenly, like Gandalf in the forest of Fangorn, Rick Stein appears to grant succour and salvation.

With Sav standing on the balcony, having been given immunity to recover from her harrowing five minutes out of the kitchen, Rick strides masterfully onto the set. He sets the mood for the challenge by announcing that “nothing in life is so exhilarating as fresh fish simply cooked”, which does rather make one feel that Rick has lived an extremely uneventful life.

It’s a two-round elimination. First, they will have 30 minutes to make a raw seafood dish. The amateurs who do not cause any fatalities in the first round will be safe, while those whose dishes contained deadly bacteria will go into round two. But before they begin “cooking”, they are forced to watch Rick prepare his own raw seafood dish, a recipe he came up with while marooned on a desert island with no source of heat, the only situation in which raw seafood is desirable.

The half-hour of raw fish begins. Alex declares herself to be a huge Rick Stein fan. “I’ve been watching him from a young child,” she says, which is a bit weird, as Rick Stein wasn’t even on TV when he was a young child. And how old is Alex, anyway? The judges gather to talk fish. “You’ve got to respect the seafood,” says Rick, but he’s wrong. You don’t have to respect seafood. It’s just wet dead animals. If you disrespect them, they can’t do anything about it.

After a riveting half-hour of seafood-respecting, backed by the theme tune from Halloween, the amateurs present their uncooked monsters of the deep. Harry is intensely nervous: he is known as “the seafood guy” because his parents were dolphins, so it’ll be humiliating if he fails. Fortunately for him, though unfortunately for us, who were hoping for something hilarious to happen, his upbringing in the kingdom of the deep serves him well. He celebrates by putting on a stupid hat.

It’s not such good news for Mimi, who stumbles by putting too much honey on her tuna and pronouncing “shallots” weirdly; David, who overpowers his tuna, which is considered bullying; Sue, who makes things too complicated and gives everyone a headache; and Nat, who didn’t clean her squid and therefore did the impossible – making squid somehow even less appetising.

Thus the bottom four are sent to Davy Jones’s locker, where they must actually cook the seafood: you know, like human beings. The judges express their desire for a seafood feast, who are desperate to get the taste of round one out of their mouths.

Nat is devastated to be in round two, because she just assumed the judges were in her pocket. She has the opportunity to play her immunity pin, but there is a wonderful tradition of MasterChef contestants being eliminated due to their refusal to play a pin, and Nat has to consider whether she wants to join that cherished lineage of stupidity.

Mimi comes out of the gate all guns blazing, dedicating the cook to her mother and grandmother and bringing out childhood photos in an intimidating show of strength. Meanwhile David is “neurologically spent” and is resorting to liquid smoke, a forbidden magic that the pure have always shunned.

Sue is concerned because she is baking a whole ocean trout, a bigger fish than she has ever attempted before. Andy and Sofia warn her that she must ensure the temperature rises, and that she make sure to remove the wooden boy from the fish’s stomach before cooking. Sue leaves the trout in the oven and comes up with Plan B: she will cook something else. Seems like that would’ve made a good Plan A, but whatever.

Nat puts her garfish in to the oil, but it’s not bubbling. She realises the temperature gauge was in Fahrenheit and feels a terrible fool, but to be fair, this is neither America nor the nineteenth century, so why the hell is there a Fahrenheit temperature gauge? Clearly the producers are deliberately trying to trick the contestants. Meanwhile the watchers on the balcony can smell
the liquid smoke that David is slathering all over his salmon, in an attempt to make his dish the digestive equivalent of a house fire.

There is a wonderful tradition of MasterChef contestants being eliminated due to their refusal to play a pin, and Nat has to consider whether she wants to join that cherished lineage of stupidity.

Nat’s oil isn’t hot enough. Andy subtly implies that only a complete maniac would not play the pin at this stage. “Be smart, Natty,” call her friends from the balcony, but she didn’t get here by being smart, and it feels like it would be a betrayal of everything MasterChef stands for. Nevertheless, she takes a deep breath, and quite literally pulls the pin. The kitchen erupts in applause from everyone except the other three cooks, whose chances are now 25 per cent lower and who are now swearing viciously at Nat under their breath.

As time ticks away, Sue’s big fish and Sue’s little fish race each other to see which is going to end up hotter. She knows that serving the little fish might be inadequate for a feast, but that if the big fish isn’t cooked through, she will go home. Remembering the old footballing adage “a good big fish will always beat a good little fish”, she decides to whip out the monster.

Time for the judges to stuff their gullets with the treasures of the deep. Mimi comes first, emphasising heavily that sending her home would be a literal slap in the face to her mother. “I’m really enjoying this,” says Rick, but it’s uncertain whether he means the food or the feeling of power over human lives inherent in the judging role. Mimi’s feast is great despite her depressing prawns.

David brings forth his smoked salmon, done with the Sith Lords’ favourite ingredient, liquid smoke. David’s couscous is bland and the judges express doubt over whether eating an entire plate of smoke is ideal.

Here comes Sue with her salt-baked Moby Dick. The dish resembles a scale model of the Swiss Alps, and tastes even better than that would. When the judges crack it open they are delighted to find a fish inside. “Oh my god,” says Jean-Christophe as Poh cuts the fish open and the judges are bathed in the golden light of heaven shining out of the trout’s belly.

With their bellies distended by the colossal amount of fish they have ingested, the judges wearily come to a decision. Sue is obviously safe after unlocking the secrets of the giant trout. Although Mimi’s prawns were offensive, the lengthy oxygen treatment they required after eating David’s smoked salmon cannot be overlooked, and so he must go home to his lab to continue his unnatural experiments and wreak a terrible revenge upon all mankind. It’s a terrible blow to all of us who long for a MasterChef based more on rigorous scientific
principles and less on emotional montages of Nonnas, but David made that one fatal error: being too good at cooking to get a second chance last week.

Meanwhile, Rick diminishes, and goes into the west, and remains Stein.

Tune in next time, when the mystery box releases all humanity’s woes.