Masterchef Australia – The Immunity Pin Challenge
It was Mindy and Alice going head to head for an immunity pin tonight but first to they had to go to a taste testing tour of Florence as one of the dishes would give them a hint to what one of the challenges they would face in their test.
One “delicacy” they had to eat was Lampredotto which looked like Florence’s equivalent to a kebab without the accoutrements to disguise the meat which in this case was the fourth stomach of the cow. Just as well Debra didn’t have to taste it as a former vegetarian she would have freaked out. Mindy took one bite and bailed from it, however it reminded Alice of her dishes of her childhood.
Thankfully for them the challenge wasn’t disembowelling a cow to get its innards, it was guessing the ingredients in a Ribolita which is a Vegetable and Bread soup.
They took it in turns to pick an ingredient with the winner getting an advantage in the next round.
Alice cracked me up and picked up the cheese to taste they were all looking on expectantly for her to identify the cheese and she said “pepper”. However I thought her strategy of not tasting the dish each time she could trip her up in the end.
However Mindy was the one who ended up stuffing up first by saying there was barley in there when it was farro.
The advantage that Alice obtained was whether she should pick to cook three sweet dishes or three savoury dishes of guest judge Antonio Carluccio’s. From the previews we knew she picked savoury as it showed them chopping up rabbit and artichokes.
However the viewer had to sit through the slow reveal of the six dishes. She decided not to be strategic and pick desserts which is Mindy’s weakness, but selected the mains “to give them both a chance”.
Also she later revealed it was warm which may have made making pastry difficult.
Antonio Carluccio was a special guest judge for the evening and he even got to privilege of scoring as well. By the way Matt Moran it appears did not manage to get a seat on the plane.
It was then outside to cook Chicken Meatball Soup, Stuffed Squid and the Rabbit and Artichoke dish in 90 minutes.
Mindy was talking to Gary saying she wanted some caramelisation in the stock but it had not said anything in the recipe. Gary cautioned her saying “Be careful about thinking you know better than Antonio Carluccio.” She nodded in agreement. Audra yelled out “go with your gut.” Maybe she didn’t want her to get another immunity pin.
Also Mindy took the skin off her squid whereas Alice kept hers on as again, this was unclear in the recipe.
Alice’s was always pushing for time however she then had the issue of her oven not working properly. Gary castigated her and said “I am watching it your not.” I think she should at least be able to presume that the oven works and that she should not have to check that every few moments. She ended up putting it in Mindy’s oven and when she took it out, not all her rabbit was cooked.
It was a blind tasting, something they should bring in for the Monday night pressure tests as just maybe the judges did not know whose dishes they were.
Alice’s meat balls were criticised for being to light so it was difficult to taste the chicken. Mindy’s calamari was said to be not very tender and lacked freshness and brightness. Also Antonio said he preferred the skin on. Matt Preston also was positive about Alice’s dish.
Finally in the rabbit dish Mindy left out the onions and Alice the artichokes. Antonio found this astounding! So it came down to the rabbit, Mindy had over cooked hers, and Alice’s dodgy oven turned into a blessing as hers was cooked well.
It was no surprise that Alice won the pin. It would be interesting to know whether the other contestants would have preferred Mindy to have two immunity pins or that now three of the contestants have one making the odds of one of them playing it in an immunity challenge so much higher.
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92 comments
Yucko – I know they tasting the dishes cold and a long time after cooking them but that rabbit looked SO dry on both of their dishes……..
I miss Matt Moran
The only question I felt like asking was, “Where was Andy and why wasn’t he there looking beautiful?” I guess he must have been sick.
Andy must be suffering from gastro
From now till 25 July, MC have to eliminate 7 contestants to get to the Final 3. They are really speeding things up. When the standard of the Top 10 are not that great, you might as well wrap the show up quickly rather than to expose the flaws of the contestants.
Littlepetal – Here I thought the gastro must be from the eating the leftover Barilla pasta sitting in the ban-marie for hours from tomorrow team challenge. lol!
Can’t wait to see which team Deb and Audra are on in tomorrow night’s challenge.
Not sure how Matt felt about his pasta-free meal tonight! “What! No pasta?” and if I was Julia, I’d be annoyed at missing out and not choosing the sweet dishes to recreate.
Alice’s fashion sense was back in the 80′s: knitted ankle warmers and a green tee I hadn’t seen before. Mindy was giving the red pants a rest tonight.
“Now let’s taste plate A” – “Now let’s eat” – “Now we’ve tasted plate A” – “Now let’s taste plate B” – “Now let’s eat” – “Now we’ve tasted plate B”
Each time x 3 dishes – why George why? I’d be looking for new script writers of that’s the best they could do for me.
Oh it wasn’t from a script George – well if I was Shine I’d be looking for a new judge if that’s the best you can do for me.
If we are supposed to sit through the ‘gold leaf risotto’ challenge to find out which contestant in which team then Shine oh Shine, please don’t show us the group shot on the preview ad. Now we have to sit through a quarter of the episode to find out the results that we already know.
Did anyone notice the dirty look that Mindy gave to Gary and Alice when Gary was asking Alice whether she is going to win the challenge?
I think tomorrow challenge will have the underdog winning.
Well EH, we had to sit through the painfully slow guessing of the soup ingredients to find out whether they were going to make sweet or savoury when we already knew from the promos it was going to be savoury.
Littlepetal, who would the underdog team be? It appears Mindy and Kylie will be in the same team of Wade, Audra, and Beau. I would say that this is the underdog team as none of them would be fantastic with Italian cuisine plus there is an incentive to not lose with the spectre of two people with pins. The other team has Alice, Deb, Ben, Andy, and Julia. Alice, Julia, and Deb would probably be okay with the cuisine. So does that mean ciao bella for Julia or Deb or buona notte for Andy or Ben?
My underdog team is the green team because the red team will think they are better cooks (2 with immunity pins) + Audra. But Deb is good with flavours and Italian cooking is up her ally. Thus green team may win and Mindy and Kylie have to decide whether to use their pin or not. They should create some tension by saying only one immunity pin can be used in the challenge and the one didn’t use the pin get eliminated !!!
Deb is good at all sorts of things, but working in a team is not one of them. Can’t believe one of them forgot the onions and the other the artichokes. Must say I just wanted to eat all of those desserts but it made sense not to be making them outdoors in the Tuscan summer. What madness.
I hope green team win too. Suddenly Debra become a great team player & seal the victory for the team. May be there is another surprise installed for us. They have been setting Mindy up as their fav cook. May be she think she can beat Wade & Beau & decided not to use her pin & get eliminated. Ok…. These are just my wishful thinking. The Italy week has been boring so far. lol
I’m hoping someone decides not to use the pin (based on their supreme cooking ability) and then getting eliminated anyway.
Just a thought – just as well Alice did not pick the desserts her dodgy oven would have stuffed up her pastry for the tart and the cooking of it and the strudel.
Wasn’t Alice’s fault that her oven wasn’t working right. Props to Gary for sorting it out calmly and effectively by getting her to put her dish in with Mindy’s.
Also did anyone notice the shot where Beau was behind Mindy, peering into her oven (standing right beside it) while she was busily chopping away? I thought that was funny. At least he shows great interest in what’s going on.
Lastly, wow. What a fantastic looking place. I want to fly over there and ride my horse around those rolling green hills!
@JS, yes I noticed Beau as well. Perhaps they were all standing around with boredom whilst enjoying the scenery.
What a magnificent place of a location they have picked!!!!
Spunkalicious Andy was probably off for a much needed hair cut.
I’ve seen a few episodes of “Two Greedy Italians” and the dishes that Antonio Carluccio’s has plated up seemed to be very neat and tidy compared to the “homestyle” plating up that they are so obvious known for.
Beau was in my dream last night and I was chating him up, so was George, he asked me if I liked working here (at my current job).
Why did I keep thinking of Alice in Wonderland during this challenge….could it have been because of Alice, the rabbit and of course her glasses which could have been seen as the looking glass, they are big enough.
Did anyone get the impression that George was trying to convince Antonio Caluccio of how wonderful one of the dishes was, I think it was one of the chicken ball dishes. He was looking particularly anxious.
RR – Alice is a smart girl. It was going to be a nightmare making pastry with outdoor oven under the Tuscan sun. Warming up to her as long as she doesn’t act too deep into her character.
Dunbi – Ditto with most of the team challenges in the past few weeks.
How GORGEOUS did that stuffed squid look – that is one of my all-time fave dishes, I’m inspired to make it more often after last night. And the chicken ball soup also looked good, I’ve made chicken balls but not in a soup, so will have to try that too.
On the downside, Alice drives me crazy. I can’t figure out if her OTT-ness is an act or not, and I wish she’d do a ponytail or SOMETHING ELSE than her nanna bun just once. Just once.
Anna I thought the same thing. Alice through the Looking Glasses and a late rabbit
I don’t buy many cook books nowadays due to their cost, the ease of accessing and cross-checking recipes on the internet and the fact that I don’t often refer the vast majority of the books I already have.
The one exception is a quite old Antonio Carluccio book I have, which is a sort of compendium of Italian dishes and ingredients (forgotten its name). All of the deceptively simple dishes in this book work well when prepared according to the master’s instructions. Squeal at Jamie or curl your toes to your Marco PW fantasy all you like ladies, I instead clink my glass to the white-haired, over-tanned old geezer, Antonio.
How bad are the Shine production team?? Wot a bunch of fucken muppets! Don’t they check all the equipment on set?? This is event management 101. This shoddy show is meant to be ‘stralia’s premier reality TV production, not the set of Spinal Tap. Gary saved everyone from the ultimate humiliation and embarrassment by making sure Alice was going to have a cooked dish. They should be kissing his ample arse.
Poor Antonio looked underwhelmed. As usual the dishes were sub-par but this was, as usual, due to not giving the contestants enough time to make 3 dishes. Another shoddy production decision.
Shine/MCA/Ten – Ambassadors for the Slow Production Movement
I dont think the challenge was fair. In all other challenges for immunity, it is against a chef with no guarantee of a pin being won. In this challenge, there was always going to be a winner and a pin – why??
Ahh, Roma! Packet pasta! Bottled tomato sauce! Rooted ovens! Buono!
Agree CB about the equipment, however Gary was busy kissing his own ample arse on that one, while berating Alice for not keeping an eye on her oven to make sure it was working. WTF!
Why would you not just expect the equipment they provided was going to work. The same as you’d expect they provided you with the correct ingredients for the dishes and pots and pans to cook it in and knives with honed edges.
With 90 minutes to put up 3 dishes the contestants shouldn’t have to waste time checking on these things FFS – it’s not the Amazing Race of Masterchef!
Glad that’s all over. Hurry up and eliminate someone.
It was really interesting when Gaz looked over at someone, probably a producer, and shook his head once he realised the oven was dodge. You could see the convo they were having with their eyes about whether to alert Alice and save her dish. And yeah, you should definitely expect that your equipment will work in an ammunity challenge!
I remember watching MKR and commenting to my other half how often the ovens used to break down.
Maybe setting up these things is not as easy as everyone thinks it is. You’d think it wouldn’t be that hard but given its seems to be a common problem across different shows on different networks then maybe it isn’t.
I wondered when the MKR oven drama would surface. In that situation though, the contestants are choosing to either cook in their own kitchen or organise to use of the kitchen of a friend/neighbour or such like. They know all this ahead of schedule which puts the onus on them to make sure they familiarise themselves with the kitchen and that everything they need is there and the equipment is working properly.
With MC it’s a case of someone having responsibity to organise all this ahead of time and make sure everything is in place and working properly. I’m sure “it’s not as easy as everyone thinks…” but someone is being paid to get it organised because it’s their job.
Well said, Georgie. I was trying to put my thoughts in words but you said it better than me.
Maybe the person who is responsible has gastro.
That’s probably right, Paul. Therefore all the more reason to check they are working before rolling the cameras. Hell, you may even need to delay until the equipment is ready and functioning. or, even better still, pre-plan and pre-check well in advance of shooting.
You don’t start a rock concert without sound, a car without petrol or a footy game without a ball. So why start cooking without heat?
Lol littlepetal – the gastro challenge spreads beyond the contestants. That will teach the crew to tuck into the amata cook’s food that has sat about in the Tuscan sun breeding bacteria. Chicken botulinum with artichokes.
You can bet your ar$e that the Ma$terchef retinue wouldn’t travel in a plane that wasn’t maintained or checked.
The dodgy oven is just the latest installment of the celebration of incompetence that is Ma$terchef. How long does it take to switch the oven on and check it with a thermometer? They said it was all about the cooking.
Yawn-o-rama. I’ve been all over this show since it came out and even I am finding it hard to maintain interest. I used to LOVE this show. Watching people name vegetables in a soup for twenty minutes, omg. Ffs.
I did like Antonio, though. I liked his accent when he kept saying things like, ‘Rabbit A……. rabbit B’ or ‘Now…. the alternative’. It was like someone he really admired had once told him specially that his English vocabulary and enunciation was top-notch and he’s never forgotten that moment.
I have never gotten food poisoning so I’m really cavalier about food. I’ll eat things left out overnight, week-old leftovers, whatever.
The oven was working. Just wasn’t hot enough. Why would anyone put a thermometer to check the temperature?
Masterchef deserves a lot of the criticism it receives but sometimes there’s only so much checking one can do.
The masterchef format is getting really tiresome because of the predictability. It needs a good shakeup if it’s going to continue. It’s on too many nights a week and too repetitive. One hour was too long last night especially as we had to watch George serve the others 6 times. That is riveting tv – not!!!!!!!
The theories about a male contestant winning MC this year are starting to look a little fragile. Dilemma – how to get rid of 3 immunity pins in quick succession without pulling a gun?
Mindy would have been unbeatable and/or unbearable sporting 2 big gold ‘M-Element’ medals on her chest and if the judges had been at all influenced by Antonio’s facial expressions last night, no-one would have ‘won’ the pin.
An oven that can’t get to 180-220C isn’t working.
Geez. What hope for Australian manufacturing if the sign that a machine’s working is that the technician saw that that the light that normally comes on when you turn the knob was indeed on? Or that it made that whirring noise it normally makes?
A quick batch of scones – or simply baking a potato – would be a reasonable test, just as a good home cook checks the heat of their frying oil with a bit of spud (or a thermometer) before chucking in whatever they want to cook.
This isn’t rocket science. This isn’t NASA. It’s just event management 101 – kicking the tyres.
George – “Which plate is better, plate A or plate B?”
Antonio – “Neither of them is any good”
George – “Okay then, which one is the worst, plate A or plate B?”
All this talk of immunity pins is reminding me of Survivor and all the Immunity Idols …………..
As an antidote to MCA production foibles:
http://www.antonio-carluccio.com
http://www.antonio-carluccio.com/Recipe_home
Winter is coming: http://www.antonio-carluccio.com/Winter
Yummo.
Outdoor ovens are a nightmare to use. This reminds me of the CWA disastrous challenge in S2 where even the good contestants (Marion, Jono) couldn’t bake a simple cake right with outdoor ovens provided. Don’t think the producers check the oven prior handing them over to the contestants.
Perhaps they should reduce the number of contestants for future seasons down to 16-14 and just have a weekly hour long episode. It could feature two challenges, a solo challenge and a team challenge. Perhaps the winner of the solo challenge would not have to partake in the team challenge and would be safe for the week. The losing team in the team challenge would go into an elimination round.
Simone – Can’t agree more with you.
Mindy, “Cabbage.”
Gary, “What cabbage?”
Mindy, “Hmmm, Cavolo Nero?”
Gary, “Are you sure?”
Mindy, “Yes.”
Gary, “That’s very specific. Lock it in Mindy?”
Mindy, “Yes, I am sure.”
.
.
.
Mindy’s turn to guess again.
Mindy, “Cabbage.”
Gary, “What kind of cabbage?”
FFS….. It went on forever!!
Perhaps they could cut – George dishing up food, contestants twaddle to camera, recaps, shots of contestants walking to judges with their food, recaps, Jowl$y stuffing his face, recaps. We could then see everyone’s food, have 1/2 hr eps and perhaps stay interested. For 3 looooong months.
Thanks ^, and cut the drawn out circus crap.
Yes EH – I’m surprised Alice saying “onion” wasn’t questioned. What kind of onion? Brown, white, sweet, cipollini, spanish, purple, shallot, pearl, hmm????
Matt, Gary and George hit the big time…and get to guest judge on Top Chef – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6RF2MqBJCU
That was strange how Mindy went down the cabbage road twice… did they reply the first time she said cabbage, or she just didn’t think to be more specific?
Georgie – lol! And to think about the varieties of garlic & pepper…..
And potatoes EH – what a crock of vegetables a pot of soup is!
Exactly, why did Mindy have to be specific and not Alice?
Gary: Alice, can you identify an ingredient?
Alice: Food?
Gary: That’s right Alice, take a pin.
Thunderbirds are go!
Why did neither say water?
Lol – I liked it when Alice said garlic and Gary says, “are you sure”. Are you kidding, this is Italy Gary – is the Pope Catholic.
CB – “what kind of water?”
Bottled
Spring
Rose
Toilet
Artesian
Tap
Tank
Filtered
Gary would probably have said “no” there’s stock though. Ah doh, and what makes stock? Hmm
OMG all the talk of outdoor cooking reminds me of the nightmares at school fetes. It’s not just the equipment isn’t so great but the electricity was allways an issue for us, getting enough power for deep fryers, and all that other fast food crap was horrible, things were allways cutting out and not producing enough heat etc.
MC contestants – it’s now for me a matter of the more you see the less you like most of them……..
The only people I like – Julia & Andy, both seem level headed and not at all smarmy. Beau is also allright, but he’s a supporting role, and just pops up every now and again to surprise us.
All the rest are annoying favourites, camera hogs, official narrators, pushy, game players – Mindy, Audra, Alice, Kylie
Or wimps, Ben, Wade; or weirdos Deb.
Who will win – probably Kylie.
Well at least the cavolo nero and savoy cabbage were both very specifically mentioned when they tasted the first ribollita. I got the impression Mindy was trying to show off, which is what ended up tripping her up when she decided to go with barley instead of the very obvious other ingredients like beans. I was dying for one of them to say cheese or bread to see what the grilling was like. No pun intended. I’m thinking they should introduce a hidden immunity pin next series. They could hide it in a bowl of nice boiled sheep’s stomach or somehting.
JKo – Glad I am not the only one to have dreams about the cast on the show.
CB, Paul and BDD – Re: The ovens that Gary was looking at someone perhaps seeking advice on what they should do re: dodgy oven. Interestingly if they had gone desserts there probably would not have been enough space in Mindy’s oven for them all.
EH – LOL re: cabbage dialogue it did go on forever. Maybe she was testing them on the second time around. Who wants to be gone on giving too much information.
Bilge, Georgie, bilge.
Hey Raver. One of my early posts must be in your vetting lounge… and it’s a scoop
I’m assuming they needed to be specific over cabbage because there was more then one type used as opposed to pepper or potato.
Chunks – Exactly! It did come across to me that Mindy was a little show off at the taste test. Also during cook off, Gary had to put her into place by telling her not to think she is better than Antonio.
I hope I won’t get hammered for sledging the ‘beautiful’ Mindy. Bear in mind that the camera shows us what the producers want us to see.
‘beautiful’ Mindy??… well only after a scrub
As Butthead commanded whence attired like Matt and George were when they visited Asterix World for the Daily Telegraph this week:
“BATHE HER AND BRING HER TO ME.”
I guess it’s not Mindy’s fault if the producers shove her in front of the cameras. What’s she gonna say? No thanks?
Have to say, she’s competent and talented, if a little smug.
If any of you had to host a dinner-party, a special occasion for 20 or so guests and you had to pick one of the remaining MC contestants to ‘do’ everything, who would it be?
I know who I’d choose … with my fave, Julia, a close second.
I enjoyed seeing Antonio again. Many years ago I used to watch his programme – his food is good and I love his accent – never knew the word ‘salt’ could sound so sexy! I think he was very underwhelmed by the dishes, both lots of chicken balls looked stodgy to me and the rabbit looked awfully dry.
Why do they make them cook outside – had they been given a kitchen to work in Alice would have had a proper choice and there probably wouldn’t have been a problem with the oven.
It would have been a nice gesture to have taken Julia with them on the taste testing tour although I don’t think she missed much, surely there were nicer things to taste test.
Why do the challenges tend to be outside, apart from the beautiful views that is ? It would be so much easier on everyone concerned if they were just held in a normal indoor kitchen, less chance of food spoilage, gastro etc. The immunity pins have just become a joke, just get rid of them. At least the blind tasting was a bit fairer this time and Mindy and Alice were only going up against each other, not a professional chef like the others had to do. The show is starting to drag on a bit now.
I think they probably cook outside to prevent them accidentally burning down 500 year old architectural treasures.
My EPG seems to be overly active today. It has forecasted the MC program up till 24th of July! Nothing new but confirmed some of the speculations I have posted yesterday. Here is a quick summary:
* Guest chefs include Kylie Kwong, Grant King (Gastro Park’s chef) & John Torode (MC UK judge).
* Triple eliminations next week & no more immunity pin.
* 3 consercutive days of elimination on 22/7, 23/7 & 24/7.
No update/confirmation on the finale date yet.
Good point Chunks. I’m not certain travelisurancedirect.com.au covers accidently burning down Renaissance heritage sites.
I have very fair skin and all I could think while watching the challenge last night was “why isn’t anyone wearing a hat”?
Andy Pandy – Yes, they need to get rid of the pins. Last season pretty much showed off how unfair they can be. From next season onward the winner of the Sunday Invention Test should just be safe for the rest of the week.
Thanks CB for the link to Antonio’s page – I love this guy and have only recently seen the Two Greedy Italians series on SBS – have cooked a lot of his recipes, Bellissimo!
How about to make the competition fairer they take the immunity pin, from self righteous mindy, and give it to the person that won it in the first place i.e. Amina. That would put the cat amongst the pigeons. Todate the week in Italy is boring except for Antonio and the scenery.
Since we all knew that Alice was going to win the pin last night, the surprise i was waiting for was how she would react to the news. So nice to see her give a genuine, humble acceptance of the news as opposed to a jumping on the spot, clapping , mouth open, over the top (really effing annoying) response. The cherry on the top was Mindy finishing second when she thought she was numero uno.
Prego, Sioux Denim.
I have yet to see Two Greedy Italians (obviously a name chosen for the poms who remember the queens of stodge, The Two Fat Ladies).
There is only one “delicacy” I remember Antonio featuring that I would not even countenance trying – a peasant cheese that is allowed to crawl with maggots. On purpose, FFS! I don’t think even Antonio could stomach it.
EH-Another two for you
Never used saffron before
Never cooked risotto before
How unecessary is that golf leaf on the risotto?
Green, go green. Andy is back looking beautiful. Hopefully my dream tonight will be Andy, me & a red Vespa
Morgan- So you can charge the dish according to the gold price
EH- You have to stop reading Fifty shades of grey!!!!!
Littlepetal, it doesn’t help when Guido Barilla started talking about “the PERFORMANCE of the pasta” ROFL!
EH-We guessed wrongly and your dream has been shattered. You can have Wade instead !!!!
Beautiful pork sausage! Beautiful fresh produce! And Epic Prawnage from Alice! Sad for the green team.
Can someone please tell me if I am the only one out there that thinks Gary and Mindy are a little tooooooooo friendly?????????? Gary always makes more comments to Mindy than anyone else!!!!! I’ve also caught him winking at her quite a few times!!!!! It is so very obvious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Maybe gaz iz into Mindy………I think Mindy has eyes for another.x
Mindy is a lesbian.
has anyone notice andy has a comb over , maybe to cover his bald spot .
@EH, Deb & Ben have never cooked risotto before (is there anyone else?)
Deb cooked risotto once in the eighties.
did not watch this episode as a group challenge is a waste of my time . we all know who they want in and who they want out . watching 2 groups making pasta BALONEY!!, a friggin gold leaf in rissotto give me a break , my wife was watching it and i caught a bit with gorge going on about how great this rissotto is and the famous chef says “it’s only rissotto ” sums it up heh .
Once again the first part of the challenge was a waste of time as the ads had shown who the teams were we knew at least the team composition.
Mindy’s complaint that how can you cook something without a recipe sounded very false. How on earth do they manage when they have the invention tests? And aren’t chefs supposed to create their own unique recipes?
LOL @ kingfisher ‘not watching’.
Littlepetal & JKo – Thanks. Will publish the updated list on RR’s finale post.
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