Masterchef Recap: Irwin some, Irlose some
Return of the native
We’ve certainly seen some amazing Australian icons in Aussie Classics Week. First there was Curtis Stone! Then there was Curtis Stone again! And then there was nobody! But who could we be getting for the last night of Aussie Classics Week? Who could be an even BIGGER name than Curtis, Curtis or no one? The answer…Robert Irwin!
Yes! Robert Irwin! The guy who’s just as famous for being less popular than his sister as he is for only owning one outfit.
Everyone is incredibly excited to see Robert Irwin enter the kitchen, having been instructed that they have to be incredibly excited or they’ll be severely punished. Poh undertakes an amazingly long-winded description of him, and he comes in in the most annoying way possible, giving everyone five and pumping his fists and hugging Jean-Christophe and making it clear just why he is available to appear on Masterchef. “This is a dream come true,” he says, and even by the standards of the house of lies that is Masterchef, it is impossible to believe him. “I grew up with Bindi the Jungle Girl!” says Grace, just to let Robert know who she would much rather have in the kitchen today.
But why is he here at all? What role could Australia’s least charismatic celebrity possibly play in a cooking show? Well, there is no concept that the producers can’t crowbar into this format, and so we are told that Robert Irwin has a “passion for native ingredients” - he just has never mentioned it before because he’s shy - and so he presents the ingredients that he has “brought with him” - lilly pilly, ooray plum or ooray, lemon myrtle, wattleseed and river mint. These ingredients are rarely cooked with, because they are not very good, and that’s the great challenge for today: can the cooks make a truly great dish using ingredients that are objectively inferior to all others? “I’m genuinely excited to see what you guys do with it,” says Robert, but this is not true: he has never been genuinely anything.
It is an elimination, and everyone is on the chopping block except for Bella, who won the comeback episode and has immunity to honour the Australian tradition of giving the greatest reward to the least deserving. The pantry and garden are open, so they have a wide scope for masking the taste of the awful ingredients they have to include.
Jean-Christophe asks Robert if he likes to cook. Robert is curiously evasive. “If you use good ingredients, you can’t really go wrong,” he says, but these amateur cooks are about to prove him wrong.
Grace is making a frito misto, which is Italian for “a big pile of fish and vegetables and crap”, which she will garnish with as small an amount of lemon myrtle as possible. Meanwhile Annabel heads to the equipment cupboard and hurls as many pots and pans as she can to the floor, desperate for any outlet for her unquenchable rage.
Casper is cooking scallops and ooray plum, two ways - good and bad. He’s adopting a Japanese style, which is sort of offensive on a day like this, given World War Two and everything. But Casper cares not for historical sensitivity: he believes the lessons of the past should be ignored.
Speaking of ignoring people, Robert talks to the judges and I pay no attention at all.
“I really want to impress Robert Irwin, he’s got a great personality,” says Luke, kind of strangely. He thinks Robert is about the same age as him, but actually he is several years older than Luke, but that’s OK, Luke needs someone to take care of him. Luke reveals to Robert and Poh that he is making a “lilly pilly mille feuille”, which is a very clever rhyme as long as you make sure to pronounce it incorrectly. But today he’s pretty safe unless Robert Irwin speaks French, which is about as unlikely as anyone on today’s episode retaining any perspective.
Annabel runs out to the garden and suffers severe injuries from sticking her hands in the plants. It reminds her of her first day as a nurse, when she was attacked by a triffid. She’s building her dish around some cured trout, a dangerous gambit given that you can never be one hundred percent sure that a trout is entirely cured. A lot of trout diseases are transmissible to humans, and as a nurse she should know that.
Aaron is making a wattleseed ice-cream. No idea what that would be like, but definitely sure that it will be bad. “I love having the dessert queen over me,” says Aaron, again tagging Bella with the label of doom. He explains his dessert to Poh and Robert. “Are you a sweet guy?” Robert asks. “Aaron’s not usually a dessert cook,” says Poh, but that was not what Robert was asking. No use trying to make an authentic connection with another human being when Poh’s around, apparently. All she ever thinks about is food. Sad.
We take a break so Jamie Durie can tell us about digestive discomfort. Why isn’t Jamie Durie ever on Masterchef? He knows more about gut health than Robert Irwin, I’ll tell you that.
Back in the kitchen, Robert forces his attentions on Sofia and makes her dance with him. It is genuinely horrible to watch. Then he dances with Jean-Christophe and we yearn for those halcyon days when he used to dance with Sofia. Then he dances by himself and how nobody is hurling fruit at this guy’s head is impossible to explain.
Petro is doing a miso and wattleseed glaze pork chop. It is truly impressive just how many flavours every cook is piling into their dish to ensure that their native ingredient does not come through noticeably. These are smart people. Poh wanders around the room telling everyone to “balance” their flavours, a code which everyone seems able to understand.
Robert and Poh visit Grace, who is smoking her prawns (euphemism). “It’s like a campfire!” says Robert, like he’s four years old. Grace is choking on the smoke, so we cut to Vinnie, who is confident about his puree and his duck and everything, but is accompanied by oddly pessimistic music, as if foreshadowing some dreadful tragedy to come.
Dot is keen to stay in the competition and not have to go home to the marriage that she only just began but already hopes to avoid for as long as possible. “We joke that I’m the runaway bride,” she says. I bet nobody jokes that. She totally made that up. She tells Robert she’s making jam donuts and Robert has some kind of gross motor spasm, jerking and flailing all over the place. Remember not to mention donuts to an Irwin, it gives them seizures. Dot wants to add more ooray to her jam because it’s not as tart as she wants. “I don’t know if I’ve gone oo-cray,” she laughs, like the worst person you’ve ever met.
The judges meet again and talk in as irritating manner as possible. Robert discusses his hopes and fears for the cooks, acting like he has the slightest idea what he’s talking about. None of these contestants are marsupials so I’ve no idea where his imagined expertise is coming from.
Luke is startled to see how little time he has, having spent the last hour staring at Robert and rubbing himself against the bench. As such he has not noticed that he had the oven on grill, and his pastry is burnt. He ignored the old saw: never put your lilly pilly mille feuille on the grilly. The judges look on in horror, trying not to laugh. “Everything all right mate?” asks Robert. Luke tells him his pastry is burnt. Robert doesn’t know if this is good or bad. Luke decides to make the best of things - he puts the pastry back in the oven, remembering the first lesson every cook learns: if you’re going to burn your dish, finish the job.
Over to Vinnie, who tastes his dish and finds it delicious, and yet the ominous music continues to accompany him. There’s a real slasher movie vibe surrounding Vinnie right now.
Robert announces that there are only fifteen minutes to go, in the process making his second crocodile joke of the day. Clearly running out of material. Luke is worried that he might not have enough time to completely reduce his pastry to ashes, while Petro is worried that everything he’s made sucks. “That needs work,” says Andy. “I FUCKING KNOW!” Petro screams. He has so much still to do, and so little time to do it in, and so many good reasons not to bother.
“How are you going?” Dot asks Luke. Luke isn’t going well. “Just keep going,” says Dot, which helps a whole frigging bunch. It’s all right for Dot, she’s just making donuts, and all she has to worry about is making sure none of her native ingredients are detectable.
With almost no time left, Casper shows Robert the best way to commit arson while Sofia asks Luke if he’d like to come with her to a nice place where he can rest and friendly doctors will help him. But Luke refuses the help he needs and pulls out his pastry. His cream is too thick, but isn’t that always the way. Petro has also run out of time to finish his pork chops, and decides he will just have to give the judges food poisoning and hope that’s enough.
Robert makes his third crocodile joke and time is up. Hugs all around, especially for Petro who is fairly sure that he is God’s greatest mistake.
The first to serve their dish to the judges is Annabel. Her dish is cured trout, prepared to resemble a plate of frog spawn. “I feel like there’s a POW waiting to happen,” says Robert, and indeed one does feel like punching him. “I hope it’s a balanced pow,”says Andy, using the Word of the Day. “Annabel, that is proper professional cooking,” says Poh, declaring Annabel’s trout worthy of some of the more upmarket Outback Steakhouses. Robert claims that on taking his first bite, “I just start smiling”, which seems unlikely given he has literally not stopped smiling in the last twelve years. Jean-Christophe makes a pun on “ooray” which is wildly unpleasant.
Next is Vinnie, who is very happy with his dish despite the sense of disaster we’ve been led to associate with him. He has cooked roasted duck and ooray sauce or possibly tomato ketchup. Robert smiles like a serial killer and then has another spasm. He gives Vinnie a hug, causing Luke to crumple with jealousy.
Next is Pat who’s made lamb and is quickly finished. Next is Casper whose scallops are all right if you’re into that sort of thing. Next is Emily who serves her dish in a cardboard box to make it seem as cheap and ordinary as possible. Everyone has a good laugh and feels their friendship grow stronger.
And now Petro, who has never hated himself more as he presents his pork chop, which is not only incorrectly cooked, but has wattleseed all over it to ruin it further. Cutting into the pork, they discover that Petro has accidentally cooked it properly. Robert thinks the cook on the pork was good, and is in love with the sauce. You sense he doesn’t mean this figuratively. Everyone thinks Petro’s pork chop is marvellous. “Your palate is on fire,” says Sofia, also not meaning this figuratively.
Next up, Aaron. His wattleseed ice-cream is wrong on a basic moral level, but so are the judges so they love it. “You’ve gotta come show us a thing or two, man,” says Robert, but it’s not clear what he means. He wants Aaron to be a zookeeper? He thinks crocodiles would like ice-cream? Aaron’s dessert is a hit. From on the balcony Bella mutters a quiet oath to crush him.
Next is Dot’s donuts. They are “river mint donuts”, which are a lot like normal donuts but sort of gross. They are filled with jam and also green slime, as if having been retrieved from a stagnant pond. The judges hate them. Her river mint is out of balance, in that it is there. “The first thing is that it’s really well made,” says Poh, before going on to explain how badly she’s made it. Everyone is shocked by Dot’s swift fall from grace - not to be confused with a fall from Grace, which can often cause a sprained ankle.
Next is Alyona, whose lemon myrtle meringue tart heroically overcomes the handicap of having lemon myrtle in it. Then Jackie who’s made some kind of Vietnamese fish soup thingummy that is good for a given definition of goodness. Next Hannah who’s made dark chocolate mousse that isn’t much good but at least it’s not Dot’s donuts. And now it’s Grace, and her frito misto, which is good except that her prawns suck, but prawns are hard to cook well because they are inherently disgusting.
It is time for Luke - five words that always send a shudder through us. “Luke what have you made us?” asks Poh, horror and dread in every syllable. Rightly so, as the question causes Luke to say “lilly pilly mille feuille” for the eight hundredth time today. Poh proceeds to pronounce mille feuille correctly, publicly humiliating him. Luke’s flavours are good, and his pastry is burnt just right, but his cream is like rubber, and not in a fun way.
Time to shatter dreams, just after everyone fawns over Robert a bit more. Annabel did good, Vinnie did good and Aaron did good. But some people did bad, and they were Dot and…
Oh, actually, nobody else. Just Dot. She made a mistake in overusing the river mint, but made an even bigger mistake in not getting eliminated a couple of episodes ago, as that would’ve allowed her to come back and try again. But as she was good enough not to be kicked out earlier, she must suffer the ultimate punishment.
I’m gonna miss Pat,” says Dot, ensuring everyone understands that she will miss nobody else. But at least she now gets to go home to her wife and explain why she repeatedly and vehemently stated on national television that she desperately did not want to go home to her wife.
Tune in next week when there will be a professional chef on the show rather than a nepo baby zookeeper.
"never put your lilly pilly mille feuille on the grilly" 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Crap day, hobbled by pain, so especial thanks for lifting me out and up into easy focus and laughter.