Masterchef Fans?

Mr E

Semi-finals start next week. Anyone else think they are less interesting than the regular heats? In the regular masterchef episodes, I always fast-forwarded through the working-in-restaurants bits.

*giggles*

I love MasterChef. I especially love watching it and thinking how much better I am than some of them:D

kenon

I find that Greg and John Torode's spoons are too big or their mouths are too big. It disturbs me...

I like the addition of Roux Jnr as he really knows what he's talking about as he is at the top. I watched the real Masterchef last week, it was the 2008 competition with this 18 year old young one going against two chaps in their late 30's and she was excellent, very creative and original with some of the dishes having "Blumenthal" kind of...objectives.

Unfortunately, she just lost out in the finals but I'd say she'll be pinched by a top restaurant.

Seaneh

As a professional chef I can just say that not everybody gets a classical french upbringing and not everybody gets to works wiht seafood regularly.

I, myself haven't have much classical training besides college, that said I have above par butchery skills because I made the effort to learn it myself on my own time, but I'd struggle with some of the classical recipies that have been used this season as, really, I;d never heard of some of them and never cooked most. Michelle Roux grew up in a french house hold with a classically trained french chef for a father, if he'd grown up with parents from Ireland or the UK he would have chosen completely different dishes.

superficies

Seanah, good point but I suppose there are two things that surprise me re the classic recipe test even bearing that in mind. First of all it is no surprise that Roux chooses classic French dishes for this part of the competition--I am always shocked that people who want to succeed in this competition don't familiarise themselves with the staples of french cooking in advance of going into the competition. If they did there might be a few surprises, but you would I think be unlucky. In addition, they are given recipes so even if you just made the effort to try to see photographs of these dishes then the recipe plus a visualisation should be sufficient for one to make a decent effort and in the end if they see good technique and good flavour they are often satisfied with that.

On the seafood I agree that lots of people don't have the requisite skills there--if you work in, for example, a steak restaurant you're unlikely to have used razor clams, scallops etc... that much. But again, the skills test is not a surprise so I would think people might have tried to bone up on it before entering the competition. Maybe spend one year trying to up-skill and then enter if this is something someone wants to achieve within their career.

Then again, everyone's a critic... ;-)

nice1franko

noeleenred wrote: »

I reckon Ludo will win, he was brilliant. Love masterchef too.

Me too. I reckon Ryan will be tough competition tho but hopefully he cracks - something abut him I don't like! I think the small Irish fella could be dark horse though. He seems to be capable of a bit more than he's shown so far.

bonkey

[quote=superficies;62499533
On the seafood I agree that lots of people don't have the requisite skills there--if you work in, for example, a steak restaurant you're unlikely to have used razor clams, scallops etc... that much. [/quote]

Yeah...but in fairness, the type of chef they're looking for is versatile.

They're not looking for a "can cook the best 10 different types of steak you've ever eaten" chef (to follow your example) although such a chef would be truly awesome in their own right.

They're really looking for a Jack of All Trades and Master of Some.

superficies

I agree bonkey
What was the result last night? OH made me switch over to the Apprentice at 9 o clock :-(
Marianne and meat....she really has a serious problem.

bonkey

superficies wrote: »

What was the result last night?

Marianne completely outcooked Bryce in the 2 dishes at the end. His presentation was better, but on taste and how well things were cooked, he wasn't even at the races. As a result, she got through.

superficies

I am now officially devastated

What was Ludo thinking? That pork dish was so...brown...boring...uninspiring. Nothing compared to his first round cooking. I am so sad for him right now. Too cocky maybe?

LimeFruitGum

*sobs*

So not expecting that!

LimeFruitGum

nice1franko wrote: »

Me too. I reckon Ryan will be tough competition tho but hopefully he cracks - something abut him I don't like!

Oh you mean, the cold stony way he says that he's passionate about food, but he only lights up when he says wants to win Masterchef?

duploelabs

after what happened last night, I can't believe in anything anymore, what's the culinary equivalent of EMO?

nice1franko

LimeFruitGum wrote: »

Oh you mean, the cold stony way he says that he's passionate about food, but he only lights up when he says wants to win Masterchef?

Yeah, even when he won a place in the final he didn't smile he just stood there looking straight ahead.

Greg the Egg must've been a bit perplexed so he says to him "how does that make you feel?" and it was only then that he twigged he was was supposed to show some emotion and and start smiling.

Approx. 1% of the population is a psychopath (- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy).

Population, I give you... RYAN.

glanman

superficies wrote: »

I am now officially devastated

What was Ludo thinking? That pork dish was so...brown...boring...uninspiring. Nothing compared to his first round cooking. I am so sad for him right now. Too cocky maybe?

Weds episode result:

I cant believe Ludo lost. He was far better in the Maze place. Matt could barely cook monkfish for most the service FFS!! What was the point in having that part when they didn't even ask that chef what he thought or take it into consideration when deciding the winner?

Matts dishes were good though in fairness, surprised the cauliflower and cumin worked with the scallops, fair play. Good dish!

I have to say Ludos accent is the funniest accent I have ever heard, welsh/french accent, I couldn't help but laugh everytime he spoke!

superficies

The general point about the performance in the restaurant is interesting. I am always perplexed by it. Why bother doing it if they don't seem to take it into account?? Is it just to fill time? I find it interesting because I love to see how restaurant kitchens work (Michelin dishes in 5 minutes...I SO want to go there...it looks amazing) and in the (head) chefs and their attitudes and approaches to cooking, but I would like it to be taken into account more. Both in MC the Professionals and 'ordinary' MC.

glanman

I haven't been to London in ages but should be there soon so I think Maze will certainly visited. Its a Ramsey but the head chefs rep is brilliant, has worked in el Bulli and all!

http://www.gordonramsay.com/maze/

superficies

Off topic but, just looked at the menu for Maze there. Very reasonablly priced, even taking into account that you need a few tapas for a meal. For M Star quality that looks great value. Almost worth a trip to London (a place I detest) just for that!

bonkey

superficies wrote: »

The general point about the performance in the restaurant is interesting. I am always perplexed by it. Why bother doing it if they don't seem to take it into account??

From watching Masterchef, it seems to work like this...

If there is a clear, clear winner in the "final cook-off" test, then that person gets through regardless of other tests.

If its somewhat close, then they'll look at the previous tests, to see if there was a clear winner from those.

If its still somewhat close, they'll go with some wishy-washy idea....often favouring the person who's improving over the person who's been consistently better, on the grounds that if they're now close, the improver stands a chance of being the better by the end.

In last nights (Wednesdays) ep, I thought the following:

Ludo won the lunch-cooking hands down. Surprisingly, he was outplayed in the second test. I would have given him the edge coming out of there, but the head chef from Maze reckoned they were neck-and-neck.

His two courses in the final cook-off were uninspired compared to his usual fare, and while both were very good, he lost out to two plates which were one very good and one excellent.

Going by the performances of the semifinal alone he was fairly beaten...possibly by having tried to play it too safe with his choice of dishes. The judges themselves knew (I think) that he's the better of the two...but to be fair to them, they couldn't pick him. It would be like saying that Ussain Bolt should get in a race gold for coming in second, because everyone knows he's normally the faster sprinter.

bonkey

nice1franko wrote: »

Me too. I reckon Ryan will be tough competition

Having watched the last semi-final (result:

They both played a blinder, and both went through!

, and then the "cut down to three finalists" (result:

Marianne and the two from the last semi

) all I can say is....Uh-huh.

duploelabs

bonkey wrote: »

Having watched the last semi-final (result:

They both played a blinder, and both went through!

, and then the "cut down to three finalists" (result:

Marianne and the two from the last semi

) all I can say is....Uh-huh.

I'm still not impressed by

Marianne, I think she's really bad under pressure and she's still not great on her meat timing, Steve's smoked egg was very Sat Baines or Heston, reckon He'll win it

Seaneh

superficies wrote: »

(Michelin dishes in 5 minutes...I SO want to go there...it looks amazing)

They aren't cooked in 5 minutes, the veg is cooked and refreshed in ice cold water then dired and out in a friedg and then just finished in a pan with some butter, salt pepper/glaze/whatever. the sauces are made well in advance (or atleast the sauce base so all you have to is add stock in a pan to the jellied base) so all you do is corrent seasoning/add butter for body if needed etc. the mean is the only think cooked in real time as it will be in marinating pre-cooking and then you season just as it hits the pan/roasting try etc to protect the protine structures as best you can. it's stressfull but usually they are better organised than lesser kitchens, everyone knows their job (weather it be dressing starter plates with the sauce/garnish while another chef sears fish/meat/whatever and then adds it to your plate and you both together get it to the pass for inspection, if you're doing meat and fish mains, you are literally only doing the meat or fish mains and other people are was more dressing your plates and looking after your accompaniments and sauces (you approve the dressed plate and then sauce it yourself with the sauce someone else made. the most annoying job is actually in the pastry section, if your unlucky enough to be the person doing the petite fors for a busy night, its like assembling extremely pretty frabile lego blocks for the night and making sure every one of them is perfect/identical. normal pastry is pretty chilled and you'd have most things prepped like 90% of the weay and then its just your finishing, timing and plating that is important, you get your dinkey work out of the was way earlier, like, you're not gonna be tempering chocolate 20 minutes before the desert is due to go out, you have that done like days in advance, you have sugar work hours in advance, all you are going on the fly is glazing tartes,, dressing plates and making sure sauces are kept properly and dont need redoing. souffles are the onyl thing that demand making as you go as the egg proteins dont like being left alone for long in my experience and its easier to just beat a few egg whites and sugar and add your flavouring and slap them in their ramakins/whatever as they are needed, when you make a big batch and try make it stretch the results are far less impressive. only take about 10 minutes from start to finish for any ammount of the feckers though so its all good and you learn so much from the over all kitchen experience it;s all worth it (within reason).


Michellin starred kitchens have a higher expecation of perfection and you;ll get **** thrown at you if stuff isnt right, but at the same time, I'd rather do that than work in some pesudo upmarket boutique hotel kitchen where you are doing banquest for 200+ people 4 nights a week druing the wedding season and then back in the days between for 14 hour double service shifts where everything is a little less organised and the head chef is lazy fecker who hasnt cooked a meal in 5 years while getting paid 40 hours wages for 80 hour weeks and never really learning a whole lot.

daosulli

Last week in the qualifying rounds the chefs in the Classic test had to cook a desert with a pineapple ( cooking a whole pineapple with some kind of syrup ), it looked amazing, does anyone know what it was????

duploelabs

AFAIK it was just a roasted spiced pineapple with a caramel sauce, not exactly tricky to do. I'm sure one could make up the recipe

LimeFruitGum

I missed the first few minutes of it tonight, but how scary/exciting to make a pastries for Michel Roux Snr.

I would laid into Marianne's

mango desserts

, Nyom! Steven is definitely borrowing from Heston, but it looked really bright and fun to share.

Daniel(?)'s dessert looked so pretty and loved the spiral and wafer decoration thingy. What a great idea to have

tequila & lime

for dessert :-) People don't use that fruit often enough.

*giggles*

LimeFruitGum wrote: »

I missed the first few minutes of it tonight, but how scary/exciting to make a pastries for Michel Roux Snr.

I would laid into Marianne's

mango desserts

, Nyom! Steven is definitely borrowing from Heston, but it looked really bright and fun to share.

Daniel(?)'s dessert looked so pretty and loved the spiral and wafer decoration thingy. What a great idea to have

tequila & lime

for dessert :-) People don't use that fruit often enough.

Nyom, nyom, nyom nom, oh this is delicious!:D

Who wouldn't love to cook for Michel Roux?!? He is a legend in his own right. I thought the whole sweetshop idea was marvelous, although it did sound a little that eejit Heston Blooming-Mental.

Anybody know when the finals are?

glanman

this is the final, it is the three of them doing different tasks all week! They are in Chelsea football club one of the days

*giggles*

^Cheers. Do you know if the final programme is on Thursday or Friday?

glanman

Aren't I the best to ye:D

Tues 20 Oct 2009
20:15
Series 2
Episode 27
The chefs are sent to Chelsea FC to prepare a pre-match lunch for some VIP guests.

Weds 21 Oct 2009
20:15
Series 2
Episode 28
The chefs prepare historic dishes and later, food dedicated to their personal heroes.

Thurs 22 Oct 2009
20:00
Series 2
Episode 29
The three remaining chefs prepare a three-course menu before the final cook-off.

Thurs 22 Oct 2009
21:00
Series 2
Episode 29
The three remaining chefs prepare a three-course menu before the final cook-off. (presume this is the last episode)

*giggles*

^You've too much time on your hands.