MasterChef – Dessert as downfall … again

No, no, no, no, no. Please, please, please please, please.

I didn’t want him back … you didn’t want him back. Nobody wanted him back.

No one wanted the cock-sure Ryan Umane to return to MasterChef. And if you did, you’re lying.

None of the main contestants we left last week went up against each other in any sort of challenge. Instead, we got the return of Stacey (ousted last week), Josh, Tali, Tanya, Cowboy Mike, Anna, Scott and Ryan back to do their thing, a mystery box challenge with one ingredient picked by each of the six. Of the combined ingredients, a dish needed to be worked which would vault them eventually into a top 2 showdown, with one of those two stepping back onto MasterChef. Nice little twist.

With portobello mushrooms, a pork chop, celery, condensed milk, wine vinegar, chocolate buttons, a pomegranate and heavy cream as the items to be used in the challenge, it would be interesting to see what they came up with. Of the dishes created (including “crispy celery” (?) and a few items which were either over or under cooked) the two winners going head to head were Ryan — who did a stunning pork chop with mushroom and celery ragu (“One of the best dishes you’ve cooked” per Gordon) — and Josh who turned out an incredible chocolate mousse.

The following hurdle for these two standouts to overcome was a fruit tart. Yep, dessert. Ryan’s previous downfall. The fun would be to see if it would be his downfall yet again.

I like to think the flub he made was his mistake of integrating maraschino cherries in his tart. You don’t put maraschino cherries on a fresh fruit tart. I don’t care how good the tart ends up being, maraschino cherries are a manufactured, “fake” fruit; they are to be used as an accent, not as part of a main ingredient. It was never stated this was the case (I believe David did call out “Why are there maraschino cherries in this?” however) but I honestly and truly believe this inclusion was the one that didn’t garner Ryan the brownie points he needed.

Still, all through the process of creating the dessert, Josh struggled. Mightily. From his jigsaw puzzle of a crust to the eleventh hour composition of the barely-cooled dish to his almost haphazard-looking layout of the finished tart, it appeared he was struggling from start to finish. But to find out the contestants voted unanimously for his creation with not a single vote going Ryan’s way, well … that was justification right there.

My “No, no, no, no, no. Please, please, please please, please” whining through most of the show was heard by someone. I think it was Josh who heard it.

Notes:

•  Again I ask: Who puts maraschino cherries on a fruit tart?!? (Ryan does, fortunately …)
• If I heard the words “flavor” and “elevator” in proximity to one another one more time, I was going to blow.
• We learned this episode Tali still can’t cook.
• I sure would have liked to have seen Cowboy Mike or Stacey up there in a 3-way with Ryan and Josh.
• I was wondering, exactly, how the voting process was going to go with the judgement of the tarts. The only fair way to go about that was as a blind taste test, not know who cooked with dessert. I’m glad that’s exactly how it went down.

Quotation:

“I see Frank up there rolling his eyes at you … but what Frank doesn’t know is how delicious this is …” — Joe to Ryan discussing his pan-seared pork chop

Clacked by Michael Noble
on Jul 24, 2012 @ 12:15 EST5EDT