We'll see you 6.30 tomorrow.
NARRATOR: Previously on MasterChef Australia.
This Australian fish legend...
JOSH: It's a beautiful John Dory.
..schooled them
with his incredible nose-to-tail-fin butchery.
The way he deconstructs fish is spectacular.
Then...
DECLAN: The pressure seems to be on me being the fish guy.
..they took the unusual suspects
and made them something extraordinary.
If there's anyone in, probably, the world
who can inspire you
to do weird and wonderful things with fish, it's him.
JOSH: It's really yummy. You've done a great job.
JOCK: The fish was cooked beautifully. So good.
ANDY: That was dynamite. It's perfect.
Oh! (APPLAUSE)
You'd be happy to serve that? Absolutely.
(CATH AND RHIANNON LAUGH)
NARRATOR: Tonight, the bottom three
face a Pressure Test with a tasty twist...
THEO: There's no giving up. You just have to keep trying.
..from another Australian legend.
(THEO SIGHS) How's everyone feeling?
Feeling alright. Trying to stay calm.
It's my first time in the Pressure Test.
I actually haven't been close to going home this whole competition.
I hate feeling like this could be my last day in the kitchen.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
Good morning, everybody. CONTESTANTS: Good morning.
Adi, how you feeling today?
First Pressure Test. But I'm just compartmentalising the day.
So I'm not thinking about what all this means.
Just gonna cook.
I've scheduled the breakdown for later, so it's all good.
(OTHERS LAUGH)
Classic type A personality.
Yeah. (LAUGHS)
Grace. You've been in a Pressure Test before.
It's never fun wearing the black apron,
but you get to learn, you get to do something brand-new,
and I'm gonna read the recipe properly this time.
(LAUGHS)
In my last Pressure Test,
I was really rushing my way through it,
which caused me to miss a few steps along the way,
so today my strategy is to stay really focused
and really methodically work through the recipe.
JOCK: Alright, you know what's at stake today.
By the end of this Pressure Test, one of you will be going home.
Now, to today's challenge.
It has been set by a sensational chef.
Loved locally,
known internationally for delicious authentic Vietnamese cuisine.
He opened his first restaurant, Red Lantern, in 2002 in Sydney
and the success was immediate.
He's written cookbooks. He's hosted TV shows.
If we're talking about Aussie legends,
he is a prime example.
RUE: Oh, my gosh!
Please welcome...
..Luke Nguyen!
(ALL CHEER)
Hey.
Luke's in the house. Like, could this be my dream come true?
Hey, folks! How are ya? (WHISTLING)
CATH: Wah!
I love Vietnamese food. I love banh xeo, I love banh mi.
I...I just love this cuisine.
Luke, bloody great to have you back in the MasterChef kitchen.
So good to be back, Andy. How's things in the restaurants?
Excellent. Red Lantern, we just celebrated 20 years!
You're joking. Wow.
The Botanic House, we keep winning awards,
and, um, Vietnam and Brisbane restaurants are good too.
Nice. Yeah.
You just opened a freshy?
Yeah, we just opened a new restaurant called Pho Bar.
Ooh, yum. Which is really cool.
All through Saigon.
And you've been a judge on MasterChef Vietnam.
Yes. Oh, wow.
They really gave me a chance to connect with my heritage,
my culture, the language,
and also the incredible diverse cuisine...
Amazing. ..of the country, yeah.
Righto, Luke, without giving too much away...
Mm. ..what's this dish mean to you?
It's, uh, the first dish that I've ever cooked.
You know, I remember, as a young kid, standing on a milk crate...
(CHUCKLES)
..and just cradling this beautiful pot of food.
Very well done. Yep.
Tiptoeing around the secret. I like it.
But I reckon we rip the bandaid off, hey?
Yeah.
Today you'll be cooking my...
..pho suon bo dac biet.
Oh!
(CONTESTANTS GASP)
Ooh!
It's a pho.
I know this dish. I make pho at home.
Like, God, I really feel like this has worked out in my favour today.
Just for the record, are we 'fer' or 'foh'?
Vietnamese is very tonal, so like you're asking a question.
'Ph' is an 'F'. So you go... (RISING INTONATION) ..'fer'?
(RISING INTONATION) 'Fer'? 'Fer'. That's perfect.
For some reason, my body moved. Yeah. You're, like, "Fer?"
You did go up.
So we're making Luke's pho.
And...
..I'm...terrified.
Oh, that smells so good. Yeah.
This is going to be a huge challenge for me.
Righto, don't just look at it. Tuck in.
Luke, there's many variations of pho.
What's in this specific one?
This is a very special pho to me
because it...it's a really great marriage
of traditional pho in Saigon, in Vietnam,
and our pho flavours and ingredients we have in Australia.
Oh, it's so good.
We have the wonderful broth here,
with the short rib, the beef short rib.
The oxtail. Yum.
THEO: I can taste so much beef flavour in this pho.
I can also taste like a cartilage type...type meat in there.
And we have a very special and unique ingredient.
ADI: Very gelatinous. GRACE: Mmm.
THEO: Mmm. And it melts.
LUKE: It's melting in your mouth?
Melting away. Like, don't even need teeth.
So what you're having is a very ancient delicacy.
Vietnamese and Asians have been eating it for thousands of years.
It's an aphrodisiac.
It is...
..bull's penis.
Oh. Ah.
Have you ever eaten bull's penis?
Yes, I have now.
(LAUGHS)
Definitely didn't wake up this morning
thinking that that was going to happen.
(LAUGHS)
(OTHER CONTESTANTS LAUGH)
THEO: I thought this was 'MasterChef',
Not 'I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here'.
I never thought I'd be eating bull's penis on national TV.
So, guys, this is an ancient delicacy.
My family have been eating it for a long time,
and we're using the whole animal here.
ADI: Yeah. No waste.
Yeah.
Let's talk about what we're tasting here.
Adi?
I love making pho, so I'm super into this.
Yeah?
To get this sort of depth of flavour in the soup takes time.
There's a lot of layers, there's that aniseed flavour,
which is, like, my favourite bit of a good beef pho.
The slick of oil on the top, which, like, coats the palate.
And then, yeah, just a lot of fresh ingredients for the top.
Like, it's...it's deep and it's rich but it's fresh,
and that's just everything that I like about Vietnamese food.
Theo, what can you pick up?
I'm really not the best at identifying flavours, to be honest.
But I... There's so many aromatics in this broth.
THEO: I already know the pressure points in this is the broth.
And then there's Luke's rice noodles.
It's chewy, it's silky, it soaks up that broth very nicely.
I can't wait to get this recipe and just run with it.
This Pressure Test comes with a surprise attached.
Today, you will not be given a recipe.
Instead you'll be relying on your senses
and your memory of what you are tasting right now.
GRACE: Hey, it's OK.
(SOFTLY) Shit.
I don't cook Vietnamese food ever
and, um, I feel like I'm literally falling.
I...have no idea what to do.
MELISSA: We're not going to leave you completely in the dark.
CATH: Oh, there you go.
OK.
We have assembled all of the ingredients
that you need to re-create Luke's pho right here.
But it's up to you to piece them together.
You will have...two hours to re-create Luke's pho.
(MOUTHS)
The cook of the dish that least represents Luke's
in both look and taste will be going home.
Alright, Luke, before we get started,
do you have any words of wisdom for the contestants?
I do.
So the broth has to be clean and clear.
It needs to be flavoursome but very well balanced.
And cook your broth in the pressure cooker for at least an hour.
We'll let you keep your bowl back on your bench
so that you can taste back through the cook and keep referring.
Your two hours...
..starts...
..now.
MAN: Go! (CONTESTANTS CHEER)
CATH: Come on, guys! Come on, you can do it!
Oh, my gosh.
CATH: What a challenge.
Hello. JOCK: Hello.
Here to do some shopping.
How you feeling, Grace? Uh, terrified.
We'll give you the best price. (CHUCKLES)
Bowl of soup. That's all it is.
Yeah.
Bowl of soup that I have never made.
Knowing that the judges have assembled all of the ingredients
is the only thing keeping me hopeful in this cook.
Let's go, Gracie. Come on, Gracie!
Let's go, Grace! Come on!
You can do it! We know you can do it!
I wouldn't know even
which piece of meat to reach for for that bull's penis.
This is a bit of a lifeline
but I feel like they could have been kinder and given us a recipe.
Go, Grace!
Go, Theo.
Come on, guys!
(RALPH WHISTLES)
These guys have got a big job.
They do. No recipe.
From what I can tell, only Adi's made a bowl of pho before.
The other two are gonna be in for a bit of a journey today, I think.
Do you peel it? The garlic?
CATH: I'd just cut it in half like that.
What are we looking for in this first half hour?
What should we see them be doing?
Char the vegetables first - the ginger, the onions -
get that nice smokiness to it.
And then get all the toast, the aromats, all the spices,
get a nice dry, toast on it.
Release all those oils, those flavours.
In a two-hour Pressure Test,
how long until they should actually have that pressure cooker on?
Look, within the first 20 minutes...
Wow! ..you know, half an hour.
Get that pressure cooker up to temperature.
And then it needs to cook an hour after that.
(PRESSURE COOKER BEEPS)
Come on. You can do it. We know you can do it.
Come on, Adi!
Thanks, guys.
I know that I seemingly have an advantage today.
I've cooked this dish before. I know what goes into it.
This is mine to lose today.
Um...and I'll be really upset if I do lose.
I've got my toasted spices, I've got my charred aromats.
My next step is to get these bones and the meat blanching
so that they don't cloud the broth.
Alrighty.
Luke, um, had a really clear broth, so that's really important.
I'm blanching my bones so that I can get rid of all the impurities.
Not sure about whether you are meant to blanch bull's penis,
but we will.
I have never worked with bull's penis before.
Bull's penis does not go into the pho that I make at home.
She just getting the sinew of it maybe off?
Dunno.
RUE: Good job, Grace. RALPH: Good job, Grace.
GRACE: I've got my veggies just roasting off.
And I'm just toasting off some of my aromats.
Even though I've never cooked pho before,
I'm cooking onions and garlic and ginger
and I'm pouring olive oil into a pan.
I mean, these are things I do almost every day of my life.
So right now I'm just, um, putting a little bit of colour onto my oxtail.
I'm here for a reason, and it's not from cooking pho really well
but it's from knowing the fundamentals of cooking
and I think that's what today's challenge is about.
RALPH: Let's go! So much effort. Well done.
Let's go!
Still a Pressure Test. Motor.
There was a lot of cardamom in it.
Feel like there was a lot of cardamom in it.
Absolute crazy that they didn't get given a recipe to work off today.
Would you keep the brown cardamom whole?
There aren't a huge amount of elements, if you think about it.
It's a master stock,
some protein and the sauces and condiments, noodles, to go with it.
Up the front, Adi didn't really brown off her meat.
ADI: Ooh.
Grace did. Grace really got some nice caramelisation on that meat.
Um, then again, it is a clear broth,
and so was it a smart option not to caramelise it?
Um, I'm not too sure.
Should I char my bones?
20 minutes into the cook, I don't know how I'm gonna finish this dish.
Very unfamiliar ground, um, with the pho.
I really don't know what I'm doing, um, at all.
Come on.
Theo.
Hello. How are you, Theo?
Lovely to meet you. How you going? You too, mate.
Good. How are you going?
Oh, yeah, I'm... You struggling?
Struggling, big-time, yeah. Big-time. Why?
I don't... I don't normally cook this...this sort of food.
Yeah. At all.
Without a recipe.
You know, it kind of throws you
because you think you're coming into a recipe
and you don't have one and then...
Um, OK.
I need you to forget about that.
I'm serious.
If you do not forget about that, you're going home.
Yeah, I'm... You struggling?
Struggling, big-time, yeah.
It's really not my...
..not my sort of style of cooking.
Um, OK. Yeah.
I need you to forget about that. I'm serious.
'Cause if you do not forget about that, you're going home.
Do you wanna go home? Nup.
Alright. Forget about it. Mm-hm. Mm-hm.
End of the day, it's a bowl of soup.
Yeah. Right?
Forget about if it's, you know, Vietnamese cooking
and you don't normally do that, it doesn't matter.
It actually doesn't matter.
Put yourself in that mindset about fragrance, aromats, texture.
You can find your way there
because you know flavour, you know seasoning, you know balance.
It's all we're talking about. Yeah, you're right.
Right? Yeah.
Talk to me about your bones. What are you doing?
That's the one thing I was trying to debate
and it seemed like a really clear sort of broth
and I wasn't sure to char 'em off here, but I'm not 100% sure.
Theo, what you said earlier was spot-on.
Those delicate flavours, how they came through.
Whatever you're feeling, trust all your senses.
Yeah. Thanks, guys. That's exactly what I need to hear.
I need to follow my instinct.
Let's go, Theo. I'm not gonna char the beef bones.
I'm just blanching 'em in some hot water first
and then I'm putting them in 'cause I want it to be a clear broth, so...
Yeah, that's...that's how, um, I'm doing it.
I don't have a recipe, but who cares.
You gotta think about the bigger picture.
I wanna win MasterChef and I 100% fight for what I want.
When I was, like, 19 years old, I was 130 kilos.
I was really unhappy with the way I looked
and being in a gym was so hard when you were just overweight
and, you know, you're looking at other people and you're going,
"Oh, well, obviously they've got it easy because look at their body."
But it's not like that.
RALPH: Go, Theo!
If this is what you want, there's no giving up.
You just have to keep trying and keep pushing
and doing the hard work
and then best stuff comes.
How's it smelling? It smells pretty good.
Yeah? Yeah.
At the end of this, someone is going home 'pho' real.
90 minutes to go.
Come on, let's go! Come on, guys!
(RALPH WHISTLES) You got this. Go, Grace!
CATH: Get it in, Gracie. Come on, Theo.
Get it in?
Lid.
Hour and a half to go. I'm first to put my pressure cooker on today.
Alright. Well done, Adi.
Thanks, my darling.
I'm really glad that it's in there and now I can focus on other things.
ANDY: Adi. Hi, guys.
We were gonna look at what's in the pressure cooker...
You cannot. You absolutely cannot.
We got a recipe. You got a recipe?
No, it's more just to like...
Keep you on the straight and narrow.
Keep me on the straight and narrow. Don't go any dumb stuff today.
"No..." (LAUGHS)
"No dumb stuff." I know. "..dumb...stuff."
You know I'm gonna do it even if it's written down, right?
So, Adi, you've written, "Balance. Salt. Sour. Sweet. Bitter."
Look, it's all just... "Umami." There you go.
It's all just things to remind myself.
I'm gonna be experimenting with these noodles,
but feel free to, like, step in at any time.
Is your temperature hot? Nope.
OK, you just... Mate. There you go. There you go.
THEO: It's in.
Guys, it's in.
BRENT: Yeah, Theo. Yooo! Come on, mate, come on.
Come on. Jesus! Let's go!
What, am I down here alone?
(CONTESTANTS LAUGH) I've got my pressure cooker on.
I've got all...all of the things in there
that I believe should be in there
and I hope it comes out to my favour.
Hope it tastes good.
RALPH: Let's go, Grace!
CATH: Come on, Gracie. You can do it, sweetie.
GRACE: Thank you.
All the hard work goes into the broth at the start
into the pressure cooker, and then that's it.
RUE: Good job, Grace.
If you haven't done enough, then right at the end of the cook,
you're not gonna have the same depth of the pho.
It's gonna come down to what kind of broth they've got
and of course, you know,
the chewiness and bounciness of the noodles.
RHIANNON: Looks nice, Adi.
CATH: So you gonna roll them out?
Yep. Uh.
No recipe, but you're already halfway there.
One hour down, one hour to go.
RALPH: Let's go!
CATH: Come on, Grace! Go, Theo! Come on, guys!
My broth is in the pressure cooker.
I now need to move on to my rice noodles.
I have no idea where to even start in terms of a recipe.
But looking at the bench with ingredients,
there's a few hints in terms of what's going to go into them.
I'm not leaning towards the bull's penis or the star anise.
But I can see that there's some corn flour,
some rice flour and some xanthan gum.
Xanthan gum? Just a little bit I reckon.
Um...
I don't know exactly what I need to do,
so this is gonna be sort of a bit of an experiment.
RHIANNON: Come on, guys. You're going really well. Come on!
Come on, Theo! Come on, buddy.
How's that feeling, Adi? ADI: It looks real nice.
It feels real nice. Well done, Adi.
Come on. You can do it!
No claps until it's done.
Predictions - I've got Adi taking it out,
just 'cause at the moment she's in the lead.
My money's on her today.
If I squander this advantage, I will be so upset.
I've made noodles a lot before but they're always wheat noodles.
For my first batch, I've gone with mostly rice flour
but about half that again of corn flour.
I've also added some xanthan gum
which would help the noodles pull together.
Don't wanna go too thin.
Nup.
They just break and they shouldn't.
I... OK. It's alright.
It's not the right dough. I just need to start again.
Yeah. OK.
My dough's just falling apart
'cause it doesn't have the gluten development in it.
I clearly have not gotten my quantities right.
With my first batch of noodles, I went with about 1% xanthan.
I'm gonna increase that to 1.5% and see if that works better for me.
With xanthan gum, you're gonna make it about chewiness.
DECLAN: Mmm.
I can feel that it's much closer to what I wanted from the first ones.
Well done.
I pass my second batch through the pasta machine.
Oh, my God!
Nup.
And the same thing happens.
They're just crumbling.
All this confidence that I had going into this cook is now leaving me.
It's too wet.
Oh, this time I stuffed up the water, which is really annoying.
What am I doing wrong here?
Yeah, it's stuck to the bench. Yeah.
I'm really starting to stress.
Oh, we're all knee-deep in noodle dough,
but you've only got 45 minutes to go!
ANDY: Come on, let's go! RALPH: Guys, let's go!
Nup.
(SIGHS) These noodles are just falling apart on me.
Obviously they need to hold together so that I can cook them
and they're not just gonna disintegrate in the water.
My second batch just breaks as quickly as the first batch does.
All this confidence that I had going into this cook is now leaving me.
45 minutes to go and these noodles...
Like, without...without rice noodles, it's not pho.
So if I can't get this done, then I'm stuffed.
Come on.
I'm on batch number three.
I just keep increasing the percentage of the xanthan by 1%
and hoping that it's gonna come together for me.
I'm hoping that I'm... on my last batch.
Just to know that I am so close to top 10 and it's pho
and I should have nailed it and I'm not, it's killing me.
CATH: OK, you can do this, Adi.
Come on! Come on, love!
GRACE: Alright.
I think it's too wet.
RUE: You still have time, Grace.
My first batch hasn't worked.
My second batch doesn't look like it's coming together how it should.
Yeah, I'm gonna do it again.
I grab a second KitchenAid. I get a third batch on
Got some oil in this one. I don't have any oil in this one.
Um, so we'll see which one comes together nicely.
I slightly adjust the recipe
because I feel like I'm close.
It's just not right yet.
Guys, 30 minutes left on the clock!
ANDY: Come on! Let's go! Come on. Let's go!
RALPH: Good job. Let's go!
(WHISTLES)
CATH: How you going with that, Theo?
I don't know. It just rips apart.
GRACE: How...how wet is yours?
Pfft. Mine's no good, though, so...
It looks way better than mine.
It just splits apart, though.
Right now, there's a lot of struggling with the noodles.
Oh, my God, I've got so many balls of wheat around me.
As I look down, I see the girls,
they are on the third batch of rice noodles.
Far out, this is so hard.
Come on.
I'm locking eyes with Theo.
Pffft! Still not right.
There's fear. There's massive fear in his eyes.
Shit.
But I think he's got the right attitude and he'll be fine.
Any tips on the noodles?
The sooner you roll it out,
the sooner you'll find whether you've made the right dough.
No, I haven't. That's the problem. Yeah, well, then do a new dough.
Simples. Simples.
Alright, I'm gonna start again.
DECLAN: OK, yeah.
Let's xanthan gum the next one up.
I know from experience, working with wheat flour,
that the thing that keeps the dough together is that gluten structure.
But this is not... it's not wheat flour.
Ooh, maybe it says something on xanthan gum.
Oh! "Rice noodles, put..."
No, I'm just kidding. (LAUGHS)
It's starting to click, it's the xanthan gum
that's gonna give it that...that structure.
BRENT: How's that one?
It's definitely feeling, like, a lot...a lot different.
CATH: Yeah, really? Yeah. It feels like a dough now.
OK. That's real good.
I can tell it's better by the way it sticks to itself.
You can tell there's a structure there now.
(LAUGHS NERVOUSLY) We're almost done.
I have spent...well and truly over 40 minutes on this dough now.
Come on.
CATH: That feeling better, Grace?
It's the best so far.
I'm so surprised that it's finally working.
Come on. Come on.
You've only got 15 minutes to go. Come on!
CATH: Come on!
RHIANNON: Come on, keep moving. You haven't got long.
(EXCLAIMS) Look at that!
Yeah! Whoo! Whoo! Whoo!
Look at his noodles. They're holding up.
They look good. They look good. They look... Theo's noodles. Great.
Come on, guys.
Bloody hell. The water.
I can hear the gantry cheering on the guys behind me.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE) CATH: That's it! Whoo-hoo!
And their noodles seem to be working.
Look at that!
LUKE: Wow. They look good! THEO: Yeah?
This is my fourth batch of noodles.
If these don't work for me, I might as well just pack my bags.
Adi. Hi, guys.
Few shakes of the head there. Struggling?
Look, I get the science behind it.
If I'm making a gluten-free dough, I need this as the binding agent.
I just don't know what percentage or what hydration.
OK. If your dough's falling apart... Which it is.
Right? Yes.
So it's not binding. Yes.
The gluten's not... Nothing's working yet.
Yes, yes. What does that mean?
The gluten's not binding. The xanthan's not binding.
Exactly. Yeah, yeah.
In order for this to work... Yep.
The water needs to be hot?
How hot? I don't know.
OK, OK. Thank you. Thanks, guys.
Good luck, Adi.
Thanks, guys.
I cannot believe how long it took me to work out
that I needed to change the temperature of the water
for these rice noodles.
We're just gonna with, like, really hot water now
to see what happens.
Somehow, even though I've tried to be so ahead of this cook,
I'm now left with less than 15 minutes to make these rice noodles.
This is the lucky batch number five.
But I also need to get this broth out.
Strain it, get the oil off and balance it.
Gosh, I'm just trying desperately to finish.
Get out. Get out.
You got this? Yep.
Yeah? CATH: Come on, you've got this!
Grace. Come on.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
DECLAN: Ooh, it's spitting. (LAUGHS)
GRACE: Thanks, Jock. Thank you.
CATH: Come on. Come on, Theo!
Alright. Now I've gotta go.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
It's D-day.
I don't know if I've done a great job or not.
In the beginning, I didn't know what I was doing before with the broth.
When I open the lid,
I'm gonna taste something that either tastes really good
or tastes...really bad.
It's like a fingers-crossed moment.
Yeah! Whoo!
Now, remember what you have to do
once the pressure cooker's open - strain, season, perfect.
CATH: Whoo! Come on, Theo!
It's D-day.
When I open the lid,
I'm gonna taste something that either tastes really good
or tastes really...bad.
(WONDROUS MUSIC)
I open the lid.
I get hit with this waft of beef,
aromas of the aromats, the spices.
How goes it?
I think it goes OK.
Ooh. Ooh, yeah!
Smelling good, Theo.
Smells divine. Thanks, Luke.
And look at your penis. Oh.
I mean, your bull's penis. (ALL LAUGH)
I reckon I've only heard that a couple of times in my life.
(LAUGHS) Shall I back away slowly?
Yeah, it's looking really great. Thank you.
And I think what's a really good sign
is the transformation of textures on the meat.
That means it's... Absolutely, yeah. You can see it.
..it's given everything good into that broth.
I'm so happy.
See, from the beginning of the cook to the end of the cook,
you're a whole different Theo and that is an excellent thing.
That's exactly what you want to get out of this, don't you, you know?
Come on, Theo. Good one, buddy.
It looks the way it's supposed to look.
It smells the way it's supposed to smell.
Have I done something here? Have I actually done this?
Now I'm gonna reduce it a little bit and season and...and balance
and this is where it's gonna come down
to whether I'm meant to be here or not.
I'm just adding some sugar to try and balance it a bit.
Uh, it's tasting a bit too salty maybe.
DECLAN: Oh, they look good, Gracie.
MALISSA: Beautiful. Well done!
Whoo-hoo! They taste like noodles.
RHIANNON: Yay! Look at that!
ADI: Finally happy.
CATH: Oh, well done. Hey? Let's go!
Time to taste, season, adjust and finalise,
'cause there's only five minutes to go.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE) MAN: Come on, come on!
ADI: Oh, not quite. Oh, almost.
MALISSA: Nup, you gotta put 'em in. MAN: Dump them in. Dump them.
Grace. Yep?
Now's the time where you start tasting the original
and you start trying to work out the level of fish sauce,
the level of salt, the level of sweetness, herbs, OK?
Yep. Thanks, Jock.
Now I have a matter of minutes
to try replicate the flavours in Luke's broth.
And I'm tasting his broth,
and it's so beautiful and delicate.
I need to try my best with the ingredients that we've been given
to balance them out as closely as possible.
MELISSA: Grace. Hello.
We're straining, we're balancing, we're reducing.
Yep. We are.
The broth needs to be nice and clear as well.
Yep.
This is looking quite fatty and cloudy.
Yep. So... So let's skim the top off.
Skim the top? Yeah.
Little bit of fat, not too much. Sure.
Thank you so much. Good luck, good luck.
RHIANNON: Nice one, Adi.
Noodles have gotten cooked.
Oh, it's just such a relief to have noodles in the bowl.
Like, otherwise, I'm not serving pho.
I don't even know
if they are definitely like Luke's, but they are done.
Don't drop it, don't drop it, don't drop it. Holy shit.
I'm straining the broth. I pass it through my chinois.
It still has a lot of fat on top.
Now, you do want a little bit of fat on top of your pho,
but you don't want a thick oil spill.
Need to skim all this off, so still got a bit of work to do.
I now need to pass it through an oil sieve and another chinois.
Pass it through, fish sauce, lime, sugar, salt.
BOTH: Balance, balance, balance, balance, balance, balance, balance.
I need to push.
Heads-up, everybody. Two minutes to go!
(CHEERING) Come on! You can do it!
THEO: Trying to strain this a bit more.
RALPH: Let's go!
ADI: I wanted to be relaxed tasting Luke's soup,
tasting mine and gently balancing it,
and now I've got no time at all to do that.
(SIGHS) Rock salt's just gonna take too long to dissolve.
Luke, why'd you do that to me?
I haven't had time to taste my meat,
I don't know if my bull's penis is gelatinous enough.
I don't know if my broth tastes the same as Luke's.
This is gonna come down to a lot of luck
and I didn't wanna leave it up to luck.
One minute to go! (CHEERING)
JUDGES AND CONTESTANTS: Come on!
RALPH: Let's go, let's go! CATH: Come on, Gracie.
MELISSA: Come on! CATH: Come on!
THEO: I'm tasting Luke's, I'm tasting mine.
I'm referencing, I'm balancing,
I'm putting a little bit more sugar in mine.
A little bit more fish sauce.
More fish sauce.
I think I'm getting there.
I think I'm figuring out what they mean by 'balancing'.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
Pretty good. JOCK: Let's have it, gantry!
JUDGES AND GANTRY: 10, 9, 8,
7, 6, 5,
4, 3, 2, 1.
That's it! (CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
Theo! I think it's pretty good!
CATH: Oh, Adi, sweetie.
ADI: Oh, my God! Ohhhh! Adi!
Holy moly.
Oh, my gosh, guys. Good job.
Onya, Theo. GRACE: Go, Theo.
Thanks, guys. Good luck.
You've got this. Thank you.
I'm really proud of myself today.
JOCK: Theo.
Hey, everybody. How you going, mate?
MELISSA: Hi. Yeah, very good.
I knew that I was gonna finish a dish because I never give up,
but I can't believe how well I've done today.
I'm so happy with myself.
ANDY: Righto. Wow.
Theo. Here we go.
Hello, everyone.
Hi. Hello, mate!
You come off the back of a cook where you didn't really think
at the beginning of that cook that you were gonna get through this.
No. And now you have.
And you're happy with it. Mm.
Sitting there right now, what's the goal?
The goal is...to win it, to be honest.
Love it! Yes!
Like, and I think I can.
And that's what, like...
Yeah, it's giving me a lot of hope.
Can I just say... 'Cause I was the same.
Yeah.
Went in and I was like, "If I last a day, fist-pumping."
Yeah.
And then I started to last a few more days.
And I started to get competitive, but I was competitive with myself.
Yeah. So lean into that.
Be competitive every time you walk in this kitchen.
I think we're gonna taste. Appreciate it. Thank you.
LUKE: Here you go, Jock. Alright.
Feels really nice.
His noodles look good too. Mm.
The noodles look... Nice.
That's pretty good, huh? Nice and long.
Ready. Thank you.
Nice slurpy noodles. Mm.
What you want.
Well, this is very good.
It's very close to yours, mate. Mm. Absolutely.
Let's start with the broth. It's packed full of flavour.
It is rich but clean.
Yep.
The noodles have got great bite, they're a great texture.
Perfect.
I'm so impressed.
It's jam-packed full of flavour.
The short ribs that he's put in there.
You know, the bull's penis was packed full of it as well, right?
So he's really allowed the texture of that to come through.
The seasoning is really good as well.
I think he's done it really, really well.
I'm excited because you're excited. Yeah.
To have someone cook without a recipe and do it as well as Theo did,
it's written all over your face.
I love it.
I loved everything in that bowl.
I thought it was...
..pretty close to perfect. Yep.
It's a sign that this competition for Theo, it's all up there.
For someone to be able to adapt as quick as he did,
you know, on the noodles, on the broth, on the whole thing,
it's...it's special.
Good luck, Gracie. (SOFTLY) Thank you.
There were lots of times today that I felt like just giving up.
Those noodles almost got the best of me.
But I finished.
JOCK: Grace. MELISSA: Hi, Grace.
Hello. How you going?
Good. How are you all? Good, thank you.
Alright.
I have given this my absolute best in the time that we've been given
and I'm hoping that it might be enough to keep me safe today.
Alright. Here we go.
(DRAMATIC MUSIC)
NARRATOR: In the mood to cook?
these delicious MasterChef-approved recipes
on 10 play.
MELISSA: Grace.
Have you come to terms with the possibility
that you could be going home?
You never feel safe in a black apron.
Um...this very well could be my last day here.
But I'm so...so proud that I got this far.
Alright, well, thank you so much.
We'll taste your bowl of food. Thank you.
ANDY: Thanks, Grace. See you, Grace.
LUKE: Thank you.
What do we think?
Luke, how does it look?
There's quite a thick layer of fat over the top there.
It's an interesting thing about pho.
You can really smell the fat content.
Yeah.
Just gotta taste the flavour. Yeah.
I think what she did do well were the noodles.
Noodles are great. Nice and bouncy and silky and soft.
Seasoning - I think it's good.
The fish sauce, to the palm sugar. (LAUGHS)
Um, but in terms of everything else,
I think she's just off the mark slightly.
My mouth is covered with greasy fat.
Yeah.
She's roasted them at the beginning. Mm.
And so I found it heavy, I found it greasy.
It's somewhere between, you know,
when we make a classic French beef stock, for example,
and it's got that robustness about it.
Yes.
It's not as clean and fresh as your one,
where they've just been blanched and scrubbed and cleaned
in natural sort of light beef flavour.
And I have to say, I loved the noodles.
I thought they were silky, they were slippery,
they had a nice texture about them.
But for me, when you bring that bowl up to your face
and inhale that aroma,
it feels a little muddy, a little cloudy.
It's not as good as it could be. Yep.
All the best, Adi. Good luck, Adi.
The more I'm thinking about this dish,
the more I'm thinking, "Adi, you might have stuffed this up."
MELISSA: Hi, Adi.
Hi, guys.
"You didn't give yourself enough time to balance out the pho."
God, I couldn't have asked for more.
I got pho today
and I still feel like I'm going home.
Adi. Hi, Andy.
First Pressure Test. Yeah.
I really felt like this was my challenge to lose today.
I wasn't fazed by the lack of a recipe
'cause I have a recipe in my head.
And I'd just be gutted.
And to feel like I got so close to top 10, which is like a milestone,
I'd...I'd be gutted.
The reality is there could be some little hidden detail in there
that actually sends you home.
Yes.
I think we're gonna taste. Thanks, guys.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thanks, Adi.
Presented nicely. Yeah.
The short rib looks quite good.
Yeah.
Thank you.
It smells good.
I think I was expecting a little bit more, to be honest.
One thing she did get right is the clarity of the broth.
LUKE: Yes. It's beautiful and clean.
And she really hustled to get her stock on
and in the pressure cooker first
and it's meant that all of the protein is cooked so well.
Um, but the broth,
it's got so much potential.
The spice is nice,
but with a little bit more seasoning,
it really would have taken it somewhere near yours.
I agree.
I feel like if the flavours were concentrated a little bit more,
a little more fish sauce, a little bit more sugar,
then we're really rocking and rolling here, I think.
The fragrance was...was great.
I think the ratio of the cloves to the cinnamon, the cassia
and the black cardamom was spot-on.
The seasoning let her down.
I thought if anyone was actually gonna give us
as close as possible to yours, it would be Adi today.
Agree. Just goes to show, you never know.
and adding those bulls' penis to it, guys.
Thank you so much. Thank you.
ANDY: Give it up for Luke Nguyen. JOCK: Yeah!
(RALPH WHISTLES)
Even without a recipe,
one of you still managed to produce something
as close as it could be to Luke's without being identical.
The broth was luxurious.
The noodles were spot-on.
That pho was cooked by...
..Theo.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE) CATH: Oh, Theo.
Oh, buddy!
Oh!
Well done.
CATH: Yes!
I really never would have thought
that mine would be the top dish today, no way.
RUE: Oh, man!
Adi and Grace...
..for one of you, the MasterChef adventure ends here.
It came down to your broths.
Adi...your broth lacked seasoning.
Grace...
..you didn't skim the fat off correctly.
And that left us with a greasy mouthful,
which is why I'm sorry, Grace, you're going home.
I'm sorry, honey. It's OK.
(SOFTLY) Wow.
Oh, Grace, please don't let this one cook
overshadow all of the incredible dishes
that you've brought us here in the MasterChef kitchen.
It's clear to us that you love to cook.
And we hope that you throw yourself into it even more as time goes on.
This has just been the coolest life experience ever.
I'm so proud of what I've been able to achieve here
and... (SNIFFS) ..yeah, I'm excited for what's next.
Grace, it's been absolutely incredible
to watch you over the last couple of months.
But for now, I'm sorry, it's time to say goodbye.
Thank you.
I'm sorry, honey.
This competition has skyrocketed my love and passion for food.
Thank you for everything. Well done, Grace.
No, thank you.
But I'm definitely going to take what I've learned here
and I'm excited to use it in the real world.
Thanks, Jock. Thanks for cooking for us.
Well done. Well done. Alright.
(LAUGHS)
I've really, really tried to put all of my heart and soul into it.
Give it up for Grace, everybody! (CHEERING)
And I would hope that my boys can grow up
to also put their heart and soul to everything that they do.
I really hope I've made them proud.
It's always tough when someone leaves the MasterChef kitchen.
But let's take nothing away from this moment.
It's official.
You are the top 10 for MasterChef 2023!
Yes, you are!
(CONTESTANTS CHEER AND EXCLAIM)
NARRATOR: Tomorrow night on MasterChef Australia...
Curtis Stone! (CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
CATH: Oh, my God!
..this huge Aussie legend...
Holy crap, Curtis Stone! (CHORTLES)
..takes our top 10 under his wing.
This is a lot. You ready to move tonight?
DECLAN: Yes, Chef! But...
Curtis is in the thick of it.
He's got two kitchens
to try and hustle here.
Let's go. Come on!
Can they live up to
his Michelin-star standard?
This steak's not cooked. Refire it. Take it back.
All of them? All of them.
Captions by Red Bee Media