ANNOUNCER: Previously on MasterChef Australia...
Please welcome Curtis Stone!
..Curtis Stone rocked the kitchen...
He's like the Thor of the kitchen. (LAUGHS)
..with a cook-along elimination.
I'm not going to repeat everything five times, you guys.
You got to listen the first time.
Dude, he's working fast.
They had to keep on keeping on...
Are we ready?
(LAUGHS) Silence.
..to replicate his pork dish.
What was it like keeping up with Curtis?
Insanity. (LAUGHS)
But Sue had to say goodbye to the MasterChef kitchen.
Yeah, Sue! (CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
Tonight, the world is their oyster
with immunity and a huge prize up for grabs.
How exciting, you guys.
JOSH CLARKE: Oh, what a day.
What a day. What a day.
Right.
Glad you're still here. Clear blue sky.
Oh!
(LAUGHS) Especially after yesterday.
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
ANDY: Come on in, everyone! Let's do this.
Oh!
I'm seeing so many globes.
Are we going away?
I'm hoping that something international is going on.
Oh, it's Curtis. I forgot Curtis is here still.
And the Thor of the kitchen is back.
It's Mr Curtis Stone.
I love globes.
(BOTH GIGGLE)
As you guys know,
I've sampled my fair share of food from all around the globe,
and some of the best meals have had influences from multiple cuisines.
And that's exactly what you'll be doing today.
We want you to draw inspiration from any two countries
and combine them into your very own fusion creation.
Feel free to go wild,
but whatever cuisines you pick,
you will need to incorporate a delicious sauce as the hero.
And trust me, you are going to want to make this sauce
good enough to be bottled.
OK. Oh!
Because not only will the best dish win immunity, but...
Curtis, do you want to tell him?
Well, the winner of today's challenge
will also have their sauce jarred.
And sold in Coles stores across the country until sold out.
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
Awesome.
Sumeet, this could be the beginning of your sauce boss empire!
That would just be like a dream come true.
Love to ace this challenge, would love it.
Right, everyone, you ready?
You got 75 minutes.
You must bring us a saucy dish
inspired by fun fusion of two cuisines.
Huge prize.
We're ready to see some huge flavours.
Curtis, let's do it.
Good luck, guys.
Your time starts now. Go!
Go, go, go, go, go, go, go!
Ah! Oh, sorry, guys.
Uh... Ow.
Sorry, man.
Oh, sorry, Nat. Sorry. (LAUGS)
Sorry, dude.
All the onions in the world.
Oh, fish.
This is really heavy.
Oh, tomatoes. (LAUGHS)
Where are them peanuts at?
A saucy dish inspired by two countries?
Yeah. Game on.
I'm really excited.
Oh! Oh, so heavy!
I got you, I got you.
You got you. Losing a lime.
Me and you, Sav.
Jesus Christ.
My sauce is a Sri Lankan and Thai fusion red sauce.
So it's a curry sauce.
In this sauce you will be getting a lot of heat,
a lot of brightness and a lot of zestiness.
You'll also get, like, the background of the spices in there as well.
People know what a Thai red curry tastes like.
And I think this is a lovely little springboard for people
that want to dive into Sri Lankan cuisine.
It just smells all right.
This is one of the best prizes that you can get in this competition.
So there's a bit more strategy at play.
So I'm serving my sauce with fish today.
If it's gonna work with fish, it's gonna work with everything else.
I wanted a snapper.
I got a beasty Murray cod instead.
Now, I've never really cooked with Murray cod before.
It's... I'm not experienced with it.
But, yeah, I'm determined,
because I absolutely want to see my face on a bottle.
I think I want to do, like...
Or like a...
Oh, my God, this is so heavy.
Don't run out of time. (CHUCKLES)
That's all I got.
Thanks, mate. (LAUGHS) (LAUGHS)
Come on, mate.
Today's immunity is the biggest one so far.
It is immunity into top 10.
And...I get to cook for Curtis Stone!
Where is my beloved?
Everyone is gunning for gold today.
I gotta get... Ooh! Sorry.
But I'm just thinking about impressing him
with my culinary skills.
So I have to nail it.
Today's sauce challenge is all about fusion.
So I'm going to lean into it.
Three countries I'm taking inspiration from today
is China, Korea and France.
And the sauce is a Chinese master stock.
Bringing some of that French influence,
Lots of onions, um, grassiness,
richness from, um, French soups and sauces,
serving it in the style of Korean bossam
with a meat symphony.
I'm making a gruyere rice to go along with the meat platter.
For my braised meats component, I'm using a duck breast, pork belly,
tofu and mushrooms.
OK, OK, OK, OK, OK.
There's a lot of elements,
but Mr Curtis Stone is in the kitchen.
I'm so determined.
I am going to do the most today.
Come on, mate. Getting there.
My onions are taking forever to caramelise.
Guys, this is such an exciting challenge.
ANDY: Fusion is one of those things,
when it's done well, when you get it right and you hit that sweet spot,
that's... And it's like,
"Why haven't I thought of this before?"
"Why didn't I think of that?"
Right, like French-Vietnamese.
We wouldn't have the banh mi without fusion once upon a time.
ANDY: And, yes, this challenge is about fusion,
but it's all about great sauces, you know,
because at the end of this challenge,
someone's going to get their sauce on shelves.
Yeah. CURTIS: The sauce is everything.
Yep.
I mean, there's something about walking into a home
and smelling that someone's cooked for you, right? Yes!
That bubbling, that simmering away.
And at Coles, we sell products for people who are time-poor,
people that want to get dinner on the table affordably,
so if you can create a sauce that packs a punch with flavour
and solves lots of these problems, it's gonna be a winner.
I'm so excited.
I am to the verge of jumping over there
and get somebody out and take over.
Doing good? Yeah, I'm going good.
Are you going good? Awesome, yeah.
Yeah, this is fun.
Having fun.
My strategy is going to stay really true
to my sauce boss philosophy, which is versatility.
OK, so I am making Italian meatballs in my Indo-Italian sauce
with naan bread rolls.
You should be able to pick up my Indo-Italian sauce
and say tonight I'm making spaghetti meatballs for the kids,
tomorrow I'm making a chicken curry
or I'm going to baste my barbecue with it.
Very conscious of the fact that I don't want my Indian spices
to overpower the Italian spices.
They really have to sing a song
that's going to be melodious at the end of it.
Oh, yes.
So I'm using oregano and basil from, you know, the Italian influence.
and my cumin, coriander, chilli and turmeric from a Indian influence.
Sumeet. Hello!
So what are the two cuisines?
Indian? Yes.
So I'm doing Indian and I'm doing Italian.
So meatballs in naan bread rolls.
I mean, my stomach just growled. I don't know if you heard that.
But I love the sound of Indian with the comfort of a meatball.
Yes. That sounds really interesting.
You know, there's nothing better than showcasing the versatility
of Indian curry sauces to the world.
And it's always been one of those things
that I've been really passionate about.
Are you feeling a little bit of extra pressure
because this is the dream?
It totally is the dream.
Lots of pressure. Yeah.
But I'm so nervous.
Sumeet, this is your moment to shine,
so grab the bull by the horns.
Get it! Thank you.
Thanks so much. Thanks, Sumeet.
I truly am feeling a lot of pressure.
Sauce boss has been my thing always, right?
Yes.
Let's bring this home.
So now to have the chance,
my sauce jarred at all Coles stores Australia-wide...
..this is the challenge for me to win.
Because this is... This is life-changing for me.
Ah, yes.
ALEX: Come on.
Better.
I sell sauces into supermarkets,
so I'm approaching this from a very sales point of view.
This could be my product on the shelf,
not my customers' products, you know, not my suppliers' products.
These are my products on other people's shelves
and for the whole of Australia to have access to that,
awesome stuff, massive tick off my bucket list.
It's got to be marketable. It's got to sound cool.
It's got to have a bringing name.
So I'm going to bring a bringing name today.
Crispy. Hi!
(LAUGHS) OK, tell us the two cultures that you're borrowing from.
OK, So I'm using Hawaii and Thai together.
So kind of a spin on, like, huli-huli sauce.
And I'm gonna call it my tuli-tuli sauce.
(GASPS) I love the sound of that. Yeah.
I think a lot of people in Australia
would never have even heard of a huli-huli sauce.
Probably not. Tell us what it is.
It's pineapple-based,
um, and you've got lots of stickiness in it,
lots of sweetness in it.
Um, I'm adding lemongrass, kaffir lime, ginger,
so that you get those vibrant South-East Asian flavours.
And what's your actual dish?
OK, so, huli-huli chicken with rice
and some sort of tropical salad in mind as well.
I've got to say, I love a huli-huli sauce.
And I love the name, the tuli-tuli sauce.
I mean... I know, it's so fun.
Alright. Good luck.
Thanks, guys. Good luck, Crispy.
Oh, he likes the concept, which adds more pressure to my back.
Um, but I feel like I'm heading down the right path here,
so happy days.
It's bubbling away.
I can't even separate yolks. (LAUGHS)
Whoops.
Nobody panic.
Hi, Harry. Hello.
So I'm doing a, um, sort of like Italian-Chinese fusion sauce
with some pasta.
Um, and a protein.
Why Italian and Chinese?
So I've got, uh, Italian heritage.
So, um, Bolognese is in my blood,
and, yeah, I thought if I can do a fusion "Bolognesey" type sauce...
My nonna will kill me for saying that, but...
(ALL LAUGH)
So what's the Chinese part to it?
I've got the five spice in there.
Um, the shiitake, a little bit of soy and some oyster sauce as well.
Oh, wow. Yeah.
I... To me, Italian, like, Italian tomato sauce
is all about the brightness and freshness.
So I think watch out for overcomplicating the umami aspect
'cause I think it could murky it up. OK.
Just make sure you get that balance right.
OK, Harry. Good luck mate. Thanks.
Chinese and Italian flavours -
they're two things you wouldn't normally put together.
So with this sauce,
it's all about balancing those aromats and spices.
But I'm just having fun, you know,
coming up with this weird, wacky idea.
I want to go against the odds and, you know, surprise people.
So I'm going to start, uh, the sauce, essentially
how you'd start a bolognese or a ragu.
Uh, and then, yeah, I guess the Chinese influence
will be like a five spice kind of mix.
I will do my best to make this not disgusting.
And, but also, just like a once in a lifetime opportunity to,
you know, have your face on a product
in a national supermarket such as Coles.
If I got my name on a sauce bottle, Mum would be there in a flash.
She'd be buying out the whole bloody shop.
(LAUGHS)
Harry's Sauce in Coles?
He's gonna have to go and visit my sauce in Coles.
(BOTH LAUGH)
Maybe we can have, like, Gary's Sauce in Coles.
It's a Gill-Harry fusion sauce. Hillian sauce.
Yeah. (BOTH LAUGH)
The two countries I'm using today
is Vietnam, obviously, shock horror, and Mexico.
So I'm making banh xeo tacos.
The simmer sauce is going to be like a really tomato base
with lots of spice of paprika, chipotle.
I'm basically a walking fusion,
so hopefully I'll smash this as well.
ANDY: Back in the happy place with a fish and a sauce.
I want the countries, though. What have you got?
Um, I'm going to do a mix of Morocco and India.
No way!
How come? I wouldn't have picked that for you.
Um, I just really like the spice blend of chermoula
and I really also like a fish goan curry.
Right.
So I'm trying to mix the two together.
(CLANG!) Whee!
That's a fallen knife.
The two countries I'm doing today are America and India.
My sauce is going to be kind of a play on a butter chicken,
but make it really barbecue-y and a whole bunch of sides.
So I really, really want to get immunity.
I've never been up there. It'd be amazing.
Straight ticket to the top 10. Yeah.
CURTIS: Your sauce could be sold around the country.
The only problem is you've only got 45 minutes to earn your spot!
ANDY: Come on! Let's go! JEAN-CHRISTOPHE: Let's go!
Wow, the smell in this kitchen is unbelievable.
So please tell me what is going on.
Concept-wise, I'm into Sav's concept.
Lots of tomato.
I think her two countries are obviously Sri Lankan and Thai.
So she's doing, like, this red curry dish.
Fish over the top, but she said it's very versatile.
You know, it could be veg, it could be chicken.
It could be whatever.
She's going fish and pumpkin as the proteins.
Oh, nice.
Well, I want to tell you about Alex's dish.
She's gonna do a mash up of Hawaiian and Thai.
Cool!
You know, in Hawaii they have that huli-huli sauce?
Yes!
So she's gonna do a tuli-tuli sauce.
SOFIA: That's really cute. Nice.
So, some Thai spices, you know,
the freshness of lemongrass and ginger
mixed in with the sweetness of the pineapple of Hawaii.
So I love the idea on paper, but can she pull it off?
I'm really excited about Sumeet.
Of course, we all know this is Sumeet's challenge.
Sauce boss! Yeah, sauce boss.
And she's doing an Indian curry
and then pairing it with Italian.
OK.
So she's gonna show it on meatballs and in a bun,
but made with naan.
It's showing even more versatility than I thought about.
I am afraid for her in some ways,
because, you know, when you want to succeed so badly at a challenge,
you can really stumble and overthink it. Yep.
The thing that I'm worried about
is that she's going to try to show the versatility too much,
and maybe not focus on the sauce.
It's all about the sauce!
Much better.
My naan bread dough is resting,
so it's just I'm giving it a bit of time to rise a bit more before,
'cause that'll be the last thing that I do.
I'm just getting my meatball mixture ready for, um, uh, the sauce.
My big strategy in terms of sauce boss,
has always been to bring the versatility of Indian cuisine
to the average Australian home to make your life easy.
Alright.
You don't want to be spending three hours making a dish.
You want it to be, like, snappy.
Nothing easier than meatballs.
(GASPS) They're massive, aren't they?
I've got my meatballs shaped up.
I'm doing these beautiful, generous-sized meatballs,
essentially like you would get from a Italian nonna.
Let's bring this home.
I'm happy with the way they look.
I'm happy with the flavours I've got there.
My sauce is pretty much cooked,
so I just have to blitz it together
and then sort of, uh, make it a bit finer.
I don't want it to be too smooth as well
because, you know, Italian, Indian sauces, chunky sauces are nice.
You want a little bit of chunk, we don't want it silky smooth.
Oh, my God.
Yummy!
The smells are incredible.
Having my sauce on the shelves
would just be, like, a dream come true,
an unbelievable dream come true.
SOFIA: Today is all about bringing the world together in a sauce,
and you have 30 minutes to do it.
Whoo! Let's go!
Go, Gill. Go, go, go! (IMITATES RACE CAR PASSING)
Bye!
How are you going, Gilly? Oh, yeah.
Cut short for time.
MIMI: Oh, we're getting places.
So by putting three different cuisines,
so China, Korean and France,
I'm definitely pushing the boundaries
of this fusion challenge.
But if there's any day to do it,
it is when Mr Curtis Stone is in the kitchen.
OK, baby, for you.
My French onion Chinese master stock is in the pressure cooker.
I need to get started on my Korean barbecue meats platter,
and I need to get started on my kimchi.
And I need to get as much of that gruyere stock into the rice
so that the judges can taste it.
Everything is on its way.
If I stick to the plan, I should finish just right on the dot.
Hi, Mimi.
Hi, Poh. Hi, Curtis. Hi, Mimi.
Big fan. Nice to meet you.
I'm just thinking about me sitting at home
and seeing Curtis Stone on television.
And now I'm standing in front of him.
He is...
..so tall!
Nice to meet you too.
I was so excited up there yesterday.
I was like, "I can't believe I'm not down there!"
But I am...
You are today. I'm so glad that you're here today.
What countries are you going to explore for us?
Well, China and France.
But really my family is from Hong Kong.
So it is specifically Cantonese. Yeah.
First thing I thought of was Chinese master stock.
I really want that sweetness to come from onions.
OK.
So the France part of it was French onion soup.
Yeah, right.
I'm making a gruyere rice to go along with the meat platter,
serving it in the style of Korean bossam
with a kimchi and a lettuce wrap.
I see.
Do you have enough culture squashed in there?
Well...
Make sure you don't get too murky and get lost in there.
It is a very tightrope line between fusion and confusion.
GILLIAN: They're going to be deep-fried as well.
Oh! Yep.
Thanks for reminding me. Are you going to run out of time?
No, I'm just running, not running out of time.
Always forgetting something.
You good, matey?
I'm good, babe. How are you going?
Good, good, good. Last...last dash.
Hustle, hustle.
Hustle before the finish line.
Something fruitful better come from this tuli-tuli sauce today.
Because I am really putting my heart into this.
Top 10 around the corner,
massive prize at hand,
another, you know, immunity from the next elimination.
It's a huge win today, whoever's getting it.
And I bloody well hope that's me.
I'm still waiting for my chicken to be cooked in that sauce
before whacking it on the grill.
Rice is on the stove and I'm just going to work out
a little South-East Asian salad number.
Um, OK.
Salad, salad, salad.
So I'm rolling with a little Thai-Hawaiian fusion salad here.
I'm gonna go pineapple.
I'm gonna bring the crispness and the coolness from the cucumber.
And I'm thinking, like, a little tropical note of coconut
and also like a South-East Asian of peanuts as well.
I garnish with lime to kind of counteract the sweetness
of that tuli-tuli sauce.
This tuli-tuli sauce is so much fun.
It's sweet, it's savoury, it's spicy, it's tangy.
It's like a sticky sensation.
ANDY: Where's the tuli-tuli?
My tuli-tuli, it's bubbling away.
That's cool.
Yeah? Cool.
Maybe we can call it a cooli-cooli.
Hey, aren't you the sales rep?
True, true.
You should be selling it to me.
I think I might have.
Sorry, I'm pinching some sugar.
Perfect.
Oh, my God, this pumpkin is so cumbersome.
We're all getting saucy in 15 minutes!
Can I have a fork, please? Two forks?
I'll get it. Thank you.
You got Poh running in high heels.
Oh! I didn't even know the forks were there.
How's it going, Joshy?
It tastes yum.
I do really like it.
I'm making a Jamaican inspired mojo Cuban marinade.
I'm adding a lot of that Jamaican spice to, you know,
make sure that fusion, it hits the brief.
Mojo actually means magic,
so hopefully this ends up tasting magical as well. (CHUCKLES)
LACHLAN: Do you want coriander, Darrsh?
Yeah. Thanks, mate. Just chuck it under there.
You're a legend.
I have made a barbecue butter chicken sauce.
I would love Australia to taste this sauce,
'cause I think it's delicious.
The two countries I'm doing today are America and India.
And it's a bit of fusion.
It's a bit of funky something extra
to your regular butter chicken on a midweek.
Uh, my two countries are Moroccan and Indian.
And I'm going to be doing a Kashmiri chermoula curry sauce.
We'll be right. It tastes... I think it tastes pretty good.
I'm just trying to put some more
of the chermoula spice blend in there
to bring that Moroccan side of it out.
That could be your friend.
NAT: My mom created her own version of satay sauce
that everyone used to just, like, froth on.
I think it's not possible to get a better version
of my mom's satay sauce,
but I do love this Indonesian and Thai version.
I'm gonna serve it with pork skewers.
Let's get it dark. ANDY: Get it!
Get this bread. Let's get this bread.
GILLIAN: Hey, the tacos look great.
They're crispy.
You can definitely taste the fusion of Vietnamese and Mexican cuisine.
Mm!
Every time you hover it fills me with fear.
I'm a hoverer.
It should fill you with good luck.
Great energy.
Yeah. (LAUGHS)
HARRY: Feeling good. Um...
It's just cooking something from the heart, I suppose.
Like it's got Italian
and, you know, I love getting creative with different cuisines.
I'm making a Chinese-inspired ragu.
They might get the idea in the dish, but they also might not.
Um, I mean, if I walked over and just saw that,
I probably wouldn't know either.
So... (LAUGHS)
So I've got my pasta ready to go,
and base of my sauce is on the go.
Are you blending? Yes.
Are you serving it with pasta? Yeah.
(CHUCKLES) Is that alright?
Mate, you can do whatever you want.
As long as it's within the bounds of the challenge.
Yeah, exactly.
I haven't seasoned it yet
'cause I'm seasoning it with oyster sauce and soy sauce.
Give me a yell when that goes in.
Poh said the sauce, it has to be balanced.
I'm just backing myself, yeah.
No, I'm happy with, like, the base of the sauce here.
Doing something weird and wacky,
and I think if I can pull it off,
like, it's definitely something that could be
one of the best dishes of the day.
You're cooking for a spot in the top 10
with only 10 minutes to go!
Come on, let's go!
Move that pasta!
(LAUGHS)
I am so stressed looking up at the clock.
Time is just flying.
Thank goodness that's off.
I finally, finally got my fish filleted.
Hi, Sav. How are you? I'm good, Chef.
So Sri Lanka and Thai together? And Thailand. Yeah, yeah.
Can I taste it? Yeah.
Yeah?
Oh, God.
I've been really distracted by the Murray cod,
and I have completely forgot to actually taste the sauce.
It's still obviously ticking along.
It needs to be finished.
(GASPS)
Wow.
(JEAN-CHRISTOPHE GASPS)
Ooh!
Ooh, that is hot. OK.
So do you think this is the right balance, the right seasoning?
It's not. I didn't...I didn't think I was making it that hot.
I am definitely concerned about the balance of the sauce
and I've literally got no time left to go, to be honest.
We're...we're good.
But, look, you never give up in this kitchen.
You've still got to keep on keeping on.
Alright, cod boy.
SOFIA: Five minutes left, everyone!
SUMEET: Nearly done.
I taste my sauce.
Yummy!
I wanted it to have
the Italian flavours of basil and parsley and oregano
to really shine.
And I wanted it to have a kick of chilli.
And with Indian food and acidity levels all balanced
with some fresh lime.
And it truly has.
I've got my generous meatballs in my Indian-Italian simmer sauce
sitting in a beautiful bowl.
I've got my two naans smothered with
my chilli, garlic, oregano compound butter.
Oh, my God, that's looking stunning!
I'm super excited with the way the dish looks.
It's generous. It's homely.
Oh, my God. So yum.
This is a sauce that if I had it in my house,
I would use it in so many different ways.
I just hope that the judges are able to see that too.
God!
We want magic in a bottle!
You have two minutes to go. ANDY: Come on!
JEAN-CHRISTOPHE: Come on! Let's go. Final push!
(CHUCKLES) Let's go.
GILL: Oh, yeah, baby girl. This is what I like to see.
OK. That's nice.
It's so weird, but it's nice.
Why am I like this, Gill?
Why is it always... Me too.
Once again, I'm running out of time.
I spent so much time on the sauce, I got caught up.
I don't know, I just... I'm freaking out. Like... (CHUCKLES)
Oh!
Whee!
Whoa, whoa, Harry.
Oh, my God.
(LAUGHS)
I've got to start multitasking.
So I'm gonna cook the pipis and finish the pasta at the same time.
Toss 'em through the sauce.
I'm just piling everything on.
It's coming down to the wire.
We're losing our marbles, Has. Oh, I haven't had marbles for weeks.
(LAUGHS)
Come on, let me out, let me out, let me out!
This competition does something to your brain.
And you just think that you have more time than you do.
Save me!
You can't explain it.
(SPEAKS FRENCH)
Only 30 seconds left!
SOFIA: 30 seconds!
I'm opening! (HISSES)
It's the magic and the curse of MasterChef.
It just happened.
Letting off some steam.
I have worked so hard on this three-cuisine dish for Curtis Stone.
Tofu. Let's go.
And the French onion Chinese master stock is ready to go,
and I'm ready to plate up.
I'm just gonna use my hands.
I need to run through the list of things that I need to get done.
Come on!
Because I'm working with so many elements -
lettuce, rice, Korean meat, kimchi.
Not taking it easy on myself today, am I?
That is hot.
CURTIS: Alright, you're done in 10...
ALL JUDGES: Nine, eight, seven, six,
five, four, three, two, one.
Yes! Well done.
Oh, dang!
What?
Oh, my God!
(LAUGHS)
Darrsh! Whoa!
Oh, man. Yum.
Dude!
Oh, sorry, I smashed you again!
Ouch. Sorry!
Well done.
I feel a little frazzled.
I'm just processing.
Um, and I always do this to myself
where I try and get a million and one things on the plate.
Um...
There's no sauce on the plate.
Couldn't get it on there.
I've left...
..the sauce...
..off the plate...
..on a sauce challenge day.
Ah!
The first dish we'd like to taste belongs to...Alex!
Come on, Crispy!
OK, Crispy. What do you call this?
Tuli-tuli chicken drumsticks.
She's pretty happy with that one.
(LAUGHS)
I am, yeah. Very cute.
Tell me about the flavours that are in the dish.
OK, so essentially, um, a huli-huli sauce
is very pineapple forward.
Low notes of chillies and sweetness.
And then I've combined it with the Thai.
So there's hints of lemongrass and ginger,
um, some lime as well.
I think we should taste it.
Your sauce is glossy, it's thick,
it's the right consistency.
It's also too sweet.
Oh, no!
But when I squeezed that lime over it, it totally changed it.
It made it into this kind of sweet and sour sauce,
which is a wonderful sort of a glazey kind of sauce
to put over chicken.
It's good. Well done.
The way you've named the dish is playful.
Even the sweetness of it,
which I...I know is part of the traditional dish,
there's...there's just something really joyful about eating it.
And with that sort of the char on those drumsticks,
I mean, you think of a drumstick or a wing or anything,
like, you want it to be sweet and sticky.
So, Alex, I think you're tuli-tuli is super cooli.
Yeah! I like that you said it.
To get this consistency,
which I have to say,
it is...delicious.
Crispy, well done.
Good job, girl. Thanks, mate.
Next up is Sav. Yeah!
CURTIS: Come on, Sav!
My only thought as I'm walking up to the judges is,
"I hope that the sauce is actually balanced enough."
I really want it to be quite chilly forward,
but not just blow the judges face off.
Sav, what's your dish and which countries are you repping?
I've made a red sauce
inspired by the flavours of Sri Lanka and Thailand
with a cod, pumpkin and some crispy peanuts with lime leaf.
Let's try it.
Sav, the spice work - huge tick.
The richness versus the acidity and warmth,
it is so good.
SOFIA: It is stunning, that, like, vibrant saffron colour.
And all of those warm flavours that people associate with red curry
are in there.
And if you were to take out the big prize,
I just hope that they wouldn't tone down the spice,
because I love it and I think people need to build up their tolerance.
CURTIS: The flavours are even more vibrant than the colour
and you could just literally serve it on anything -
vegetables, chicken, beef, pork, fish - you name it.
You should be proud of it.
Thank you.
JEAN-CHRISTOPHE: I'm mesmerised.
You get attracted by the colours and the smell
and you try to work out what is inside.
It's just you...
In fact, you don't want to know.
You just want to enjoy it.
The textures,
the smell,
the flavours -
it's fantastic.
ANDY: Go, Sav! Thank you. Thank you.
Yes!
Good job. Thanks, guys.
The next dish we'd like to taste is Mimi's.
Yes! Come on down, Mimi.
Ah!
My dish is the least saucy of all sauces in this challenge.
(SIGHS)
Where's the sauce?!
Ran out of time.
Oh, Mimi, you're gonna make me cry.
I know.
Start by telling us what sauce you made
and what two different countries you brought together to make that sauce.
My first thought was Chinese master stock.
I just really wanted to bring French influence into that,
in the form of it being a French onion soup
with Korean meats, kimchi and gruyere rice.
I'm gonna go first.
Mimi, I'm gutted.
Yeah, me too.
I could smell it when I came past your station
and I thought it was really special.
So it's a bummer because the truth is, it's not on the table,
so there's no real way for us to judge it.
Yeah. Yeah.
You need to really grasp your time management.
That is one of the most important things in our business.
ANDY: Good cooking, no sauce.
Learn from your mistakes, is all I'll say.
I'll keep trying. Thank you so much.
Thanks, Mimi. Thank you.
Chin up.
It's huge.
It's huge to have missed the brief on a day like this.
Especially because if I did plate the sauce,
this would have been a knock-out dish.
Good job. All good, my love.
Nat.
I bought Thailand and Indonesia together. Sassy satay.
It looks like a very simple dish, satay.
But what you've done is brought this incredible wave of flavours
and there's...there's really beautiful balance there.
Lachy! Lachy.
I've gone with Morocco and India.
I've made a Kashmiri chermoula fish curry.
ANDY: The pops of mustard seeds come through,
so you're taken to Goa,
but then you're also transported to Morocco with the chermoula.
And then you've got that funk and the twang
from the preserved lemon.
You've done such a good job, man.
Josh Clarke!
I made a Jamaican-inspired Cuban mojo.
CURTIS: Your sauce is bright, it is fruity, it is spiced.
I worry a little bit about the colour,
because what we're talking about here
is putting this in a jar and sticking it on shelf.
But, wow, does it pack a punch, mate.
Thank you, guys.
Gill. Come on, Gill!
What is your sauce?
It's tomato-based with peppers
and I've used Vietnam and Mexico
and made banh xeo tacos with pulled pork.
I can really taste that thing that you're always about,
which is those punchy South-East Asian flavours.
The sauce just needed a bit of reduction.
Thanks, Gill. Thanks, Gill.
Thank you.
Let's go, Darrsh.
I brought you guys a barbecue butter chicken.
So butter chicken - India.
Barbecue from...?
(AMERICAN ACCENT) The United States of America.
(ALL LAUGH)
CURTIS: It's a tasty dish, there's no question. The butter chicken is good.
The barbecue's alright.
It's not bad in any stretch,
but you are up against some crazy competition today.
JEAN-CHRISTOPHE: Well done. ANDY: Thanks, Darrsh.
Well done, Darrsh.
Ari! Ari, Ari!!
Harry!
I was saying Harry in French.
What have you done?
It's an Italian-Chinese shiitake ragusion.
Hey!
Uh, I had a very chaotic 10 minutes.
I gotta say, it is the most un-Harry plate of food,
looks wise, you've ever bought us. I know, I know.
I love seafood, I love tomatoes,
and I like all of those spices.
Making fresh pasta in a time challenge like that
is...is a challenge.
Like, I love the enthusiasm that you brought to it.
I actually think it's quite tasty.
SOFIA: There's like this gentle acidity in your dish
from cooking those tomatoes down
that just sort of creeps through everything
that's...that's quite subtle and really nice.
And I think in an Italian dish it's often a bit punchier
and higher on that acidity level.
So I think that's something that you've done really, really well.
It is actually a really versatile sauce,
and I think it's one that would have
an extremely broad appeal in a supermarket.
For me, I think the...
I don't know whether it's the oyster sauce or something.
Remember how I said to you
the sweetness might kind of...
Inhibit the tomatoes? Yeah.
Cancel out the sweetness in the tomato and become murky.
So I'm feeling like it's almost got this honey flavour in it
that I want...not there.
Like, I'd prefer if it was more acid heavy. Yeah.
But I know how you cook and I know where it's going,
but I think it just needed a bit more tweaking.
Thanks, guys. Thanks, mate.
Thank you.
Better than... (SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY) True.
Next up, the sauce boss!
Yeah!
Just for me to get these judges to taste a bit of my dream
is so profound,
because winning this challenge
would be better than winning
MasterChef Australia 2024.
There's a lot of pressure.
It's crazy that you came in with this dream,
and now this is a challenge.
I...I can't believe it.
I've always had this thing about, you know,
showing the versatility of, um, Indian sauces,
because it does get boxed up
and you just sort of tend to think of only a curry with it,
but it actually can be very versatile.
So, yeah, it truly is a dream-come-true challenge.
Righto, Sumeet. What'd you do?
So I've made for you, uh, my Indo-Italian, uh, meatballs
with naan.
I think we should dive in.
Can I have the dish back, please? Yeah, sure.
Sumeet,
it's not surprising that it's good.
But it's surprising you chose
Italian and Indian.
I was like, "OK. I could see how she'd do an Indian sauce
"and then have a hint of Italian in it."
But it's like when I taste it,
it's like Italian, Italian, Italian, Italian, Italian, Italian.
Indian, Indian, Indian, Indian.
Like, on the palate, it's weird as!
But I love it.
It has this bizarre, you know, feeling
because it looks more like an Italian-style sauce.
The first thing you taste is something like a passata.
And then you get these warm Indian spices coming through,
and it's just like...it literally gives you the tingles.
Sumeet, I think the first thing that strikes me when I taste your dish
is that I just feel so comforted by it.
Right away I'm like, "This is delicious."
I just want to dive in and keep eating more and more of it.
SOFIA: Possibilities are truly endless.
So on a pizza that would be brilliant.
In a wrap, I thought, like shredded chicken or pork
just sort of oozing out the bottom with some melted cheese.
Texturally, this is probably the best consistency
of any of the sauces we've seen.
What I like very much, and I don't know how the hell you did that,
there's acidity.
Is it the lemon? What is it?
I put lime juice to finish it off.
Lime juice. Yeah.
You've been putting lime juice with a tomato, an Italian sauce?
Yeah.
Mamma mia!
I mean, this is crazy.
I knew it. It's fantastic.
It is fantastic.
Thank you.
CURTIS: I mean, it is just awesome.
Thank you. Thank you, guys. ANDY: Well done, Sumeet!
Thank you, thank you.
Oh, my God.
I'm so proud of you. Well done. Thank you.
ANDY: Just take a second to visualise this.
Immunity under your belt,
top 10 locked in,
and people across Australia
running to Coles
to get their hands on your limited edition sauce tomorrow!
Whoa. What?
Huh? Wow.
That's wild.
Ooh!
It was so incredibly tough to pick a winner today.
There were so many of you that made sauces
that we would have loved to have bottled.
But one sauce was completely unique and endlessly versatile.
This cook proved that they are...
..the sauce boss.
(CHEERING)
Oh, my God!
Yay! Oh, wow!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God.
Is this real life? Can you believe it?
I think...I feel like I'm in a dream.
This can't be... I'm gonna just...gotta pinch myself.
I'm gonna wake up from this. This is incredible.
This is nuts. This is so beautiful.
I just am amazed.
Well, well, well.
What a day.
But I think we should say thanks to Curtis.
He's not just a pretty face,
but he's for sure a very talented chef.
It was an honour. So...mate... Thank you, mate.
..it was a pleasure.
Thank you.
Look, I've been coming to MasterChef since the very first season,
and it is such a joy to be here.
It's been so great to meet you.
You are some of the greatest contestants
I've met in this building.
So thank you so much for having me. It was a real privilege.
Congratulations, Sumeet.
You may be guaranteed top 10,
but come Sunday, everyone else is going to have to fight for it.
Go and get ready for the battle ahead.
Well done. Congratulations.
(SQUEALS)
Sauce boss! Sauce boss!
ALL: Sauce boss! Sauce boss! Sauce boss! Sauce boss! Sauce boss!
SUMEET: (EMOTIONALLY) It's life-changing for me.
It truly is.
That voice that tells me, "How dare you dream this?"
can shut up now.
(LAUGHS)
'Cause my dreams just got bigger now.
I can't believe it. That is nuts.
If someone had told me that would ever happen in my life,
I would think not, you know?
ANNOUNCER: Tonight's winning Sumeet's InItalian Sauce
is available in store at Coles for a limited time only.
ANNOUNCER: Sunday night on MasterChef Australia...
Make it through today
and you're in the top 10 of MasterChef 2024.
But to get there,
they'll have to get through
a show-stopping elimination.
Ready to find out what it is?
Yes!
Oh!
Captions by Red Bee Media