Original subtitles

ALL: Ooh!

MAN: It's a mystery.

WOMAN: Big mystery boxes.

Morning, everybody!

Morning. Good morning.

Good morning.

Welcome...to Wonder Down Under Week!

CONTESTANTS: Ooh!

All week long, we'll be celebrating

Australian food, ingredients and chefs.

Starting right here with this mystery box.

This box has been designed to push you.

And not by us.

Ooh! Uh-oh.

The chef that created it is an icon.

She's worked in food for over 25 years.

And her success, it speaks for itself.

An executive chef and an entrepreneur

with her own restaurant, brand and catering company.

Mm.

She literally wrote THE book on cooking with native ingredients.

Oh!

From the Komet Tribe of the Meriam people of the Torres Strait,

please welcome Nornie Bero!

(ALL WHOOP AND CHEER)

Oh, my God. Nornie walks in and I'm obsessed.

Hello. I'm actually a huge fan.

She's so passionate about the native ingredients

and I really love that about her.

Hello, you.

Hi! SOFIA: Good to see you.

Hi, legend.

ANDY: Hi, lovely. How are you?

Good to see you. You too.

Nornie, welcome to the MasterChef kitchen.

How are you? We are so excited to see you!

Thanks for having me. Are we excited?

Yeah!

You're such a trailblazer with native ingredients.

What is your mission?

Well, I think that native Australian should be in every pantry.

I think they're just so unique to us.

You know, I'm very proud to be an Australian.

For us, for the future, I'd like to see it more

as not just a little thing on the side,

but it's actually the main thing.

So when people come from anywhere around the world,

you'll know what Australian cuisine is.

I love that. Yeah, that's so cool.

CALLUM: Australia is this incredible melting pot of,

yes, different cuisines and cultures,

but we've had the most amazing native ingredients

growing right in our backyard.

I'm so excited for this challenge.

Well, are you guys ready to find out what you're working with?

Yes! Let's do it.

Go for it, Nornie.

CONTESTANTS: Ooh!

Alright, Nornie, give us a little tour.

So we've got the emu fillet on here.

Yabbies, mackerel,

pepperberry, which is really versatile.

So think about it as savoury or sweet.

Warrigal greens - our own Australian spinach.

Strawberry gum, saltbush,

pearl onions, yams.

Sunrise Limes, native tamarinds and ooray plums.

Laura, you look chuffed as.

Yeah, if I could scream right now I would,

but I don't want to break anyone's eardrums.

(LAUGHS)

And then we also have the golden syrup too as well.

I bet every time you went over to your nan's house,

they whipped out the golden syrup.

Yeah.

So it's one of those legends that is pretty much in all desserts.

BEN: I don't have a huge amount of experience

cooking with native ingredients.

The only thing I've cooked with is golden syrup.

I'm going to have to taste as I go

and figure out how to make something delicious.

Nornie has whipped up three incredible dishes

to help inspire you.

Ah!

All three of them feature the ingredients

that you're looking at right now.

Nornie, take it away.

First up, these are my Sydney rock oysters with pepperberry mignonette.

So pepperberry is a real versatile thing.

Like I said, it can be savoury or sweet.

What we've done here is take the essence of the pepperberry

to make the mignonette.

My next dish is...

I love this one!

So this is our island damper

with tea grass and warrigal greens,

but it also has saltbush in it,

going with our golden syrup butter.

And I've got to say, like, you know,

even my mum doesn't make damper anymore for us

'cause she wants to eat mine all the time, so...

SOFIA: Oh, that's a good sign. That's the ultimate mum comment.

That's the ultimate compliment that I could ever get.

And my last one up...

Oh!

..is a yam cheesecake.

Ah! ..with quandong.

CALLUM: Looking at the three dishes that Nornie brought,

I'm feeling super inspired.

So I think the idea of using yam in a cheesecake is really cool.

And that damper is something that I grew up kind of cooking

and making a little bit as a kid when we have camp fires.

and I think with, like, golden syrup butter

would be a very good time.

Now, we're giving you 75 minutes.

You're cooking with Nornie's mystery box ingredients,

as well as your usual under-bench staples.

The pantry and garden are closed.

The bottom four dishes will send their makers

into tomorrow's elimination,

where someone will be going home.

Think outside the box and don't be afraid to use the flavours.

Your time starts now!

Alright. Love it.

Mwah!

AUDRA: The fact that we have to cook with native ingredients today,

I'm really nervous because I don't cook with it very often.

I just have to really hone in and trust flavours,

trust my instincts and just go for it.

Oh, God!

Yum.

Hello, Ben. Are you pleased, yeah? Very tasty ingredients today.

I mean, I'm not familiar with any of them, but I'm enjoying the process.

CALLUM: Beautiful.

Um, they're all foreign ingredients,

which is strange because we're in Australia,

so a great learning curve for me today.

Oh, that is tangy.

Looking at the room, what would you say to people

who are seeing these ingredients for the first time?

Well, I think for them it's just taste everything.

Mm. Really do, like, taste it.

Oh!

'Cause it's power-packed, right? Yeah.

You get, like, all this amazing flavour.

But how do you handle it? Yeah.

So they've got to have that touch of not overdoing it

by trying to introduce some techniques,

trying to be clever in order to represent your lovely ingredients.

Yeah.

I have to say, as someone who loves a mystery box,

I actually love getting boxes like this

because these are the ones that make you cook purely on instinct

when you're not familiar with the ingredients.

So I loved your advice - taste and use with restraint.

Yeah. Yeah, less is more.

It's actually yum.

The red plums are kind of very sour, but so delicious.

And I see the yams.

And I do have this dish in my mind.

Believe it or not, just finished with the Sweet Week,

but I decided to do another sweet dessert, yeah.

So I'm going to try to collide native

and my Serbian heritage as well

and make this beautiful sweet dessert.

So today I'm going to make knedle.

It's potato dumpling.

This is such a traditional dish in Serbia,

but I'm going to make it with native ingredients.

And I just hope all this flavour is going to work together.

Snez. Andy.

How are you going? Hi.

I'm a huge fan.

So beautiful to meet you. So excited.

So, what are you making? I really want to blow your mind, OK?

So, 'cause I'm kind of relatively new to Australia,

and I really want to embrace what Australia gave to me,

but I want to kind of keep my heritage.

So I'm going to make this, like, we call them knedle.

It's like a little dumplings stuffed with the plums.

And then we roll them in breadcrumbs and kind of deep-fried.

I like that you're using yams. Yes.

Yes. I really do.

Have you ever used the ooray plums before?

I know they're super sour,

but I also have this little golden syrup caramel.

So I'm gonna put it with the plums inside of my knedle.

So it's going to be kind of sweet-and-sour.

I feel like if I nail it, it could be...

Come on. Thank you.

I obviously love cooking with native ingredients.

So today I'm going to make a dish called Yabbies And Yams.

So I'm using pretty much all the ingredients

from the mystery box beside the plums, the tamarind and the emu.

So, yeah, a lot's happening in here. (CHUCKLES)

There is so much pressure on me today.

The first time I left this kitchen back in season six,

I went to work for Jock

in his restaurant, Orana,

which was all about native Australian food.

Laura, you are loving this! Sick!

Your face, I was just watching your face the whole time.

I'm just like...

What are you going to wow us with today?

So I'm going to do a dish called Yabbies And Yams.

It's pepperberry butter-poached yabbies.

Mmm!

I'm gonna do a warrigal green and yam veloute.

I've, like, half roasted the yams in there, like in foil.

So it's kind of the whole idea of, like, cooking in the earth,

they were kind of grown, essentially.

Yeah. I think it's one of those things where,

you know, you're familiar with these ingredients so that

just means the expectations... Yes, I know!

..are so high for you.

Yeah, that's I'm just taking my time

to think through everything very, very carefully.

Yeah, good. Very carefully.

I think with native ingredients,

they're just such big, bold flavours.

I just need to make sure I'm using them in the right way.

I need to nail it. There's just no other option!

ANDY: Don't forget, we're looking for the bottom four today.

One hour to go!

(CLAPPING) ANDRE: Oh, wow.

Smells lovely, Audra. Thank you.

DECLAN: Alright. Very good.

DEPINDER: Oh, my Lord.

Look at that! So good.

I really love using native ingredients.

The dish I'm going to make today is emu carpaccio.

Eating a raw emu dish is probably

not something a lot of people have eaten,

but I assure you, it's gonna be delicious.

I'm going to do it with a warrigal greens emulsion,

an ooray agrodolce and some yam crisps.

I've got so much ooray on me. Ha-ha!

Ooray! Ooray.

But when I first saw the ingredients of that Mystery Box,

something that stood out to me straightaway was those yabbies.

Because it's something that as a kid,

I'd go out yabby-ing,

boil them in salted water, and make yabby sandwiches.

So I'm also thinking about making a damper and yabby dish.

I'm a massive fan of Nornie's

and I'm really excited for this challenge,

so I just hope I can do these ingredients justice.

You're going sweet? Eh?

You decided to go sweet?

Yeah, I'm going sweet. Yeah, me too.

I don't normally cook with native ingredients,

so I've decided to go sweet today.

And I'm going to make native ice-cream sandwiches.

Theo! Hello, hello.

Hi. Hey, Nornie.

Sugar means sweet?

Sugar means sweet, mate.

Going with a native ice-cream sandwich.

So I've got strawberry gum and golden syrup parfait,

and then pepperberry biscuit on the outside.

OK. And you think that's enough?

I hope so, yeah.

It's ice-cream sandwich.

It's just got to be perfect. OK.

Not just...not just flavour-wise,

but texture-wise as well. Yeah.

Like, that biscuit needs to have the perfect chew to it.

So that's a tough one.

Yeah.

I hope it's enough. Yeah.

Yeah. OK.

'Cause you got to make it shine, right?

Mm-hm. Good luck, mate.

Thank you.

Nornie and Andy are worried that it's not enough,

this ice-cream sandwich, and I'm really stressed out now.

I am doubting my decision.

I don't want to be in the bottom.

I'm anxious and I don't know what to think.

THEO: Nornie and Andy are worried that it's not enough,

this ice-cream sandwich.

So I'm going to try and incorporate more native ingredients.

I've never used ooray plums before.

I'm tasting them as I go and they are sour and tart.

But I love the taste and the colour is so vibrant, it's amazing.

I want to showcase that in the centre of this ice-cream sandwich.

So for this ooray plum centre, I want it to be jammy and beautiful

and sour and tart,

and with a bit of sweetness, but I want it to ooze out as well.

We taste, we're gonna try and then go from there.

Hey, Sarah. Native mystery box.

You lovin'? Yes.

Yes. Look, they taste incredible.

I haven't tried a lot of these ingredients before,

but I really love them. Yeah. What's the dish?

So I'm making... I'm calling it a Native Sea Pearl.

So I've got our mackerel,

which is going to be a cured coating on the outside.

So create a really beautiful sphere. Yep.

And a little yabby centre.

And then a gribiche as the base.

I'd like to see what it's going to turn out to be.

Sounds good. Thank you. Good luck.

Thanks.

It's really difficult to balance such strong native ingredients,

especially in such a conceptual dish.

But if I can pull it off, I think it could be a top dish.

Hey. Mm!

(CHUCKLES) Getting your sweat on again.

Am I? Yeah.

Not too bad.

Feeling really good.

Beautiful abundance of ingredients

here, native ingredients, might I say.

I'm the quintessential skippy here on the show.

And, you know, lucky enough

to have lived my whole life in this beautiful country.

I think this is going to be a really fun challenge.

Declan! Hello, ladies. How are you?

What are you doing?

SOFIA: Declan's his name, mackerel's his game.

Mackerel is my game today.

It's going to be served on top of

this ooray plum emulsion that I'm making.

Um, have some fried yams on top

and a saltbush, like, vinaigrette damper.

I grew up, like,

cooking a lot of food like this. Yeah.

A bit of a hunter-gatherer myself. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um, like, I love these ingredients. Um, Australian ingredients.

Like, they're so full of flavour.

Yeah. Aren't they?

Just have to be used in the right way, balanced in the right way.

A lot of astringency that you have to control, yeah?

I like that - astringency. There is.

Um, so, yeah, I want to cook you guys a hearty feed.

Good luck! Thank you.

Bold.

I'm just keeping level-headed and calm.

Um, there's a lot of stuff on my bench,

so I need to do a bit of a tidy down soon.

I think Loz might yell at me.

(LAURA LAUGHS)

No. Otherwise, I'll do it for you, darl.

Oh, beautiful. Yeah, I gotcha.

OK, guys, no time to lose.

45 minutes to go!

(CLAPPING)

Oh, wow. It's amazing! Pepperberry?

Pepperberry. First time I've ever tried it. Amazing.

I'm gonna do a mackerel dish with a pepperberry beurre blanc.

Got no idea about these ingredients!

So I'm learning on the job 100% today.

POH: Audra! Hi!

What are you making?

So I'm gonna make little kueh pie tees.

Oh, wow! And then do an emu tartare.

I really love this idea. Here we go.

Pop it in.

Oh! OK.

It's so satisfying. How cool is that!

And it just gives you texture straightaway.

Depinder?

Hello. I'm going to be doing a native Eton mess.

I'm gonna do a pepperberry meringue.

On the base, I'm going to do a jam with ooray plum.

So, are you familiar with our produce?

Yeah, I think so. I think I'm pretty happy with it.

I'm using pepperberry, I'm using ooray plum.

Excellent. Thank you.

The one thing that I've learned over my time

with native ingredients is they can be quite strong,

pungent ingredients, which is great.

But when you're using a lot of them, that can be too much.

Today I'm making a dish called Yabbies And Yams.

So, in the bottom of my dish,

I'll have my warrigal greens veloute.

A veloute is an emulsion of a stock, a vegetable and a fat.

And today I'm using the yams, the warrigal greens

and then lots of butter to create this beautiful, velvety sauce

that's going to really help coat all of those ingredients.

I'm tasting this veloute, and it needs to be yammier.

I'm just adding all the last little bits of yam,

as well as some Sunrise Lime,

because that's going to help bring out

all those beautiful natural flavours.

Yammy, yammy!

Oof! It's hot!

It smells terrific in here.

And there are some really exciting dishes out there.

Come on, let's do this.

Snez is probably...

I think, if she can pull it off, that'd be really, really super cool.

I mean, she's coming with us with a yam dumpling, you know?

But it's going to be a sweet.

It's going to be a sweet yam dumpling.

SNEZ: My dumpling's yum!

But I love that she's bringing her culture into these flavours.

ANDY: Yeah. What about on the flip side of that?

What are you a little bit nervous about?

I think Sarah.

Yeah. Yeah.

She's really thinly sliced the mackerel...

Yeah. ..laid it out,

and she's gonna kind of roll it up.

So, it's called this seafood pearl. And cured it?

Yeah, a little light cure on it.

It is a really great idea, but she could have really used...

Amped it. ..amped those natives

and really went for it. Yeah.

I'm a little bit worried about Theo.

He's doing a... Ice-cream.

..native ice-cream sandwich. Sandwich. Yeah.

Is that going to be enough?

It might just be a bit too...

Simple. ..simple.

Too simple.

You did say less is more! I did say less is more.

He probably got it wrong! Yeah.

I'm joking.

SNEZ: Panic at the disco!

THEO: You're alright, mate. Keep going.

Thank you. No worries.

We're expecting yam-azing food!

You've got 30 minutes to go!

Oh, my God.

My emu carpaccio dish is pretty much under control.

ANDY: Callum. Hello, gang.

How are you going? NORNIE: Hi.

How are you, Chef? Nice to see you.

Good to see you. What are you making?

So, I'm going to do emu carpaccio. Nice.

I'm going to blast it over coal so it's, like, really burnt

on the outside and really raw in the middle.

Yep.

I'm just mucking around with these yam crisps to kind of scoop it up.

I like it. So, yeah. So, I was...

I'm contemplating making a little damper...

Ooh! ..to serve with it.

Which I thought should be fun. Which I know you're famous for, Nornie.

So... I like this!

I would love any damper-related advice you've got.

(CHUCKLES) Ooh!

Look, I mean, damper is one of those things.

There is a secret to it, but I can't give it to you.

Oh, that's a shame.

Yeah, well... Poker face?

..good luck! Ha-ha! She's good.

Yeah. She's good.

My version of damper and Nornie's beautiful damper,

learnt over generations, is not the same thing.

Nornie is, like, world-famous for her damper.

So, yeah, there's a bit of pressure on these little breads.

I need to make sure that I absolutely nail it.

CALLUM: Today, I'm making barbecued emu carpaccio and some yam crisps.

It should be nice and crunchy. We're gonna...

We're gonna have some lovely, um, excitement.

I'm gonna actually start plating this carpaccio up now.

So, I'm gonna lay it all over the plate.

Gonna season it with that pepperberry salt,

some of the warrigal greens emulsion,

the ooray agrodolce, crispy saltbush and those yams.

And I'm really happy with dish A,

so I can sort of put that to the side

and now it's on to that damper and yabby dish.

So, I'm gonna have a crack at this damper.

We'll see how it goes.

The idea of this damper and yabby dish for me

is effectively my childhood memory of eating yabby sandwiches.

So, I've got these beautiful little strawberry gum leaves

that were in the mystery box.

And I think that, if I cook it on those branches,

it's going to impart a really gentle

kind of strawberry eucalyptus flavour through the bread,

which I think will be really fun.

So, that's my strategy. I hope it works.

(CHUCKLES)

I'm unsure if I'm going to be able to get a damper

up to Nornie's standard, and it's something she's famous for.

So, yeah, bit of charriness never hurt anyone.

I'll have a little taste of my tester in a second

and see how it goes.

High-intensity bread cooking.

Holy mackerel! Only 12 minutes to go!

(JUDGES CLAP) SNEZ: Oh, my God.

ANDY: Smells good, mate.

DEPINDER: Oh, my God. Yum.

Snez, are you going for it? Yeah?

I'm really going for it today. Yeah.

So, today I'm cooking knedle.

In Serbia, this is like dumpling

stuffed with a whole plum.

I'm going really good, and my ice-cream is looking great.

It's churning up. It's almost done.

Syrup is ready.

I just need to finalise these little dumplings,

fry them, and I need to make sure they're perfect.

Muscles would be good.

So, to make my dumpling dough,

I'm squeezing my yams through the potato ricer.

Gee, I need some muscles here, Theo. What's up?

Teamwork. Shall I squeeze it through?

Try it. (CHUCKLES)

Yes!

Thank you. That's enough. No worries.

After I put my yams through the potato ricer,

I grab a little piece of the dough and make a nice ball,

make it nice and flat.

I'll put one caramel centre in the middle...

Woo!

..one whole ooray plum,

and I'll wrap it nicely in a nice, beautiful ball.

This is such a traditional dish in Serbia,

but I never use purple yams before.

I had sweet potato, had normal potato,

so I have no idea how this is going to turn out.

If I nail this dish,

I feel like it's going to be a really good one.

But if I fail... Yeah.

Quite a bit on the go.

I need to just kind of start pulling it all together

and working on those flavours.

I feel like, when it comes to ingredients

that are kind of foreign and unknown,

it's important to make it look beautiful.

So I'm presenting my dish in this gorgeous shape of a pearl.

The exterior is the cured mackerel.

Inside is my confit yabby, a little gribiche as the base.

Gribiche is essentially a cooked egg sauce.

My native sea pearl straight on top.

And I'm going to fill each of those onion pearls

with some of the ooray plum reduction.

It will be a really tangy, sweet element to my dish.

I want it to come through, but I don't want it to overpower.

Is that still on fire?

No. DECLAN: No.

Trying to burn me! (THEY CHUCKLE)

I'm feeling really good.

I'm, you know, I got Loz to my left, Sarah to my right.

Can I have it?

Oh, no! It's got the shell on it!

It's like that turquoise team challenge a couple of weeks ago.

Is there any more paper towel? Oh, yeah. Here you go.

Oh, thanks. Thank you.

It's time to plate up.

I want this delicious, charcoal-butterflied,

soft, oily mackerel sitting in the middle of the plate,

swimming in an ooray plum emulsion.

You're going to have the tartness from that ooray plum...

Yummy!

..all these little crispy bits of fried yam on top.

Salty, salty yam.

And then, you know, a nice, fluffy, fried saltbush damper

to go with it on the side to mop up all that sauce.

THEO: Happy? Yeah.

Grandpa taught me how to fish

and taught me how to make this delicious damper.

And today Declan is my name and damper is my game.

LAURA: I think you actually will reincarnate into a fish.

ALANA: Look at the time. Let's hustle.

Beautiful.

Hot! Hot!

CALLUM: (EXHALES LOUDLY) Yum.

Sorry. Am I taking over your space? No. It's OK.

Quite possibly? We're all good. We're all good.

The judges said that the ice-cream sandwich has to be perfect.

And now I'm just really trying to focus on perfecting this dish.

So I take out the centre

of my golden syrup and strawberry gum parfait.

I've got my cookie loaded with pepperberry.

I then load that with some caramel and the ooray plum reduction.

It gets sour and tart, but I love the taste,

so when the judges bite into it, it's kind of like a jam doughnut.

When you get into the centre, you get this beautiful ooray plum

getting into your mouth.

To finish off these,

I wanted to put a little N on top for 'Nornie' and 'native'.

I'm sucking up a little bit here, but whatever!

Oof!

I'm expecting big things. Two minutes to go!

(JUDGES CHEER AND CLAP)

LAURA: I pull my yabbies out of the butter and I give one a try.

Mmm!

And it is so delicious.

You can really taste that pepperberry coming through.

I am so happy with these.

Now, though, I need to focus my time on plating.

I want to be able to taste everything

but just the right amount of.

That is such a vibe.

SNEZ: They look gorgeous, actually.

My dumplings look beautiful.

They're actually all even-shaped.

I do have enough for each judge, and I also have one for me to try.

Oh, my God. Yum!

Everything is coming together and what I envisioned,

it actually looks exactly like it.

Love.

And I'm so, so, so proud.

You don't want to be in tomorrow's elimination!

One minute to go!

ALANA: Yum, yum.

CALLUM: How beautiful is that! Oh, my goodness.

Ah!

To plate my damper and yabby dish,

I want it to be the yabbies and the mayo

and the damper all on the plate - kind of grab a bit of damper,

grab a yabby and swoop it through that yabby head mayo.

Get your dishes on the plate!

10!

JUDGES: Nine, eight,

seven, six,

five, four,

three, two,

one! That's it!

Good job. Good job. Smashed it.

Yeah. (JUDGES APPLAUD)

Well done. DEPINDER: Wow.

Oh, my God! Oh, my God, Callum!

THEO: I feel like this is the perfect ice-cream sandwich.

Whether it's enough or not,

you know, there's a lot of good cooks here today,

so we'll see how that pans out.

Definitely don't want to be in the bottom four today.

So everything is crossed.

With Nornie Bero in the kitchen, it was only fitting that we gave you

a mystery box using native Australian ingredients.

We're going to see how you went.

But a word of warning -

we are looking for the bottom four today.

First dish we'd like to taste...

Come on down, Callum.

Thank you.

I feel really proud of what I've cooked in this time.

JUDGES: Oh! Here we go!

But the biggest risk I took today was making this damper dish.

By pushing myself, I could have actually put myself in jeopardy

for that bottom four.

Tell us - what is your dish?

So, it's a barbecued emu carpaccio

dressed with an ooray plum and golden syrup agrodolce,

with some yam crisps to scoop it up,

and then a barbecue damper with yabbies and a yabby head mayo.

Where that dish came from was,

when I was like eight or nine years old,

I got a, um, for Christmas, like a yabby net,

and there's heaps of little creeks and dams and stuff

around the Barossa where I grew up,

and we'd just go home and chuck them in a pot,

and I'd just have, like, cheap square white bread,

mayo from the fridge, and yabbies.

Ooh, yum. It was just a yabby sandwich.

So it's kind of an ode to that.

Nice. ANDY: Love it.

Callum, these dishes absolutely celebrate

everything that was in Nornie's mystery box.

There's so much detail in every element,

down to these yam crisps

that you've sprinkled full of that pepperberry.

Everything was just beautifully balanced.

The damper was such a win for me.

It was so tender and just melted in my mouth.

I think you've done a fantastic job. Thank you, Poh.

If you would have just given me your emu carpaccio,

I would be just dancing.

But then you added your yabbies with the damper

on the strawberry gum leaves as well.

Thanks for the extras. You've overachieved, Callum.

You've overachieved! Fabulous!

Absolutely...

Your delivery of everything on that plateau is...

..is you, Callum.

Thank you. Thanks, everyone. Really appreciate it. Thank you.

Good job.

Declan, you're next.

Mm-hm...

What have you made us today?

DECLAN: I've done a charcoal mackerel

with an ooray plum emulsion.

Declan's your name... And fish is my game.

Yeah!

Declan, Nornie is my name,

yam is my game.

Oh, I love it! (ALL LAUGH)

I love it.

Let's dig in. Please.

Declan, it is a really good dish!

You've done really, really well.

I love the way you butterflied the mackerel.

You've cooked it beautifully. It's full of that smokiness.

The little fried yam straw was so yummy.

And what do you think of the damper, Nornie?

Oh, look...

Pretty good, mate. Like...

I really loved it, actually. The damper really was...

I kept wanting to go back for more.

And that saltbush, like, salt - ooh, yeah! - made your dish,

like, elevated it even more.

Every bite you take is just like, "Oh, yum. Yum. Yum. Yum."

Amazing job.

Now, your emulsion,

your ooray plums emulsion,

is absolutely sublime.

It is perfection.

It really contributes to the fish.

You've done a stunning dish. Well done, mate.

Thank you. Wham bam, thank you, yam.

SARAH: Well done, Deckers. JEAN-CHRISTOPHE: Well done. Thank you.

Great work. Killed it.

The next dish we want to taste is Theo's.

THEO: I'm happy with the flavour of my ice-cream sandwich.

I just hope there's enough ooray plum reduction in the centre

to ooze out and just cover your mouth.

Oh, wow.

A little N for Nornie. Ah!

Theo, what have you made?

So I've made native ice-cream sandwiches.

The biscuit is a pepperberry biscuit.

Then you have a golden syrup and strawberry gum parfait.

And then the ooray plum reduction in the centre as well.

So the N is for 'native'.

N is for 'native' and 'Nornie'.

I thought it was a Z, but it's OK.

Oh.

Ooh.

Theo, what is extraordinary and which I love the most is

your ooray plums.

They're not too sweet.

It's exactly what the food itself is about.

But the problem is your cookies, your little sable.

They are a little bit too thick.

I think the biscuit really let you down.

But your ooray plum - that's lovely,

but I would have liked more of it. Mm-hm.

You know, because you just get it in the middle.

But your dish needed that for the other elements to come through.

Yeah.

The experience for this ice-cream sandwich for me

should have been biscuit, jam, parfait, caramel, biscuit,

so in every bite you're getting the full experience, balance,

through all the characteristics of the native Australian ingredients

that you've got in here.

There's a few flaws, though. I'm sorry, mate. Thanks, Theo.

(APPLAUSE)

The next dish we'd like to taste belongs to Audra.

AUDRA: Today I made you little kueh pie tee

with emu tartare

and a lime sambal.

I really like the sambal. Give me that every day of the week.

This is probably the best piece of tartare.

Congratulations to you.

SOFIA: Depinder.

DEPINDER: I've made a native Eton mess.

The strawberry gum ice-cream is incredible.

And all together with that ooray plum jam,

it's actually ended up being an incredibly well-balanced dish.

Well done.

Alright, Andre, what have you got?

ANDRE: Charred mackerel, pepperberry beurre blanc

and a little bit of plum syrup.

POH: I really love the dish. It looked beautiful.

I can see that you feel really invigorated from that cook,

and it's from making your way through the unknown.

I think that's what you came back to do.

Yeah, I think you've done a great job.

Thank you, thank you. Ta.

Sarah, you're next.

SARAH: I'm really proud of this dish. I think it looks stunning.

It's a beautiful pearl shape

filled with little, subtle hints of natives.

Hopefully that's enough to keep me out of the bottom four today.

Ooh.

It looks very intriguing.

ANNOUNCER: Which fan favourite will lift the MasterChef trophy?

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POH: Ooh.

It looks very intriguing.

What have you made us today?

Native sea pearls.

So I've cured the mackerel.

Inside is confit yabby

and, um, gribiche on the base,

and a little sprinkle of the pepperberry.

Alright, let's taste.

SOFIA: What's the middle look like? There you go.

Oh, that looks great.

Sarah, I really like the cure on your mackerel.

I love the gribiche.

I loved all the bits and pieces inside.

It has turned out exactly how you described.

My only criticism would be that I think you might have showed

a bit too much restraint on the native ingredients,

because I can taste them there,

but I think I just want a bit more dynamism in each mouthful.

Sarah, firstly, beautiful-looking dish,

but I'm still searching for more of the native kind of flavours

in and amongst it.

And I thought that I might get it from that ooray plum reduction

inside those little petals,

but there just wasn't enough on the plate.

I would have liked it if you probably would have...

..maybe taken those eggs that you had

and pickled them in the pepperberry and then put them in your dish.

It would have been so much more of a surprise on the inside.

Yeah.

Your presentation was really lovely,

but I would have loved to have just a hint more of the natives in there.

JEANÐCHRISTOPHE: Yes, in all, there's a lot happened there,

but I would have liked to have a little bit more punch to it.

Thank you.

SOFIA: Thanks, Sarah. ANDY: Thanks, Sarah.

LAURA: Well done. DECLAN: Good job.

Oh, yeah...

We'd love to taste your dish, Laura.

I definitely felt the pressure today.

I'm the girl that loves to cook with natives.

Pretty.

Laura, what's in the bowl?

So, yabbies and yams -

butter-poached yabbies

with a warrigal green veloute

and roasted yams.

Were you feeling the pressure today?

Definitely.

Um, not just because of, like, how good everyone is

at this point in the competition,

but I know these ingredients very well.

I should know how to tame them.

I think it looks beautiful, so I'm really excited to try it.

You just might need to cut the yabbies.

There's only three yabbies. Sorry.

Yeah, I'm not cutting it for them.

It was already on my fork.

Oh. OK.

A lot of pressure today, Laura.

A lot of pressure.

That is unbelievably delicious.

The butter-poached yabbies were so well cooked.

The veloute - amazing texture.

And that is the beauty about native Australian ingredients.

They have the tendency to take something from good

to, like, exceptional,

and that's what happened here.

I was, like, so excited to see the warrigal greens in there.

And that just brought it all together.

But I think for me the winner was when I had the yam.

That little taste, like hint, it was just like perfect.

Oh, thank you so much. Thank you.

Laura, taking a spoonful of every single element in your dish,

it just shows how well you've come to learn

native Australian ingredients.

You've used so many of them to create a dish that is so cohesive.

Yeah, the hot streak continues. Well done, Laura.

Thank you. Thank you.

The next dish is yours, Alana.

ALANA: Pepperberry and golden syrup parfait

with a salted Sunrise Lime granita.

POH: I think all the elements work really well together,

but I think you underestimate how strong that flavour is

'cause I couldn't taste the pepperberry at all.

ANDY: Ben, what have you got?

BEN: A golden syrup and ooray plum mousse,

a pepperberry ice-cream, some yam crisps,

and a little golden syrup crumb on there.

Is that a whole pepperberry in the ice-cream?

I got one. I got one too.

Ben, it looked a million bucks, so props on the presentation.

And I thought you did such a good job...

..and then I got a whole pepperberry and it blew my absolute face off.

Jamie, what did you make?

JAMIE: A saltbush and pepperberry crusted emu,

warrigal greens and ooray.

NORNIE: I can see that you have worked with natives before.

You've got, like, lots of flavour in there,

but I think you could have really kind of went even further.

There needs to be a bit more sauciness.

Probably, from your box, the plum -

you could have easily made a sauce with it.

Next up, Snez!

SNEZ: I'm pretty proud of my dessert.

But it's not just about being safe today.

It's definitely about impressing Nornie as well.

I want her to like it,

and I want her to see that connection of my upbringing

and me here in Australia.

(JUDGES EXCLAIM EXCITEDLY)

NORNIE: I love it.

What have we got?

This is yams dumplings with plum.

And I have strawberry gum ice-cream and a little syrup.

I'm very excited about this. ANDY: Get stuck in there.

Oh, whoa!

That's cool.

Snez, you said today that, more than anything,

you just want to impress Nornie.

Yes. What do you reckon?

What do you reckon?

Do you want a job? Yes.

(LAUGHTER)

I think that was absolutely fantastic.

Yes! It was really, really lush.

Thank you. So rich.

Thank you so much.

That's next level of what I like about sweet and savoury together.

That really did blow my mind.

And that syrup - ooh! You know, you could bottle that.

What are they call in your...? We call them knedle.

I've never had them before, but it was really delicious

and such a lovely experience.

I think you've done such a brilliant job.

Thank you.

And I love that you've married the two cultures.

That was flat out incredible.

Having the yam in there, it's so earthy and it's so robust.

It allows the sweetness of that little caramel centre

and then also that little tart gnarliness of the ooray plum.

This dish could be, like, one of your signature dishes...

Yes! ..because it is so uniquely you.

I think you did so well. Thank you.

They are fabulous dumplings.

And what I really, really, really love -

this wonderful strawberry gum flavour ice-cream.

It is a delight. I swear there are too many people.

I would be licking that plate nonstop.

Yes! (LAUGHS)

Go for it. Keep on cooking this way.

Thank you.

Thanks, Snez! Thank you.

I wanted Nornie to like it, to say, "Yeah, love the flavours."

But the fact they really all embraced it and they loved it,

it means a lot to me.

I can breathe. Oh, my God.

Good job. So well done.

Well done.

ANDY: What a challenge!

You got to work with Nornie's faves today.

Fair dinkum, you used them to your advantage.

There was three dishes we could not stop raving about.

Snez.

Callum.

Laura.

So clever, so delicious.

Well done.

Well done, guys.

I think you all did really well.

And it really is a great way of thinking

how forward we are going with native ingredients.

So, keep up the good work 'cause I really did enjoy it.

Give it up for Nornie Bero!

Unfortunately we're not just looking for top dishes today.

We have to send four of you into tomorrow's elimination.

Ben.

Theo.

Sarah.

Jamie.

Tomorrow is going to be very tough.

So good luck and good night. Thank you.

Good night. Everyone.

ANNOUNCER: Tomorrow night...

POH: Please welcome Curtis Stone!

(CONTESTANTS EXCLAIM)

He's back. Come on, guys, you can do this.

And the stakes are even higher this time around.

JAMIE: This is now top 12.

I don't think there's any chance Curtis is taking it easy on us.

If you're not keeping up now, you're in trouble.

Who will keep up with Curtis...

LAURA: Come on, come on, come on, come on.

..and keep their place

in the competition?

THEO: You make a mistake,

it's quite difficult to catch up.

It's gone.

It's gone. Nah.

Theo, what's happening?

JAMIE: One small thing...

(GASPS)

(CLATTERING) Oh!

..can send you home.

Captions by Red Bee Media