Original subtitles

ANNOUNCER: Previously on MasterChef Australia,

KEYMA: (CHUCKLES) How cute! Oh, my God!

Dainty little thing.

..but huge expectations.

Hard enough trying to debone this little thing. It's like microsurgery.

These ingredients make me look fat.

They all proved that good things come in small packages.

JOCK: That was a bite of perfection.

ANDY: You have just knocked that out of the park.

But Aldo, Mindy and Montana

were in the bottom three.

Tonight...

MONTANA: One in three who could be going home today

is such high odds.

..it's a massive pressure test

that will leave them shell-shocked.

# 'Cause you're hot, then you're cold

# You're yes, then you're no

# You're in, then you're out

# You're up, then you're down

# You're wrong when it's right

# It's black and it's white

# We fight, we break up

# We kiss, we make up

# You're hot, then you're cold

# You're yes, then you're no

# You're in, then you're out

# You're up, then you're down. #

ALDO: Consequences, they're high.

And I'm finding myself in today's pressure test

against Mindy and Montana.

Whoo!

Mindy, she's got the knowledge.

She runs a restaurant. She's an intuitive cook.

And myself and Mindy, we haven't done a pressure test.

And Montana, she has already done three.

It's like a machine that's been already oiled.

So, I need to fight so hard to stay in this competition today.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

ALDO: Ohhh...

Good morning, everyone. CONTESTANTS: Good morning.

Now, you are wearing black aprons. That means you know what day it is.

Just when you think it can't get any hotter in this kitchen...

..we're dialling it up again.

(MINDY CHUCKLES NERVOUSLY)

This pressure test is set by a chef at the top of his game.

He is at the cutting edge of culinary trends,

has incredible pedigree in terms of training.

And to top it all off, he's just a really great guy.

(LAUGHTER)

Please welcome head chef and owner of Sunda and Aru in Melbourne...

(GASPS) Khanh Nguyen!

Wow!

(APPLAUSE)

ANDY: Yeah!

Hello.

Khanh Nguyen... (LAUGHS)

This guy is on fire at the moment.

Hello.

How are you, mate? Good, thanks. How are you?

He's got two restaurants in Melbourne.

His food is unbelievable

and he cooks Asian flavours with native food.

Can you believe it?

Khanh, welcome back to the MasterChef kitchen.

How does it feel? Oh, it's good to be back.

Yeah? Yeah, I've been waiting.

Been waiting. What's been happening, mate?

What have you been up to? I've been quite busy.

Aru is fairly new, so...

Yeah, I've been busy on both restaurants

and, you know, first time running two restaurants,

just running back and forth.

You know how it is. Yeah.

Anyone eaten at Aru or Sunda?

Yep.

Almost...almost everybody. A lot of fans in the room, mate.

I hope you enjoyed it. (LAUGHTER)

It was really good.

They might have been, but it doesn't mean they liked it.

I've never heard anyone say that they didn't like either of them.

It's always like, "It was the best."

Thank you.

Last time you came in the kitchen,

you brought us one of the most memorable recipes

I think we've ever seen - the banh mi Wellington.

Very long pressure test, very intense

and very hard to replicate.

How does this stack up?

It's just as hard. I think it's just as hard.

Yes. I reckon it's harder.

(LAUGHTER) MEL: Yeah. Way harder!

Why don't you put them out of their misery, mate?

Alright.

Today, you'll be cooking my...

..seafood plate.

(GASPS)

Come on in, guys. Come and have a look.

ALDO: Oh...

I don't know if I should laugh. Should I cry? Should I run?

Seafood plate - I can see there are five seafood elements

and that's freaking me out right now.

Khanh, why don't you talk us through this?

What am I looking at? Let's go from here. Let's go from here.

We'll start from the oyster.

So, freshly shucked oyster served with a coconut curry vinaigrette

and then, moving clockwise,

we've got a rice crisp and we've got freshly picked spanner crab

that's folded with sunrise lime, desert lime and finger lime.

We've got coconut mayonnaise and Vietnamese nuoc cham.

Moving on, you've got the Shark Bay scallops,

and then you've got a native green curry with nori garnish

and lemon myrtle oil.

And then you've got scampi here.

And then, finally you've got the 'Storm Bay' clams

served with paperbark oil and a dark palm-sugar glaze.

What you're about to taste

contains 99 ingredients.

ALDO: Oh, my God.

143 steps.

13 pages.

Oh, my God!

It's a big one.

Dive in. Let's go.

Oh, my God.

Loaded with flavour. Yeah.

I'm pretty comfortable with the sort of flavour elements of this cook.

I've made a curry before. I've made an oil before.

Native ingredients is something I'm familiar with,

but the cook on the seafood,

it's not something that I do a lot,

and that is definitely the bit that I'm scared of with this one.

Just the first one.

It gets better. Does it?

I hope so. I believe it.

Oh, the flavour is insane.

You wouldn't think that seafood

could have so many layers of flavours.

What Khanh is adding on to each of these components

is elevating not just the seafood,

but it's adding dimensions of flavours.

You're getting sweetness, smokiness, you're getting herbaceousness,

you're getting sweet-sour pops from finger limes and desert limes.

Like, there is so much flavour going on in this plate.

Every single dish tastes different.

And I'm just trying to keep everything, like, in my mind

so I can make sure I execute it perfectly.

Khanh, talk me through some of the major pressure points here.

Every single piece of seafood is cooked differently, in its own way,

and it's all different.

Cold oysters, the crab needs to be at a certain temperature

so you can actually pick it off the shells.

The scallop just lightly seared

the scampi are cooked medium-rare,

one end to the other.

And then not too far on the cooking on the clams,

otherwise it's too chewy.

This is not just five pieces of seafood.

This is five separate dishes on one plate.

The cook on the seafood, there's all these different types of seafood.

You have to get the cook on them perfect.

There's a lot of work ahead of us today.

Righto, guys.

You have four and a half hours

to replicate Khanh's seafood plate.

Far out.

Of course, this is a pressure test.

So, the dish that least resembles Khanh's in both look and taste

will send its maker home today.

Khanh, I think it's only fitting that you send these guys off.

Let's do it, mate.

Alright. So, good luck.

If you need help, just read the recipe.

(LAUGHTER)

OK.

Alright. Your time starts now.

(ONLOOKERS SHOUT ENCOURAGEMENT)

Go! Go!

Let's go. Let's go.

Four and a half hours to re-create Khanh's seafood plate,

it is ginormous.

There are 99 ingredients, 13-page recipe with 143 steps.

JULIE: Oh, my God. Look at that recipe.

It's like a bloody fiction novel.

I don't cook with 99 ingredients.

My usual style of cooking

is to have just no more than 10 ingredients happening.

So, my strategy today, I want to make sure that everything is done right.

Everything is measured to the tee.

I need to follow the recipe. I've got to take my time.

MINDY: Scatter the rice over the tray evenly and pour on the water.

First thing the recipe says is to puff rice.

I need to get this on straightaway

because puffed rice is going to take a lot of time

and this needs four hours to dehydrate

before it can be deep-fried.

Oh, this pressure test.

I tell you what, if I could pick one, this would absolutely be it.

I'm feeling really confident cooking with these ingredients.

It's going to be a lot of fun.

I'm in heaven.

DANIEL: Good on you, Mon.

JULIE: That's the way, Mon. You're going great.

Bloody powering ahead, hey? Mm.

MONTANA: I want to work as quickly as I possibly can today.

I basically saved my own butt in the honey pressure test

by absolutely motoring in the start of the cook.

I want to take that into this pressure test

and just move as quickly as I possibly can.

Any sort of speed bumps or things that I don't do right,

I want to have enough time at the end of the cook

to fix those mistakes.

So far, I've got my rice in the combi oven,

I've got my lemon myrtle oil done and my enoki mushrooms done.

When I tasted Khanh's scallop, the first thing that jumped out at me

was that lemon myrtle oil.

It was so fragrant

and you could smell it before you even tasted the dish.

And that native green curry tasted so complex.

Working on my green curry at the moment.

Oh, God, it's just ridiculous amounts of ingredients.

It's just so hard to keep track of.

DANIEL: Yeah, Mindy.

SARAH: Aldo, I love you. You've got to motor.

Hey, Julie, there's not 'mush' room in that pan.

(CHUCKLES) Well done.

Cumin, coriander.

I've just finished steaming my enokis

and I need to move on to the native green curry

that sits right on top of the scallop.

Five grams of light palm sugar.

I need to make sure that mine is almost exactly the same as Khanh's,

if not exactly the same.

So, I need to follow his recipe to a tee.

And it is this big.

How did I know that you two would come along?

Come on! How's it going?

How are you? Yeah, great.

I feel... I feel pretty excited about today.

We're meant to be freaked out and terrified,

which I am kind of underneath at the same time.

But if there was a pressure test for me,

far out, I reckon this one had my name on it.

And I really want to do justice to this dish

because I feel like this is a masterclass for me

that's hopefully going to take my food to the next level.

Don't take your time too much, though.

No, no, I'm not taking my time. There is no time.

Trust me. I'm not taking time.

I'm, like, motoring along.

But I've got everything happening kind of at once

and we've got to just keep moving.

The vibes are high. I'm loving it, Mindy.

Yeah, thanks. Keep it up.

Good luck. Good luck. See you, guys.

This curry is beyond belief.

I've never tasted a curry like it.

Yum. That smells delicious.

It's very aromatic. It's floral. All those amazing, aromatic flavours.

Curry smells good.

The huge advantage for me is actually knowing all these ingredients.

These are things that I love to cook with.

Galangal, lemongrass.

I would hate to be in anyone else's position

when you don't know what these ingredients are.

ALDO: Mindy, which is the river mint?

It's dried, mate. It's dried, Aldo.

Dry?

You've got 99 ingredients and you've got to plate every single one.

Three and a half hours to go!

(CHEERING) DANIEL: Let's go, guys. Let's go!

Yes, that one's done. Yes.

Next on the list says the element to make is the native green curry.

DANIEL: Let's go, Aldo. Move quickly, mate.

I don't make curry

because there are so many things that go into the curry.

I'm getting very confused with all those spices now.

Reading the recipe,

there is 25 ingredients that are going to be in the curry.

I'm not going to be able to do that.

I actually I don't know them.

I'm just freaking out.

Far out.

OK. Get your head around.

For me, too, reading the recipe, matching what I'm doing as well,

it's very time-consuming.

Oh, jeez. I'm running so behind, am I?

Yeah. You've got to hustle, mate. Move faster.

I need to find a loophole to get out of this situation.

Otherwise, I'm seriously, I'm going to be the one to go.

Stay calm.

ALVIN: Come on, Aldo. Come on!

Just looking at the contestants at the early stages of the cook,

Montana looks to be multi-tasking.

SARAH: You're doing really well, Montana.

(WHISTLES) Montana.

So is Mindy.

(SINGS) # Coconut mayo. #

You can't just work on one thing.

This is like multi-tasking to the next level, this dish.

JULIE: You should be offering to go down there, Dan.

The only person that's actually single-focused is Aldo.

I'm losing my focus now.

River mint.

If you're not sure on a spice, mate, just yell out, eh?

Lemon myrtle powder. I should have it here.

Mountain pepperleaf.

At the moment, I'm still working on this native green curry.

Come on, Aldo, let's do this.

I'm very behind, Mindy. I'm very behind.

With everything to the tee,

I've been so meticulously wasting so much time

onto the milligrams of what was going into the pot,

so I hope that I nailed this.

I think the hardest part for me was this curry, to take it on.

But now that it's on, I'm feeling clear enough now.

There's a green curry and it's slightly hotter compared to Khanh's.

But, you know, it's still enjoyable. It's still a good kick.

I think that there's too much chilli for a white boy like me.

But, you know, I done what the recipe says.

I don't need to adjust it

because I think that the seasoning at some point...

Beautiful caramelisation of all the spices that I put it through.

And I'm happy with that.

(COUGHS)

The native green curry is done. Another huge tick out of my list.

It just gives me a layer of confidence.

Game on.

I can see that I've done quite a few elements,

so that's quite reassuring for me.

Beautiful.

Now it's time that I start to multi-task, to catch up.

So, I've got to do the paperbark oil.

Just work fast, mate. You'll catch up, yeah?

JULIE: Just keep focus. Keep going.

Where's the ginger flower?

It's in the fridge, Mindy, the ginger flower.

Love it, guys. Good teamwork. Beautiful teamwork.

Mindy, it's actually in the garden.

(LAUGHTER)

Sabotage! Game on, Mon. Game on.

I've got a few elements on the go.

I've got my curry just sort of straining away over there.

I'm working on my chilli nuoc cham sauce

and coconut mayo for the crab,

and my glaze is about to get started in this pan for the clam.

I'm working so quickly,

but it's what I need to do in this cook

to finish it as quickly as possible

and leave myself enough time at the end of the cook

in case something goes wrong.

That's a lot.

I just want to do this dish justice

because I think, just in the past few cooks,

I've really started finding my feet and my confidence

and I know where I want to take my food after MasterChef.

The stuff I do on Tik Tok,

it isn't necessarily my style of cooking.

I love that style of food and I love that I can share that with people.

But it's not what I am obsessed with food about.

I love fine dining, refined food, really creative.

And when I look at Khanh's dish,

that's definitely where I sort of see myself heading after this journey.

So, I really want to take this dish

and show the judges how much I have grown in this competition.

Bring on the funk. You want the funk? We got the funk.

I feel like I'm going OK. My energy is up.

I'm having a lot of fun. I'm having a bit of a dance out there.

And I'm just going through my little checklist.

(CHEERING) DANIEL: Yes, Mindy.

Yum. Damn!

The next step is coconut dressing.

And this goes on those gorgeous little freshly shucked oysters.

There is so much coconut going on there,

like, there's coconut milk, there's coconut cream, there's coconut water.

Then I've got, like, balsamic glaze in there.

I've got fish sauce, I've got sugar.

There's so much going into this tiny little dressing.

It smells good.

Blitzed it. It's looking good.

So, now I have to work on my curry oil for the oyster.

Listen up. You've got two hours to go.

Come on, guys! Go! Keep working.

DANIEL: Keep working, guys. SARAH: Keep powering, Mindy.

KEYMA: Good job, Aldo.

MONTANA: Two hours left in the cook, and I've finished my oyster dressing.

It's time to tackle the cooking of that seafood.

It's time to get that spanner crab on the go.

I'm just going to sort of laser focus on this

and put all my concentration

into the cooking of the seafood, while I can.

ALVIN: The seafoods are out. BILLIE: Yeah.

OK.

OK. Like, I'm starting to actually get some movement now.

I've got to start getting on to my seafood.

And the cook on this is so important

and the first seafood that I need to get cracking on is the spanner crab.

Look at this baby.

Timing's everything when it comes to proteins.

There's, like, a rule of thumb

that can be one minute for every 100 grams,

and then plus the two minutes.

Or this recipe says 1.5 minutes per 100 grams. Right?

So, you've just got to get it right.

So, I'm going with the recipe. (TIMER BEEPS)

1.5 minutes for every 100 grams of crab.

What's this baby weigh? 550 times 1.5.

Eight and a half minutes. Let's do it.

I normally cook with instinct with a lot of these things,

but today, I don't want to put that at risk.

I want to make sure that if I follow this recipe,

Khanh says, it's right

then I'm going to get this cook on the crab perfect.

Alright. Timer's on.

I got this. I got this. I got this. I got the crab.

I'm so far behind.

But I need to get onto the seafood straightaway.

To cook the seafood, I'm going to discard the recipe.

I'm going to trust my instinct on cooking the seafood.

I know there are temperatures.

I know that there are minutes of cooking as well.

But I can try to gain as much time as I can because I'm super quick.

I know how to treat the seafood.

I know how to cook crab, so I'm going to go by feeling and look.

I've got my crab going

and now it's time that I start to multi-task

and catch up on the time that I have lost so far.

I'm going to fight for my spot in this competition.

BILLIE: Nice, Mon. KEYMA: Looks beautiful, Mon.

Where do you put the thermometer in?

Thickest part of the underbelly. What?

Thickest part. Just find the thickest part.

How do you get in? Where your tongs are, probably.

Yeah. Hang on. (TIMER BEEPS)

Pretty daunted, cooking this seafood.

This is what I've been scared of throughout this whole cook

and is definitely the thing that I'm most unfamiliar with.

Wait, yeah, yeah.

Just go straight into the... OK.

The internal temperature of that crab

needs to reach 60 degrees and no more,

otherwise, it's not going to be able to be picked.

It's going to be either raw or overcooked.

And this is one of the key elements to this seafood plate.

How's the cook, Mon?

It's only at 50...1.

The nerves are pretty high.

I mean, being one in three who could be going home today

is such high odds.

And this pressure test was basically made for Mindy.

MINDY: 60 degrees, baby.

And Aldo can cook seafood like nobody else can.

I'm just completely out of my depth on this one.

JULIE: Just breathe, Mon.

SARAH: Let's go, guys!

ALL: Whoo!

Go, Mon. Keep going!

This recipe says to bring the crab up to 60 degrees after resting,

and it's only at 51.

So, I think I'm going to do another one.

(SIGHS)

From tasting Khanh's dish, that spanner crab element

was one of the main things that jumped out at me

and one thing I really want to get perfect.

I've got a spare one, so I'm gonna re-cook it.

(SIGHS)

This is the exact reason

why I've been motoring from the start of this cook.

I knew this cooking of the seafood elements

was going to be a struggle for me,

and I wanted to give myself enough time

to have that back-up if I needed to,

'cause it's a part of the cook that I can't rely on my instincts for.

I really need to read every line of that recipe

and follow it to a tee.

ANDY: I think this is the most important part of the cook.

Yeah.

MEL: We can't forget, this is a fruits de mer.

It's all about celebrating the seafood,

and whatever else you do to it

really needs to heighten and elevate everything.

This is gonna be make-or-break for these guys.

I mean, look around.

Front bench, Mindy - cool, calm, collected, under control.

Not sort of having to read the recipe five times

and then try and execute it.

It's muscle memory.

BILLIE: That's it, Mindy.

What about Aldo?

I mean, he seemed a little behind before, no?

He fell behind quite a long way.

And then it got to the crab,

and he's like, "I'm not gonna follow the recipe. I know how to cook spanner crab."

That's when instinct started to kick in for him.

Yeah. And confidence. And, actually, he's now caught up.

ANDY: And it seems like Montana's cook

is the reverse of Aldo's cook

because she was flying - she was probably the most far ahead.

Then she got to the seafood.

The seafood cooking has made her lead...

She's probably actually behind. Yeah.

So, there's this amazing balance in a pressure test

of using your instincts and following the recipe,

and you have to get those two things spot-on to succeed.

JOCK: This is what a pressure test is all about.

Yes, it's about following the recipe. Yes, it's about instinct.

But doing it under pressure? Whole different story.

Come on, Mindy! The world is your oyster.

Give me the pearls! (CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

MEL: One hour to go!

DANIEL: Let's go, guys! Come on! Let's go!

Let's go! Let's go!

Crab's there. Crab's resting, yep.

That came to the right temperature. 60 degrees. Yep.

So, um, I mean, I'm just trying to get

all these little bits and pieces done.

Awesome. On to...on to the clams next.

Let's go.

There is so much going on. I've managed to cook my spanner crab.

I've done my scallops.

I now need to move on to my storm clams.

Have you seen the size? These are monster clams.

They're absolutely huge. I need to weigh them out.

I need to put 25ml of water in there,

and then I need to get them into a hot pan.

Cooking protein takes so much skill and experience to actually master.

Like, you have to do it time and time again to develop instincts.

The cook on this clam was actually just done.

I was actually surprised at how underdone Khanh likes it,

and that's the way that I love it.

Some people like to cook it a little bit out,

so it's got more done-ness,

but this one is just cooked.

So, you really need your skills and your instincts for this one.

So, when you cook the clams, you have to get them out of the shell,

you have to put them in the container.

You have to reserve the cooking liquid,

put it in the fridge, and away.

JULIE: Good stuff, Mindy.

Let's go, mate. Yeah. Pick it up. Let's go.

The scampi is the next thing I have to check off my list.

It is a feature piece on its own.

Like, this could be the centrepiece of a dish.

It is absolutely amazing.

Khanh cooks it exactly the same

as what he recommends for his spanner crab.

A minute and a half per 100 grams.

DANIEL: Let's go, Mindy. Don't be skimpy with that scampi.

(CHEERING)

That's it.

I'm so happy that I caught up so much time during the cook of the seafood

by trusting my instincts.

Now let's open the oysters up.

I've got all my seafood cooked.

The next thing that I need to move on to are the oysters.

I know that I just need to shuck them,

but I need to make sure that there is no shells in.

And that should be very gentle shucking as well.

I've shucked so many oysters in my life,

so I think that I can easily manage these.

Sorry to say, guys, but you only have 30 minutes left.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

OK, we're good. We're good.

I have lost quite a bit of time

sort of playing around with the spanner crab

and I really need to motor to finish the rest of this seafood.

I'm basically working on every single seafood element

at the same time.

I've done my cooking on the scallops and the scampi

and I've prepped my oysters.

So, I just have to cook my storm clams.

DANIEL: Good work, Mon.

I've never cooked, let alone seen, a storm clam in my life,

so I have nothing to fall back on instinctually.

I've only got the recipe to follow

and I'm relying solely on that

to hopefully make sure I'm cooking these perfectly.

The recipe says

to throw the clams in the pot with a little bit of water

and steam them, with the lid on, for a minute.

It's been a minute and I take them out, pop the shell open,

and they're a lot softer than what I remember.

So, I'm just hoping what I followed in the recipe

was the right way to go.

Go, Montana! Go, Aldo! Go, Mindy!

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

MINDY: OK, crab.

I need to start picking my crab

because this is going to take some time.

I've actually got to keep the crab shell,

so I've got to really lever it off properly,

pull it apart, get all those legs off,

and start picking out that gorgeous white meat.

I've got to make sure that there's no shell in this crab.

I am having flashbacks of yesterday's cook,

with that bloody little quail bone ending up in my dumpling.

And it's kind of shaking me.

I'm not used to having my confidence kind of shaken.

These little mistakes have huge consequences in the kitchen.

If I end up with crab shell in this dish - guaranteed, game over.

Almost there, guys. 15 minutes to go! Come on!

(APPLAUSE)

Whoo!

It's gonna puff.

JULIE: That looks beautiful, Aldo.

MONTANA: I'm in a pretty good spot at the moment.

My seafood's cooked. All my sauces are done.

It's just a matter of finishing off this crab salad,

doing the puffed rice,

and then just bringing everything together for plating.

I am picking this crab meat so carefully.

The thing that got me into this pressure test

was a bone in Andy's quail.

And if I go home on a shell in the crab,

it will be quite ironic,

and something I'm going to do everything in my power to avoid.

Crab done. Thank God.

The crab is picked.

The next thing I'm going to get started on are those rice crisps.

I need to get those rice crisps fried and finish this plate-up.

That's alright, Mon, yeah? Yeah, it's good.

Sweet.

MINDY: Curry oil, pickled shallots.

I've actually prepped all of my sauces,

all of my little bits and pieces.

Now I need to plate it.

Come on, Mindy. Let's do this.

Khanh's dish was absolutely perfect

and I want to get the look and the presentation just the same.

I need to start with my crab salad.

It's still all about these tiny little measurements.

Two grams of chives, two grams of coriander,

seven dots of the coconut mayo,

seven dots of the nuoc cham.

I don't want to miss one ingredient. I don't want to miss a garnish.

I don't want to miss a sauce. I don't want to miss a piece of seafood.

BILLIE: Nice work, Mindy.

So, I am following it to a tee

and I'm counting each, one by one.

Five different seafood elements!

And you've only got five minutes to get 'em on the plate!

(ONLOOKERS SHOUT ENCOURAGEMENT)

DANIEL: Hurry up!

(MUTTERS) This little guy...

Come on. Quarter of a teaspoon.

I'm getting started on plating these oysters.

This oyster element is so simple.

It's oyster, dressing, curry oil and shallots.

But everything on that plate

and the quantities of it are so deliberate,

and I want to get that perfect.

DANIEL: Keep going, Mon. Almost there.

One minute to go! One minute!

ALDO: Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten...

Time is very ticking,

and I've got the storm clam,

the scampi dust,

spanner crab salad,

and the oysters.

Scallops.

My next element to move on is the scallop.

I just need to pick 12 of the enoki mushroom,

just arrange underneath the scallop, tuck under the scallop.

A beautiful dollop of my green curry.

Beautiful.

Two teaspoons of the beautiful lemon myrtle oil.

And then five pieces of the seaweed crackers on top.

What am I missing? I'm missing something on there.

Nothing.

(BOTH LAUGH)

I can't believe that I managed to present to the judges

all five components on the seafood platter.

It's something that...

I've never been able to re-create something like this before.

And that's how far this competition has pushed me.

So, I'm proud of what I've achieved today.

Let's go, gantry!

Ten...

ALL: ..nine, eight, seven, six, five,

four, three, two, one...

That's it!

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

BILLIE: Well done, you guys.

DANIEL: Well done, everyone.

(APPLAUSE CONTINUES)

(WHISTLING)

MONTANA: I am completely drained.

It was... Yeah.

I mean, having to focus for so long on so many ingredients,

and so many repetitive ingredients,

was really, really tough.

Definitely unsure about the seafood.

There's a few there that I've never cooked before.

So, I mean, crossing everything that I've done enough.

Good luck. Walk slowly, please.

MONTANA: Good luck, Mindy.

I am handling this

like it's a precious piece of cargo,

like it is the most precious thing

that I've ever had in my two hands,

because it is so delicate, it is so refined,

and I need to make sure that it gets in front of the judges

the way that I actually plated it up.

It's like cradling a baby.

You are so careful.

ANDY: Four and a half hours later, I would be too.

Precious cargo.

Sorry, I'm not trying to make you laugh.

MINDY: For real. Oh!

Looking at it and holding it in my hands, I'm thinking,

"My God, this could be the dish

"that makes me or breaks me in this competition."

How does that feel? It's finally here. It's finally done.

(SIGHS)

I am absolutely spent.

How did you find the cooking of the seafood,

the balances of flavour, the textures going on here?

Everything nailed?

Oh, look, I'm sure it's far from nailed.

I think it would take years to get to that point on this dish.

There are so many elements,

there's so much technique in there.

But I followed the recipe to a tee.

Well, you've put everything on the plate.

You are spent. You are done.

So, there's not much left to do, other than to taste.

So, we'll do that.

Thanks, Mindy. Thanks, Khanh.

Honestly, such a pleasure.

Scallop looks, uh, beautiful.

KHANH: There you go.

Thank you, Chef.

As is the case with your dish, Khanh, there's a lot to unpack.

Beautifully cooked crab,

and all the flavours on there were fantastic.

I think the, uh... the pick of the plate, for me,

was definitely the scampi.

The scampi itself was perfectly cooked.

It's as close as it gets, with the scampi.

I was gonna say, that was equally as good as your one.

Yeah. 100%.

The seafood cooking was really, really very good.

And that allowed us to enjoy all of these beautiful flavours

and Mindy's very faithful attempt to get somewhere close to

this very delicious plate of food that you've brought us.

Go get 'em, babe. Thank you, guys.

Good luck, mate.

I can't believe that I managed to get everything done.

But I know that I was so far behind

because cooking the curry was a real struggle.

Aldo.

For sure, I know that my green curry, it's a little bit spicier,

and I'm also concerned about the seafood.

I just hope that cooking the seafood by instinct

doesn't cost me my spot in this competition.

ANNOUNCER: Enjoy another taste of MasterChef with full masterclasses,

best bits and delicious exclusives at:

Aldo, deep exhale.

Oh.

(CHUCKLES) It's finished.

Yeah, I know. I know it's finished.

And, I'm...stoked, actually, that I pushed through

to get to the finish line, actually.

Did you enjoy it, though?

I did. I had fun.

I know that I was running behind but it wasn't that the...

..things for me, it was just to try to get all the measurement right.

I didn't want to give anything away.

So, if it wasn't pushing me behind to re-create your dish

in the best way possible for myself,

I needed to do what was feeling right for me.

Alright, Aldo, all that's left to do is for us to taste it, mate.

Hope that you can enjoy, guys. Thank you so much.

Thanks, Aldo.

Pleased to meet you. Pleasure.

Look, I think we'll start with the cooking of all the seafood

because there are problems.

For me, the crab is really inconsistent.

There's some nicely cooked bits in there but most of it is underdone.

Then we'll go on to the scallop.

Mine was really nice.

Beautifully cooked, nice caramelisation.

I think he definitely tended to those scallops

the way that they should, and they were great.

Scallops - that was really good for me.

Yep.

I mean, the green curry was a bit spicy but...

..I don't mind a bit of spice. (CHUCKLES)

So, I quite actually enjoyed it. I might make my one a bit spicier.

(ALL LAUGH) Back at the restaurant.

There's some components in here that...

..you know, that are really well done.

Like, the lemon myrtle oil is killer.

The glaze of the clams was beautiful,

the caramelisation of the scallop was beautiful.

The paperback oil, again, beautiful.

But I've gotta say, the main nuts and bolts of it

is the cooking of the shellfish.

Look, I think, overall,

the thing we can't forget is it's all about celebrating the seafood.

Yes, in some cases, on Aldo's plate and then, no, in some other places,

which is a little bit of a problem.

Aldo did roll the dice and go on his gut.

Unfortunately, it hasn't worked out for him.

Really gutted for him because it does leave him super vulnerable.

MINDY AND ALDO: Good luck, Mon. Good luck.

Walk slowly, huh? Yep.

I'm very nervous, walking my dish up to the judges.

I tasted everything, I... was happy with the flavour

but I'm definitely worried about the cook on the seafood.

JOCK: Montana. Oh, God. ANDY: Steady.

(INHALES)

Even though I followed the recipe,

I don't know if it's right.

I don't know if it's under or over

or some other form of error that I could possibly do to it.

ANDY: What about that?

That was tough. Very tough. Yep.

Are you proud of yourself?

Yeah, I'm pretty chuffed.

To do something completely out of my depths

and to get everything on the plate

is...pretty cool.

Yeah, I'm pretty proud of myself.

Speaking of things like that, is this what you came back for?

To put yourself into this position,

where you are pushed right out of your comfort zone?

We're away from TikTok desserts or, you know, four-ingredient dishes?

This is what I want to do.

Like, I love this sort of modern interpretation of classic flavours,

but done in, like, a really fine-dining, interesting way

and the TikTok thing sort of came as a...

..a fallback from not getting into MasterChef.

I want...the whole experience.

I want to learn from stuff like this.

And, I mean, if this keeps me safe, I'm so glad I've done this today.

Great. Alright, nothing left to do but taste it.

Yeah. Thanks, Montana.

Thanks, Montana. Thank you, guys.

KHANH: It all looks pretty good.

(CLEARS THROAT)

Overall, I think all the flavours are very close.

Which...

..is, yeah, quite a great thing to achieve.

Beautiful lemon myrtle oil. The scampi had great flavours.

I think that, in general, it was pretty well done.

My piece of scampi was beautifully cooked.

How good was the rice?

The rice cracker was perfect.

And seasoned really nicely as well.

But the oyster...

I cannot believe it, considering what happened yesterday...

..that I have... Like, it's not just grit, it's like...

Shell. ..full oyster shell... (CHUCKLES)

..in the bottom of my oyster.

Wow.

Yeah, look, I'm a bit disappointed to see shell grit in your oyster.

Given why she's here, I really...

And how much care she took to pick that crab

and make sure that it had absolutely no shell

and no problem with the crab at all, it was gorgeous.

Um, just a real shame about that tiny bit of attention to detail.

The clams and the scallops -

undercooked.

She's never cooked this seafood before,

so that's why she probably struggled.

Mm.

The nuoc cham gel is out of balance.

Coconut mayo was nice but then when you mix it all together, it's...

It doesn't have that same balance as yours.

It's problematic and it leaves her vulnerable.

I certainly think Mindy can be taken off the table.

But, you know, we're gonna have to go through both Aldo and Montana's dish

element by element

to work out which of the two dishes had better elements

because both of them had some serious flaws.

(SIGHS)

99 ingredients, 143 steps and 13 pages.

It was THE most difficult and demanding pressure test

this season so far.

Are you impressed with what you saw from these three today?

Yeah, definitely.

I mean, it was just one plate of food, right? But...

(LAUGHTER)

..everyone had everything on the plate and that was very impressive.

Well, even though that was a marathon,

I'm sure these three would agree, I think,

that we all loved having you here. (CHUCKLES)

Can we put it together for Khanh, please?

(APPLAUSE)

Let's look at the three of you, one by one.

Mindy...

..there was a lot we liked about your seafood plate.

The scampi of the day.

Perfectly cooked clam

and the crab salad was well balanced and delicious.

And that's why...

..you are safe. (EXHALES)

Aldo.

Your scallops were excellent.

The green curry packed a tonne of extra heat

which Khanh himself actually enjoyed.

But our enjoyment was stifled by undercooked seafood.

Your crab was only part cooked

and your clam was undercooked.

Montana.

Your plate was a bit of a rollercoaster.

In the positive column -

a cracking rice cracker

and a great lemon myrtle oil.

But in the negative column...

..your clam was undercooked.

As was your scallop.

And Andy's oyster...

..had not one but two huge pieces of shell in it.

Montana...

..I'm so sorry

but you're going home.

ALDO: Oh, no.

(EXHALES)

(CRIES)

MINDY: Here you go.

Oh.

(WHISPERS)

Montana...

..you came into this kitchen

representing a new generation of cooks.

You first applied when you were 19 years old.

You're now only just 23.

We've loved watching you thrive alongside the chefs

that you've been aiming and aspiring to be like your entire life.

You are becoming that chef, Montana.

You're well on your way.

This is the first day of your journey.

What are you gonna take away from the MasterChef experience?

To have the opportunity to cook with people like this,

who I'm gonna have friends with for the rest of my life and...

..have the experience with you guys and meet you

and have feedback from you

and become stronger and a more confident cook is...

..everything that I wanted from this.

We can't wait to see where it goes.

But for now, it's time to say goodbye.

(SIGHS)

MasterChef has been everything that I wanted it to be.

It's been a dream of mine for so long

and to do it with people who I idolise is absolutely insane.

The cook that I was in the start of this competition

is a completely different person from who I am now.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

Give it up for Montana, everybody!

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

I think as soon as I walk out of this kitchen,

I want to go and do work experience in some kitchens

and even though I feel like I've grown in this competition,

there's still so much more to learn and...

..whenever that is, I'm so excited to get into it.

ANNOUNCER: Tomorrow night on MasterChef Australia...

No.

..they're in for a big surprise...

ALVIN: It's quite surreal.

Like, we're going to feed our families.

..that will take their cooking

to a whole different level.

Captions by Red Bee Media