Ohkay, so it was a pretty good episode because of Chef Saadat. I am glad he came as a guest judge & showed that successful chefs can be soft spoken too. I liked the Q&A session he had with the contestants & he actually led everyone accordingly. Where he suggested Madiha to go abroad for the initial courses, he told Gulnaz to actually stick to her roots & open up a restaurant in Chitral. He brought in some positive energy & it was great to see.
The contestants had to replicate his signature dish in 90 minutes. Even though Amna had immunity, she still attempted the dish. Maryam got an advantage of seeking Chef’s help for 20 & then 10 minutes during the challenge & the pantry was accessible throughout as well. The signature dish of Chef Saadat was ‘Chicken Roulade w/ Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes, Carrot & Pumpkin Purée, Blue Cheese Flan & Falsa Confit’. The dish had a lot of components & everyone did a great job in recreating the dish.
Amna got some average feedback & luckily for her she had the immunity because her dish wasn’t impressive. Chef Saadat felt that the ratio of salt was wrong in a lot of components & the purée was a lot creamy. Chef Mehboob felt that the purée had no taste whatsoever & lacked seasoning too.
Maryam benefited herself from the advantage that she got & received great remarks. Chef Saadat liked her dish on the whole but felt that the purée had a lot of white pepper in it. Chef Mehboob liked the chicken roulade because of its colour & juiciness. He liked the flan too.
Khurram recreated a great dish & shined in this round. Chef Saadat liked the presentation as well as felt that the mash was good & he commended him for making a falsa sauce better than him. He appreciated Khurram & admitted that even he feels he couldn’t make such a tasty sauce which was good to see. Chef Khurram liked the chicken & felt that the inner portion was succulent. However, he told him to improve the presentation. Chef Zakir liked the dish a lot & told him to keep up the good work.
Gulnaz couldn’t do too well in this challenge & stuffed up a few components of her dish. Chef Saadat felt that the flan was good & creamy but the potato mash had a lot of garlic in it as well as the pumpkin purée was bland. Chef Khurram liked the presentation a lot. Chef Zakir felt that the chicken was good & the stuffing was perfect but it lacked seasoning. He liked the mash potato for its flavour but found the pumpkin purée quite flat.
Sidrah didn’t perform well in this challenge as well. Chef Saadat felt that it looked more like a dessert plate & the chicken was under-cooked. Chef Khurram felt that the flan had a strong & dominant flavour of the blue cheese, falsa sauce was too sour, chicken was under-cooked & the purée was bland. Chef Mehboob found the chicken raw & the purée tasteless.
Iqra presented a great dish. Chef Saadat liked the presentation a lot but felt that the purée had a totally different flavour. Chef Zakir also appreciated her effort with the chicken & found it tender & soft.
Madiha came up with a weak dish this time. Chef Saadat felt it had no balance. Chef Khurram thought that the presentation could’ve been better. Chef Zakir thought she has lost her charm.
Zain managed to impress the judges as well. Chef Saadat thought that he cooked the best chicken so far & it was spot on. Chef Mehboob liked the chicken but wasn’t too impressed by the purée. Chef Khurram liked the presentation a lot.
Ammarah came up with a great dish too. Chef Saadat felt that the plating was good. Mash had a strong flavour of garlic but other than that the chicken was cooked to perfection & it was the best so far. Chef Mehboob felt that the mashed potato was more like a garlic purée but other than that her dish was good on the whole.
Saad was weak this time around as well. Chef Saadat found his flan flat & overcooked. Chef Mehboob thought that falsa sauce had a very strong flavour of ginger. Chef Zakir thought that just because the chicken was overcooked it was dry & the purée wasn’t smooth.
It was now time to announce the top & the bottom 3 contestants. Zain, Khurram & Ammarah came up with the best dishes therefore they were selected as the top 3. The judges justified their dishes with their honest remarks & made Zain the winner of the round. It was good to see Zain & Khurram redeeming themselves after a long long time. Saad, Gulnaz & Sidrah presented the weakest dishes however were in the bottom 3. Gulnaz was safe because she at least managed to do one thing or the other right in her whole dish but going by the judges’ remarks, Sidrah‘s dish was the weakest as nothing worked on the plate, leaving her eliminated.
I feel the judges this time around did justice with their remarks & gave us convincing reasons as to why Sidrah was eliminated. However she did put up a good dish once but didn’t stand out like other contestants. Saad got told off by Chef Zakir for the relieved gesture that he did which I found way too funny. Not the gesture but the way he was told off as if he was in a school.
It was a good episode over all & special thanks to Chef Saadat because he kept the things lighthearted. However, I do feel that they didn’t focus on showing the techniques of creating the roulade & once again the cooking was shown haphazardly. I was excited to see that the contestants had to make chicken roulade because this is something that I myself have learnt only by watching MasterChef Australia, so I was actually quite eager to see how they create it in MasterChef Pakistan but sadly nothing was shown in detail so that people could understand how’s it made. I feel that they have managed to ignore the techniques & have not at all helped the viewers in learning a thing or two about different cooking techniques. By watching other shows, I found out about the temperatures at which the contestants prepare the steaks & how they set the limits like medium-rare, rare, well-done etc, I understood how the pasta dough is kneaded & similarly a lot of other details which we may or may not use in our cooking but that’s what cooking shows are for that they also stir some sort of learning process by showing how the contestants are working in order to achieve the desired dish. I hope next time they do focus a lot on showing the techniques so that those who are interested can learn & get hold of new ideas to incorporate in their cooking. Share what you felt about this episode.
Keep Supporting,
Cheers,
Zahra Mirza.
ps: I request all the readers that if you happen to grab some spoiler alerts about the show from Facebook pages or the contestants’ official pages then please keep them to yourself. I’d much appreciate if the show is not spoiled for those who are watching with great interest. Lately people are finding it hard to keep the details to themselves & are spoiling the suspense for others. Please, be a bit more considerate. Thanks!