The fifth series of the Australian cooking game show MasterChef Australia premiered Sunday 2 June 2013 on Network Ten,[1] with replays airing at 11am the following day.
[3] With the filming location from previous series at 13 Doody Street in Alexandria, New South Wales shutting down in August 2012, the production moved to the Centenary Hall at the Royal Melbourne Showgrounds in Flemington, Victoria.
Lucy's decision to add lemon juice early, and thus 'cooking' the raw beef for too long, and Pip's failure to plate up the biscuit paired with her overly minced meat dropped them into the bottom two.
The Blue Team struggled under Neha's leadership with the strong personalities of Jules, Kelty and Noelene butting heads with her over the menu's direction.
The losing contestants from the previous challenge were given two hours to produce a dish that personified their position: a Last Supper showcasing their skills and beliefs about food.
In the end, Lilliana's Four Layer Birthday Cake was singled out for, though well made and capturing the essence of the challenge, being not up to the same standard as the other contestants' dishes and she tearfully bid goodbye to the MasterChef kitchen.
And while Samira served some very under-cooked lamb, it was Jules' bland and mismatched dish of Buttered Crawfish with Vinaigrette and Yoghurt that sealed her elimination from the competition.
With two hours on the clock they had to recreate his signature dish of Maple Glazed Bacon Hot Dog, with Comte & Dijon Sauce, Tomato & Quince Relish & Mustard Pickles in a Pork Brioche Bun.
The pressure of time and delicate nature of bringing together all the components got to most contestants, but Rishi again showed the judges his skill with the dish of the day.
With the Top 10 safe from elimination for the week and an immunity pin up for grabs, the contestants first competed in a skills test: crushing a Chinese five-spice mix in a mortar and pestle.
Vern, Nicky, Neha, Xavier, Noelene and Dan were praised for their excellent cooking and teamwork, while Rishi, Samira, Emma, Faiza, Lucy and Michael found themselves in the bottom three.
The Blue Team, headed by Neha (with Nicky, Vern and Xavier) fell behind early but recovered brilliantly to almost perfectly replicate the dish, wowing the judges.
Both the Red (Noelene, Dan, Kelty and Jules) and Yellow Teams (Rishi, Samira, Lynton and Lilliana) struggled with their Spiced Chocolate Gelato layer, ensuring it set correctly.
The final challenge of Second Chance Week saw the remaining four teams (Lynton & Lilliana, Neha & Xavier, Rishi & Samira, and Vern & Nicky) compete in an Invention Test with butter as the core ingredient.
With 90 minutes on the clock, each pair had to produce one sweet and one savoury dish, the winners receiving either a ticket back into the competition or (for the current contestant) an immunity pin.
This curve ball rattled some contestants, including Vern whose dessert Mystery Box put him out of his comfort zone and landed him in the bottom three.
With Rishi choosing to play his immunity pin (only days after he won it), Noelene (as the fourth worst performer from the previous challenge) joined Neha and Vern in a Pressure Test set by Kirsten Tibbles: the Lourous Cake.
Complicating matters, each contestant randomly chose a mystery ingredient that had to feature in their dishes, five desirable (such as red wine and figs) and five not usually associated with date night food (such as garlic and sardines).
While the Blues faced some missteps in prep time (a mistake in ordering their protein set them back significantly), Red had disharmony as team members disagreed with the direction of their dishes.
In this episode the contestants were split into three teams - red (Samira, Kelty, Lynton), blue (Lucy, Emma and Noelene) and Yellow (Rishi, Christina and Daniel).
Rishi plated sweet Indian-Chinese dumplings with a soy sauce caramel and dry ice tea; Kelty offered up a deconstructed hot toddy with liquid nitrogen frozen ice-cream at the table; Samira changed her initial idea of a volcano to serve Znoud al-Sett (sweet Middle-Eastern rolls) with the flavours echoed in a rose and orange blossom scented dry ice sheesha prelude.
On Day 1 of World Food Week, the top 8 contestants paired off to cook local for 36 Emirati VIP guests in the Dubai desert with Michelin-starred Greg Malouf mentoring and judging their platters.
With the remaining three pairs facing elimination, Daniel and Emma won themselves first-class tickets to Paris for a culinary walking tour with Matt Preston.
The menu comprised a selection of high-quality entrees, mains and desserts, from which the contestants picked their dish in the order assigned them after drawing coins from a 'treasure chest'.
Christina and Lynton were chosen as the worst of the best, but on account of the general quality of the cooking and service from all contestants and the unprecedented degree of disagreement among the judges regarding the elimination, it was revealed that neither would be sent home.
With Emma opting to use her immunity pin, Samira, Daniel & Lucy were faced with the task of cooking a single dish in 45 minutes using only ingredients from one continent.
While Lucy presented a trio of cupcakes with some flaws, it was Kelty who was eliminated for the overly thick molasses glaze on his dish's pork shoulder.
Series 1 second runner up Chris Badenoch opened his restaurant, Josie Bones, to the red and blue teams to serve a lunch service to regular customers.
They picked Chili Chocolate (Christina), Chilli (Rishi), Espresso coffee beans (Emma), garlic (Lynton) and Pomegranate molasses (Samira).
The judges had a difficult time deciding whether Samira's choice of coriander as garnish not being French or Rishi's ashy leek sauce was the worst mistake.