The Best Jeremy Senaris Moments | MasterChef Canada | MasterChef World

I'm making monkfish sinigang. It's a traditional Filipino dish of tamarind paste and fish sauce. The last time I cooked monkfish, Chef Alvin told me that I did not treat the protein properly because it's considered poor man's lobster. That's like using filet mignon in a stew. I have to tie the monkfish so it stays round while I cook it. Feel good, I'm ready to redeem myself with this dish. Hi, Jeremy. Hey, Chef, how you doing? I'm always good, how are you doing? I'm doing good. I almost got all my mise en place done. Well, no, no, I was talking about in general. Oh, in general. It's good. I have a fiancé. I have two young daughters now. So, trying to win this for them. Since I was last on MasterChef Canada, a lot has changed, actually. I'm a dad and I'm a family man now. So I quit my engineering job to pursue food full-time. I run my own little private chef catering company. I've done a lot of fundraising and it's just been a great experience. but the food industry is tough. Recently, I had to go back to my engineering job to support my family, so my business has been put on the back burner. Winning MasterChef Canada would give me the means of fulfilling my lifelong dream, which is opening up my own Filipino food restaurant. What? Come on, let's go! Get it on the plate! The final 60 seconds, this is it. This is amazing. Look at the energy in this kitchen right now. I am gonna be loving to taste a lot of these dishes. Ten, nine, eight, six, five, four, three, two, one. Jeremy, please come up to the front. It's a monkfish sinigang. On the bottom is a tamarind and balsamic glaze and some watermelon radish for garnish. Amazing presentation. Thank you, Chef. I can't wait to sink my teeth in this. Everything is there. You've got the fruitiness coming from the tamarind and the extra layer of flavor coming from the balsamic. Now, the monkfish is a poor man's lobster, okay? And I can tell you, this is a rich man's dish. Yes. Thank you, chef. Thank you. This triple decker challenge will take you across the Pacific to a country with some of the most beautiful cuisine in the world, Japan. My favorite. I've been studying Japanese food for the past 10 years, so I'm super pumped to show everybody what's up. This thing. This is true craftsmanship, to be a sashimi chef. This is not just about speed, this is about precision and quality. You know, not simple. I actually spent some time in a local fish market in Halifax, filleting fish by the dozens. So I have to follow my instincts. Each of these home cooks is really concentrating on Removing that first fillet. They want to make sure that there's no flesh left on the bone. Cut with a knife in the bone. Meat between the... I just got to cut through this bone. Medic! Taya has already cut herself. That's not a great start. I'm moving extremely fast. I really want to get up to the balcony. But I'm having trouble removing the rest of the fillet from the collar. So I start hacking at the bone. Not the fish fillet, the bone. May is moving through that fish very, very quickly. But Jeremy, Jeremy is moving at a very intense speed right now. Jeremy has got his fillet off first. He's ready to start slicing. Three, three more minutes left, come on. You need to be plating now. You know what I like about Jeremy? Like Chef Kimura, he looks at the fish, looking at the angles. He's already seeing the slices before he even slices it. I'm doing the traditional Japanese technique of cutting fish. You start cutting an angle, and to finish the cut, you make sure that your knife is at 90 degrees. We're just going, wow. I want to show Chef Kimura that I can do it, too. One minute, only one more minute. Get it on the plate. Now it's just trying to make it look prettier. Wow, Jeremy's already plated, and Andrew, too. Wow. Wow. He has lots of confidence. I'm so nervous about time that plating skills go out the window for me. My fingers are shaking. 30 seconds left. Come on. I want to see perfect replication. Hope it's good enough. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Hands up. Hi, chefs. A little bit jagged. Yes. Very, chef. It is nice. A little tighter. Look how thin that is. Very, very beautiful. Thank you, chef. This is the first time? First time, yeah. It is very nice. Jagged pieces here. Yes, Chef. A bit of inconsistency. The most important thing is every slice is the same size. Jeremy. Hey, Chef. Oh, Jeremy. He's so fast. He's faster than anybody else. I tried to use the technique where you finish the cut straight down. That's cut too nicely, yes. Yes, Chef. Excellent job. Thank you, everyone. I think you made a great first impression for Chef Kimura. But four of you were cut above the rest. The very best Napa Usuzukuri was prepared by... Jamie! Yeah! Well done. I don't want to just be one of the four. I want to be the best of the four. So I'm super happy. Jeremy! Hi, Chef. How are you doing? I'm doing good. I'm getting most of my prep done. I got emulsification and spiralizer. I'm making seared cod. I've been wanting to work with a spiralizer, so I could pull off this technique for you guys. So essentially, I'm forming a potato tube out of spiralized potatoes. And then what else did you pick? My other one is emulsify. Emulsification is combining two ingredients that naturally don't come together, like water and oil. I'm going to do a calamansi beurre blanc. You've got to be very careful, because often when you do a beurre blanc, if it separates, man, you are done. It won't split. Thank you, Chef. Jeremy's trying a technique on his fried potato. He's trying to create a spring. He's using aluminum foil, and I can tell you that spells disaster right there. I pull my potato spiral out of the fryer, and the whole thing is just breaking into pieces. It is sticking to this foil. It will not come loose no matter what I try. Bam. I don't know how to solve this problem. You got five minutes to let your words speak to us on a plate. Oh. I'm working on my beurre blanc and then I realize it's split look look look Jeremy has to redo his sauce I warned him that sauce was split last time so I start again I don't think I'm gonna have time there's only a minute and 15 seconds left he's gonna have to fix that pretty quick one minute if I don't get this beurre blanc on the plate I'm missing emulsification one of my two words. 15 seconds. Jeremy's cutting it very, very close. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4. I'm looking at my plate and I'm such a perfectionist that I hate it. It looks like I don't have much sauce on this plate. I'm really, really worried about that. Jeremy, please bring up your dish for tasting. I chose Emulsify and Spiralizer. It's a pan-seared cod with potato two ways and a calamansi beurre blanc. Jeremy, look at the sauce. I'm not seeing the emulsification here. Are you seeing it? It was underneath the fish, and the green onion oil is just mixed into it now. Fish, perfectly cooked. Sauce, it's there. The calamansi, the beurre blanc. But I really wish there was more of it. You know, you're supposed to show it. I tried my best, Chef. You spend a lot of time doing things to make it more fancy, which is not relevant. The spiral is there, but is it talking to me? No, it's not. I'm being tough on you, but that's because you're so good. Expect more from yourself. Understood. What else? I'm trying to find something that can replicate pork in the pantry. Texture is key when it comes to cooking plant-based foods. I do see this thing called textured vegetable protein. I've heard of it before, and I know it acts as meat after you rehydrate it. So I'm going to go for it and take a risk and try this without having used it before. I need some basil too. The talent in this kitchen is so fierce. You just got to cook your heart out. It's super exciting to see the nine home cooks back together in this kitchen taking on this vegetable-based cooking. The challenge here is that they have to create something that is homey and comforting, that comfort food but elevate its presentation to you know the standards that we've come to expect cooking filipino food brings back memories of my mother i lost her to cancer in 2008 so cooking the food that she used to make makes me feel good inside today i'm making a vegan noodle wrapped lumpia with a sweet and sour carrot sauce and roasted vegetables lumpia is actually pork and carrot spring roll. It's the Filipino version of a spring roll. I have my lumpia. I'm using texturized vegetable protein to act as the ground pork. Then I'm going to fry it. Traditionally, lumpia is wrapped in a spring roll wrapper. I can't use spring roll wrappers because it has eggs, so I'm going to use rice noodles. I feel like the creativity of wrapping it in a noodle is going to show the judges just how creative I can be. Rolling with noodles is a very technical skill. As I'm trying to roll my lumpia, come on, this vegetable protein is falling apart. If I don't get this done, I have a chance of going home. Hardest part of what I'm doing today is wrapping this lumpia because the texture is not as sticky as ground pork. So I'm adding a little bit of cornstarch to the filling just so that it will thicken up a bit and act as a binder. That cornstarch is putting it in. It looks like cornstarch. Which is a good idea. Yeah, it's an easy fix. and then I use my sushi mat to roll it. Come on. And it works perfectly. Yeah, baby. One minute! I'm rushing on my plating, but I'm also trying to stay calm so that the plate doesn't look messy. I know at this point my dish isn't going to come out exactly the way that I conceptualized it, but I'm gonna get this done. I have no choice but to impress. Cakes! Five, four, three, two, one! Jeremy, please bring your plant-based comfort dish to the front. I'm feeling good about my dish. I cooked my heart out today. Every memory and emotion was on that plate. Hello, Jeremy. Hey, chef. Plant-based comfort food was the brief. What did you make? Comfort food, it always brings me back to the memory of my mother and back to the food that she made. Traditionally, lumpia is ground pork. I tried to emulate that with a textured vegetable protein, burnt pumpkin seed ash, chanterelle mushrooms, radish and a spicy carrot sweet and sour sauce. Well, Jeremy, I am once again delighted to see the level of which you are plating your food. It seems to be getting better and better and better. Thank you, Chef. The comfort feel is right there. It is rich, it is flavorful. It's the kind of food that I think would become a staple. As they were being cooked, you'd be picking one off the plate at home because you just couldn't resist it. Thank you, Chef. Jeremy, done a lot of traveling in Southeast Asia. I tell you, I must have ate twice my weight in Lumpia. Why did you use the rice noodle? It's just a cool little vessel once it's fried. Well, let's see how this goes. You have all kinds of range here. The rice noodle, I like it because it looks a lot more elevated. The filling, tasty. Sauce, you got refined carrots, and I can taste that carrot coming together. You have it all. Thank you so much, Chef. Please go back. Thank you so much. Praise from the judges means so much to me. I feel like my mom would be so proud of me. Jeremy, your fellow cooks name you as the front runner. So let's see you prove it today. Yes, Chef. You're the captain of the red team. Come get your apron. I want to show the judges just how far I've come in my experience. I've run services for 500 people, so I'll be ready for this challenge. Jeremy, you named Mae as your greatest threat. Let's see if you're right. Mae, you'll be captain of the blue team. Nice. Being a team captain makes me nervous because if you fail as a leader, then you're failing everyone on your team as well. All right. Okay guys, so first course, we're gonna do a chicken karaage afritada. I know the direction that I wanna go. I'm gonna stick to my food style with Filipino food. Obviously the base is gonna be the rice, right? And then we're gonna have like our chicken there. There's gonna be the afritada sauce on top of it. Afritada sauce is a traditional Filipino sauce that's made out of roasted red peppers, tomato, and fish sauce. The second one is also gonna be served in a bowl. Charred eggplant and calamansi and apple mignonette. And then, play on a traditional Filipino dish, ginatan. We're gonna do sweet potato noodles as the base. It's a coconut Filipino-style curry. What worries me about this menu is the fact that, like, I don't know the flavor profiles. These are dishes that none of us have ever tasted before. All right, let's go, let's go. This prep is gonna take a while, but we need to make sure that we're ready to rock for the very first order coming through. Right away, myself, Tay, and Marissa dive into veg prep. Let's push it, let's push it. There is so much veg prep that needs to be done. Sweet potatoes, eggplants, dicing up apples and onions. If we can keep like a super fast pace. Exactly. I'm working on my ginata sauce. I'm taking responsibility of the sauces because none of my team has any knowledge about Filipino food. So I'm delegating jobs by things people are familiar with. So I know Christopher is familiar with cooking rice. So I'm leaving that up to him and I'm also leaving him chicken prep. I'm working on the chicken karaage and it's probably one of the most important. So I really got to get this done and really bang out the flavors. Yo Jer, that amount or less per serving? That's good. Yeah, that's perfect. I'm really, really excited about this team. Everyone is so skilled, but that blue team is not weak by any means. There's just so much talent in this season. So we'll see, I think it's gonna be a good fight. Push hard, guys, at the beginning, that way we have more time at the end. Jeremy? Yes. Eyes on the eggplant? Looks good. Since I was last on MasterChef Canada, I've started my own private chef company. I run events, private parties, and pop-ups, but no experience doing food delivery at all. Hey, chefs. How are you? Good, how are you? Doing well. What is your menu? We have our style down for all three of the dishes. They're all gonna be modern Filipino food. Our first one, we're gonna do a sweet potato ginatan with the roasted sweet potato and sweet potato noodles. Ginatan is a traditional Filipino dish. It's typically a stew. It's coconut milk, aromatics like ginger, garlic, and onion. It's basically our version of curry. And then we're gonna have a charred eggplant dish with an apple and calamansi mignonette. Sounds delicious. and then a chicken karaage bowl with a traditional Filipino sauce. It's an afritada sauce and sushi rice as the base. How's the chicken cooked, may I ask? The chicken is gonna be marinated in soy, mirin, and ginger, and then we're gonna dredge it with cornstarch and deep fry. I think that sounds really intriguing, but you know, when you work with the masses, you gotta please everyone. Thank you, chefs. All right, good luck. Thank you. All right, guys, I'm gonna be calling out orders, okay? Come on, baby! Give me an order! It's gonna come hard. Jeremy, get up front, I'll do that. You need to expedite. I need you up there, buddy. Service begins and I'm frankly feeling a little bit nervous. Okay, guys, we have orders. Okay. Do you want to call it? Yeah. Okay, we got two poke bowl, one ginatan. Okay, you start shelling out rice. It feels a little clunky. None of us know what to do. Do you want it like this? I don't know how it is. So let's trade. Hey, Jeremy. We've got another order in. I think we're gonna, we're gonna. We are kind of out of sorts. We're not quite ready. So it's a bit of a flurry. Okay, Chris, jump in there. Help, uh, help Jeremy on the ginatan. I need to hear you guys talking. I need to hear talking. We've got orders coming in now. Hey, communication guys, tell me where you're at. Orders are coming in, so everything's getting super intense. Two times eggplant. No order? Chicken wings, one noodle salad, three mushroom taco. Heard. I hear Andrew expediting, and on our side, I don't really hear anyone. Guys, orders are coming in. We need to call them out, please. Just look at them. Just go look. No, I think we need to communicate. No, just look. Jeremy really needs to take the lead. He needs to be telling us what to do. You guys, we need somebody actually expediting on that. You want me to do it, I'll do it, but we need somebody actually controlling that or we're gonna get lost. Jeremy, lots of talking up there. Okay. Just where we're at, what's coming in, yell to us. Jeremy's being a little bit quieter than I thought he would be, and our team needs his leadership to win this challenge. How many poke? We are basically cooking blind. Thank you. Jeremy, I need to hear you give these commands and orders so that they know that you're in charge. That's what happens in a real kitchen. in a real kitchen you know that i know that make it happen yes thank you okay guys one poke bowl one eggplant two gnocchis okay michael said that i need to be loud i need to be clear and i need to be a dominant leader two poke bowl one gnocchis boom jeremy's in the zone guys how are you guys doing good good good jeremy found his bearings and he found his voice and i think that's great good job guys good communication guys we're rolling we're doing good guys we need two Two charred eggplant, one gnocchi, okay guys? One more, one more, let's go, hustle. Whenever you're on a team, whether it's for sports or in the kitchen, you don't stop, you have to keep pushing. Every rating point will count on deciding the final winner. Don't slack on those orders. Let's go, red team, final push. This was a very hard challenge. We had issues, but we overcame them, and I know our flavors were so amazing. Let's go, we got literally 30 seconds now. Push it, push it, push it, we're getting it out. Come on guys, hustle them out, let's go. As fast as you can, Jen, as fast as you can. Hustle, hustle, hustle. Five, four, three, two, one, time's up. The results were close. The losing team finished with an average of 3.8 out of five. The winning team did slightly better with a 4.1 rating. And that team who created and executed the most pleasing delivery dishes is the red team. Yes! Yes! Well done. Congrats, guys. So, so happy right now. I'm super proud of every single person on my team. Good job, you guys did good. I just feel like a weight is lifted off my shoulders. I'm very, very proud of the effort that we put forward, and I'm stoked to be safe. All of these ingredients are so interesting. These are not ingredients you're gonna find in most people's grocery carts. These are a little bit unusual, and they do take a tremendous amount of skill and understanding in order to master them. And it takes a very important word, creativity. Very interesting. I don't even know if you can eat it. I don't even know like what half these ingredients are. Okay, so maybe we're gonna scratch that idea. At least I recognize the mung bean noodles. I know that I can use that as a base of my dish. I do recognize squab, but I've never worked with it. But I'm gonna treat it as if it was a tiny little chicken. Squab, I think, is particularly challenging to work with because it is such a lean protein. Unlike chicken, it has a very strong flavor, so it could be overpowering. You have to know how it behaves. You have to create that perfect balance. I don't want to go salmon. I feel like that's too easy. I want to use something that I've never worked before. I'm here to push myself. I'm back to win. I'm making a Filipino-inspired soup using this squab. It's called a sotonghon. Anytime I was sick as a kid, my mom used to make me sotanghon. It's basically our chicken noodle soup. My mom was so important to learning everything that I know about cooking, and that's one of my fondest memories of her, is just sitting in the kitchen while she cooked and taste the things that she's cooking. I have to be creative with this challenge. I'm even using the bones of this squab to make my broth. Never cooked squab before, but I'm confident in my skills. I think I can do it. Beans that you would typically ignore before this challenge, you want to make it the star. You want to incorporate it in a very smart way. Not forgetting a single component. Not many people do soups in this kitchen because it's so hard to impart flavor into a broth in 60 minutes, but I'm going for it. The Filipino holy trinity is ginger, garlic, and onion. I'm going to get those aromatics in there with these squab bones and get that pressure cooking. OK. Stop the clock! What is going on? Why are we stopping the clock? We're in the middle of a cook. Here comes the twist. What are you going to add to this challenge now? Lord knows what it's going to be this time. None of the challenges are going to be easy or straightforward. There's going to be a twist. Oh my god, I can't have another mystery box within a mystery box. Come on up here and grab a box. This is insane. We have so many other ingredients, I don't know what they're gonna throw at us. Open your boxes now! Okay. Yes! What is this? We have four more ingredients for you. Okay. Your choices are Calus Caviar, a sustainable cod roe spread. Cynap Grove, organic whole grain mustard. Chocolat Mork, sustainable dark chocolate. Silt Lingon, organic lingonberry preserves. Hey Jeremy. Hey chef. Was that curve ball a curse or a gift? It was a gift because you know what? This is cod roe. The main seasoning of this is fish sauce. Oh. So it's gonna pair well together. I'm excited about this secret ingredient cause it's gonna actually add another depth of flavor to my broth. Once my broth is done pressure cooking, I know that the seasoning is still gonna need to be adjusted. So this is a good way to add another layer of umami. All right, carry on. Thank you chef. Add a bit of flavor to my dish. I taste the fish cake and I really love it. It has a ton of flavor in there. The challenging thing with fish cakes is plating them. Plating is not my strength, so I don't know where to even start. I'm looking at my squab. I cut into it. Perfect. 30 seconds! Last 30 seconds! Come on! Get up! Six! Five! Jeremy, you're up first. It's so important to cook with your heart in this competition, and my heart went into I hope the judges see that. So I made a play on a Filipino classic. It's called sotanghon. Traditionally, it's made with chicken, and today I used the squab. I also used mung bean and a cricket squab skin chicharon on top of the noodles and also the enoki mushrooms. You really used a lot of those sustainable ingredients. I like the way it looks. The only thing I would have done differently here is I would have sliced the squab and placed it on top of the noodles because right now it's drowning in a hot stock and you can see that it's overcooking. Yeah. It's another knockout from you. I love the fact that the squab is only seasoned with salt because it allows the other flavors to really shine. The noodle's perfectly cooked. The broth, so many layers in it. Delicious. Thank you. Thank you, Chef. Noodle soup is the ultimate comfort food. 100%. You think I'm going to get that ultimate comfort? I hope so, Chef. Okay. Oh, I would say more than pleasantly surprised. I like it because it's very clean, and using the pressure cooker was a fantastic idea. You're able to extract all that flavor. Overall, I like the effort. This is the food for the future, and your future is bright. Thank you, Chef. I feel so good right now. I got to stick to my roots, and they love the flavors. I'm pretty proud right now. I know that Téa is nervous around working with seafood because of her allergies, And Jeremy is extremely fast and that's just going to level him out a bit. Right now I feel like Jeremy is my stiffest competition. So I have to exploit whatever I can. It would make sense to pair us together to try to knock us out. But, you know, I'm not scared. I'm ready to go in it with full steam ahead. I've been cleaning squid and cooking mussels since I was a kid. So I can break those things down fast. She doesn't even have to touch it and I'm going to take these East Coast boys down. Emma's fighting words. Come on, Craig! Get them out, get their knives. Just get that stock on first, throw it in there. Let's go, bud. You need to chop garlic and parsley. This has to be the most difficult tag-team challenge we have ever had the cooks perform. It was just getting too easy for them. And remember, we only need about one-third of a cup of that, okay? And remember, you need garlic. They are in the mise en place, the preparation process. process. It's about slicing and dicing all your vegetables, spiralizing your potatoes for the garnish of the mussels. The more you can plow through that, the quicker you can actually cook and build your platter. We need it for the squid and we need it for the mussels. We're trying to double up our efforts and not do things twice. Yep. Andrew was really strategic in putting the teams together. I mean, he paired Jeremy and Taya. I think he feels Taya's shellfish allergy is going to actually slow her down in this challenge. I'm going to do the potatoes and then I'm going to do the filling for the squid. Taya's starting first because she needs to get on anything that's not too seafood related. Come on, let's go, we got this. If you think I need to speed up or slow down, just let me know. Okay. 15 minutes has gone by, 45 minutes left. Let's get the sardines on immediately. Yes. Make sure you salt, then we can bang out a dish like super quick. Can you throw the sardines on? Chris, I think we have lots of time for sardines, man. Okay. Which element on the platter do you think would be the most difficult to do, Alvin? I think ceviche because you've got to break down the fish and then you've got to get the right amount of acidity to cook the fish. Take your time here to make sure that looks pretty. You have to be very careful when you're dicing up that red snapper because you do not want any skin and you don't want any bones in that. If you don't have time to do the ceviche, just throw that in the bowl and I will finish that one up. Okay. Finish the marinade, then get the fish in there. I'm actually not going to worry about that right now. I think the way me and May organize things is a little bit different. I'm just going to break down all the seafood for us. I'm just trying to cut things out of the way. May wants to start the ceviche later, which is not wrong, but I'm the kind of guy who likes to get one item done at a time. If we don't finish tasks as we start them, it's very easy to miss ingredients. Great work, Chef! Ooh, baby! Claudio, which of the six items do you think's the toughest? I think it's the squid, actually. There's a lot of labor going on there. They have to make a filling to go inside of the squid with fennel, pine nuts, and breadcrumbs. Look at the technique Jeremy's using to remove the skin off the calamari. He has a squid on the cutting board and with a kitchen towel, rubbing it super fast. I've never seen that technique employed before. We eat squid quite often in Filipino cuisine, so I grew up cleaning squid. Okay, squids are ready. Okay, squids are good, good, good, good. I actually think what Andrew perceived as the weakest team is the fastest right now. Jeremy has almost finished the mise en place of the seafood. Jeremy's skills are at a very high level. come up and get your aprons the rest of you go up to the gallery look you need it good luck you need it you think that challenge was tough wait till you see the next one okay the judges are trying to push our limits but i've dealt with so many hardships in my life i'm never gonna let anything knock me down if i get knocked down seven times i'm gonna stand up eight times Taya and Jeremy you struggled enough with the surf so let's see how you do with the turf you'll be You'll be making a steak au poivre, a beautiful cut of beef tenderloin, coated in pepper and cooked to a perfectly pink medium-rare, then served with a creamy pan sauce. But there's more. And you'll also be making a gorgeous steak tartare. Oh, interesting. Since with this dish, the tenderloin is served raw, the key here is ensuring that you have impeccable seasoning. Dishes should look exactly like ours and taste incredible. Because this is a replication challenge. And you only have 15 minutes. What? No. Whoever does it the best gets to stay. I have cooked steak au poivre before and steak tartare a few times, but we only have 15 minutes. It's crazy. I have a good track record with these pressure tests, but Jeremy is number one to beat. Your 15 minutes starts now! This is incredible. They went from team members to rivals. And let's remember, both of these home cooks were finalists in their very own seasons, so they are no stranger to pressure, intensity, and getting the job done. They're back to win, and it all comes down to this challenge. The first step in this challenge has to be prepping your filet seasoned with black and white peppercorns and a touch of salt. and then getting your tenderloin cooking. That steak needs to be medium rare in the center. The steaks are going to take almost the whole amount of time in order to cook and then rest, so I got that out of the way right away. I noticed a very critical difference. Jeremy only put one piece of meat in the pan. Taya has two for backup. That's a smart move that Taya made. Well, I don't know about that. I don't think that's a good strategy because if you have too much in the pan, you're not gonna get the right heat. Come on, guys. Come on. We only have 15 minutes. I'm moving faster than I ever have before. I'm fighting for my two little girls at home, my fiance, Agnes. I came here with a goal in mind, and to take the title home with me. So I don't want to disappoint my three ladies at home. Ten more minutes left for two of the best beef dishes you're ever gonna make. Frickin' hope so. I just can't believe one of them is going home. I know. These cooks have to balance two different dishes constantly. They've got the steak in the pan. They've been preparing their steak tartare. For the steak tartare, it is so essential to have the perfect seasoning. Freshness from the capers and gherkins, a little acidity. The mustard adds another depth of flavor, and not too much of it. Otherwise, it becomes too wet. Five minutes! Let's go, let's go! Taya's taken both her steaks out. Now she's letting them relax. Stay focused, Jeremy. Oh, look at that. Wow. She is deglazing the pan right now with brandy. that's the foundation for the sauce oh yeah coming back for more oh this is crazy Jeremy's sauce it looks like it's broke right it broke yeah it broke i look away for 10 seconds and the sauce split there's not much time left i have to try to save this they are both neck and neck right now this is going to come down to the finest of details hustle hustle hustle One of you will stay, the other one will go. Don't forget every detail. Make sure everything looks right. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three. It was so good. Good job, good job, good job. Hi, Jeremy. Hey, Chef. You happy with the outcome of your 15-minute head-to-head challenge? A little bit upset with the sauce. It's kind of starting to split. You're right. The splitting is either because it's boiled too vigorously or there was a little bit of an imbalance with too much acidity. You feeling confident in the cook, medium-rare? I hope so, Chef. Because there's a lot riding on this single cut. That's perfect, medium-rare. Nicely done. Thank you, Chef. Now let's see how it works with the sauce. Good seasoning, a good balance of the peppercorns. It allows the steak to shine. It is the unsightliness of a split sauce that is the biggest detractor on the dish. Thank you, Jeremy. Thank you. Jimmy, let's look at the tartare. All these ingredients you put inside also have individual flavor. So at the end of the day, it's the balance. Yeah. Now that is good. That is good. Perfect combinations of seasoning there. Got the aromatic in there. You got the spices in there. I'm impressed. Thank you, chef. It's so good. Both dishes have their strengths and weaknesses. I'm feeling pretty worried. I feel like I'm good enough to take the title. I just hope that I get the chance. The stakes have never been higher, literally. I came here to show the judges how much I've grown, and I feel like I'm just getting my stride. I agree. Jeremy. Oh my gosh. Jeremy, we are as shocked as you are that you're leaving us tonight. You have an incredible talent and a burning passion that comes through on every plate, and you have nowhere to go, sir, but up. Thank you, guys. The last time I was here, I made it all the way to the finale. I wish I could have made it all the way this time, but I felt amazing to come back. Your fellow cooks name you as the front runner, so let's see you prove it. Yes, Chef. I've grown so much since I was here last. I think a lot of people saw what I'm capable of. He's so fast. He's faster than anybody else. I just wish that I could have showed more. You have all kinds of range here. Thank you, Chef. I'm not going to walk away sad. I'm gonna hold my head high. I'll get to go home to my little girls. They'll still be proud of me. My fiance will still be proud of me. I always bounce back and I always come back stronger.