Best Indian Dishes for World Hindi Day | MasterChef Australia

Today I'll be making pepper lemon cream chicken with a flaky paratha and potato crisp. Getting my food tasting by Marco will be one of my dreams. I've always told my husband that I really want to present Marco with a fiercely Indian curry which has lots of love just made for him. Looks good honey. It smells good? Really good. So I hope Marco tastes my dish. I cross my fingers and my toes. Oh my god. The legend is there in front of my eyes. You understand spices very well. My dad too. There's a very gentle warmth. Really clever. Thank you. His personality, it melts you. He's like a coconut that he's hard from outside but inside he's really a soft and a very beautiful person. You know what, Marco? I love you a lot. I love you too. I was like, oh my god, my love story is complete. I need that. For an ordinary person like me who gets a chance to cook for Marco, that's a big achievement and getting it tasted is a double achievement for me. Wow, I like the look of it. What is it? Cream pepper chicken with flaky paratha and potato crisps. This is a very simple dish but this is quite close to my heart. Why? I always do this dish when I'm not having a good day or something and it's easy and it's flavourful and it's full of fat, so I like it. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. I like the idea of a dish that you make for yourself when you're not having a great day, that's beautiful. Shall we taste it? Nidhi, in 35 years I've been in this industry, I've never seen a dish look like that, taste so good. It's delicious. It's delicious. The combination of chicken fat and that black pepper. Which is beautifully balanced, and that little squeeze of lemon, sensational. The crisps, a little bit of salt. Well done. Thank you. It nailed the brief, and the brief was simplicity, tasty, yummy. That's, what more can we say? Definitely have to have a run after that, that's for sure. Good stuff. Looking for a legend. Not everybody gets a chance. Only I can say that. Must have done something too good in life. I'm doing curry today because I eat curry all the time. It's my go-to takeaway, so I have to cook it today. I've been to India, I know the flavors well. I just have to go with my instinct. Doing really well, Tessa. I've chosen this curry in particular because I just think it's a saucy dish. It's not gonna sort of dry out. Tessa. Yes, hello. You've got a big old snapper sitting there, fish curry? Yeah, so the dish that I'm doing is a South Indian fish curry with some lacha paratha. It's kind of like an Indian roti, some coriander chutney and some rice. Wow. Yeah. You gonna make it? I bloody hope so. I'm going to attempt to do four elements in the 70 minutes, which is pushing it. Time's going quick. But you know what? I'm fighting for my place in the competition, and I want to show them that I am willing to fight to be here. You know, I don't want to give up my position that easily. My base for my curry is cooking. I'm now working on the lacha paratha, which is a flatbread, but there's still a lot to do. I still have to fillet the fish, and I need to make my chutney. Just under 15 minutes to go. This curry is coming along nicely. But I really need to get a move on with breaking down the snapper. Watch yourself, Tessa. Watch yourself. I'm feeling the pressure. You know, something that I would usually do quite easily is just becoming this mammoth task, and I'm starting to sort of get a little bit frantic. You're all right. You're all right. Why can't I just get through this side? So I just need to take a breath and get this fillet off neatly and nicely. No, it's almost through. Almost. That little dorsal. Yeah, yeah, that's the way. That's the way. Good job. I don't have time to get this chutney done. I'm just going to drop it. I really need to cook this fish as soon as possible. It needs four minutes to cook. Right now, all I'm thinking is that I need to take Mel's curry out slightly earlier, and hopefully that residual heat will continue cooking it, and then it will be perfect by the time Mel gets it. Okay, Tessa, south-east Indian fish curry with lacha paratha. For my south Indian fish curry, I took Melissa's fish out earlier than Jock and Andy's. I'm hoping and praying at this stage that they're both cooked perfectly. Lovely flaky paratha. Fish looks pretty perfect. Smart girl, Tessa. She's really thought about how this dish will travel. Strong dish. Tessa, what's the whole dish? South Indian fish curry. With a lacha paratha and just some basmati rice. What do you think? Well, there's a huge aroma wafting off that curry. It's just making me want to eat it. Here's a question. When you order takeaway, do you eat it in front of the telly or do you sit at the dining room table? Telly. TV. Yeah. You'd be a TV man, for sure. Yeah. The trouble is, is that I order so much, it ends up on the dining room table and then like a buffet. You know, for me, that wants another 20 minutes in the pan. The flavour is on its way to being delicious. I would have enjoyed that far more if the curry part of it had been in the pan for longer. And I did not enjoy it. I just would have... I can see where it was going and it hasn't reached that potential. If I got that in a takeaway box, I'd be happy. I mean, I love the big pop of mustard seeds and curry leaf that you get. I like the kind of sourness of those tomatoes that they haven't been allowed to go quite sweet. One huge props I'll give her, you couldn't cook that fish any better. The fish is perfect. And not easy to do. Make sure you debay those mussels. Yeah. Jamie knows everything about Indian food because he's been there. Did you get curry leaves, Jamie? I couldn't see any. I would like some though. I've got to go back in. Yeah. The fact that I don't know a lot about Indian food is a disadvantage but I know that I want to serve a curry base and a nice pile of crispy crab on top of it. Indian food is all about flavour and different layers so I'm trying to achieve that by really sweating down my onions and garlic and getting them really nice and caramelised and burning my tomatoes to get that sweet, charry flavour into the sauce as well. A crucial cook-off with Laura Beckens. You've got 15 minutes left. Come on, guys. Come on. At this stage, they're both travelling really well. I think watching how slow I was through my cook, they know to hammer and go from the start. Otherwise, it'll fall apart like it did for me. All right, Amelia, what are you cooking? Crispy soft-shelled crab with a tomato-based curry sauce. You've cooked with soft-shelled crab before? I've never cooked with soft-shelled crab. Ah. Have you ever prepared a soft-shelled crab? Nope. Why go with something you've never cooked before? If you put up a dish and you haven't prepped the soft-shell crab, you've kind of guaranteed yourself that elimination at the end of the week. Choosing a protein I've never cooked before is a huge risk, but I want to push myself and show the judges that I deserve that spot in the semi-final. If I was going traditional Indian, I would go more for mussels. I mean, they're a lot easier to cook. I think soft-shell crab is a bit risky. Do they have gills, Mil? No. Oh, they do have gills. They do? Yeah. Yeah, take them off. What is she doing? There's a semi-final spot on the line, and this is not the time to be taking that kind of risk. I'm a little bit concerned Amelia doesn't know anything about it. Guys, you've got 10 minutes. Thank you. Indian's not everybody's cup of tea, and it's quite clear that the two styles of dishes that myself and Amelia are making are complete opposite ends of the spectrum. How is it? It's getting there. Is it? It's on. What have you got to adjust? It's a work in progress, isn't it? It needs a little bit more sweetness. And what are you going to put in there from a sweetness perspective? I'm going to be toasting off some cinnamon and some mustard seeds and some curry leaves and that'll go over the top to go through at the end after I do these. I've had a wok on for about five minutes getting it smoking hot. Whoa. I want that fire to flavor the mussels. It's that little extra flavor that's going to add something to the dish. You have five minutes on the clock and you want to be asking yourself, what little extra thing can I do with that time that will make the difference? Come on. Come on guys. Jamie. Half an hour cooks go so fast. I need to cook my crab. I need to finish my sauce. Five minutes is pushing it. That's good. Bit salty. My sauce is too salty, but I still need to adjust it with cream and lemon and some yogurt. And I just hope that's going to balance out when I do that. Got lots of stuff in there. You need to be asking yourself right now, have you done enough? Two minutes to go. Come on. Come on, guys. You're going to pass your sauce? No. You're going to leave it chunky? I don't want that. From up here, both dishes look absolutely incredible. This is way too close to call. 30 seconds to go. Come on. Oh, my God. Hurry, hurry, you've got 10 seconds left. Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. That's it. Hands off tickets. Fun, guys. Feeling good. Put up a tasty dish in half an hour. That's what I wanted to do. Happy days. Just good seafood in a nice curry. There's nothing better sometimes. What up, Mils? Thank you. Clever girl. Good? Softshell crab's yum. Yeah, it is. It's good. I'd love to get through to the final. Jamie's dish looks really nice as well, though, so we'll see. We'll just have to wait. It's going to be a cracking tasting. Two very different looking dishes. Amelia, you're first up. I'm so nervous for this tasting. I've taken a huge risk and I really hope it pays off for me. Softshell crab with a roasted tomato curry sauce. Aggressively forward in salt. But because you've roasted those tomatoes and you've got that complexity, intensity of that kind of sweet acidity you get from tomatoes, it pulls it back into line. And in terms of flavours, you know, that little bit of yoghurt adds some more sourness. And in terms of spices, well-balanced, not too hot. I love the fact that you've never ever prepared or cooked soft-shell crab, and your intuition led you to clean and prepare that crab brilliantly. For me what tempers it is the crunch of the crab. It's lovely, it's very mild, it's very delicate and crunch does wonderful things to the whole eating process. Thank you. Well done. Well done. Jamie, come on in. You went straight in, grabbed the mussels, I think you knew exactly what you were going to do. Yeah, half an hour goes fast though, doesn't it? Half an hour does go fast. What's the dish? Mussels with the South Indian curry sauce. Are you sweating? Is that chilli? I like the fact that you've brought some smoke to the dish, which is fantastic. I like the use of curry leaves. I love the cooking of the mussels, and you've done those perfectly. Certainly when I go in for my first spoonful, I go, ooh, a little harsh. But then actually, as you have more spoonfuls, you find little surprises, a little seed, you know, that you pop, that you get some fragrance from, a little tingle on the lips, a little kick in the back of the throat. And that's, for me, the fascination with Indian food. I love that. So it is delicious. Sashi. Yeah, man. Are you sure you don't want to put any chocolate in that? I'm putting a lot of chocolate in this today. Heaps and heaps. Rasam is a very traditional South Indian dish, but I'm trying to put my spin by making it a bit refined. Grilled fennel and fish, I think, will go very well together. And I'm adding some cherry tomatoes to the rasam so that it gives an additional freshness to the dish. Now I start to season my fish and put it in the pan to cook. I need to keep an eye on the fish. That fish is the hero of the dish. It needs to be cooked perfectly. Hopefully, when I assemble the whole dish, it comes out well. The butter looks very good. I'm happy with the way it's cooked. Maybe not. I'm not convinced that the fish is cooked 100%. So I put it back in the pan for 45 seconds, and now I'm convinced it's cooked perfectly. I need to start plating up. I strain the rasam broth into a jug. I put a barramundi on the center, two grilled fennels over and around the fish, slice up one cherry tomato, two halves around the fish. Hopefully, my flavors be good enough for the judges. I'm proud of what I've done today. It looks exactly what I pictured in my mind. Hopefully, it has a very good balance of flavours and textures. What's the dish? Pan-fried barramundi with grilled fennel and rasam. And I also have some crispy skinned barramundi. And the summery elements? Summer. It reminds me of Singapore. Very hot. Rasam is part of our daily diet. Beautiful. Love it. Get up here and sauce. Let's taste. You reckon? Smells wonderful. Yeah. Beautifully sashi. Really beautifully. Well done. Wow, that's nicely cooked. Look at that. It's gorgeous. It's pretty special. Beautiful dish. Fish cooked really well. I love that crispy, sort of salty skin. That broth is yum. Oh, thank you. This is a summer dish. Makes me happy. You all right? Yeah. I love it. I love it. I mean, I know what the traditional dish is, but I like it in your version. I like the fennel. I like the tomatoes. It's delicious. I like the crispy skin. I like the fact that that gorgeous sauce is championing that piece of barramundi. It's lovely. Yeah, what I love is you've taken classic Mediterranean summer dish of fish, Grilled fennel, tomatoes. Textbook flavors of the south of France. And you've combined it with this lovely south Indian rasam. And the clever part of it is adding those peeled tomatoes and grilled fennel because they add some more freshness and pull down the heat and the intensity of the rasam. So, Sashi, it's really good. As you were saying it, I'm going, oh, you're right. You're absolutely right. Oh, yeah, you're right. Delicious. Well done, Sashi. Great job. So this is what it looks like after it's come off the bench. And you've rolled it up, ready for service. Look at that. Oh, my god. That's amazing. It's shiny. It's beautiful. So there'd be two ribbons on each dish. And then we cover that with some coconut sauce and basil and bush tomato and chili oil. This dish, it consists of chickpea flour, pasta, a very delicate coconut sauce. There's a bush tomato and chili oil and basil oil. After tasting that dish earlier on, I know these elements are going to be really tricky. So this is going to be a really difficult cook. This is bloody scary, man. Oh, my God. Oh, yes, Po. I'm spreading the mixture onto the bench and it's looking fabulous. It's setting. I'm really confident that it's a great texture and it's not too thick or too thin. Can't go over it again. Yeah, it's like you get one shot. You got one shot. Okay, got it. Po spreads out her pasta dough on the bench. Come on, let's go! And it looks fantastic. Beautiful, silky and about the right thickness. Why is everything so hard? I'm a disaster zone. Oh, you're happy? Yeah, I'm happy, I'm happy. You're happy? Yeah, yeah, yeah. My pasta is setting on the bench. I've got my oils into the bottles, so it's ready to plate up in front of the judges. And I'm on to my coconut sauce. The coconut sauce is so beautiful. It is one of the most balanced things I think I've ever tasted in my life. Oh! Oh, yeah, they're popping. Oh, my God. Yeah. They're literally popping. Pop it like it's hot. Fifteen minutes to go. Fifteen minutes, yeah? That coconut sauce is now ready. And then now I have to cut and roll up my pasta. All right. Come on, Po. Well done, Po. It's rolling beautifully and it's coming off the bench just as I wanted it to. And it feels amazing. Taste tests are definitely not my thing, but maybe pressure tests are. Who knows? Thank you, Po. We'll taste. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Po. Wow. I think in terms of looks, it looks fantastic. Yeah. That pasta, it's sort of got that nice glossy nature to it. It does look pretty beautiful. I'd love to taste it. All right. From flavour perspective, I think it's pretty close to yours. The pasta, not pasta, is beautifully silky. It melts in the mouth the same way as yours did. It's beautiful. Yeah, I think the texture of the pasta is spot on. The thickness is beautiful, the sauce is delicious, and the oils, they're nice and bright. I thought in terms of the balance of flavour, as soon as the plate hits the table you can smell the elements of lime, the coconut, the ginger, and to me that was quite faithful to how I felt when I consumed yours for the first time. I don't want to put you on the spot here, but I'm going to. In terms of the pasta, would you send that? Absolutely, I would send that. Yeah? This would fly in my kitchen. Yeah. That's like the ultimate compliment, isn't it? Yeah. So... I agree. She's done a cracking job. Durian pumpkin cheesecake with chai spice. We're adding the pumpkin on top of the cheesecake, and then we're gonna do some chips with the skin, and we're gonna salt those just for a savoury element. I feel like we're hitting the brief. It is classic flavour, putting pumpkin in dessert, but we've just gotta limit the sweetness just so we get savoury notes. I've got my cheesecake still in the freezer. I've been dreading this moment. I have to check if these cheesecakes are set. The cheesecake looks set. It looks like good consistency, so I'm happy with that. We've got the pumpkin on top, so just to amp up the flavour, we're going to put a little bit of chai just through some muslin cloth just so it's lightly sprinkled. I'm really proud of my dessert today. There's definitely savoury notes there, the saltiness of the chips, and it's something I haven't seen on a restaurant menu before. So we've got Red Team's second dessert here, the chai spiced pumpkin and white chocolate cheesecake. I like the look of this. Yeah, how pretty. It's really bright. Yeah. And you can smell the chai spices, even though you don't even, you know, it's like, boom, straight there. So, just the dish makes sense. Well, I love the fact they've used pumpkin. I mean, you know, we've seen pumpkin in desserts before, but I love the crispy, is that pumpkin? Pumpkin, yeah. Yeah, pumpkin. It's great. Yeah, it's great. And salty, you know. Yeah. I don't know what you guys think, but I like it. I think it's really good. The cheesecake is most definitely cheesecake. And I like the way that the chai spices, and particularly the salt, It plays into that dessert the whole way through. I think it's in a number of elements. So even though you're eating dessert, you're reminded constantly that you've got those savoury notes, those toasty savoury notes of the crumb, of the pumpkin, of the seeds, you know, all the way through as you eat it. I think they've met the brief, that savoury element to it. Got a nice chai flavour there coming through. Cheesecake's nice and quite delicate, nice and refreshing. The real battle that you've got when you're trying to make a savoury dessert, It's telling people it's definitely dessert with all those salty flavors hitting you. Because there's lots of saltiness, lots of spice coming through. And then when you taste the texture of the cheesecake, the biscuits crumb underneath, you go, oh, it's definitely dessert. Because that's a dessert I've had a thousand times before. So I think that's a real success. It's warm, reassuring in terms of texture. But gee, they've absolutely given us saltiness and savoriness all through the dish. If you want to make a savory dessert, this is exactly the way to go. I think that's a real success across the board. Oh, I got another eight more to go. I've never cut so many chicken in my life. What a man. For the main, I'm gonna make a nice South Indian curry for $7.50 with some rice and raita. It's called Madurai Chicken Curry. It's a district in South India where my grandparents came from. So I'm trying to replicate that dish here. I'm looking at 80 to 100 grams of chicken for each customer. So based on 100 customers, I'm looking to break down at least 10 chickens. If there's 100 people buying from my store, that is enough. Oh, the color looks good! For the main, we are making an Indian curry with some rice and raita. For the dessert, we are doing Indian donuts with cardamom and rose water syrup. Okay, Rhys, do you mind holding the wok? Less than an hour left. All the spices are in the wok. My chicken is cooking. So, things are looking very comfortable. Where's the rest of your curry, Sachi? This is the curry. Where's the rest of it? That's all. You've got 500 people coming. I cooked 10 kilos of chicken, so... It looks scant. Matt is worried that I don't have enough chicken. So now, I'm thinking, what if the food is not enough? What am I going to do? I hope my maths is correct. Let's have some curries, all right? The best chicken curry I've ever tasted. Curry? Thank you. Working with the customers directly today is so much fun. Want to feature? Well, no worries. That one's yours. Beautiful. Come back for second one. Maybe third. We're getting a lot of interaction, and the customers love Sashi's curry and the donuts as well. Yourself? One of each. One chicken and one donut? Yes. Coming right away. For the donut, we'll be serving that with some Indian flavors with a rose water and cardamom syrup and some pistachios over the top. Two curries. Two curries? No worries. The food is going like hotcakes. Yeah, let's grab two curries. Two curries? The curry is very popular. Everyone is grabbing one plate, two plates of curries. I'm feeling excited, but I'm also seeing the crowd. What if the food is not enough? And one curry for you. Well, here we have the white team, the Bling Boys. Two lads with immunity pins, Reece and Sashy. Love the look of the curry. These donuts with this rose water syrup, absolutely fantastic. Mmm. Oh, yeah. How light. We have a rubbish job, don't we? I'm coming. I'm going back for more if I'm knocking around here. You know, I get one, and I go, you know what? I'm going to go and buy another one, because this is delicious. It's mild enough to be a crowd pleaser. I think that is a great dish. I had the chicken curry and it was fantastic. I absolutely loved it. Lots and lots of flavour, lots of depth, well-rounded. I've also had the Indian doughnuts, which were just delicious. Doughnuts, guys? They're probably the best you'll ever have. Come back for more. Can I have two curries? Two curries? Oh, the curry is flying. Hopefully I got enough to last the long queue there. We are only halfway through service. Yeah, thank you. I'm running out of curries very quickly. One chicken curry, coming right away. Thank you. This challenge is all about making money and I'm so worried the other teams are still selling their dishes. Two curries? Matt is right. I should have made more curries. Sorry guys, we have run out of chicken curry. I need to think of something else to sell to get as many customers as possible until the last second. Or me and Rhys, we are in danger. It's just under an hour and we've already run out of the curry. I'm literally heartbroken because that's not a lot of time at all. So we need to start to think on our feet a bit and think of what we can do to get a bit more money coming in. Yes! Yes, actually! We have a lot of time, so since there's a lot of customers, we're going to cook up some banana fritters with the rose water syrup. We have decided to sell banana fritters for $5. Have some banana fritters! We've just done a last minute batch of banana fritters and they seem pretty good so I'm really happy with them. Both those are yours. We probably should have started with fritters today. Right? Having an Indian background, I was very excited to present the judges with Aussie classic in an Indian way. I'm using the lamb shanks now for the curry. I will be making a South Indian style lamb curry with onion stuffed fried bread and carrot pudding. It's like grated carrot with lots of milk and everything. So there will be a dessert within the dish. Yes. I'm very excited because I'm guessing that none of the other contestants will be thinking to make a dessert with these vegetables. I'm making a South Indian style lamb curry. While the curry is reducing, I started my dessert. This is one of my favorite sweets. This is like a winter comfort food. Out of 23 contestants, I might be the only one who's cooking dessert in the dish. It's grated carrots put in milk with some condensed milk with nuts and cardamom and saffron. Cook till it gets a creamy consistency. The carrot pudding is almost done. I move on to kneading the dough for the bread. It boiled. I didn't notice it. I hope the milk isn't burnt. If the milk is burnt, the dessert is ruined. And if the dessert is ruined, it could send me into the pressure test. I'm hoping that I can save it, otherwise the smell of the burnt milk would ruin my dessert. So I'm just changing the pan so there's no smell of burnt milk in there. I'm feeling pretty confident that my lamb tastes fine. So now I'm making a flatbread stuffed with the onions in it. You look confident. Can I taste this? Yeah, definitely. It looks all so delicious and smells beautiful. Thanks, Marco. The duty guard. Cooking as a form of therapy. Definitely. So do I. All my life. It tastes really delicious. Thank you, Marco. Make an extra one for me on the side. I just love your cooking. Your use of spice is genius. Nidhi. It's Marco. Tell me, what's your dish? It's an Australian classic Indian way. Lamb, South Indian style. Sweet carrot pudding with onion yogurt, parsnip chips and a bread with onion stuffed in it. Did you say that one was for me? Yes, that one's specially for you. Ah. Today I made it for you. See? All the special stuff for you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you, I'll have one of these then. I went back to front there, didn't I? Yeah. You go pudding first. I went pudding first. This morning, you were top five. This tops what you... This is... I wish you had a restaurant where I live. I'd be there every week. Oh, thank you, uncle. Thank you, thank you. This little carrot pudding is... Well, it's better than anything I've ever had in India. This is one of those sort of things you try and you come back for the next morning, you wake and you queue up, waiting to get in. I love it. Thank you, man. Love it. Well done. Oh my god, Marco wants me to have a restaurant. It was the proudest moment. Thanks, boy. The support I'm getting from my family in the gantry is pushing me very hard. I'm going to put in all my heart and soul. I'm going to make sure the food is full of flavour. Let's go, Sashi. You got this. Making the curry for the fish. Is that for the starter? No, for the main. Main. My plan for today is to cook both the dishes at the same time. For my main, the hero ingredient is the snapper. So I'm making fish curry with cumin rice. I'm going to start my curry base and my sambal at the same time. Both of them need time to cook. He can multitask. There's a lot of things happening at the same time, but I want to make sure the dish is packed full with flavours. Hey, hey, hey! Yes, yes, yes! I would love to send my starter out right now, but sambal paste needs time to cook down. Oh my god, that smells so good. It's lucky that I've also started the curry paste for the main. So that now, I'm able to concentrate on the other elements. I need to cook the prawns now. Dad, what are you doing? Making them into nice shapes like that. Never seen that before. Wow. Little bit fancy. So fancy. I'm very happy with the flavours I've been putting in. I'm going back to my roots. I'm making sure the judges are tasting what Sashi made of. I can't believe Ben has already taken out the starter. And I got so much of things to do. Sash, we're sitting on half an hour to go, okay? Yep. Looks beautiful, Sashi. Go, Sashi. Let's go, Sashi. This is one of the biggest stress I've felt in the whole competition. Come on, Sashi. Get the dishes up. If I can't put out this starter as soon as possible, this whole challenge is going to be gone. I will not have enough time to finish my main. I will not be able to win the MasterChef. Come on, baby. This is Sashi. Come on, Sashi. Come on, Sashi. I'm running behind, but my prawns are looking great. Go, Sashi! Let's go, Sashi! To plate up my starter, I'm putting two pieces of prawn sambal with a handful of herb salad and two prawn heads and garnishing it with a little bit of chilli on top. Looks beautiful, Sashi. Smells amazing. Come on, Sashi! It's a simple dish, but it's going to be full of flavours. Service, please. Let's go, Sashi. Come on, Sashi! Smells good. Yeah. So Sashy, don't want to hold you up. What's the dish? Sambal prawn with crispy prawn head and some herb salad to go with it. Brilliant stuff. Come on, get back in the kitchen. Thank you. Main course. Come on, Taz. Go, Sashy! Come on, Sashy! My starters are out, but I'm feeling the stress. This is a mega round. 60 points is for Greg. And I only have 25 minutes left to serve my main. They are both doing fish. Look at that, it looks amazing and smells beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to talk, I just want to eat. Keep going. Finger licking good, that is. That is just absolutely fantastic. I love the complexity of that sambo. And these crunchy heads, just the way he's peeled them. You see that little extra bit of flesh that's on the top of there? It's just gorgeous. Chili is the hero. Can you tell from the top of my head if chili is the hero? That is just delicious. And for me, putting flavor aside, those prawns are cooked beautifully. He's nailed it. This is Sashy's cooking at its best, isn't it? You know, it's all about flavor. It's all about that amazing balance of the freshness of the herbs against the heat of the chili, both the cooked chili and then that raw bird's eye on top. That's a smashing starter from Sashy. Wonderful cooking. For my main, the hero ingredient is the snapper. My rice is cooking. My fish curry, the base is cooking down. I need to start on with my fish ASAP. No bone sash. That looks good, sashy. Thanks for that. If I am known as the flavour king, then Ben is the seafood king. Ben cooks amazing fish, so I need to make sure my fish is cooked perfectly. I take one piece of the fish to check whether it's ready. I can see it's slightly raw in the middle. I'm putting it back inside for another two more minutes. The fish is the hero of the dish. It needs to be cooked perfectly. You all right? Yeah. Sashi's wife, Rebecca, I don't think she can watch. She's just pacing up and down the gantry, the poor thing. I'm feeling so stressed at this point of time, but I got my support from the gantry. Fee. I feel so good that they are proud of me. Help me. Come on, baby. How far I've come in this competition. 10 seconds! Sashi, what have you cooked? I've made fish curry with cumin rice. Oh, wow. I like the consistency on the sauce. This dish is an absolute ripper. Fish, beautifully cooked, robust enough to stand up to that wonderful texture and that deep, complex level of spicing in that curry sauce. It certainly builds, so you know you're picking up cumin and coriander and then the chilli's just starting to heat up. Now I've finished it, it's still burning and I'm still salivating, but I think the fish is cooked beautifully. I love the little achar pickles on the top and the sweetness of the pineapple. I love the rice, I love the sauce, I want more pickles. My rose tea smoked chicken tikka masala. Looking at Vikas's dish it's really refined and it's beautiful and you know there's just little elements all around the plate and I'd never expect I've seen an Indian dish so I am quite excited by this dish but scared at the same time. I don't think I've seen anyone beaming in a pressure test so much like Renee. It's like my dream dish like that's it that's my perfect dish. We've got the the chicken breast and then of course we've got the the sauce. The little coriander oil, and then the side of rice, and of course that little crisp there. It just looks so wafer thin and beautiful. It's like a snowflake kind of rice which is going to get cooked, beaten, baked, and then sprinkled with a little bit of mustard seeds. Very simple thing. Yeah, very simple. No part of me was thinking that this was going to be an easy challenge. Grab all your spices. There's a few things that can go wrong today. With the sauce, I need to balance out all the spices really well and make sure that one spice isn't too dominant. All right, teaspoon of turmeric. One teaspoon of cumin. Half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon. Renee, you need to get your spice mix together. Yep. One of my skills is balancing flavours, so I put in the exact spices that he used, I just change the amount. So where he said a teaspoon, I put in one or two, then I just kind of mix it all together, give it a shake, look at the colour of it, have a smell, add a little bit more. Annie, how are you doing? I'm nervous, but I feel like I just need to stay really focused and get the time. You still look very meditative in that mood, right? Yeah, I'm not going home. You've got to stay. Yes, 100%. Well, let's have a look. How's that? How's that little mixture of... Fantastic. I put a little bit extra because I always like a little bit extra. Did you put a little extra in, did you? You're changing the recipe. Don't do that. Just a tiny bit. So what I'm going to do today is quite risky, but I have made the decision at this point that I'm just going to make it up myself. I hope Renee knows what she's doing. I don't think I'd be changing the recipe of a Michelin chef. She's taking a huge risk. The first thing I need to do is remove the chicken skin from the crown. You've got to take the skin off, both breasts in one piece, yeah? Yeah. No, no, no, no! What? You have to take the skin off, both breasts in one piece. Move, Lozzle. You know how to break down a chicken. I then need to break down the crown, and take off the breast, and then butterfly that open. Alright, just massage under the skin, take it all off, yeah? Alright, so you don't want to break it, Jeej, so just run your fingers under it really gently. Trim him off, Jeej. Make sure I don't pierce it. Yep. Looks good. Gently. That's it for now. All right, set that aside. Yep. Guys, we should be ready with the smoked ingredients too. What Vikas is trying to say is, hurry up! Flame. Get your charcoal straight on the flame. I'm really curious about this method of smoking. Vikas has said that it's a very ancient Indian technique. So I follow the recipe. I spread the garlic paste on the chicken breast. Next thing I do, I get the heated coals, which are now glowing, into a small bowl and I start selecting the spices that need to go into it. Add four dried rosebuds, half a cinnamon stick, one tablespoon of the Darjeeling tea leaves. And then? Two cardamom pods, one tablespoon of the clarified butter. Amy, you're losing out on all the flavours. You need to keep the spice mixture ready and put it on this just one time. So now we're losing out on all the smoke, which we need to preserve. Now cover with the cloche. Where is it? I'm worried that all the smoky flavour is escaping because I can't find my cloche. So I'm wasting precious seconds. Thanks Vikas, thank you, thank you. Eventually get the cloche on there and the smoke fills the dome and it looks amazing. Okay, I need to refocus. You gotta be quick Renee, you gotta be quick. Get the spinach on there, get the filling on there. Yeah, yeah, good, good, good. Filling, roll. Roll it. Don't flame me, get moving. Right, now you've got five minutes, actually not even, to get that chicken in the water bath. Otherwise, you won't be finished. 45 minutes to go. Come on, guys. Come on, guys. Come on. Wrap it in your skin. So I'm trying to roll my rollout at the moment, but it's really difficult. The skin isn't quite big enough, I don't think, for the actual meat of the chicken, and it's starting to make a few holes, and it's starting to fall apart a bit already. I've really got to hurry and get this chicken in. 40 minutes to go, and it needs 40 minutes to cook. Come on, you've got to get that twined and wrapped. So we're halfway through the challenge and everyone is behind. Time's ticking away, they've got to cook this chicken for at least 40 minutes and there's not even 40 minutes left. That's good, that's good. Secure using the twine. Now I know the recipe calls for tying the chicken, but I need to make up a bit of time. So instead of tying the roulade with the twine, then wrapping it in glad wrap. Yep, plenty. Then putting it in a sous-vide bag. What's it doing? It's just not sealing. I'm going to take a shortcut with Gladwrap where you roll it into a tight sausage and then tie the ends. Not those ends. It should set in the sous-vide machine and I've just saved myself a heap of time. Two tablespoons. Two tablespoons. Two tablespoons. Not too much. That's it? Yeah, that'll do. To make my sauce, I'm frying off the onions and I've got the tomatoes roasted. I have a taste of it, and I'm not happy with it. Um, it needs more cream. Because I added extra spice, I think it needs a bit more cream to balance out the flavours. It's not as smooth, nowhere near, so... Renee's already added as much cream as the recipe states, and she keeps adding more. I'm wondering if she's doing the right thing. Renee, no, no, no! Add some water. Add some sugar if it doesn't taste right. I just hope that changing the recipe hasn't jeopardised my sauce. I want you to taste it. Thanks. I'm so happy that I've got my sauce back on track and that Vikas loves it. Nice, looks good. How much time have I got? 12 minutes. Fast and hard, fast and hard. I've never made a rice poppadom before. We shouldn't bash the rice too much otherwise the grains will spread apart and they won't stick together. I'm not sure if I've bashed too much. It seems to be okay and it seems that they are sticking together. Sprinkle them on, crush them with your hands if you can. Into the 100 degree oven to dry. There should only be one thing on your mind, and that's making it into the top 10. Renaud, you're all over this. You can do it. Just push for the last few minutes. Get your sauce and your rice together just so you're ready. Come on, Gigi. Come on, come on, come on. This is where it gets crazy and interesting. Five minutes to go. Go, go, go! Now you're getting your chicken. At this point, I removed the chicken from the sous vide, and I'm quite confident that it's cooked properly. Get your pan up. I browned off the chicken, basting it with that ghee, and I'm so relieved. I feel like this is doable now. You're looking good, Flames. Flames, tears, nothing's going for me right now. Looks good, Renee. Looking good, Renee. Get your sauce on the plate. Come on, Renee, you're right. Let's get it going. Come on, come on. Walk it. Walk it. Very gently. Good job, Renee. Beautiful, Renee. You were nice. Yes! The gantry starts cheering. It's like I've just won the Olympics. It's crazy. Thank you. Wow. All right. Awesome, Renee. How good's that? Come on. Get a knife. Get a knife. Slide it underneath. That's it. Come on, guys. This is it. Two minutes to go. Push, push. Make sure that chicken's cooked. Let's go. Come on. It's like I'm going to go home with undercooked chicken, like I know how to cook chicken. So yeah, I'll feel completely defeated if I go home off this. Nice. Beautiful. The initial confidence that I had when I finished my dish is gone. The insecurity creeps in. Maybe it's not good enough. Maybe me changing the recipe wasn't a good idea. And with one dish sitting on that one table, it could be gone, and it's just this heavy feeling of realization, and it's not a good feeling at all. Taste. The smokiness is fantastic. It's not overpowering, but you have a subtle texture through that smokiness of flavor. I think that is quite brilliant. The spice mixture is a little bit over, but overall it's a fantastic balance of flavors. And the chicken is beautifully cooked. One thing that's slightly different is there's a fair amount of raw vinegar flavor in the rice. That's probably the one element that, if she was gonna make the dish again, you'd want her to work on. But otherwise, I think she's done a great job.