Professional Masterchef The Professionals

[Icehaven]

They must do something with the excess food or there'd be outrage, particularly when they have a "larder" that the contestants select ingredients from because there's always loads left over and it's pretty much all fresh so it'd need to be used or frozen straight away. Maybe they cook it up for a homeless shelter or something.

[Icehaven]

Final is on today apparently, presumably because football.

[Gurke and Hare]

We all agree they got the right winner here, yes? She was great, I'd have demolished pretty much everything she cooked all the way through. Poor old Sagar though, possibly had glory snatched from him by a tiny bit of piping bag.

[Icehaven]

Sorry for the necro bump but not really worth starting a new thread. Anyone watching? If so anyone else think Monica's roast pork in the skills test on Monday (6th) was undercooked? While she was slicing it you could clearly see it looked quite pink in the middle then when it was served it was arranged very carefully so you could only see the edges, and even then the slices on the left looked pink and slimy. I know there's been hoohaas in the past about "real" shows being tricksy with filming to give false impressions etc. so I wonder if they didn't want to risk the hassle of giving it longer to cook but the way the others were raving about it like it was wonderful when they'd have pilloried a contestant for serving pork that raw was a bit pisstaking.

[gilbertharding]

Being mostly vegetarian (and I never cook meat) we very often get it wrong when we're looking at meat on the telly.

Me: "That looks dry..."

Egg: "Perfect."

[bgmnts]

Does anyone else find themselves rubbing one out when Sean Pertwee starts dripping sex in the ADR, over a plate of desiccated fennel, mangetout tuille, dandelion and burdock potato puree with a delicately reduced gummy bear jus drizzled over it?

[touchingcloth]

Sorry for the necro bump but not really worth starting a new thread. Anyone watching? If so anyone else think Monica's roast pork in the skills test on Monday (6th) was undercooked? While she was slicing it you could clearly see it looked quite pink in the middle then when it was served it was arranged very carefully so you could only see the edges, and even then the slices on the left looked pink and slimy. I know there's been hoohaas in the past about "real" shows being tricksy with filming to give false impressions etc. so I wonder if they didn't want to risk the hassle of giving it longer to cook but the way the others were raving about it like it was wonderful when they'd have pilloried a contestant for serving pork that raw was a bit pisstaking.

I noticed this! The pink pork was there for a split second and then it cut to a different piece of meat being plated, right?

I don't mind pink pork personally, so potentially they served and ate it that way, and filmed a separate piece for broadcast to align with (too broad, and incorrect) public health advice.

[Wentworth Smith]

Proper chefs always seem to cook something less than the majority of us would. Seen it a few times with Gregg saying it's a bit under for his taste but the chefs wolfing it down.

Enjoying this series for the usual reasons: the aforementioned Sean Pertwee narration, Marcus continued failing attempts to appear human, the insane difficulty of the skills test.

Some actual drama this series with someones food EXPLODING in their face and them being disappeared, and more mega balls ups than usual.

[bgmnts]

Marcus continued failing attempts to appear human, the insane difficulty of the skills test.

Wareing's ice cold stare is sublime television. You can just see him in his wet room can't you? The gagged, screaming chef begging forgiveness for overdoing the beef Wellington, just before he plunges the knife in, releasing all that built up evil.

Monica knows. She's seen something. Easier to pretend though innit?

[Wentworth Smith]

Wareing's ice cold stare is sublime television. You can just see him in his wet room can't you? The gagged, screaming chef begging forgiveness for overdoing the beef Wellington, just before he plunges the knife in, releasing all that built up evil.

Monica knows. She's seen something. Easier to pretend though innit?

You see it best when someone tells a joke, he's always a split second late to react and when he does he looks like a robot trying laughter for the first time.

[gilbertharding]

Proper chefs always seem to cook something less than the majority of us would. Seen it a few times with Gregg saying it's a bit under for his taste but the chefs wolfing it down.

For starters I wonder how come the risottos you see them cook aren't crunchy.

[touchingcloth]

Marcus continued failing attempts to appear human, the insane difficulty of the skills test.

I like Marcus. Prefer him to Michel on balance, and like that he's broadly positive towards contestants, especially so in the car crash skills tests.

Speaking of which, they vary in difficulty massively it seems to be as layperson. On the same episode this week, Monica's test was "cut a piece of pork off this joint, and cook it with a bit of apple sauce" - something I could have a crack at without completely fucking up, while Marcus's was "make a bisque, and cook some fish, oh, and prepare a crab. By the way, viewers, just so you know, bisques usually take a week to prepare in a commercial kitchen, and even just making sure crab meat doesn't have bits of shell in it is extremely time consuming. You've got 20 minutes, your time started when I started talking."

[Icehaven]

I noticed this! The pink pork was there for a split second and then it cut to a different piece of meat being plated, right?

I don't mind pink pork personally, so potentially they served and ate it that way, and filmed a separate piece for broadcast to align with (too broad, and incorrect) public health advice.

I thought it was the same meat because even when it was plated some of the lower edges looked pink to me, plus it was arranged in such a way that you couldn't see the middle which was what I'd noticed looked particularly underdone. You'd think they'd just reshoot the whole bit though rather than plate it deceptively, unless there wasn't enough time or pork.

I'm no chef, master or otherwise, at all but I thought pork and chicken needed to be cooked past being pink, and the skill partly lies in finding the sweet spot where it's just done so it's still juicy and tender. Maybe the health advice is over cautious but I'm sure if a contestant served pink pork Egg and Co. would pull them on it with a forlorn "I can't eat that".

[bgmnts]

I like Marcus. Prefer him to Michel on balance, and like that he's broadly positive towards contestants, especially so in the car crash skills tests.

Speaking of which, they vary in difficulty massively it seems to be as layperson. On the same episode this week, Monica's test was "cut a piece of pork off this joint, and cook it with a bit of apple sauce" - something I could have a crack at without completely fucking up, while Marcus's was "make a bisque, and cook some fish, oh, and prepare a crab. By the way, viewers, just so you know, bisques usually take a week to prepare in a commercial kitchen, and even just making sure crab meat doesn't have bits of shell in it is extremely time consuming. You've got 20 minutes, your time started when I started talking."

Bonus points if they've somehow never baked a cake or made a bisque before.

[Icehaven]

Proper chefs always seem to cook something less than the majority of us would. Seen it a few times with Gregg saying it's a bit under for his taste but the chefs wolfing it down.

Enjoying this series for the usual reasons: the aforementioned Sean Pertwee narration, Marcus continued failing attempts to appear human, the insane difficulty of the skills test.

Some actual drama this series with someones food EXPLODING in their face and them being disappeared, and more mega balls ups than usual.

Yep I thought that, Monday's had two out of the four having multiple fuckups when doing their own food (the uncooked custard tart, the gritty puree and the revolting grey caviar sauce to name a few), which is quite unusual. Sign of the shortages in the hospitality industry?

[touchingcloth]

I thought it was the same meat because even when it was plated some of the lower edges looked pink to me, plus it was arranged in such a way that you couldn't see the middle which was what I'd noticed looked particularly underdone. You'd think they'd just reshoot the whole bit though rather than plate it deceptively, unless there wasn't enough time or pork.

I'm no chef, master or otherwise, at all but I thought pork and chicken needed to be cooked past being pink, and the skill partly lies in finding the sweet spot where it's just done so it's still juicy and tender. Maybe the health advice is over cautious but I'm sure if a contestant served pink pork Egg and Co. would pull them on it with a forlorn "I can't eat that".

Depends. Neither pork nor chicken are magic deathmeats, and the advice for cooking them thoroughly is for different reasons (i.e. pork and chicken don't carry the same bacteria as one another). In both cases, the advice to cook them thoroughly is due to them being more intensively reared than cows and sheep which are more typically fed outside and less at risk of developing certain bacteria, but in addition to that it's due to them being even more intensively reared back in the 90s and before when there was less of a free range movement.

I wouldn't eat pork rare if I wasn't sure of its origins, but I get my pig meat from a local farmer these days and so I see where and how they're raised and so I'm happy to take the risk on them being rare. It's difficult to find chicken reared free of salmonella because its carried by rats and wild birds, and they also are (after a quick google!) gifted with a 42C body temperature which is the exact temperature at which Campylobacter thrives, so cooking it through makes a lot of sense regardless of source. And I probably should revise my opening and say that chicken is a slight magic deathmeat.

Yep I thought that, Monday's had two out of the four having multiple fuckups when doing their own food (the uncooked custard tart, the gritty puree and the revolting grey caviar sauce to name a few), which is quite unusual. Sign of the shortages in the hospitality industry?

They're being noticeably more lenient on them this series, it seems to me. Custard tart guy was allowed to serve it even though it was disqualified from judging (and I enjoyed the idea that he'd plagiarised Marcus's recipe!), and there was a contestant in one of the skills tests who seemed to be putting things together for about five minutes or more after their time ran out without receiving a punishment for it, which is a great hack for future contestants to bear in mind.

Shortages in hospitality industry meaning people are less able to get time away from work to practice, maybe? And/or CoLC meaning it's less affordable for them to bring bags of training caviar home?

[Gurke and Hare]

They always say on this that it's okay for pork to be a bit pink now, I don't know if that's official advice though.

The one who's a Mike Leigh character might be the best so far, but the black woman who came through the same heat as her is excellent too.

They should have a challenge where you have to cook a dessert that isn't chocolate cremeux or something with rhubarb.

[touchingcloth]

chocolate cremeux

Is that how it's spelled?! It's been the voguey ingredient for the past couple of series, unperching the previous champs of jus, sous vides (souses vide?), and tuiles - and I've been madly googling "cremoo", "cremmoo", "cremmo", "crem-oh" and the like.

Sounds a bit like newfangled slang for the ovens at Treblinka.

[Icehaven]

The one who's a Mike Leigh character might be the best so far

The one with the Orville voice? Yep she's ok, and there were a few very good ones earlier too when they ended up keeping 3 of them instead of 2 because they all did so well (although it might also have been to replace the woman with the exploding bisque flask).

[touchingcloth]

I was ready to hate Orville because she sounded so much like that performative northern podcast that keeps getting promoted on Off Menu, but fair fucks she can chef it up a storm.

[Capt.Midnight]

Not seen the latest episode, but there's been some proper clangers in the 'signature dish' round so far. I love this lower standard Masterchef!

[Gurke and Hare]

Yeah, before this series I don't remember anyone ever saying "I fucked it, there's no pudding sorry."

[touchingcloth]

Having never (to my memory) mentioned it before, egg has dropped at least two buttery biscuit base references this series.

Love the idea that it's gone viral, jingle-jangle style, on Tiktok between this series and the last, and one of his bribed underage girlfriends has pointed it out to him.

[Capt.Midnight]

Yeah, before this series I don't remember anyone ever saying "I fucked it, there's no pudding sorry."

It's genuinely impressive to have no pudding with 2 hours and free reign over the food served.

Monica does not appear in all the episodes. I really want to know what's occuring there. Although if it were a choice of being in an Expensive Hotel Documentary or listening to egg's brazen cockney patter, I know which one i'd be picking (it's not egg).

[Wentworth Smith]

'I thought I had seventeen minutes, instead of seventy.'

Incredible.

[beanheadmcginty]

Every time Chantilly cream is mentioned (which is seemingly every 5 minutes), I cannot resist the urge to sing it out loud in the style of the Big Bopper.

[touchingcloth]

Gregg is not a good broadcaster. He's asked contestants this series "what's the Ukrainian for 'lettuce'?" And "have you got a boyfriend?"

Fully expect an episode where he asks a woman for her address.

[beanheadmcginty]

In episode 4, after the jittery Welsh bloke has finished his invention test, Monica asks him "have you stopped shaking like a rock?" What rocks has she been hanging out with?

[touchingcloth]

Wasn't that a callback to him saying "I'm shaking like a...rock"?

[beanheadmcginty]

Oh did he? Fair enough, I missed that. What a stupid cunt. Hope he slices his fingers off.