He wasn’t that disappointed after all. Jean, 39, from Lille, had tears in his eyes when his “MasterChef” competitors surrounded him and hugged him at the end of France 2’s culinary evening on Tuesday. This consultant trainer was eliminated with his pesto zucchini cannelloni. “Too neutral,” said starred chef Thierry Marx, one of the three members of the jury. “The chefs told me that I had my place in the kitchen, that’s what matters most to me,” Jean reassured himself. On the spectator side, we digested this second episode of the competition for amateurs much better than the first too dense last week, which had 18 candidates scroll through in two hours.
“MasterChef” rhymed this time with tasting and no longer with fast food. The show took the time to show the preparations of each candidate and the different tests, DNA of the international “MasterChef”, were rather amusing. The mystery box, which requires creating a dish with all the ingredients that compose it, imposed a real tour de force. Serve a good dish combining black pudding, squid, tapioca, mushrooms, green asparagus, oranges, lemon… Hats off!
We smiled to see Samira discover the tapioca pearls, she seemed lost but she took up the challenge successfully. The unstructured paella of Alice, a 27-year-old Parisian webmaster, sent her directly to episode 3, without going through the repechage box. She dazzled the jury with perfectly cooked squid, creamy black pudding. Conquered, Thierry Marx released his favorite compliment “You annoy me. Either you are gifted or you have worked a lot. »
Zachari’s bold imagination
The recognition tests made people smile. We have seen the candidates shine or stumble by confusing Brie de Melun with Brie de Meaux, Cayenne pepper with Espelette pepper, Fourme d’Ambert with Bleu d’Auvergne. A test all the more playful as we were able to participate in it in front of the screen. It was Marc-Amaury, always diligent and focused, who achieved the highest score with 11 correct answers.
For the pair event, “MasterChef” invited Frédéric Anton. The pressure mounted again for the participants. The triple-starred Pré-Catelan (16th century) imposed a monochrome yellow or green, red, black plate on them. Samira and Emmanuelle’s yellow dish came out on top. The cooking of their confit cod “is extraordinary”, applauded Frédéric Anton. With their black plate, Marc-Amaury and Dao also qualified. Dao, gifted in molecular cuisine and taste experiments, had already wowed the jury with her squid feathers. Transparent creations, which the jury admired, recognizing in unison that they “never thought of it”.
Zachari’s bold imagination wowed too. The young hydraulic engineer dared a Curcubita bam, starting his dish with a condiment transformed into a drinking shot. We like that, in “MasterChef”, when these cooking enthusiasts certainly dazzle us, but especially when they amaze the three chefs who judge them.