MasterChef goes the way of the other white meat

Now, it just so happens I swore I wouldn’t touch an egg after all the monkey business that took place on MasterChef last week. But I was in San Diego over the weekend (some comic convention thing … I don’t know) where resides one Perry’s Cafe, the best place in town for a down-home breakfast. The kind of place that not only has great food, but leaves you satisfied in more ways than three.

And I speak truthfully when I state the double dose of MC episodes the previous week didn’t cross my mind in the least as I lovingly took to my spinach fritatta and washed it down with the best roadhouse coffee this side of the 1950’s.

And let me tell you something … that’s really saying something, especially after all that blather about coddled eggs and Eggs Benedict. I’d had enough. But nary a thought about those dishes entered my mind when I slid into that booth at Perry’s.

But … with this week’s airing of MasterChef I started thinking: What doom and gloom awaited our heroes of culinary Catch 22s this week ‘neath the scrutiny of our beloved judges? What pain? What gain? And — most importantly — would eggs be involved? As it turned out, an egg was featured in one of the dishes … but minimally, and with little fanfare. *whew*

Mystery box challenge of the week for the contestants? Scallops. Neat! I’m a scallop eatin’ fool, so it was nice to see some of the dishes they came up with. What wasn’t so nice was hearing one of the gals (I forget who) declare: “I’ve never shocked (sic) a scallop before.”

Hmmmmmmmmm. “Shocking” scallops. That’s a new one.

But the fun of the episode was the pork challenge. With Adrien winning the advantage with his scallop dish (his “scallops three ways” creation was adventurous and attractive to Ramsay and Co.), he got the opportunity to dole out pork cuts to the others in an attempt to (possibly) trip up and trim his competition. And, oh, the dishes we got.

Seriously: What in the world do you do with pork cheeks … ?!? (photo above) I didn’t know this was a part of the swine one uses to cook with. You learn something new every day. Additionally, I found out — courtesy of Christian — that you can make a pretty spiffy dish out of pork cheeks. Whereas Adrien tried to send him down a daunting road by giving him this interesting cut of pork, Christian turned the tables and threw it right back at him in creating one of the winning dishes of the episode. And while I applaud his efforts, I just wish the dude would cool it with all his grandstanding and showboating. He’s an established cook and doesn’t need to make an ass of himself, but he inexplicably does it week in and week out. A little humility would do him good.

I only had a single complaint about the bottom three dishes when it came to judgment time. No question Suzy, Alejandra, and Jennifer should have been there, but something tells me Suzy and her clove-infused ground pork concoction should have earned her an exit just as easily as Alejandra and her undercooked raw chops should have. And especially after Joe Bastianich called her out, stating her dish was “… counter-intuitive to everything MasterChef represents.” But it was only Alejandra who got the boot. Suzy should have joined her.

Side Note: Best part of the show for me was Graham Elliot’s comment to Ben when he tasted his scallop dish:  “Amazing cookery.” You see, I have the tendency to mash up wording to the point of goofiness, but when I heard “cookery” come out of Graham’s mouth, it was nothing but justification because it just so happens I use that word. Isn’t that special?

Clacked by Michael Noble
on Jul 27, 2011 @ 15:00 EST5EDT