Masterchef Australia S12 E12 Recap — How Soon Is Wow?

It’s Pressure Test time, which is always exciting because we know someone is going to end the night miserable, whether it be because they’ve been eliminated, or because they’re Poh and their attempt to get off the show has been foiled yet again.

Last night’s losers arrive at the kitchen with books in hand: within their books are written the recipes they’ve created to cook in the pressure test. “We asked you to write a recipe for a dish that would blow our minds,” says Jock, but this is not a very clear instruction. You could blow the judges’ minds in all sorts of ways: by hollowing out a human corpse, for example, or by leaving a series of clues that lead to the location of Lord Lucan inside a flan. However, today they want their minds to be blown in the ordinary, boring way: with food that they like.

The challenge begins. Poh puts her recipe down on her bench and runs to the pantry, then remembers the recipe says what ingredients she needs, goes back, gets the recipe again, and runs to the pantry. She’s cooking a recipe she has cooked many times before, but previously it’s taken four hours, and today she only has two. She’s hoping this is the decision that will finally make her dream of going home come true.

Asian Sarah thinks that people believe “wow” means something complex and sophisticated, but she disagrees because she doesn’t know how to do that, so she’s decided that “wow” means something boring and predictable, which is handy. Jock and Andy visit her bench and…