BBC Celebrity MasterChef judge Gregg Wallace seemed to catch some tension between stars Tamer Hassan and Emma Thynn during tonight’s episode as they were forced to work together in a high-pressure challenge.
One of the challenges saw hosts John Torode and Wallace split the four contestants into teams of two and send them to professional kitchens to help prepare and serve a lunch service, where it’s down to the celebrities to deliver perfectly executed plates and keep the kitchen moving.
However, their first challenge saw Hassan and Thynn paired together as the red team – with Jake Quickenden and Jamie MacDonald on the blue team – and were asked to make two identical dishes – however only one of each team had the instructions and recipe.
Torode explained: “So we have split you into two teams, red team, Emma and Tamer, and blue team Jake and Jamie. Each team is going to be tasked with cooking a dish, two portions of that dish and those two portions need to be identical.
“They need to taste the same and they need to look the same. But only one person on each team has the recipe. For you to be able to succeed in this challenge, you are going to have to work as a team and you are going to have to communicate.”
The red team had one hour to pull off grilled jerk chicken, rice and peas, mango slaw and dumplings – however, it seemed their communication skills were slightly different from one another.
Kicking off the task, Thynn began: “We are going to cook the chicken in a pan to start. I might give the rice a rinse,” however, Hassan had other ideas as to what they should be doing and replied: “Don’t worry about it Ems.”
Thynn ignored Hassan and went ahead and washed the rice, leaving the movie star to hit out: “Honestly, just, let’s go.”
Noticing the friction already, Wallace said: “Tamer really wants to race through this, he wants to go at a much faster pace than Emma does and it is causing a little bit of friction.”
Hassan began to get flustered and confused about what Thynn needed from him before she noticed he had a pot of boiling water and asked, “What is your pot doing?”
“Nothing it is just boiling, is that enough water for the rice,” he simply replied but Thynn was left stressed that they weren’t on the same page, telling Hassan to empty the pot.
Noticing their friction, Quickenden joked: “Those two are arguing, we’re alright,” leaving Hassan to reassure: “No we’re not arguing, just taking orders.”
After managing to get through the challenge, the pair presented the dishes to Wallace and Torode, with the latter stating: “I have got to say they look so similar.
“Shall we start with you, Tamer? Your chicken ace. It is great, the edges are all lovely and crispy, and there is a flavour of allspice and thyme in there.”
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Wallace agreed and added: “The slaw is lovely, you have got crunch in there and then you have got that lovely sweet slippery mango. Your dumplings are properly dense and heavy, this is a great dish.”
Moving on to Thynn, Torode praised: “Right Emma. Emma, you have really captured the flavours of the Caribbean, the rice is free flowing and the a little bit of black-eyed peas, and a little hint of coconut milk.”
Pleased, Wallace expressed: “The chicken, you have used slightly more chilli in yours than Tamer’s but they are very very similar. Your dumplings are superb, they are doughy, that is how they are supposed to be, you have a crust on the outside of it.
“There were times where I thought ‘this is going to fall over in a minute’, so well done to the pair of you.”
