BBC Celebrity MasterChef fans were once again left frustrated with the format of the show, and branded the pairs challenge as “meaningless”, leaving many to wonder why they bother.
John Torode and Gregg Wallace split the four contestants into teams of two, with Buena and Skinner on the red team, and Vito Coppola and OJ Borg on the blue team.
Buena and Skinner were tasked with making a vegetarian kebab, made from tofu, mushrooms and broccoli, in a Korean-style marinade, with flatbreads and sweet potato fries.
Meanwhile, Borg and Coppola were challenged to make veggie burgers, consisting of a chickpea patty, onion rings, spicy mayonnaise and cabbage and coriander slaw.
Introducing the segment, Torode explained: “We are splitting you into pairs. Each team’s challenge is to produce a dish, and we want two portions of that dish which need to be identical.
“Not just the way they look but also in texture and in flavour. However, only one person on each team has the recipe.”
However, as the teams got to cooking, fans of the BBC series weren’t happy they had to sit through the challenge again, and took to their X accounts, with one slamming: “How is this an indication of being a good cook, pointless in my honest opinion.”
“Find this challenge dire tbh..” another penned before a third said: “This round is totally meaningless, what is it supposed to prove?”
Someone else commented: “All this round proves is celebrities are disorganised and clearly can’t communicate.”
“Week after week I know this challenge is coming yet it still bugs me and I don’t know why…” a fifth noted as another hit out: “This proves nothing. Not when they fumble around the kitchen shouting pointless things at one another.” (sic)
With the teams managing to successfully create the dish, Coppola and Borg were first to be judged, leaving Wallace to immediately note: “The plates look remarkably similar, but you have two completely different burgers.
“Vito yours is the size of a double-decker bus, and OJ, yours is half the size and looks like it has fallen apart. Vito, that is not bad at all! There’s sweetness there of the beetroot, there is a mealiness coming through from the chickpeas, your onions rings are crispy.”
Torode added: “I love the smell that is coming off of that slaw, the sesame oil and the soy sauce, Your mayonnaise is creamy and sharp with the lemon and a nice little bit of spice coming from the siracha you added to it, it is good.”
Moving on to Borg’s dish, Torode praised: “Your onion rings are sensational, lovely and crispy and seasoned really well. The burger itself, when you emptied your chickpeas into the mixer you put a lot of the liquid in, it just made the mix a little bit too wet.”
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Wallace agreed and added: “The burger, yours is definitely better, and it is sweeter, your dressing is lovely but it has got more soy and more chilli because it is slightly saltier and hotter, your mayonnaise is well made. You have done a good job OJ, but there are differences between the two plates.”
Skinner and Buena were up next, and saw Wallace immediately note: “The striking difference is the bread, apart from that you have both made absolutely gigantic kebabs.”
Torode began with Skinner’s dish and explained: “Your kebabs, your tofu is lovely, your mushrooms were cooked all the way through, little bits of crispy broccoli. Flatbread I like, it’s lovely and thin, but if you look at these fries you can see they are a little bit soggy.”
Wallace added: “I like your marinade, its smoky, slightly sweet, slightly hot. Mutya brushed hers over her kebab, you emptied the bowl of marinade into the griddle pan.”
Buena’s was next to be judged, as Torode said: “Kebab’s great, the sweetness that is coming from the Korean chilli paste, your sweet potato fries have gone too dark and they have gone soft and a bit soggy, just a bit of a shame.”
“Mutya, I love your marinade,” Wallace praised. “I love that sweetness, that heat, that smokiness, is lovely. BBQ sauce meets chilli sauce. There is nothing wrong with your breads, you just haven’t rolled them out flat enough, they’re not cooked in the middle there, it’s doughy.
“I think you did very very well, trying to teach yourself and teach your partner at the same time. Dominic it took you a while to think, actually I have a role to play here as well and once you did, things got a bit better, so well done the pair of you.”
