BBC Celebrity MasterChef judge Gregg Wallace was forced to intervene during the pairs challenge after Mutya Buena and Dominic Skinner struggled to work out how to cook their flatbreads.
The first challenge of tonight’s episode saw John Torode and 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.
Watching them put their aprons on, 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.”
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.
“You cooked plenty of tofu in your time have you Mutya?” Wallace asked before she quickly replied: “Never in my life.”
Skinner followed suit and admitted: “Never worked with tofu, never made flatbread, I love Korean food so we got this,” before they were told they had one hour to produce their dishes.
As the team kicked off, Torode quipped: “Teamwork and communication, that is what we are going to test them on, how good are they are working together?”
Wallace added: “The team member with the recipe has to give clear and concise instructions. Mutya and Dom are a team, we have seen flatbreads fail many times before, usually, it is not cooked all the way through because it is far too thick, it has got to be the right thickness.”
With just 10 minutes to go, Buena shouted: “Dom, we need to get our flatbreads ready as well, melted butter for brushing,” leaving him to ask: “Do you brush them after or before?”
Looking confused, she admitted: “I don’t know… it doesn’t say!” before Wallace walked over and intervened, flipping Skinner’s flatbread and revealing: “Now you can butter it.”
The team managed to get their dishes on the plate and present them to the judges, leaving Wallace to 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.”
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
Oasis fans ‘work out’ support act for controversial tour as band release two extra Wembley Stadium showsJames May admits feeling ‘frail’ as he opens up on health impact of Grand Tour ahead of exitBBC Bargain Hunt’s Roo Irvine baffles fans with bizarre reaction to three-figure loss
Moving onto Buena’s, 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.”
Speaking about their task away from the judges, Buena noted: “To be honest, it came out so well, we have now made a dish that we have never made before.”
Skinner joked: “And will probably never make it again.”
