MasterChef Australia (series 5)

The fourteen contestants faced a tough choice in this Mystery Box Challenge with a twist: the Heaven or the Hell Box. Contestants (working in pairs) choosing the Heaven Box would have 90 minutes to create a dish from 9 heavenly ingredients as chosen by the judges, while those choosing 'Hell' would have three hours (plus a recipe) to create one of the hardest dishes from past seasons. Four pairs chose 'Hell' and were faced with a Zumbo Macaroon Tower, featuring over a hundred macaroons flavoured with beetroot and olive. Liliana (who had made a Macaron Tower for her sons previous birthday) and Samira produced the dish of the day, and while Lynton's mistake of adding the wrong flavouring meant he and Neha only presented one type of macaroon for judging; they just avoided elimination for how perfect that one type were. In the end, it was two teams who chose 'Heaven' that found themselves in elimination: Daniel and Kelty who overcomplicated a dish that could have taken 15 minutes to prepare, and Lucy and Pip who made the decision to serve their premium wagyu beef with chunks of butter overpowering the simple flavours of the dish.

Daniel, Kelty, Pip and Lucy faced a two-round Elimination Challenge set by chef Ian Curley. The first round saw them recreating the chef's dish of Steak Tartare with Pumpernickel Biscuit (with a recipe given for the biscuit only), with the best two dishes saving their contestants from the elimination round. Lucy's decision to add lemon juice early, and thus 'cooking' the raw beef for too long, and Pip's failure to plate up the biscuit paired with her overly minced meat dropped them into the bottom two. In the final round, Lucy and Pip had two hours to replicate Ian Curley's Fig Bombe Alaska. Despite Lucy and Pip having varying experience with desserts, they were both on schedule and executed the elements of the dessert well. The difference in dishes came down to the meringue, Pip's over-aerated topping sealing a close elimination.

The remaining 13 contestants faced a seven-course service challenge based around the seven deadly sins. Cooking in two teams for 70 university students, they had to design and cook seven courses in two hours based around the same core ingredient signifying one of the sins (envy, lust, sloth, etc.). The Blue Team struggled under Neha's leadership with the strong personalities of Jules, Kelty and Noelene butting heads with her over the menu's direction. The Red Team, with one less member, thrived under Rishi's leadership but faced some struggles with preparation and limited kitchen supplies. Ultimately, the judges were impressed with standout dishes from each team leading to a close decision. The Red Team just made it over the line with a chilli dish that, while overly spicy, better embodied the feeling of wrath; Blue were again sent to elimination.

The losing contestants from the previous challenge were given two hours to produce a dish that personified their position: a Last Supper showcasing their skills and beliefs about food. With no limits of ingredients or creativity, contestants thrived and each successive dish wowed the judges. In the end, Lilliana's Four Layer Birthday Cake was singled out for, though well made and capturing the essence of the challenge, being not up to the same standard as the other contestants' dishes and she tearfully bid goodbye to the MasterChef kitchen.

In this Mystery Box Challenge, contestants were tasked with re-inventing three fast food favourites: fried chicken, souvlaki and burger-with-the-lot. Working in groups of three, they had only as much time as it took Matt Preston to go out and buy all three items. With each contestant making one of the three dishes, they had varying success with some overly ambitious while others playing it overly safe. The judges found fault with at least one dish in each team, and though Emma's burger lacked all the necessary elements and Daniel's souvlaki meat was poorly cooked, it was Jules' inedible Thai-style burger (with a poorly realised bun made of rice) and Samira's bland and under-thought souvlaki that left them plus teammate Rishi facing elimination.

In an Elimination Challenge with a twist, Rishi, Jules and Samira faced the first ever ingredients auction. With three lots of ingredients (a protein, a dairy ingredient and a vegetable element) to 'purchase', they could bid with their cooking time in five minute increments. With only 90 minutes of cooking time initially, they quickly bid away their time trying to win their preferred ingredients and ultimately, Rishi was left with 60 minutes, Samira 50 minutes and Jules only 30 minutes. Rishi with plenty of time and well-matched ingredients, wowed the judges with his rabbit dish. Samira and Jules both struggled with their oddly matched ingredients and limited time and both dishes came under scrutiny for their technical flaws. And while Samira served some very under-cooked lamb, it was Jules' bland and mismatched dish of Buttered Crawfish with Vinaigrette and Yoghurt that sealed her elimination from the competition.

In an Car Rally Team Challenge, teams were tasked with creating the perfect Club Sandwich with Chips for 50 Alfa Romeo enthusiasts. With three hours on the clock they raced to three checkpoints and competed in mini challenges with the winner of each getting to pick from pairs of key ingredients. At the first challenge, the Blue Team were first to crush six bottles of grape juice and picked sourdough as their bread, leaving Red with multigrain. On the way to the second challenge the Red Team got repeatedly lost and Blue easily won the next two challenges (making the perfect omelette and milking a goat) choosing chicken and sebago potatoes (Red left with turkey and kipfler potatoes) and racing back to Red Hill Estate on the Mornington Peninsula with 90 minutes left to cook. The Red Team's poor navigation cost them valuable time with less than one hour left when they arrived, but they made up time fast in preparation and had their dish of Turkey Club with Roast Vegetable Crisps ready first. However, the Blue Team's Chicken Club with Roast Tomatoes won the day for its flavour punch and Red was sent into elimination.

The losing members of the Red Team faced a Pressure Test set by Daniel Wilson of restaurant Huxtable. With two hours on the clock they had to recreate his signature dish of Maple Glazed Bacon Hot Dog, with Comte & Dijon Sauce, Tomato & Quince Relish & Mustard Pickles in a Pork Brioche Bun. What looked like a simple dish at first had many contestants confounded at its actual difficulty, which included making brioche and sausages from scratch. The pressure of time and delicate nature of bringing together all the components got to most contestants, but Rishi again showed the judges his skill with the dish of the day. In the end, it came down to Samira (whose religious beliefs meant she couldn't taste most of her dish's elements) and Kelty (whilst his dish had many technical flaws, he had perfectly made the brioche). Kelty was saved and Samira eliminated.

With the Top 10 safe from elimination for the week and an immunity pin up for grabs, the contestants first competed in a skills test: crushing a Chinese five-spice mix in a mortar and pestle. Christina was the slowest to finish and lost her chance at immunity for the week. In the second round, nine of the twelve eliminated contestants returned to cook for their place back in the competition. Paired up randomly (Rishi & Samira, Kelty & Jules, Lynton & Lilliana, Daniel & Pip, Emma & Faiza, Vern & Nicky, Neha & Xavier, Lucy & Michael, Noelene & Dan), their challenge was to take a pair of ingredients (a protein and a classically Chinese accompaniment) and create a Chinese dish in 60 minutes. The worst two dishes would lose their makers a shot at immunity (for the Top 10) or a spot back in the competition. Vern, Nicky, Neha, Xavier, Noelene and Dan were praised for their excellent cooking and teamwork, while Rishi, Samira, Emma, Faiza, Lucy and Michael found themselves in the bottom three. Ultimately, Rishi & Samira were declared safe, eliminating Faiza and Michael from the competition a second time.

The remaining seven teams of two competed in a test of planning, synchronicity and communication: without seeing or tasting each other's food they had to produce exactly the same dish. Dishes were judged on their similarities in taste and presentation, with the least identical losing their makers the chance at immunity or a place back in the competition. Being unable to work collaboratively with their partner caused some key missteps in a number of teams, with the smallest difference in preparation (such as the type of blender used) leading to big differences in final product. Ultimately, Pip and Daniel paid the price for not using their planning time efficiently (after disagreeing on their dish's initial direction) and although the judges declared Pip's dish one of the best, Daniel's proved too dissimilar and they fell out of the running for the week's reward.

The twelve remaining contestants faced a three-hour Pressure Test set by owner of Gelato Messina, Nick Palumbo: a Black Forest Gelato Cake known as The Dome. With pairs working together in teams of four, each member had 45 minutes (plus changeover time to pass on information) to prepare the various precise elements while working in a cold store at -2 degrees Celsius. The Blue Team, headed by Neha (with Nicky, Vern and Xavier) fell behind early but recovered brilliantly to almost perfectly replicate the dish, wowing the judges. Both the Red (Noelene, Dan, Kelty and Jules) and Yellow Teams (Rishi, Samira, Lynton and Lilliana) struggled with their Spiced Chocolate Gelato layer, ensuring it set correctly. But in the end it came down to taste and because Red's Kirsch Semifreddo had separated and their overall taste wasn't as good as Yellow's, Noelene, Dan, Kelty and Jules dropped out on the running for the week's prize.

The final challenge of Second Chance Week saw the remaining four teams (Lynton & Lilliana, Neha & Xavier, Rishi & Samira, and Vern & Nicky) compete in an Invention Test with butter as the core ingredient. With ninety minutes on the clock, each pair had to produce one sweet and one savoury dish, the winners receiving either a ticket back into the competition or (for the current contestant) an immunity pin. With so much on the line, teams scrambled to develop dishes which championed butter as an ingredient. Lynton and Nicky struggled to produce the sweet dishes for their teams, and despite Lilliana's dish winning dish of the day and rave reviews from all three judges, Lynton's was judges the worst and they, as well as Nicky and Vern were declared out of the running. It came down to Neha (whose Poached Quince Flourless Chocolate Tart was praised) & Xavier (who was criticised for playing it safe with a simple steak dish), and Rishi & Samira, and it was the latter team whose dishes, though slightly flawed, were the more inventive, thus giving them the win. Samira won herself a place back in the competition while Rishi won immunity.

The remaining eleven contestants faced an empty Mystery Box and were tasked with filling it with ingredients they loved, plus one 'hard to love' ingredient. In a further twist, they had to swap boxes with another contestant of their choice (although Rishi was luckily left with his own ingredients), forcing some hasty re-evaluations. This curve ball rattled some contestants, including Vern whose dessert Mystery Box put him out of his comfort zone and landed him in the bottom three. Joining him were Neha (whose Pavlova contained too much cornflour) and Rishi, who despite having the advantage produced a mediocre overcooked pasta dish.

With Rishi choosing to play his immunity pin (only days after he won it), Noelene (as the fourth worst performer from the previous challenge) joined Neha and Vern in a Pressure Test set by Kirsten Tibbles: the Lourous Cake. With an extremely technical, five-page recipe it was crucial to get each stage right. While a misstep with dessert landed him in elimination, Vern impressed with a near flawless dish. And while both Noelene and Neha had some problems in preparation they recovered well to also impress the judges and Tibbles. But it was an unfortunate piece of baking paper left in her cake that was enough to seal Neha's elimination.

The Top 10 contestants faced a team challenge: to cook a main and a dessert for 50 couples on a first date. Complicating matters, each contestant randomly chose an mystery ingredient that had to feature in their dishes, five desirable (such as red wine and figs) and five not usually associated with date night food (such as garlic and sardines). Lucy's Blue Team luckily ended up with four of the five desirable ingredients, leaving Kelty's Red Team to get creative with their less typical date food. While the Blues faced some missteps in prep time (a mistake in ordering their protein set them back significantly), Red had disharmony as team members disagreed with the direction of their dishes. In the end, both teams impressed with their mains and faced disappointment with melted ice cream desserts, but it was Red's shared Meze Platter which showed impressive technique and fit the challenge brief that won them the challenge, sending the entire Blue Team into elimination.

After losing in the previous challenge, Lucy, Daniel, Christina, Lynton and Vern faced a breakfast service challenge in Gary Mehigan's restaurant the Maribyrnong Boathouse. Each contestant had to design a modern breakfast dish with 90 minutes of prep time before one hour of service. With this being the first service challenge for most of them (plus Lynton's first elimination challenge), the time constraints and pressure of a commercial kitchen was a steep learning curve. Lynton had to think on his feet as his dish was re-imagined twice during prep, but he recovered well to have one of the most impressive dishes (Daniel's Sweet Potato Croquettes getting dish of the day), and Lucy's muesli, while simple, was praised for being a cleverly chosen, delicious dish. Both Christina and Vern had dishes sent back (Christina both over- and under-cooked her baked eggs, while Vern's smoked trout pizza contained some bones), and found themselves in the bottom two, with Vern the one to leave in a close result.

In this episode the contestants were split into three teams - red (Samira, Kelty, Lynton), blue (Lucy, Emma and Noelene) and Yellow (Rishi, Christina and Daniel). The teams were asked to re-create Heston's classic Royal truffle. Noelene and Emma struggled in the blue team.Blue team's base was too runny so it came down to the red and yellow teams. Kelty misread the recipe and didn't add enough gelatine to the jellies.Finally yellow team won the challenge as all their components were perfect.The winning team gets a shot at immunity.

The winning team from last night's pressure test gets a shot at immunity. Each contestant gets 90 minutes to cook a starter (Daniel), main course (Christina) and dessert (Rishi). Heston gets 90 minutes to cook all the three courses. It was a blind tasting. Daniel had the entree and eggs, Christina had main and wine, and Rishi had dessert and milk.Daniel and Christina's course were on par with Heston's and it came to very tiny details. Rishi's dessert was a disaster. Heston's dish was declared a winner in all three courses,so none of the contestants won the immunity pin. However was Daniel adjudged the best among the three contestants,so he gets to skip the next challenge and goes directly to the top 8.

The contestants were split into two teams- Blue (Rishi, Kelty, Samira and Noelene) and Red (Lynton, Lucy, Emma and Christina). The challenge was to prepare a Medieval feast, which included a range of poultry and game birds along with Heston's garden (herb garden with some garnishes). Team blue captured the essence of medieval theme when compared to the red team and all their dishes were cooked to perfection; however blue team lost the challenge as their turkey was raw and the judges couldn't taste it. Red team won the challenge and blue team was put into elimination.

The Elimination Challenge required contestants to 'Hestonise' a dish of their choice with innovation in technique and use of ingredients. Drawing on their experiences during the week, all four managed to exceed expectations with their dishes. Rishi plated sweet Indian-Chinese dumplings with a soy sauce caramel and dry ice tea; Kelty offered up a deconstructed hot toddy with liquid nitrogen frozen ice-cream at the table; Samira changed her initial idea of a volcano to serve Znoud al-Sett (sweet Middle-Eastern rolls) with the flavours echoed in a rose and orange blossom scented dry ice sheesha prelude. Noelene, who served curried fish heads with clumsily frozen curry 'jellies', was eliminated.

It was announced to the contestants that the following week, they would travel to Dubai for an international food experience, with Christina and Daniel earning business class tickets as a reward for their performances in Heston week.

On Day 1 of World Food Week, the top 8 contestants paired off to cook local for 36 Emirati VIP guests in the Dubai desert with Michelin-starred Greg Malouf mentoring and judging their platters. The teams were assigned proteins with their pick of team colour: Rishi and Christina (Yellow) received fish, Lynton and Lucy (Green) camel, Kelty and Samira (Red) lamb, and Daniel and Emma (Blue), chicken. In a budget of 600 dirham, the teams sourced their ingredients from the local market and then travelled by camel to the cooksite at Al-Waha. All pairs overcame problems faced in the cooking process (unfamiliar ovens, mistaken and 'misplaced' ingredients) to plate up and impress the guests and judges, but Blue's chicken platter was declared the standout leader for its innovative and 'perfect' selection of dishes, including chicken cooked two ways, a pilaf, an array of dips, and rose-and-halva accented watermelon. With the remaining three pairs facing elimination, Daniel and Emma won themselves first-class tickets to Paris for a culinary walking tour with Matt Preston.

The bottom six were tasked with taking over service at Ossiano Restaurant at Atlantis, The Palm, cooking for 50 VIP guests. The menu comprised a selection of high-quality entrees, mains and desserts, from which the contestants picked their dish in the order assigned them after drawing coins from a 'treasure chest'. Lynton picked the beef tenderloin main due to his familiarity with the ingredient, but struggled through prep and failed to prepare and serve the beef cheek croquette element of his dish. Christina, choosing the crab entree, also failed to use her prep time efficiently but recovered to plate up all the required components of her dish, but was faulted for having been too heavy-handed with her mashed potatoes. Samira did well with her quail entree, and Kelty and Lucy, both having picked desserts, also received generous praise. Despite getting the last pick and the prep-heavy fish main, Rishi impressed the judges with his prep and execution of the dish. Christina and Lynton were chosen as the worst of the best, but on account of the general quality of the cooking and service from all contestants and the unprecedented degree of disagreement among the judges regarding the elimination, it was revealed that neither would be sent home.

The Top 8 were tasked with cooking and delivering takeaway lunch orders to office workers scattered around Melbourne CBD. Each team had to cook one entree and two mains with accompanying sides. The teams and the cuisine they had to cook were determined by picking a flag at random, with the blues getting Mexican and the reds getting Chinese. The first orders were to start calling in 90 minutes into the challenge leaving each team 2 hours to deliver the food. Once in the kitchen the blues nominated Christina to be captain while Emma captained the reds. Once preparation started, each team questioned the amount of people they must prep for and both estimated for 100. This turned out to be a major challenge for both teams with the blue team needing to double their portions of their soft shell tacos with less than 10 minutes before the first orders came through and the red team having to shrink their portions of prawn wontons from three to two in order to have time to finish them. Once the first orders came though, both teams struggled to pack the food, manage the phone and prep for future orders. Despite this the blue team managed to send Rishi & Lynton off with their first delivery well before the red team. Once the red team sent off Emma & Lucy to deliver their first order, they got lost and fell even further behind the blue team. Upon returning for the second order the blue team decided to re-plate their tacos upon complaints from some of the customers, which turned out to be a success with the customers the second time round. Once the reds returned for their second order they realised Samira had added up the amount of wontons wrong for the second order and were forced to leave without them. In the end the judges decided which team had won based upon performance in the kitchen, the deliveries and the taste of their food. The faults for the blue team were the inconsistencies in the plating with the tacos, while the red team's beef dish "lacked flavour and authenticity" as well as some customers not receiving their wontons. In the end the red team was sent into elimination due to this key flaw.

The losing team from the previous challenge were faced with a two round elimination using a map of the world in food. With Emma opting to use her immunity pin, Samira, Daniel & Lucy were faced with the task of cooking a single dish in 45 minutes using only ingredients from one continent. Daniel & Samira chose Australia and Africa respectively to play to their strengths, while Lucy chose Asia because she believed it was quick despite it being an unfamiliar cuisine for her. Overall all three of the contestants struggled, especially Lucy & Daniel (Lucy failing to plate up her crab which was the highlight of her dish and Daniel's only positive being that his scallops were "cooked nice"). Samira was pronounced safe from the second round and won the opportunity to choose the continent both Lucy and Daniel must cook with in the second round. Samira chose North America because she believed that it was the only continent that would give both contestants a fair chance. Lucy and Daniel then had 1 hour to produce a dish with that continent. Daniel opted to revolutionise the smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel, while Lucy did an Eton Mess. Both contestants struggled with the unfamiliar cuisine and both put up dishes that were criticized but were "line-ball" in tasting. It came down to the plating of the dish. Lucy's dish was plated well while Daniel was criticized on his "clumsy and old fashioned" plating. As this was the deciding factor, Daniel was eliminated

The seven remaining contestants began to realize that their food dreams are a real possibility. They were asked to create dinner for some very special guests which in the end was revealed to be their families. Everyone presented delicious dishes but it was Emma's dish that was declared as the "Dish Of The Day", thereby granting her safety from tomorrow's elimination.

Christina's dish was named "Dish of the Day" for her new interpretation on a classic Caesar Salad. For elimination, it came down to Lucy and Kelty. While Lucy presented a trio of cupcakes with some flaws, it was Kelty who was eliminated for the overly thick molasses glaze on his dish's pork shoulder.

Series 1 second runner up Chris Badenoch opened his restaurant, Josie Bones, to the red and blue teams to serve a lunch service to regular customers.

Its service challenge in The Atlantis restaurant with Donovan Cook running the pass. All contestant had problems in the kitchen and struggled to keep up. Emma had the most problems in prep time (in some point even broke to tears) but served stand out entrée (king fish capraccio), but step back with her main scalops dish, which was good but not great (serving to judges some raw scalops). Rishi had great prep time and good tuna entrée, but struggled with risotto. Samira's crab entrée lacked a bit of punch and had trouble with snapper sticking to grill but in the end the snapper was cooked beautifully. Lynton's bug entrée put him behind as it was cook to order and lack flavor and he didn't impress with main either. Rishi and Samira rose to the top with Rishi winning the advantage in the next challenge.

Emma won the first round against Rishi. The cuisine was Indian and the protein was mussels. Lynton won the second round against Samira. He picked kangaroo as the protein when Samira picked Middle Eastern cuisine. The final round began to see who would join Emma and Lynton in the Grand Final. Cuisine was French and protein was the eye fillet. Both the remaining contestants were comfortable with what they landed with, but made a mistake while executing the dish. Rishi forgot to blanch his leeks before char-grilling them, and Samira garnished her French dish with coriander leaves. The judges had a difficult time deciding whether Samira's choice of coriander as garnish not being French or Rishi's ashy leek sauce was the worst mistake. Rishi, one of the favourites to win the contest, went home one step away from the Grand Final. Emma, Samira and Lynton are the Masterchef 2013 Grand Finalists.