MasterChef Celebrity contestants faced another round of unusual ingredients on Tuesday, following up the crickets and beetle larvae with what’s been dubbed “terror week” on the show, led by host Wanda Nara.
As with the previous challenge, Evangelina Anderson, Emilia Attias, La Joaqui, Ian Lucas, Andy Chango and Maxi López discovered mysterious boxes on their workstations upon entering the studio. Anderson, who recently underwent vocal cord surgery, communicated via a whiteboard, while Attias offered to support her convey her thoughts.
“The key word tonight is ‘metamorphosis’,” explained judge Germán Martitegui, offering the first clue about the challenge. “Gastronomy is always changing the form of some foods to transform them into an exquisite dish.” Fellow judge Donato de Santis added, “Cow tongue is eaten throughout the country, as are black pudding and brains. These are all products used in gastronomy.”
Damián Betular, the third member of the judging panel, completed the thought from behind a round table covered with a floor-length blue tablecloth: “There are many ingredients that aren’t so beautiful or pleasant to look at, but are very full of flavor. We’re going to discover a slightly unusual protein, but a really delicious one.”
At Nara’s request, the tablecloth was lifted, revealing not a table, but a giant container filled with water and several panopea generosa clams – the largest mollusk in the Argentine Sea, capable of reaching up to 15 centimeters in length and weighing up to 1.3 kilograms.
Each contestant was then tasked with taking two live specimens of the clam to their stations. Maxi López was particularly taken aback, offering to pay Nara for a dinner if she would retrieve the two clams for him. The host agreed, and La Joaqui ended up assisting Ian Lucas.
The challenge was to prepare a free-form dish featuring the panopea, incorporating a sauce made with yogurt. They were given 3 minutes to shop in the market and 60 minutes to prepare their creations. Evangelina, holding the golden medal, received an additional three minutes to consult with the judges to optimize her dish.
Through her whiteboard, the former showgirl also explained that she wasn’t particularly disturbed by having to cook the mollusks, despite being a vegetarian for decades, because panopeas “don’t have a brain or central nervous system.”
Throughout the process, the clams, which can live up to 80 years, continued to move, causing increasing consternation among the contestants, especially Ian Lucas and López.
Once the time was up, Ian Lucas was the first to present his dish to the judges. The influencer showcased sautéed panopea nigiri with yogurt cream, lemon, and Buenos Aires sauce.
“I’m not going to say it’s a Japanese creation, but it has its minimalism, its chiaroscuro… It’s quite well achieved,” Donato noted. Betular added, “I’m already excited that the dishware is well chosen. A little wasabi would have been nice, but it’s very well done.”
“You can tell when you’re enthusiastic about something. There’s a lot of detail. I think anyone who makes it to the final has to have all these characteristics,” Martitegui concluded.
Next up was Attias with her grilled panopea with leek cream, shallots, and Anna potatoes. “The dish is at a book cover level. The aesthetics are super sophisticated. The panopea is like chewing gum. It needed more cooking,” Betular considered. Martitegui agreed: “The presentation is very great. As always, sometimes your head moves faster than your experience. Burnt leeks require a much longer procedure.”
La Joaqui followed with her stir-fried vegetables with rice and panopea in curry, yogurt, and paprika sauce, prompting Martitegui to say: “I think the rice is well done, it has a nice flavor and the vegetables too. The curry with the panopea seems like a good resolution to the yogurt issue. It’s very good and tasty, but maybe I would have browned the panopea a little more.”
“There’s a lot of rice. I agree that it’s well cooked, the vegetable is good and that if you had toasted it, it would have added something,” De Santis added.
Andy then presented his panopea tiradito with tiger’s milk, yogurt, cucumber, and caviar eggs. “You lacked knowledge, but your presentation is getting better and better. The panopea has a difficult taste. It’s rubbery because it didn’t have much treatment,” Donato said after tasting it.
“We’re talking about tiradito; the concept is that the slices should be very thin, not like this. There’s a cutting problem,” Betular finished.
López, in turn, presented a ceviche. “It was difficult for me, because the shape of the mollusk impacted me. Then, Wanda told me to get the mollusk… And I couldn’t start until I started,” the contestant said.
“The dish is very subtle and the tiger’s milk is perfect. By cutting it thinly, you managed to get the cooking very well done. Excellent,” Betular considered. “The presentation is spectacular, the combination is very subtle and the flavor is very well balanced. For me it’s almost perfect,” Martitegui added.
Finally, it was Evangelina’s turn, with her Caesar salad with panopea wrapped in bacon, a suggestion from Martitegui. “The bacon helped, it added an captivating flavor, but Try to have cooked it much more, until the panopea was white and firmer. It lacks cooking,” the creator of the dish indicated. Betular pointed out: “For me the mistake was dividing it, I would have used the panopea as the protein of the salad.”
All that remained was to identify out who, according to the judges, deserved to head up to the balcony and who had earned the dreaded gray apron. After deliberation, the specialists announced that by unanimous decision, López, Ian Lucas and La Joaqui had earned their place in the night of benefits, while the rest would compete in the last chance night.
