So far, MasterChef US season 6 has bid goodbye to some wonderful home cooks who have demonstrated their flair in the kitchen. After all, it is not easy to impress chefs Gordon Ramsay, Graham Eliot and Christina Tosi. The three have posed some difficult challenges throughout the competition, and Hetal--the Indian home cook--was the latest casualty of the dreaded pressure test.
Now, only five home cooks remain in the MasterChef kitchen and there are only two more episodes before we watch the finale. Let's hope that Nick, Katrina, Derrick, Stephen and Claudia present their best for the judges. In episode 17 titled "Return of the Champions", each contestant is given a single ingredient in a mystery box.
TV Guide reports that the winner of the mystery box challenge will assemble four baskets of ingredients with the help of previous MasterChef US winners Christine Ha, Luca and Courtney Lapresi.
In the mystery box challenge, Nick gets a bar of chocolate, Katrina has to cook with a pear; Derrick is given a wedge of blue cheese; Stephen gets a portobello mushroom and finally, Claudia gets a tomato. To be sure, each of these ingredients are so common and versatile that each of them can make a savoury or a dessert.
In the promo for episode 17, we see Gordon Ramsay fascinated with Claudia's dish of roasted tomatoes sandwiched between savoury napolitans. Apart from this, there is a surprise for chef Ramsay on this episode: Claudia admits that she has a huge crush on him.
While Ramsay is most likely to pick Claudia' Mexican inspired dish in the top three, we also know that Stephen's dish wins him a spot among the possible winners of the mystery box challenge. The urban gardener makes a mushroom sandwich five ways. However, we don't think he might bag the prize as Ramsay says his dish could do with a little bit of seasoning.
Since the elimination round will include components that previous MasterChef US winners use in their cooking, we can expect to find a lot of Asian, Italian and European inspired ingredients.
Who do you think will go home this episode?
"MasterChef US" airs on Wednesday, 2 September at 8pm on Fox. You can live stream the episode via Fox Now and Hulu.
