Cooking MasterClass Discussion For MasterChef Junior Season 3 Week 5: The Kids Go Bananas!

Last week, Cory, Jenna and Nathan won the last challenge. However, in order to eliminate these three munchkins down to one lucky contestant, the three young cooks were still faced with the task of identifying 20 random ingredients. And – the ingredient labels were removed from the panty.

The contestant who identified the majority of the ingredients would have a huge advantage In the upcoming challenge. Cory’s score was 7/20, Nathan’s score was 8/20 and Jenna’s score was 10/20. So, Jenna was clearly the winner and had a huge advantage.

As the winner, she was responsible for selecting the Teams for the next #TagTeamSushi event. She selected Kayla as her teammate. Jack was paired with Cory, Riley was paired with Andrew, Nathan was paired with Ryan Kate and Ayla was paired with Jimmy.

At the end of this challenge, one entire team of two would be leaving the MasterChef kitchen.

For this elimination challenge, the tag teams had to recreate a Japanese sushi platter of crab, tuna, salmon, shrimp and tempura.

Right off the bat, the chemistry between little Riley and large Andrew was exceptional. They were so supportive of each other’s strengths and weaknesses. It was wonderful to see. It was not surprising that their dish won rave reviews from the judges.

Kayla and Jenna had a meltdown during the cooking process and it was really too bad. It, unfortunately, adversely affected the outcome of their sushi dish – the shrimp were overcooked and their plating was not the best.

Ryan Kate and Nathan were proud of their sushi dish and seemed confident when facing the judges. “Visually, the dish was excellent”, said Graham Elliott. He said the sauce on the tempura and shrimp was excellent.

Jack and Cory were not confident with their sushi presentation. Graham loved the cut of some of the ingredients but others not as much. Unfortunately, the shrimp was sitting in a pool of grease.

Ayla and Jimmy presented a stunning sushi boat. Like really stunning! I was impressed. And so were the judges! Everything looked and, more importantly, tasted very good. Joe Bastianich said this was the best sushi they have had in the MasterChef kitchen. Wow! Very impressive!

In the end, Jack and Cory were eliminated. This was an unfortunate elimination but there are always curve balls on this or any reality show. The difference with MasterChef Junior is that the positivity and enthusiasm surrounding all the contestants leave with the cooks upon elimination.

As Graham Elliot said, Cory and Jack will be “going home proud“. Beautiful words.

This week, Gordon Ramsay introduces his beautiful. daughter, Matilda, to the Top 8 Mini Cooks. Two Ramseys in the kitchen? Double the fun! And the young cooks will be creating recipes that are banana based. Yum! I love banana! Don’t you?

MasterChef airs on Tuesday, February 3rd at 8:00 PM on Fox.

Also, if anyone wants to lend a pen in hand in providing a culinary analysis of this show on a weekly basis, please let me know. I am a pretty good cook but certainly not the best by any stretch of the imagination so a culinary expert would be most welcome on the MasterClassLady.Com Community.

Finally, as I mentioned last week, the extremely gifted and resourceful Logan Guleff, who won the MasterChef Junior crown in Season 2, has been busy as a beaver on social media. If you want to stay in touch with “all things Logan” you can follow him on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and OrderUpWithLogan.

Here is a look at Matilda interacting with the young cooks. And, once again, little Riley, steals the show.