Masterchef UK Professionals
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Bavette Steak with Papaya & Noodle Salad
Ben, a 30-year-old head chef from a traditional gastropub in Somerset with no classical training, had never worked with papaya before. He cut a sensible-sized steak portion but didn't baste it attentively - Nikita wanted to see more love and attention with aromatics. He added fish sauce to the foaming butter in the pan, which Nikita found interesting. He rested his steak in the hot pan, which retained too much heat and caused it to bleed excessively. He avoided the papaya initially, eventually cutting it in random non-uniform shapes rather than julienne or dice. His salad contained mooli, spring onion and peanut but lacked carrots, coriander and enough papaya. He made a dressing with lime, fish sauce, chilli and shrimp paste - the lime was dominant but balanced with chilli. He burnt his crispy noodles twice but put the second burnt batch on the plate anyway, against Nikita's wishes. He did carve the steak correctly against the grain.
{Nikita}: "I think it was a well cooked steak. But then I think when you got down to the salad, you got a little bit frazzled not knowing what to do with the papaya and that showed. Wish you just left those noodles off. They clearly didn't work. There was no need to put them on."
{Matt}: "I kept asking you what else was going in your salad because there were many other ingredients here. You know, the carrots, you had, the coriander there. You could have been a bit more generous with the papaya."
{Monica}: "Dressing, there's a lot of lime juice in there and it's balanced. I've got chilli as well. So it's almost in a roundabout way coming together."
{Marcus}: "Your steak, resting it in a hot pan. That's why it bleeds. Because it's still quite a high temperature. But you have got a salad, you got some nicely cooked beef. So I've seen nice skills on show here, Ben."
{Monica}: "I liked Ben. I think there's a definite chef in there for me."
{Matt}: "Shows promise and I can work with that."
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