MasterChef ™

Complete Dish: New York Strip Steak with Parsnip Puree, Asparagus, Fennel and Carrot Slaw with Mushroom Red Wine Sauce

The Confusion: Tonna originally explained to Gordon: "We're going to do a New York strip with fennel carrot salad with a creamy mushroom peppercorn sauce... in a parsnip puree."

Gordon corrected her: "They're not parsnips. They're white radish... You can't make a puree out of that. It's too bitter. You'll need to start that over."

Cait was lost when she took over: "I see this bowl, and it has a white vegetable in it. I don't even know what's in the bowl right now, but I'm just going to have to go with the flow and work with it."

In final judging, Tonna explained the cream sauce confusion: "To have a cream sauce for the steak, but I picked the heavy cream out as just being for the puree, so I didn't get that memo."

Final Judges' Critique:

• Gordon: "So visually, it's got good and bad parts. Lovely sear on York strip, but we don't put a shaved carrot and fennel salad with a red wine sauce, so it's a little bit all over the place... The asparagus are delicious, and the puree is actually okay, but the sauce bleeds into the puree, so it's just all over the place."

• Tiffany: "The steak is nice, but I would rather it been whole instead of sliced, you know, just so we don't lose some of those juices."

• Joe: "There are things that are terrible on this plate. The raw fennel, the raw carrots. Like a crudite, it makes no sense on the plate. The mushrooms are not integrated in any way. And if you call that a wine sauce, I call that dumping half a glass of cabernet in your dish."