MasterChef India Season 7 Episode 5 is titled ‘Hindustan Ke Haatho Ka Swad’ and the synopsis reads as – MasterChef finds its top 36 home cooks who will be cooking in the MasterChef kitchen for the first time. Will they manage to impress the chefs? On the show returning as judges Vikas Khanna and Ranveer Brar are joined by Garima Arora, the first-ever female chef to be a judge on the show.
The cooking competition show is a nationwide quest to find the best ‘home cook’ and draws out some of the most brilliant chefs from across India. The judges sample recipes from various cuisines that the contestants prepare in their search for India’s ‘MasterChef’. The show is produced by Endemol Shine India and it is directed by Neeraj Shetty.
-MasterChef India Season 7 Episode 5 Review and Recap Contains Spoilers-
The episode continues the cook-off challenge and we got to see what the other batches of Home cooks had prepared for it. Once again we see many new faces that weren’t even shown in the auditions, nor did we see what they cooked and why they were not selected by the judges – they remain the nameless contestants that worked as background fillers in the show.
Among the few that we have seen before, Nayanjyoti, who Chef Vikas had specially cast from Tinsukia presented a passion fruit frangipane tart. Judges asked him if he faced any challenges and he revealed that his dish got overcooked but overall, it tasted well. Next Kamaldeep made a chicken dish with sticky rice, radish salad and sweet chilli sauce. She was inspired by the Korean cuisine that her kids love and made it her way.
The judges got quite impressed with the balance of all the flavours that they awarded her with the apron, right on the spot. Followed by Priya, who is a nutritionist and prepared a Kashmiri-style chokh vangun, in which she baked the eggplant and used quinoa with saffron instead.
After that, contestant Poornima presented panchratna kofta with curry and Vineet brought a dish consisting of ice jellies made from beetroot, jackfruit and their mousse. Subhojeet made Lal macchi jhol which Chef Vikas found to be very unbalanced in flavour and didn’t like the presentation with the floating chilli oil. But Chef Ranveer differed and said that he expected this kind of presentation and dish exactly.
Contestant Dyuti named her dish – poetry with Potol platter where the pointed gourd was stuffed with chicken. But Chef Garima questioned if she had combined too many elements in one plate. However, it worked in her favour as she won the apron with her name and a spot in the top 16 contestants.
Apart from her Nyanjyoti, Priya and Vineet also got the apron and became part of the 16. Meanwhile, Subhojeet was kept on standby with the previous two standby contestants and we moved on to the cook-off between the remaining ones. Where Sachin made a fusion dish with Sindhi dal pakwan and fusing it with a Mexican breakfast.
Another contestant from Nagaland, whom we saw for the first time and couldn’t figure out the name, brought naga chicken made with bamboo. Mohabbat Cheema who made pizza for auditions brought bajre ki roti and saag with lassi. Yashu made nimona and rice while Suvarna presented a Maharashtrian thali with cheese garlic dip.
Lastly, Deepa made sweet water fish with chapati and named it who stole my fish. The judges were so impressed with the dish that they gave her the apron on the spot and along with her Suvarna, Yashu and Sachin also secured their spot in the top 16. The four contestants who were kept on standby were also given the news of their selection for the show.
Final Thoughts: MasterChef India Season 7 Episode 5
Now that all 16 contestants are selected we will be seeing more of the challenges and competitions among them. However, as I said before, the audition process and the cook-off were edited very poorly. The food was shown for less than 5 seconds and even their names would disappear within a few seconds, not leaving enough time to even read it properly.
The new contestant from Nagaland wasn’t even shown properly nor did we catch her name and is among the top 16. The next episodes better show the contestants and the dishes made on the show properly and focus on the cooking part rather than on the repetitive facial expression which adds nothing to the show.
Especially, today’s episode was really jarring to watch from one jump cut to another. I wish they would take some notes from MasterChef Australia which looks top-notch in front of this.
MasterChef India Season 7 is currently streaming on SonyLIV and a new episode will be released from Monday to Friday at 9 PM.
Also Read: Check Out All of Our MasterChef India Season 7 Reviews