‘MasterChef Australia’ 2016 recap and spoilers: Nicolette trumps a professional chef, snags immunity pin

It’s another heated kitchen battle on Network Ten’s “MasterChef Australia” Season 8 episode 13, wherein contestants fought their way to win immunity. Three amateur chefs tried to make their dishes pop to impress judges Gary Mehigan, George Calombaris and Matt Preston. At the end of the challenge, it was underdog Nicolette Stathopoulos who cooked her way to the top, taking home the coveted immunity pin.

She may only be 19 years old – the youngest in this year’s competition – but she proved to be wise beyond her years. Fans wonder what Nicolette’s strategy is with the pin, and whether there would be a need to use it on the next episode, which is a team challenge.

Spoiler Alert! This article contains "MasterChef Australia" Season 8 spoilers. Read only if you want to know more about it.

At the end of episode 13, Gary advised the home cooks to get a lot of rest as they are going to need it for the next challenge – and he’s dead serious about it.

Network Ten posted a sneak peek of Wednesday’s episode. In the preview video, the contestants are seen working in teams of either red or blue. They are tasked to mirror three courses from two of Australia’s most popular restaurants: Huxtable and Pei. They need to serve restaurant-quality dishes to 30 hungry guests. As if that’s not daunting enough, they will have to perfectly replicate the courses by relying only on their memory.

"MasterChef Australia" Season 8 recap

In round one of the immunity challenge, Nicolette fought head to head with Con Vailas and Anastasia Zolotarev, using popcorn as their core ingredient. Nicolette’s love for popcorn translated to her dish, which is a popcorn parfait with popcorn crumb, caramel popcorn, and butter gel. “The popcorn is the star of the dish,” she said. “So it’s really important that it has got as much popcorn flavour as possible.”

One bite was all it took for the judges to unanimously pick her as the winner of round one. For the immunity challenge, she faced off with professional chef Braden White, former executive chef of Ricky’s River Bar. To make the game even, Nicolette was given two advantages: she chose the hero ingredient and was given 75 minutes to cook. Nicolette chose fish over shells and brought a beautiful salmon to her bench. However, she took too much time filleting the fish that her 15-minute advantage over Chef Braden was soon gone.

Nicolette soon picked up the pace and gracefully prepared her dish like a pro. She even managed to think about a secret weapon to make her dish stand out: a perfectly crispy piece of salmon skin. Speaking of perfection, Chef Braden was feeling the pressure of getting his fish perfect over on the opposite bench. Time management was clearly not an issue for him, even making time to give cooking tips to the other contestants. However, he became slightly worried when he learned about Nicolette’s salmon skin and decided to spruce up his plate with fresh vegetables and flowers from the “MasterChef Australia” garden.

When the time was up, the judges feasted on both dishes, not knowing who cooked what. Whilst the judges raved about the two plates, Nicolette’s confit salmon with crispy skin won over Chef Braden’s mulloway with white onion puree and cultured cream. With just one point over the professional chef, she was able to get the immunity pin. “You deserve it,” the judges told her. “You won it fair and square. And now you’re going to learn about how powerful this pin really is.”

Find out what happens next on “MasterChef Australia,” and stay tuned for episode spoilers. “MasterChef Australia” Season 8 airs every Sunday to Thursday at 7.30pm on Ten.