MasterChef (U.S. season 1)

MasterChef (U.S. season 1)
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	13
Release
Original network	Fox
Original release	July 27 – September 15, 2010

Season 1 of the American competitive reality TV series MasterChef ran from July 27 to September 15, 2010 on Fox.

Winner Whitney Miller was the youngest winner at twenty-two.

Top 14

Contestant	Age	Hometown	Occupation	Status	Winnings
Whitney Miller	22	Poplarville, Mississippi	College student	Winner September 15	5
David Miller	29	Boston, Massachusetts	Software Engineer	Runner-Up September 15	4
Lee Knaz	27	Venice, California	Bartender	Eliminated September 15	4
Sheetal Bhagat	37	Chicago, Illinois	Teacher	Eliminated September 8	4
Sharone Hakman	28	Los Angeles, California	Financial Advisor		3
Mike Kim	34	Redondo Beach, California	Server		3
Jake Gandolfo	38	Santa Cruz, California	Construction Worker	Eliminated September 1	2
Tracy Nailor	42	Atlanta, Georgia	Doctor		1
Slim Kim Dung Huynh	22	Harvey, Louisiana	College Student		1
Tony Carbone	31	Boston, Massachusetts	Server	Eliminated August 25	1
Faruq Jenkins	30	Glendale, California	Bartender		0
Jenna Hamiter	23	Euless, Texas	Homemaker	Eliminated August 18	0
Sheena Zadeh	26	Anaheim, California	Marketing Executive		0
Avis White	47	Vacherie, Louisiana	Elderly Caregiver		0

Season 1

Elimination table

Place	Contestant	Episode
		4		5	6		7	8		9	10		11		12		13
1	Whitney	WIN	IN	PT	HIGH	IN	PT	IN	LOW	WIN	HIGH	WIN	LOW	PT	IMM	WIN	WINNER
2	David	IN	IN	PT	IN	IN	WIN	IN	IN	WIN	IN	IN	WIN	IMM	WIN	IMM	RUNNER-UP
3	Lee	IN	IN	WIN	IN	IN	PT	WIN	WIN	LOW	HIGH	LOW	WIN	IMM	IMM	ELIM
4	Sheetal	IN	IN	WIN	IN	IN	WIN	HIGH	LOW	WIN	WIN	LOW	IN	IMM	ELIM
5	Sharone	IN	IN	PT	WIN	CC	WIN	HIGH	IN	WIN	IN	IN	LOW	ELIM
6	Mike	IN	WIN	WIN	IN	LOW	WIN	IN	IN	PT	IN	ELIM
7	Jake	HIGH	IN	WIN	HIGH	WIN	PT	IN	IN	ELIM
8	Tracy	IN	IN	WIN	IN	IN	PT	IN	LOW	ELIM
9	Slim	IN	IN	PT	IN	LOW	WIN	IN	ELIM
10	Tony	IN	IN	WIN	IN	IN	ELIM
11	Faruq	IN	LOW	PT	IN	ELIM
12	Jenna	IN	IN	ELIM
13	Sheena	HIGH	ELIM
14	Avis	IN	ELIM

     (WINNER) This cook won the competition.

     (RUNNER-UP) This cook finished in second place.

     (WIN) The cook won an individual challenge (Mystery Box Challenge or Elimination Test).

     (WIN) The cook was on the winning team in the Team Challenge and directly advanced to the next round.

     (CC) In addition to immunity from elimination, the cook was given the opportunity to compete against Cat Cora in this challenge. If the cook was judged to have made a better dish than Cora, they'd advance straight to the final 4.

     (HIGH) The cook was one of the top entries in an individual challenge, but didn't win.

     (IN) The cook wasn't selected as a top or bottom entry in an individual challenge.

     (IMM) The cook didn't have to compete in that round of the competition and was safe from elimination.

     (PT) The cook was on the losing team in the Team Challenge and compted in the Pressure Test.

     (LOW) The cook was one of the bottom entries in an individual challenge, but wasn't the last person to advance.

     (LOW) The cook was one of the bottom entries in an individual challenge, and the last person to advance.

     (ELIM) The cook was eliminated from Masterchef.

Episodes

Episode 1

• Auditions Round 1

Episode 2

• Auditions Round 2

Episode 3

• Skills Test: The first part of this episode involved the final 30 cutting onions both coarsely and finely diced, with any contestant being unable to cut onions to the judges' exacting standards being immediately eliminated. Dominic, Ryan, Joe, Scott, Jennifer, and Hollie were eliminated during this stage, leaving 24 remaining contestants.
• Cooking Test: The remaining contestants were each given a single egg, and were given 30 minutes to make a dish featuring whatever ingredients they wanted. The only stipulation was that the egg had to be the centerpiece of the dish. Anyone who submitted an unsatisfactory dish, or even an otherwise satisfactory dish that failed to adequately highlight the egg, would be sent home. Anyone who broke or wasted the egg before using it in their dish would be sent home as well, although this did not happen in the episode. Max, Whitney B., Charmaine, Darryl, Adele, Josh, Robin, Tamar, Roberto, and Asmina were eliminated in this test, leaving Avis, David, Faruq, Jake, Jenna, Slim, Lee, Mike, Sharone, Sheena, Sheetal, Tony, Tracy and Whitney to advance.

Episode 4

• Mystery Box Challenge 1: After being shown into the MasterChef kitchen for the first time, the contestants were given their first Mystery Box, which was mostly geared toward serving a pork-chop based meal, but had enough flexibility to allow the contestants to cook a dessert if they so wished. As the contestants were cooking, the judges immediately identified Whitney as the front-runner, feeling that despite being the joint-youngest competitor she was showing a level of skill and creativity unrivalled by the others. After the allotted hour had ended, the judges selected Sheena's chocolate mousse, and Jake and Whitney's pork chop dishes as the top three, and ultimately decided that Whitney had indeed cooked the best dish.
• Elimination Test 1: As the winner of the challenge, Whitney was allowed to select the key ingredient used by both herself and her competitors in this episode's Elimination Test, which revolved around cooking Chinese cuisine. The choices were Chinese mushrooms, Mandarin oranges or duck, and Whitney selected the oranges in a tactical move to unsettle the other cooks, though Whitney herself also had difficulty properly using them. As a result, Whitney started things off by serving, to the judge's dismay, an underwhelming stir fry dish with several pieces of dry, overcooked chicken. Slim's dish got better feedback, but Gordon was baffled as to why she didn't serve any of her miso broth with the dish, since it was the most flavorsome of her ingredients. The following dishes proved even more underwhelming, with Avis, Tony and Jenna's dishes in particular being singled out for heavy criticism, and Joe accusing the competitors as a whole of not taking the competition seriously. Things then looked up with well-received dishes from Tracy and Sharone, only for Sheena to then bring up a very simplistic salad dish that Gordon deemed to be one of the worst things he'd ever tasted. Things then went from bad to worse, as Faruq's chicken dish was extremely dry and lacking in texture or flavor; Gordon called the dish "foul" and said that even with some dishes still left to taste, Faruq would absolutely be up for elimination this episode. Things ended on a high with Mike's nut-encrusted chicken dish, which the judges felt finally delivered the authenticity of a Chinese dish which they had been looking for.The decision came down to Tracy,Sharone, and Mike.In the end Mike's dish was deemed the best and he was made team captain in the next round.Whitney, Slim, Tony, Jenna, Tracy, and Sharone also did well enough to move on in the competition.
• Bottom 3: Faruq, Sheena and Avis
• The Judges ultimately decide that Avis is going home for having an outdated style of cooking. The judges then announce that there will be a double elimination. And despite Faruq expecting to be sent home the judges instead send Sheena home who the felt is only good at cooking desserts and not entrees or Chinese food. However Faruq was warned not to mess up again.

Episode 5

• Team Challenge 1: The first team challenge saw the chefs being asked to cook for a hundred marines, with the judges deciding on the winning team based on the quality of food and serving skills. Mike became the captain of the Blue team, and chose Jake, Lee, Tracy, Tony and Sheetal to join him, leaving Sharone, David, Whitney, Slim, Faruq and Jenna to form the Red team. While the Red team would have no captain as such during this season, Sharone effectively took the role in each of the team challenges. The Red team decided to cook steak with barbecue sauce and a side of potato gratin and roasted root vegetables, while the Blue team decided on a roasted, stuffed pork loin with a side of roasted corn and garlic mashed potatoes. The Blue team suffered from a power struggle between Mike and Jake, who also removed too much fat from the pork loins, which would have rendered them much too dry if not for intervention from Gordon. The Red team generally worked more harmoniously, but suffered from two major errors; firstly when David accidentally tipped all the bacon for their gratin on the floor, resulting in him having to start again, and then more seriously when Sharone discovered that the team had only cooked four pans of sides, which was nowhere near enough to feed all the marines. The teams both performed well in serving the marines, and despite feeling that the Red team's food was better overall, the judges deemed their failure to cook enough sides to be a fatal error. The Blue team were therefore named the winners, and the Red team was sent into the first Pressure Test.
• Pressure Test 1: Graham cooked a pot of Texas chilli for the Red team members, who were called up one at a time and asked to taste it, then name an ingredient. Whoever named the fewest ingredients before taking an incorrect guess would be eliminated. Whitney went first and correctly guessed 12 ingredients; Faruq was next and guessed 9, which guaranteed Whitney safety. Jenna took the third turn and correctly guessed 7 ingredients, making Faruq safe from elimination.
• Eliminated: Jenna
• Slim, David, and Sharone were able to guess 8 ingredients, resulting in Jenna being eliminated.

Episode 6

• Mystery Box Challenge 2: This challenge required the contestants to bake cupcakes. The two remaining members of the previous Mystery Box's top three, Whitney and Jake, were once again selected as two of the three best competitors in this challenge, along with Sharone. The judges decided that Whitney and Sharone had the two best cupcakes, but this time decided that Sharone's cupcake had the edge, giving him the win.
• Special Challenge: For winning this episode's Mystery Box Challenge, Sharone was introduced to famed chef Cat Cora, and shown three of her signature dishes, one of which he and all the other contestants would have to replicate: truffled halibut, beef, and lamb chops. He chose the first. Sharone was told that regardless of the result of this challenge he would be safe from elimination, and was also told that if he could cook the dish to a better standard than Cat herself, he would be exempt from taking part in the next few rounds of the competition, and would get a direct entry into the final four. Despite his best efforts, and the judges greatly complimenting his dish, the judges did not consider Sharone's dish better than Cat's own version, and he ultimately gained nothing beyond immunity from elimination (which it was noted he would not have needed anyway due to the otherwise high quality of his dish).
• Elimination Test 2: The remaining ten contestants were tasked with cooking the same truffled halibut dish. Slim's was the first to be judged, and received heavy criticism, as the halibut was severely overcooked, and the sauce had whole chunks of garlic in it; the latter of which caused Joe to refuse to even taste the dish. Despite being taken to task for a lacklustre presentation and overly thin sauce, Tracy's dish was deemed to otherwise be cooked well and tasted good, which secured her from any real threat of elimination. David's dish was considered to be average at best, and nowhere near his claims of making it taste better than Cat's version. Mike's dish was next, and heavily criticised for being undercooked, underseasoned and having overly thick sauce; Cat even called it "inedible," something which shocked the judges, considering how well he had done in the previous episodes. Jake's dish got the best feedback so far, with Cat saying it was cooked excellently and almost indistinguishable from her own version. By her own admission, Whitney's dish was unimpressive to due the extremely thin and runny sauce, and while the halibut was cooked correctly it was underseasoned. Faruq, who by now was visibly lacking in confidence, was the last up to be judged, and his dish suffered similar problems to Whitney's, having thin sauce, dry salsa and underseasoned, overcooked fish.
• Winner: With Jake being the only contestant (besides Sharone, who was not in the running for the main challenge) whose dish was felt to be on a par with Cat's own version, he was named the winner of this challenge, and the team captain for the following episode.
• Bottom 3: Mike, Slim and Faruq
• Eliminated: Faruq
• Slim received the heaviest criticism, with the judges and Cat feeling that her version of the dish was easily the worst, and that she had shown no skill at cooking anything but Asian cuisine. The judges also expressed their shock that Mike had fallen apart so disastrously, and accused him of rushing around too much for his own good. Gordon expressed that he believed Mike had gone from "hero to zero". Ultimately though, for finishing in the bottom three for the second time in a row, as well as being on the losing side in the previous episode's Team Challenge, Faruq was sent home.

Episode 7

• Team Challenge 2: In this challenge, the teams had to cook hamburgers for a hundred truckers. This time the truckers themselves would vote for the winner, with the first team to get 51 votes wins. As the Blue team captain, Jake chose Tracy, Whitney, Lee and Tony, leaving Sharone, Mike, David, Slim, and Sheetal as the Red team. Jake decided that the Blue team would cook a simple beef burger with coleslaw, while the Red team decided on a beef and blue cheese burger with bacon, and the same barbecue sauce they created in the previous challenge. The Blue team initially had few issues, while the Red team suffered a major early problem in that the blue cheese caused their burgers to disintegrate while being grilled, forcing them to ditch all their patties in favor of simple beef burgers with just minutes before the truckers began arriving. Fortunately the truckers were required to taste burgers from each team before voting, and the teams got roughly even amounts of votes to begin with. On the Red team, Sharone came up with an idea to break the tie by adding additional flavors to their burger (including dipping the buns in bacon grease before grilling them) to make up for the loss of the blue cheese. Despite repeated suggestions from the judges, Jake stubbornly refused to alter the Blue team's burger, meaning that the Red team rapidly began taking the lead and ultimately won the challenge 51 to 39.
• Pressure Test 2: This time around, the Blue team members were tasked with identifying ingredients; some everyday, and some exotic. Like the previous Pressure Test, whoever identified the fewest items before getting one wrong would be sent home. Team captain Jake (who was still refusing to admit fault in the team's defeat) went first and got 11 items. Tony was next, and only managed 9, saving Jake from elimination.
• Eliminated: Tony
• Lee, Whitney and Tracy were all able to identify 10 ingredients, leading to Tony's elimination. However before Tony left, Gordon told him to continue following his dream and to give him a call if he doesn't find it because he may be have a job for him in the future.

Episode 8

• Mystery Box Challenge 3: In a variation on the usual challenge, the contestants given a variety of ingredients outside the Mystery Box, and told that irrespective of what they chose to use out of those ingredients, they were all required to fully use the contents of the box itself, which turned out to be a live Dungeness crab. This posed major problems for Sheetal, whose religious convictions preclude her from taking the life of any creature for any reason, and while Gordon offered to boil the crab for her, she ultimately resolved to do it herself. Meanwhile, Slim was reprimanded for tearing the crab apart by hand before cooking it, which she was told would spoil its flavor and, more importantly, was extremely inhumane. Sharone was again named as part of the top three, this time with Lee and Sheetal joining him. The judges named this as the closest Mystery Box challenge yet, and despite singling out Sheetal for praise, they ultimately decided that Lee had the best overall dish.
• Elimination Test 3: The judges revealed that this time, the theme of the challenge was "plating romance" and that Lee would choose one of three ingredients to work with, namely chocolate, passion fruit or burrata cheese; Lee selected passion fruit. During the challenge, Sharone made the risky decision to cook steak with a sous-vide machine, and while he had trouble getting it to work, the decision paid off, as all three judges raved over his dish. Jake then presented a steak and rice dish that, while otherwise cooked competently, only made minimal use of the passionfruit as a glaze. Gordon told Jake that the judges expected to see the passion fruit featured in the forefront of the dish, and that regardless of whatever merits it may have had, it didn't fit the challenge brief. Whitney's dish was panned for being far too simplistic, having overcooked shrimp and failing to adequately use the passion fruit, with Graham calling it "amateurish." Tracy got heavy criticism for overcooked steak and burnt collard greens, and Sheetal's overly spicy dish didn't fare much better. Slim then served up a buffet-style dish with small cubes of lamb, shrimp and strawberry, with a bowl of passion fruit and ginger fondue; the judges agreed this to be the worst dish they had seen in the entire competition until this point, and Joe threw it in the trash without even tasting it. After this disastrous run of dishes, things looked up with Mike's beef tataki and David's spicy shrimp dish, both of which the judges loved, and then ended on the highest note yet with Lee's surf-and-turf style dish of filet steak and prawns, which the judges had all the other contestants come up to taste (barring Sharone, who refused to taste anyone else's dish).
• Winner: While it was acknowledged as a close call between Sharone and Lee's dishes, Lee's was judged to be the better of the two, making him the team captain for the next episode, and also the first (and, to date, of two) person to win both a Mystery Box and an Elimination Test in the same episode.
• Bottom 4: Whitney, Sheetal, Tracy and Slim
• Eliminated: Slim
• The judges called out the four female contestants who had all cooked terrible dishes and "failed miserably at plating romance" as Gordon put it. After being warned to pick up their game, Sheetal and Tracy were sent back to their stations, leaving the two youngest competitors, Slim and Whitney to face elimination. Slim was asked what she would cook if allowed to do the challenge again, and much to the judges' disbelief she said that she didn't think there was anything wrong with her initial dish beyond using too much ginger in the sauce. This, combined with a general feeling among the judges that Whitney had a lot more potential, led to Slim's elimination.

Episode 9

• Team Challenge 3: This week's team challenge was to cook for 230 guests at a wedding reception. Lee had the task of forming the Blue team and chose Mike, Jake and Tracy to join him, meaning that Sharone, Whitney, David and Sheetal formed the Red team; despite Gordon hinting that Whitney should take charge of the Red team, the team members agreed that Sharone should take charge once again. Unlike the previous two challenges, this time there was a set menu to cook from, including a Caesar salad with a goat cheese tartlet, followed by a surf-and-turf entrée. The judges would decide the winners based on feedback from the guests and their observations of how the teams worked in the kitchen. Initially the Blue team worked harmoniously while the Red team suffered from Sharone poorly cutting the salmon and then Sheetal getting into an argument with him. However, the Red team regrouped, with Sharone ensuring that the team held together and David taking charge of quality control and seasoning the food. Meanwhile, Tracy on the Blue team suffered a meltdown after it turned out that she had unknowingly used expired lettuce to prepare the side salads, forcing Graham to give her a pep-talk to get her back into the game. Both teams then made numerous mistakes as the deadline drew near, and so Gordon and Graham donned their chef's jackets and jumped in to take charge. The Red team got their tartlets out without any major issues, but in addition to being slowed down by Tracy's lettuce mistake, the Blue team's first few tartlets were burnt, and Mike was also called out for putting too much sauce on them. Despite Tracy again implying that she wanted to quit, Lee was able to talk to her and things ran smoother for both sides when it came to serving the surf-and-turf, and the service was completed with few issues. When the contestants returned to the MasterChef kitchen the following day, the Red team were announced as the winners, due to David's outstanding work at seasoning their dishes, combined with the Blue team's issues with overcooking the cheese tartlets.
• Pressure Test 3: The four Blue team members were given 90 minutes to cook a pasta dish, with the freedom to make whatever type of dish they wanted, but were told that two contestants would be sent home. Lee and Mike managed to maintain their confidence while cooking, Jake was angry at being on the losing team for the second week in a row, while Tracy was visibly defeated and admitted from the start of the challenge that she would probably be going home. Tracy, who was forced to change her dish from a lasagne to ravioli halfway through, got compliments for her bolognese sauce, but the pasta was noted to be very thick and a little undercooked; Joe noted that it didn't really seem like a pasta dish so much as a bolognese dish with a side of pasta. Jake served calamari and fettucine, and the judges found the calamari underwhelming, and the pasta correctly cooked al dente, but clumpy. Mike also had a fettucine dish, this time with roasted peppers and mushroom cream sauce; Joe was enthusiastic about it, saying that it was of restaurant quality, though Gordon and Graham were less convinced. Finally, team captain Lee presented his ravioli stuffed with roasted eggplant, which Joe liked, but Gordon considered to have been ruined by an overwhelming taste of garlic.
• Bottom 3: Lee, Jake and Tracy
• Eliminated: Tracy and Jake
• Mike's dish was judged the best, securing his spot in the competition. Tracy's dish, meanwhile, was deemed to be the worst of the four, resulting in her emotional elimination. Between the two remaining contestants, the judges decided that despite the overuse of garlic, Lee had demonstrated more finesse than Jake, who became the second person to be eliminated.

Episode 10

• Mystery Box 4: This episode's Mystery Box highlighted venison; unlike the previous challenge the contestants were not required to use it, though all of them did. Sharone (whose dish was chastised by the judges for being hideously plated, despite him cooking the venison on the bone perfectly), Sheetal and Whitney were selected as the top three. Sheetal's dish was judged to be the best, winning her a Mystery Box challenge for the first time.
• Elimination Test 4: Sheetal was told that the theme for this test would be dessert, much to her concern, as she almost never makes or eats them. Her choices of ingredient were honey, berries and vanilla, and she chose vanilla for everyone to work with. Sheetal's lack of experience at desserts proved evident in the challenge, as her cake went badly wrong, forcing her to completely change her dessert at the last minute, while Mike was criticised for running around and trying to do too much at once. Sharone was the first to serve his dessert, a mille-feuille with mixed nuts and a vanilla sauce, which all three judges enjoyed and felt showed great finesse. David served up a crème brulee, and while Gordon complimented him on the overall taste, he pointed out that the top was not properly bruleed. Whitney's profiteroles were also felt to be excellent, with the judges saying that Whitney had finally fully delivered on the promise they always felt she had showed. Sheetal then brought up her dessert, which had been reduced to a bowl of vanilla custard with whipped cream, which the judges considered to be extremely poor for the 90 minutes she was given to cook it in. Despite Lee's confidence in his French toast and vanilla walnut cream dish, the judges unanimously hated it, saying that it was clumsy and showed no real skill. The worst was yet to come however, as Mike's trifle not only looked awful, the judges refused to even taste it upon the revelation that the topping contained raw egg whites.
• Winner: The decision came down to either Whitney or Sharone (David's brulee being insufficiently cooked, and the other three desserts all being hated by the judges), and the judges decided they preferred the charm and simplicity of Whitney's dessert, winning her the final elimination test.
• Bottom 3: Lee, Sheetal and Mike
• Eliminated: Mike
• Lee's dish was judged to be just barely better than the other two, saving him from elimination, leaving Mike and Sheetal facing elimination. Despite Sheetal serving a terrible dessert and wasting her advantage, the judges deemed Mike's serving of raw eggs to be completely unforgivable, leading to his elimination. The judges told him that while he was talented and could potentially work professionally in one of their kitchens some day, he needed to learn finesse and self-control first.

Episode 11

• Individual Challenge: The final five were taken on a fishing trip, where they each caught their own sculpin, and were told to prepare a sculpin-based dish for three professional food critics: Jeffrey Steingarten of Vogue magazine, Tanya Steel of Epicurious.com, and Barbara Fairchild of Bon Appetit magazine. For winning the final elimination test, Whitney had an hour and a quarter in which to cook her food, while the other four contestants had just an hour. The two contestants deemed to have cooked the worst dishes, which would be rated in marks out of twelve, would face off in a pressure test. Whitney pan-seared her sculpin and served it with roasted root vegetables, David poached his sculpin in butter and with a side of cous-cous, Lee braised his sculpin and also used cous-cous as his side, Sheetal made her sculpin into a curry, while Sharone took the risky move of serving the scuplin's liver, offering grilled and seared versions along with an asparagus salad. Ultimately, David's dish was judged to be the best, scoring 11.5/12 and winning him his first challenge (having been the only remaining contestant not to have won a Mystery Box or Elimination Challenge). Conversely, Sharone's gamble in serving the liver ended in disaster, as all three critics agreed that it was one of the most disgusting dishes they had ever tasted in their lives and absolutely inedible, landing him in bottom place with a score of 4/12. Lee took second place with a score of 8/12, and Sheetal took third place (her score was not specified). This left Whitney, who scored 5/12, facing elimination alongside Sharone, with the judges expressing bewilderment that she decided to save time by using several canned ingredients (which the critics said made her meal taste like a TV dinner), despite having a head-start on everyone else. The judges admitted being completely stunned by the outcome of the challenge, with Gordon in particular saying that he had expected Sharone and Whitney to be the top two, not the bottom two.
• Pressure Test 4: In the final Pressure Test of the season, Sharone and Whitney were each asked to cook a chocolate soufflé. They were told that they could cook as many as they liked in the hour allotted, but could only serve one. Whitney decided to serve up the first soufflé that she had ready, while Sharone decided to take a more methodical approach and cook a sampler, then adjust the recipe as needed before serving the second one to the judges.
• Eliminated: Sharone
• Unfortunately Sharone's strategy backfired, as in his haste to prepare a second soufflé he added too much sea salt, and undercooked the soufflé in his rush to serve it before the time ran out, as the judges noted it was cold in the middle. This, combined with Whitney's soufflé being absolutely flawless (if a little more simplistic) led to Sharone's elimination. Before Sharone left however, Joe offered him a job at his restaurant.

Episode 12

• Semi-Final 1: The episode began with the first of two one-on-one cook-offs. The challenges were decided by a draw: Ramsay picked David, who was allowed to choose his competition, selecting Sheetal. In the semi-finals, the judges would each name a dish for the contestants to cook; Joe asked for Veal Milanese, Graham asked for an apple pie, and Gordon asked for clam chowder. The chowders were the first to be tasted, with Sheetal's being more traditional, and David modernizing his by adding extra ingredients such as olive oil. David's was judged to be the better of the two, due to the clams being cooked better and the seasoning being more balanced. For the apple pies, Sheetal once again produced a traditional dish, while David produced an individual pie with more exotic seasoning; Graham considered Sheetal's dish to be closer to what he had requested, which was a more traditional apple pie. Finally, Sheetal produced a traditional Veal Milanese, while David's was slightly thicker than usual.
• Eliminated: Sheetal
• Joe felt that David's decision to use a thicker cut had served to retain more of the juice and flavor and this secured him passage to the final, sending Sheetal home.
• Semi-Final 2: For the second semi-final, Lee and Whitney were asked to make Chicken Parmesan by Joe, Eggs Benedict by Graham, and cheesecake by Gordon. Firstly, Graham sampled the Eggs Benedict dishes; Whitney decided to do a Southern take and cooked hers on a grits cake rather than a muffin, while Lee served his on a potato latke. Graham chose Lee's as the better of the two, mostly because of the overly thick grits cake on Whitney's dish. The two Chicken Parmesans were very similar, though Lee stuffed his with mozzarella and mushrooms. Joe disliked that aspect of Lee's dish, and gave the point to Whitney. This left the cheesecakes as the decider, with Lee's being a traditional cheesecake, and Whitney taking the riskier strategy of an unbaked cheesecake.
• Eliminated: Lee
• While he enjoyed both, Gordon judged Whitney to have demonstrated more skill and technique with her unbaked cheesecake, putting her through to the final and eliminating Lee.

Episode 13

• Final: In the final cook-off, the two finalists were given two hours to cook whatever they desired for an appetizer, an entrée and a dessert. Whitney chose an appetizer of sweet shrimp on crispy corn bread with black eyed pea purée, country fried chicken for the entrée, and a white chocolate bread pudding for dessert. David decided to cook scallops for the appetizer, beef wellington for entrée, and nectarine crepes for dessert. As the two started cooking, Joe wondered whether Whitney was sticking to her comfort zone a little too much, while Gordon felt that David could be setting himself up for failure by cooking dishes that the judges themselves often cook in their restaurants. Partway through the allotted time, Whitney nearly had a disaster when she dropped her chicken on the floor, forcing her to restart it at a very late stage. In the tasting, David got off to a disastrous start when all three judges disliked his scallops due to the overwhelming taste of jalapeños, while Whitney's was generally executed better, but suffered from slightly undercooked shrimp. David then presented his beef wellingtons, and while Gordon didn't feel there was anything especially wrong with them, he considered them to be overall sub-par and clumsily executed. Upon hearing this feedback David became tearful, realizing that with two of his dishes having had comparatively negative comments, that he was now almost certain to lose. The judges were concerned that Whitney's chicken may be undercooked, but fortunately it turned out to be cooked perfectly, and all three judges raved over her entrée. In the desserts, David finally managed to get some positive comments for his crepe, though Whitney's bread pudding (Soufflé style) also got very positive comments, and the judges felt that she had displayed much more technique with her dessert.
• Winner: Whitney
• Runner-Up: David
• In what the judges described as a "difficult, but unanimous decision," and for having better overall execution of her final three dishes, Whitney was chosen as the first winner of the revival version of MasterChef, thus the original PBS airing of MasterChef USA are not counted previous winners (one man and one woman).

Follow up

First season winner Whitney Miller has published the Masterchef cookbook "Modern Hospitality: Simple Recipes with Southern Charm", which was released in July, 2011.^[1][2]

References

1. Miller, Whitney (2011). Modern Hospitality: Simple Recipes with Southern Charm. Rodale Books. p. 192. ISBN 978-1-60961-352-5.
2. Miller, Whitney. "Facebook Page". Retrieved June 11, 2011.