MasterChef Canada (season 3)

MasterChef Canada (season 2)
Country of origin Canada
Release
Original network CTV
Original release February 14, 2016 (2016-02-14) –  ()

The third season of MasterChef Canada started airing on February 14, 2016, with 40 initial finalists battling for an apron and a spot in the Top 14.

Top 14

Contestant Age Hometown Occupation Status Winnings
April Lee Baker 38 Calgary, Alberta Homemaker Top 6 2
Jeremy Senaris 34 Winnipeg, Manitoba Building Plan Examiner Top 6 2
Maria "Mary" Berg 25 Toronto, Ontario Insurance Broker Top 6 3
Matthew Astorga 25 Pitt Meadows, British Columbia Digital Design Consultant Top 6 3
Shawn Karls 29 Montréal, Québec Doctor Top 6 5
Veronica Cham 35 Toronto, Ontario Lawyer Top 6 4
Terrance "Terry" Adido 33 Edmonton, Alberta PhD Law Student Eliminated May 1 5
Jennifer Baglione 23 Maple, Ontario Salon Manager Eliminated April 24 4
Jacqueline Clark 29 Abbotsford, British Columbia Accountant Eliminated April 17 2
Michelle Nault 37 Bolton, Ontario Teacher Eliminated April 10 2
Julia Mark 30 Burnaby, British Columbia Makeup Artist Eliminated March 27 1
Sean Hickey 47 London, Ontario Auto Worker Eliminated March 20 0
Vincent "Vince" Spitale 41 Pickering, Ontario Contractor Eliminated March 13 0
David Young 32 Moncton, New Brunswick Carpenter Eliminated March 6 0

Elimination table

Place Contestant Episode
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
April Lee IN IN WIN HIGH IN PT IN LOW WIN PT IN IN
Jeremy IN IN NPT HIGH IN WIN IN IN NPT PT IN WIN
Mary HIGH IN PT IN LOW WIN IN WIN PT LOW HIGH WIN
Matthew IN WIN NPT IN IN PT IN IN LOW WIN WIN IMM
Shawn WIN IMM WIN IN IMM WIN HIGH WIN LOW WIN IN LOW
Veronica HIGH LOW WIN IN WIN PT WIN IMM NPT WIN HIGH IN
7 Terry IN IMM WIN WIN IMM LOW HIGH WIN WIN WIN IN ELIM
8 Jennifer IN LOW WIN WIN IMM WIN IN LOW WIN ELIM
9 Jacqueline IN IN PT HIGH WIN WIN IN IN ELIM
10 Michelle IN WIN WIN IN IN NPT IN ELIM
11 Julia IN IN WIN HIGH IMM ELIM
12 Sean IN IN LOW IN ELIM
13 Vince IN IMM ELIM
14 David IN ELIM
     (WINNER) This cook won the competition.
     (RUNNER-UP) This cook finished in second place.
     (WIN) The cook won the individual challenge (Mystery Box Challenge or Elimination Test).
     (WIN) The cook was on the winning team in the Team Challenge and was directly advanced to the next round.
     (HIGH) The cook was one of the top entries in the individual challenge, but did not win, or received considerable praise during an Elimination Challenge.
     (HIGH) The cook was one of the top entries in a Team Challenge, but did not win.
     (IN) The cook was not selected as a top entry or bottom entry in an individual challenge.
     (IN) The cook was not selected as a top entry or bottom entry in a team challenge.
     (IMM) The cook did not have to compete in that round of the competition and was safe from elimination.
     (IMM) The cook was selected by Mystery Box Challenge winner and did not have to compete in the Elimination Test.
     (PT) The cook was on the losing team in the Team Challenge, competed in the Pressure Test, and advanced.
     (NPT) The cook was on the losing team in the Team Challenge, but was exempted from the Pressure Test
     (RET) The cook was eliminated but come back to compete to return to the competition.
     (LOW) The cook was one of the bottom entries in an individual elimination challenge, but was not the last person to advance.
     (LOW) The cook was one of the bottom entries in an individual elimination challenge, and was the last person to advance.
     (LOW) The cook was one of the bottom entries in the Team Challenge, and they were the only person from their team to advance.
     (WDR) The cook withdrew from the competition due to illness or personal reasons.
     (ELIM) The cook was eliminated from MasterChef.

Episodes

Season 3 of MasterChef Canada started airing on January 30, 2016

No. in
series		 No. in
season		 Title Original air date Production
code
311"Yes, No, Maybe So"February 14, 2016301
Of the top 40 home cooks, 6 of them: April Lee, Jennifer, Jeremy, Mary, Terry and Vince cook an audition dish that earns unanimous "yes" from all three judges, thereby earning them directly a place in the Masterchef kitchen and a spot in the Top 14.
322"A Cut Above"February 21, 2016302
The 18 home cooks that earned at least two yes from the judges, are tasked to create a Mise en place to try earning their Masterchef white aprons and a spot in the Top 14. None of the home cooks finished on time, but Sean's Mise en place is deemed to be the best of all, and earned a place in the Top 14. Afterwards, Robyn, Ernie, Fanassa, Domingo, Alawn and Kendra are eliminated, while Jacqueline, Julia and Matthew are advanced. For the remaining 8 cooks: David, Elizabeth, Les, Michelle, Reno, Shawn, Travis and Veronica, their next challenge is to create a Masterchef-worthy dish with the ingredients from the Mise en place to fight for the final four spots. During cooking, Veronica's egg yolk gnocchi fails to set and is forced to abandon them. By the end of cooking, David's seared chicken thigh with prawn head red pepper sauce earn praises for his presentation and flavors. Shawn's Asian-fusion chicken taco is praised too for bold flavors, but missing a little crunch. Travis, who like Shawn, made shrimp and chicken tacos that are deemed too big and also misses seasoning in his salsa. Michelle's mini apple pie is judged to taste delicious and earn praises for its risky idea to bake a pie in 30 minutes, though Michael Bonacini pointed out that the pie can be cooked a little longer for a more crisp finish. Elizabeth's fried chicken with potatoes and vegetables is well-cooked, but her vegetables taste bland. Reno's pan-seared chicken breast with red pepper sauce is praised for his perfectly cooked chicken but his sauce taste of raw garlic. Les's pan fried chicken and apple-pepper slaw is criticized for his presentation (which he openly admits that plating is his weakness), but it is generally judged to taste nice. Veronica's pan-seared chicken thigh with corn succotash tastes very delicious but lacks balance and is small in size, and the judges point out the fact that she has been too ambitious with the egg yolk gnocchi. In the end, Shawn and Michelle are advanced into the Top 14. David is also advanced, while Reno is sent home. This leaves 4 home cooks: Elizabeth, Les, Travis and Veronica fighting for the last spot in Top 14. Despite her errors during cooking and tendency to be overly ambitious, the judges feel that Veronica has the most skills and potential of the four cooks, thereby advancing her into Top 14.
333"At Home and Abroad"March 6, 2016303

Mystery Box 1: For the first Mystery Box of the season, the box contains 13 iconic Canadian ingredients from every province and territory, that include arctic char, clams, red potatoes and wild blueberries. The top three dishes are Shawn's maple pastry cream tart with meringue (despite he has never made a tart before), Mary's pan-seared arctic char with blueberry wine reduction, and Veronica's pan-seared arctic char in fish broth with Gaufrette potato crisp. In the end, Shawn is declared as the winner of the Mystery Box.

Elimination Challenge 1: As usual for winning the Mystery Box, Shawn receives immunity from elimination, and then is shown the judges' heritage cuisine: Claudio Aprile's South American cuisine, Michael Bonacini's Italian cuisine and Alvin Leung's Chinese cuisine. He picks Claudio Aprile's South American ingredients as the task of the elimination challenge. For his third advantage, he is able to save two cooks from elimination. He picks Terry and Vince as they are his good friends. In the end, the best two dishes were Matthew's corn panna cotta with passion fruit sauce and churros, followed by Michelle's stuffed poblano pepper with pasilla pepper sauce. Other dishes that earn praises from the judges include Julia's chorizo and pork empanadas and Jeremy's tres leches cake (though Claudio Aprile thought his cake was a little dry due to not being cooked long enough). Some cooks didn't fare so well. Jennifer's churros with apple caramel sauce is criticized for being too sweet and lacking as she originally intended to present three different types of churros but struggles with time and manage to finish only one type. David's pork empanada with guacamole and saffron rice is criticized for bland flavors as the filling of his empanada lacks enough spice, and his rice overcooked and underseasoned. Despite her confidence, Veronica's pork stuffed pupusas with a guacamole caterpillar is deemed underwhelming as her pupusas have little filling and are dry and too salty. Chef Bonacini urges her to cook with more genuine heart and feeling as they feel she tries too hard to impress them. Sean's apple-rasberry empanadas and churros is deemed to taste good, but criticized for its messy and unrefined presentation. The worst three dishes belong to Veronica, Jennifer and David. In the end, David is eliminated.
344"Trial By Fire"March 13, 2016304

Team Challenge 1: For the first team challenge, the cooks are tasked to serve 121 firefighters with a baby pork rib entree, along with two sides and a sauce. With the two winning dishes from the last elimination challenge, Matthew and Michelle are the captains of the Red and Blue team respectively. As Matthew has the best dish, he gets to choose all five members of his team before Michelle. He chooses Mary, Sean, Jeremy, Vince and Jacqueline to join him, forming the Red team. This leaves Michelle with April Lee, Jennifer, Julia, Shawn, Terry and Veronica, forming the Blue team. During cooking, both teams experience several hassles including the Blue team burning a couple of their racks of ribs, and the Red team's ribs cooked less tender due to Sean opening the smoker to check how cook the ribs were (despite being told by all of his teammates not to). With a difference of 20 votes, the Blue team, against all odds, is declared as the winner of the challenge, much to Matthew's disappointment.

Pressure Test 1: For the pressure test, the cooks are tasked to bake a tower of 24 cupcakes with at least three different flavors. Matthew and all of his teammates put the blame of the loss on Sean for opening the smoker and not listening to instructions, much to his anger and opposition, but Alvin Leung points out to Sean that his teammates were right. As team captain, Matthew was given the option to save himself and one of his teammate. Despite feeling guilty about his decision, Matthew takes the pass, and saves Jeremy from the pressure test. This leaves Jacqueline, Mary, Sean and Vince to face the pressure test. In the end, despite having celiac disease and can't taste her cupcakes, Jacqueline's trio of cupcakes: Lavender-infused vanilla cupcakes, Lemon citrus cupcakes and Red wine velvet cupcakes are highly praised for her bold and unique flavors, especially the red wine velvet. Sean's trio of cupcakes: chocolate pecan cupcakes, bananas foster cupcakes and spiced peach cupcakes are also given praises for his flavors, but criticized again for his lousy presentation, especially the spice peach cupcakes which didn't rise too well (as he keeps opening the oven) and therefore a little dense. Mary's cupcake tower: S'more cupcake, Mocha cupcake and vanilla coconut cupcake receive rave reviews for her flavors and presentation. Vince's trio of chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese, peppermint and cherry is deemed to taste nice and baked decently, but is criticized for their childish-like presentation and being not innovative enough as all his cupcakes are chocolate-based. Jacqueline and Mary are both sent to safety (with Mary's cupcakes being deemed the best), leaving Sean and Vince as the bottom two. In the end, Vince is eliminated as Sean's cupcakes are deemed slightly more innovative.
355"Off the Hook"March 20, 2016305

Mystery Box 2: In a surprise twist, this Mystery Box requires the home cooks to work in pairs to create a stunning dish from a selection of ingredients containing pork tenderloin, prawns, peaches, kale and polenta. The pairs are Mary and Matthew; Jeremy and Jacqueline; Terry and Jennifer; Julia and April Lee; Michelle and Veronica; and Sean and Shawn (much to Shawn's dismay due to Sean's unsatisfying performance in the last team challenge). All teams worked well except for Sean and Shawn who did not communicate much during cooking and Sean's pork being undercooked due to poor time management on his part, much to Shawn's disappointment. The top three dishes are Julia and April Lee's peach grilled prawns with red cabbage slaw and parsnip chips; Jeremy and Jacqueline's pistachio-stuffed pork roulade and polenta fries; and Terry and Jennifer's prawn farfalle pasta salad with peas and kale. Terry and Jennifer are declared as the winning pair.

Elimination Challenge 2: For winning the mystery box, Terry and Jennifer are immune from the upcoming elimination, and are shown 8 different fishes to which they will assign for the other contestants to cook. Terry and Jennifer can also choose 2 home cooks to receive immunity, and they choose Shawn and Julia. Targeting Jeremy, April Lee and Mary for elimination, they gave the most difficult fishes- monkfish, hake and Steelhead trout to them respectively. They also gave Spanish mackerel to Jacqueline, British Columbia sturgeon to Sean, branzino to Matthew, red mullet to Veronica, and sole to Michelle. In the end, the two best dishes are Veronica's Thai-style fried red mullet with dipping sauce and papaya slaw, followed by Jacqueline's grilled Spanish mackerel with almond puree and beets, making them team captains for the next team challenge. April Lee's pan-fried hake with watercress and radish salad; and Michelle's pan-seared sole with oyster mushrooms and citrus risotto also receive good reviews with minor flaws noted (though Michael Bonacini advises Michelle to step out of her comfort zone next time). Three dishes are not received well by the judges. Despite being noted as a frontrunner, Mary was frazzled and frantic during the challenge, especially after causing a small fire while cooking. Her pan-fried steelhead trout with brown butter cauliflower mash has an underwhelming presentation and lumpy mash, but her fish is cooked perfectly, though Claudio Aprile discovers a bone in her fish. Jeremy's monkfish sinigang with eggplant and bok choy is criticized for using the expensive monkfish to produce a sinigang dish that is usually created from cheap scrap fishes, though it is cooked nicely enough. Sean's baked sturgeon with en croute of red jasmine rice and beans is deemed to be badly conceptualized and very unusual, and Michael Bonacini scolds Sean for destroying his cut of sturgeon filet in an attempt to make a rose out of it, though the fish is cooked perfectly, Michael feels it may just be luck that the fish turns out to be alright. Sean and Mary are called out for having the two worst fish dishes. In the end, Sean is eliminated for producing the weakest dish.
366"Feast your eyes"March 27, 2016306

Team Challenge 2: For this team challenge, the cooks are tasked to cook a three-course lunch for 16 fashion elites by taking their inspiration from Pink Tartan's Spring collection. Each team had to create one vegetarian, one seafood, and one meat dish for the guests to share. With the winning dishes from the last elimination challenge, Veronica and Jacqueline are the red and blue team captains respectively. Veronica chooses Matthew, Michelle, Julia and April Lee for her red team. Jacqueline chooses Mary, Jeremy, Shawn and Jennifer for her blue team. With Terry left as the last pick, the judges give him a surprise twist that allows him to choose which team to join. In a strategic move, Terry chooses to join Veronica's red team, believing he will be up against weaker home cooks should he need to participate the pressure test. Both team experience big hassles during the course of the challenge with Veronica seriously cutting her thumb on the mandolin slicer in a rush to cut new batches of beets for their vegetarian dish after being told by Claudio Aprile that the beets they already prepared are cut too thinly, while on Jacqueline's blue team, Jeremy struggles to roll the sushi for the seafood dish quickly enough without a sushi mat. During the preparation for the final meat course, the red team struggles to light their stoves due to strong winds blowing through the kitchen (which Michelle eventually solves by getting the entire team to shield the flames), while Shawn undercooks the blue team's lamb racks, much to Jacqueline's annoyance. In the end, despite the Red team winning over the guests with their lamb course, the guests generally prefer the blue team's vegetarian and seafood courses due to their more intricate presentation (Veronica's ideas of plating for her teams' vegetarian and seafood courses are deemed too messy and lack finesse, much to Matthew's dismay that his creativity is being underused by Veronica). Thereby, Jacqueline's blue team is declared as the winner, devastating Veronica.

Pressure Test 2 In the pressure test, the home cooks from the losing red team are tasked to cook a butter-poached maritime lobster dish in only 20 minutes. As team captain of the red team, Veronica is given the option to save herself or one of her teammates. Blaming the loss upon herself, Veronica refuses to save herself and decides to exempt Michelle from the pressure test due to the lamb course being their strongest dish in the challenge. Most of the home cooks have difficulty extracting the claw meat perfectly from its shell with the short amount of time they have. In the end, Julia butchered one of her claw completely and her lobster is also undercooked, putting her in danger of elimination. Despite his confidence and was the first cook to finish, Terry makes a fatal error of forgetting to remove the intestinal vein from his lobster. Matthew's dish is named as the best with perfect cook on his lobster and great flavors from infusing vanilla into his butter. Having never cooked lobster, April Lee is initially anxious coming into the challenge, but manages to produce the second best butter-poached lobster dish. After injuring her thumb from the previous team challenge, Veronica struggles to extract her lobster meat perfectly, but her butter-poached lobster is judged to be good enough with a perfect cook on her lobster and nice flavors. Matthew, April Lee and Veronica are therefore all sent to safety. This leaves Julia and Terry as the bottom two. In a surprise spin, the judges announce that there will be a second pressure test to determine which of them will be send home today. The second daunting pressure test requires Julia and Terry to recreate a dish of steak au poivre in only 15 minutes. In the end, Terry's steak is seared perfectly but his peppercorn sauce can do with a little more cream, while Julia's steak is slightly rare and also has little sauce as she did not put enough stock into the pan to make enough of it. As a result, Terry is deemed to have peform better and is sent to join the remaining cooks in the gallery, meaning a teary-eyed Julia is sent home.
377"From the Heart"April 10, 2016307

Mystery Box 3: This Mystery box is all about "heart". The box contains all basic ingredients needed to produce a baked dessert and a heart-shaped tin, behind is a photo of the home cooks' loved ones. All cooks decide to create an elevated version of their loved ones' favorite dessert. Some contestants struggle during the challenge, most noticeably Michelle, whose cake dropped to the floor while cooling in the fridge, resulting in her needing to salvage what is left of her cake by cutting out a smaller one with a ring mold. In the end, the top three dishes are Veronica's Japanese Matcha roll cake with chestnut cream filling, Terry's trio of mini-cheesecakes, and Shawn's layered key lime cake with torched Swiss meringue. After a careful consideration, the judges declare Veronica to be the winner of this Mystery box. The recipe of her roll cake will also be featured in a Becel advertising campaign.

Elimination Challenge 3: Unlike previous Mystery Box winners, Veronica will not be joining the judges at the Masterchef pantry, and instead will be receiving her advantage in front of the other contestants. Veronica is safe from elimination, while the other cooks will be creating a Masterchef-quality dish using a special ingredient unknown to everyone else except her and the judges. However, there is a twist as Veronica is allowed to choose 4 home cooks that will be cooking with the canned version of this special ingredient instead of fresh. Saying that she likes to play fair and sees other people excel with their dishes, she decides to give the canned ingredient to the cooks that she believes will excel with it: Jeremy, Mary, Jacqueline and April Lee. In the pantry, the special ingredient is revealed to be pumpkin, much to some cooks' worries, namely Shawn (who has never cooked pumpkin before), Michelle and Jacqueline. Many cooks choose to do similar dishes- Shawn, Michelle and April Lee all decide to make a soup, while Jennifer and Mary both choose to make gnocchi. In the end, despite being anxious coming into his first elimination challenge, Shawn's pumpkin puree soup with apple and ginger is named as the winning dish. Mary's pumpkin gnocchi with blue cheese bechamel is named as the second best dish, while Terry's roasted pumpkin risotto is named as the third best dish. All three will be team captains in the upcoming three-way team challenge. Jacqueline's pumpkin cheesecake with pumpkin seed crust and blackberry coulis also receives great reviews from the judges, though just a little undercooked in the center. Despite feeling confident about her dish, Jennifer's pumpkin potato gnocchi suffers from the fact that the taste of the pumpkin is undetectable in her gnocchi due to her adding in potatoes, though her gnocchi is cooked perfectly. April Lee's pumpkin soup and sandwich with pumpkin mayonnaise is deemed "mediocre" for her chunky soup with an overuse of spices and salty sandwiches, with Claudio Aprile advising her to concentrate cooking one way perfectly next time. After being asked by Michael Bonacini to step out of her comfort zone in the last elimination challenge, Michelle's roasted pumpkin cheddar soup with breadsticks receive less than favorable reviews for lacking in refinement and elevation, with her strong spices completely overtaking the subtle flavor of pumpkin in her soup. Thereby, April Lee, Jennifer and Michelle are called out for having the worst three dishes. April Lee's dish is deemed slightly better than the other two and is sent to safety. In the end, believing that she has hit her limit with her cooking style, the judges decide to send Michelle home, despite having been seen as a strong contender, resulting in her emotional elimination, especially Veronica who breaks down in tears. Before she leaves, Michelle predicts that Veronica will become Canada's next Masterchef. After seeing the departure of her best friend, Veronica sets her sight in the finale and announces that she will be taking down the remaining competitors one by one.
388"Oktoberfest Feast"April 17, 2016308

Team Challenge 3: For this special three-way team challenge, the cooks arrived at Mississauga's Hansa Haus and will be cooking gourmet sausage dishes with a topping and a side for their 250 guests in celebration of Oktoberfest using three different proteins. The team with the most sales will be safe from elimination. With the winning dishes from the last elimination challenge, Shawn, Mary and Terry will be the captains of the Red, Blue and Green teams respectively. Shawn chooses pork for his sausages, while Mary chooses lamb, leaving Terry with beef much to his dismay. Shawn chooses Jeremy and Jacqueline for his Red team. Mary chooses Veronica and Matthew for her Blue team, while Terry chooses April Lee and Jennifer for his Green team. Both the Red and Blue teams make a strong start and are quick to decide their sausage dishes, while the Green team struggles with Terry being very indecisive, much to his two teammates' ire, especially April Lee, who clashes with Terry over the spice blend in their sausages. As the challenge proceeds, the other two teams also start to unravel with Jacqueline on the Red team overstuffing the sausages and breaking a number of them, and end up switching duties with Jeremy, while Matthew on the Blue team is working too slowly with the onions. During service, a raw sausage is sent back to the Blue team, which causes Mary to break down and lose focus, causing her to suffer a bad burn on her right hand while working in the grill. Terry's Green team also has caused a small fire in their grill, while Shawn's Red team lags behind in service. In the end, thanks to April Lee's family background as sausage makers, Terry's Green team prevails and is declared as the winner of the challenge.

Pressure Test 3: Prior to the pressure test, the judges announce that one member each from the Red and Blue teams will be exempted from the pressure test, and that all members from both teams will be deciding who will be safe. The Red team decides to save Jeremy, while the Blue team decides to send Veronica to safety. This leaves Jacqueline, Mary, Matthew and Shawn to face an extremely daunting pressure test where they are tasked to prepare freshly made ricotta cheese and then create two pasta dishes, ravioli and gnudi, all within 1 hour. Shawn, in particular, is nervous as he despises cheese. During cooking, both Jacqueline and Matthew struggles setbacks due to having made not enough cheese (Jacqueline, in particular, did not double up her cheesecloth while straining, which results in her losing most of her ricotta, while Matthew tries to compromise his ravioli filling by adding in mushrooms). None of the home cooks manage to perfect both dishes and mostly receive mixed feedbacks. Jacqueline's ravioli is deemed to have perfectly cooked pasta dough but barely any ricotta filling, and is therefore flat, while her gnudi puttanesca, despite having a delicious sauce, has no taste of the ricotta after adding too much flour to get the consistency needed. Shawn was ambitious and produces a tri-colour three cheese ravioli that was deemed to have cooked nicely, but criticizes for having too much cheeses which overshadows the delicate ricotta, while his gnudi is perfectly cooked but completely overwhelmed by an overuse of pesto sauce. Matthew's mushroom ricotta ravioli is well made and cooked, but his gnudi is a little small and the flavor of the ricotta is very subtle due to running low on his ricotta. Mary's ravioli is deemed to be cooked and made perfectly, but has too little of the brown butter sauce, while the judges rave over her gnudi for perfection in texture and taste. Having produced a perfect gnudi dish and good ravioli, Mary is the first to be sent to safety and joins the Top 8. This leaves Jacqueline, Matthew and Shawn to face elimination. In the end, in a very close result, Jacqueline's pasta dishes are deemed to be the slight worst of the three, leading to her teary elimination. Before she left, Jacqueline predicts that Mary will become the next Masterchef.
399"Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes"April 24, 2016309

Team Challenge 4: For the upcoming team challenge within the Masterchef kitchen, the home cooks are split into two teams and are tasked to create a cohesive menu of four dishes each using the heads, shoulders, knees and toes of various animals: pig's head and grouper's head, beef shoulder and lamb shoulder, turkey legs and frog legs, and pig's trotters and chicken feet in 90 minutes, much to Mary's dismay (who reveals herself to be a vegetarian). In a random draw of selections, the Blue team consists of April Lee, Jennifer, Jeremy and Mary, while the Red team consists of Matthew, Shawn, Terry and Veronica. There will be no team captains in this challenge. The Blue team decides on a menu of "modern takes on old classics", while the Red team decides to create a cohesive Asian-themed menu (which worries Terry due to him being the least familiar with Asian cuisine on his team). Some home cooks experience difficulties, particularly Jennifer, whose polenta becomes really dense, and April Lee, who has never cooked with pressure cooker before. In the end, for the heads, Shawn's grouper cheek miso soup with fried tofu and sesame oil receive positive reviews for his broth and presentation, though the grouper cheek is just a touch too salty, while Jeremy's sizzling sisig (braised pig's head in white wine) earns rave reviews from the judges with Claudio Aprile calling it a "revelation". For shoulders, Matthew's sticky beef shoulder terrine with pickled daikon and fried potato receive positive reviews for its presentation and nice cook on the shoulder, but has not enough of the sticky sauce, while April Lee's braised beef shoulder with garlic marsh potatoes is criticized for very dry beef shoulder. For legs, Mary's turkey roulade with prosciutto and butternut squash puree is praised for its great flavors and presentation, while Terry's five-spice frog legs with roasted vegetable purees are deemed to be delicious, but are overseasoned. For toes, Jennifer's chicken feet and fried polenta with vegetables is praised for good flavors, but criticized for its unrefined plating, while Veronica's pig's trotters xiao long bao with black vinegar caviar and smoked quail egg earns unanimous rave reviews from the judges for flawless execution on a very technical and ambitious dish, with Claudio Aprile saying it is a finale-quality dish and that the men on the Red team should feel very lucky to have her on their team. After sampling all the dishes, the judges decide the Red team to be the winner of this team challenge, sending the Blue team to the pressure test.

Pressure Test 4: For this pressure test, April Lee, Jennifer, Jeremy and Mary are tasked to bake 4 eclairs in 90 minutes which must consist of four different toppings. All four cooks struggle immensely, especially April Lee who feels completely overwhelmed with pressure and sickness after her poor performance in the last challenge, and Jennifer, who is frazzled and unorganized during the cook, while Mary is being too ambitious with wanting to produce four separate pastry cream for her eclairs. Jeremy is doing well until he drops the lid of his squeeze bottle onto one of his eclairs. None of the home cooks produce perfect eclairs. Jennifer's eclairs are deemed too small and taste bland, and some of her eclairs are underfilled with pastry cream. Jeremy's eclairs, despite slightly messy presentation, are well filled and praised for its flavors, especially his apple pie eclair. After struggling to get through the cook, April Lee's eclairs are also praised for its flavors and light pastry. Lastly, the pastry of Mary's eclairs is undercooked and dense and has also cracked, while some of her flavor combinations do not work well together as a whole. Having produced well-flavored eclairs, Jeremy and April Lee are sent to safety, leaving Jennifer and Mary to face elimination. In the end, with her eclairs containing more major flaws, a teary-eyed Jennifer is eliminated with the judges urging her to continue cooking with heart.
4010"Out of This World"May 1, 2016310

Mystery Box 4: Retired astronaut Chris Hadfield is a special guest for this Mystery Box Challenge, much to Mary's excitement. This challenging Mystery Box involves the cooks to create one restaurant-quality dish using space food that include dried fruits and nuts, freeze-dried vegetables and beef, and candied salmon in 45 minutes. In the end, the top three dishes are Matthew's smoked salmon parfait with a walnut crumb, Veronica's chicken congee with Japanese omelette, and Mary's strawberry-raspberry crème brûlée tart. In the end, Matthew is declared to have the best dish, winning his first Mystery Box.

Elimination Challenge 4: As winner of the Mystery Box, Matthew will be deciding the teams in the upcoming classic Masterchef tag team challenge, where the cooks are tasked to replicate an exquisite platter consisting of five different hors d'oeuvres: halibut ceviche in tuile cornets, spoons of pan-seared Asian beef, Spanish tortas with chorizo, balsamic-infused beet skewers and pork wellington. Targeting to eliminate Mary, he chooses to pair up her with Jeremy (due to his less than impressive plating skills), Veronica with April Lee (since the first pays attention to the smallest details, while the second is less refined with her cooking), leaving Shawn and Terry as the final team by default. Mary is a little flustered at points during the cook, but she and Jeremy work well together as a team despite having very different cooking styles and manage to create the best hors d'oeuvres platter with the only flaw noted to be their smaller beet skewers, making them team captains in the upcoming restaurant takeover. Veronica and April Lee get off to a rough start, especially when Veronica needs to redo the tuile after April Lee spread the batter too thinly and produces tuile with a lot of holes, however the two are able to pull it together and produce a well-received platter with minor flaws noted to the thickness of their tuile cornets and the presentation of their beet skewers. Being close friends, Shawn and Terry are initially confident and work reasonably well together in a calm manner, and manage to produce a good platter, but Terry makes a serious error by filling the cornets with the sweet potato and apple garnishes of the pork wellington instead of the halibut ceviche (which Claudio Aprile later refuses to taste), thereby making them the losing team of the challenge. In the end, the judges feel that Terry is the most responsible for the erroneous cornets, and as a result he is sent home, leaving an emotional Shawn being sent to safety. Before he leaves, Terry believes that Shawn will be the winner of Masterchef Canada and encourages his friend to believe in himself.
4111"Demon at the Pass"May 8, 2016311

Team Challenge 5: The top 6 home cooks will be taking part in the annual Masterchef restaurant takeover in Alvin Leung's restaurant in Chinatown: R&D, co-founded with Masterchef Canada season 1 winner Eric Chong who joins the cooks in the kitchen. Jeremy leads the Blue team with Matthew and Shawn, while Mary leads the Red team with Veronica and April Lee, thereby setting up a battle of sexes. Past contestants including season 2 winner David Jorge and season 1 runner-up Marida Mohammed will be joining as VIP guests. The losing team will be sent to the pressure test.

Pressure Test 5: The losing team will be facing a pressure test, where at least one home cook will be sent home.
4212"Cooking With Cocktails"May 22, 2016312

Mystery Box 5:

Elimination Challenge 5:

References

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