I liked todays challenge, it’s something we’ve not seen before.
By the sound of it Vineet and Suvarnas dish sounded the most delicious - known flavours with a twist. But ego let them down.
Green team - for me they had the worst ingredients to choose from. I do like my greens but I also use other coloured ingredients. I would’ve never thought of rasam with green apple. I was quite impressed by their thinking and I think they worked well as a team. There was no blaming, and Sachin had no trouble following instructions. They chose a comfort food and gave it their own touch.
White team - they had the best ingredients. Onions, mushrooms, potatoes, chicken, paneer, yoghurt to choose from. I think Vineets thought was good and he could’ve had a winner, but they just had too much ego to listen to the other. They both wanted it to be their own dish.
Saffron team - it helped that they were from the same region. They understand the same flavours. Again, brilliant understanding l. Nayanjyoti was happy playing second fiddle to Priyanka. I’ve never cooked with pumpkin, but I know it’s quite popular in the Eastern part of the country. I think it was smart of Priyanka to not innovate too much, but stick to traditional dishes and giving it a twist.
I felt for the green team, to just lose out because they made round banana chips! That was the most ridiculous reason I’ve heard.
During tasting the green team had overcooked broccoli rice and the saffron team had over cooked prawns. They could’ve just said that the broccoli rice let them down. When they give such flimsy excuses, it does sound like they’re trying to justify saving Priyanka’s team.
Also, when they can eliminate 2 instead of one because 2 chefs weren’t good enough, why couldn’t they save two teams today? They could have an elimination round with two people. I guess they bend rules when it’s convenient for them.
Coming back to the white team, everybody has been talking about how bossy Suvarna is and how she has an inflated ego. I think Vineet was quite stubborn too. They didn’t show us when they planned their dishes, but clearly it was Vineets dish with little to no input from Suvarna. And then when Suvarna wanted to make pandhra rasa, Vineet went ahead and added milk and cream to it. I think they’re both equally stubborn though Suvarna also has a major ego problem.
On the pairings - why did the judges choose to pair them this way? Clearly the pairings flavoured Priyanka and Nayanjyoti. They’re both great at desserts and they had an upper edge. That they chose not to make dessert today wasn’t known initially. Even when they chose to make savoury - they both hail from the same region, and have an understanding of each others flavours. Suvarna and Vineet have had a problem in the previous duo challenge. And knowing Suvarna it was obvious they’d have trouble today as well. Why would you want that? Sachin and Kamaldeep - I was okay with this pairing. Nothing in common, no bad blood between them. With this pairing you could actually see how they’d work with other people. I wish the judges didn’t pair them up but it was random (like the numbers on the knife or something similar).
The way they did it, could raise issues of favouritism.