Joey Essex and Kellie Maloney bowed out in the first “semi-final” of Celebrity MasterChef, with both paying the price for pushing their dishes in a direction the judges simply could not get behind.
In Kellie’s case, there was at least something admirable about the spirit of the attempt. Her approach seemed to be rooted in the idea that a bit of imagination should count for something.
After all, pork served with lemon-flavoured rice and a tomato sauce containing cherries might not sound entirely impossible on paper. It was certainly unusual, but not necessarily doomed. Unfortunately for Kellie, John Torode and Gregg Wallace appeared unconvinced from the outset — and tasting the dish did little to change their minds.
Gone: Joey Essex and Kellie Maloney were eliminated in the first “semi-final” of Celebrity MasterChef after their unconventional dishes failed to impress
Joey Essex, meanwhile, also decided this was the moment to take a gamble, presenting what he described as “a little meal I’ve made up.”
The result was “Stirotto” — Joey’s own fusion of stir fry and risotto. It was a concept that sounded bold, if not exactly reassuring, and sadly the Celebrity MasterChef kitchen was not quite ready for it.
Their departures left the competition a little less unpredictable. While Jenny Ryan, Neil Ruddock and Dillian Whyte moved on, Joey and Kellie exited having at least brought a sense of mischief, invention and personality to the kitchen — even if the food itself did not quite land.
Risky: Joey Essex’s “Stirotto,” a blend of stir fry and risotto, proved too unconventional for the judges
And that the format of the show left a lot to be desired and had contributed to their demise.
After all, half of tonight’s ‘semi-final’ (the first of three bizarrely) was effectively pointless.
The eight celebrities found themselves on the white cliffs of Dover, split into two teams, cooking for 120 hungry coastguard staff and volunteers from the local search and rescue centre.
But as the judges didn’t consider the result(s) at all, Kellie received no credit for marshalling Vicky Pattison, Greg Rutherford, and Dom Parker in the Blue Team to an easy victory.
No chance: You’d have thought Kellie Maloney for would be commended for taking the attitude: ‘I’m using my imagination!’
And similarly Jenny Ryan’s Red Team (herself, Neil Ruddock, Dillion Whyte, and Joey Essex) weren’t penalized, despite serving their food 15 minutes late after filling their tent with black smoke when their lamb caught fire and several other mishaps.
‘I have never seen it so chaotic in all my life!’ cried John Torode, untroubled by the minor detail that it mattered not one jot.
To be fair to Dillion, Razor, and particularly Jenny, they fared far better back in the second half – back in the Masterchef kitchen with ‘the Invention Test’, unlike Joey Essex, who chose that as the occasion to unveil his ‘Stirotto.’
He had started the show in ominously optimistic spirits about being among ‘the best eight cooks’ to have made it to the semi-finals.
Not happy: You couldn’t help feeling the real losers were culinary creativity, human individuality, and the viewers as inevitably Joey joined Kellie leaving the competition
‘Eight’s my lucky number!’ he declared, dubiously and promising: ‘this is Joey Essex at his best. He’s going to come good!’
So not only talking about himself in the third person but having no logic whatsoever.
Looking at the ingredients in the Red Team’s tent, Joey lifted up a MASSIVE shoulder of lamb from the pile and asked: ‘what are these, chicken?’
‘Joey!’ cried Dillion Whyte, cracking up. ‘When have you seen a chicken this big?!’
Perhaps in the Jurassic age, or Essex.
Jenny then tasked him with trimming the Dover Soles (the fish dish that the Red Team were making for the coastguards – eventually).
Here we go: The eight celebrities found themselves on the white cliffs of Dover, split into two teams…
… cooking for 120 hungry coastguard staff and volunteers from the local search and rescue centre
‘I’m not the man for fish!’ he told her. ‘Me and fish don’t get on.’
He quickly complied though when Neil Ruddock showed him how easy it was and even revealed:
I worked in a salmon gutting factory once.’
‘Why were you complaining then?’ laughed Whyte, (not unreasonably).
‘I only worked there for one day and got sacked!’ smiled Joey (ditto).
With eight celebrities still remaining, the Invention Test required them to make one plate of food (sweet or savoury) using the ingredients leftover from their dishes for the coastguards.
‘I’m taking a risk. I’ve made up my own little meal!’
Disappointment: But as the judges didn’t consider the result(s) at all, Kellie received no credit for marshalling Vicky Pattison, Greg Rutherford, and Dom Parker in the Blue Team to an easy victory
Joey told Torode and Wallace eagerly, and, it’s safe to say, not exaggerating.
The revelation that he was making stir fry risotto (‘stirotto’) was followed by the bombshell ‘I’ve never done a risotto before.’
As if to compounds this disaster he added: ‘I’m going to make it quite sticky so when you mix in the stir fry it all sticks together.’
Adding egg to the rice sealed it – in more ways than one.
For reasons best known to himself, as Joey walked up to John and Gregg to present them with the finished dish, he started rapping: ‘that’s a Stirotto/that’s my motto/that’s not dirty/that’s for certy…’
Incredibly, almost impressively, his cooking was even worse than his rapping.
Stunned: ‘I have never seen it so chaotic in all my life!’ cried John Torode, untroubled by the minor detail that it mattered not one jot
The rice had ‘the texture of cold rice pudding’ and even the stir-fry’s most straightforward ingredient (the broccoli) was ‘greasy’, Gregg Wallace said, while the three whole mushrooms plonked on the top looked like huge black balls of dog poo.
Not ideal…
As for the concept of ‘Stirotto’ over-all, Gregg concluded with some under-statement: ‘I’ve never seen anybody do that before: boil it, add eggs, and mush it all up together!’
And never see it again hopefully.
Despite that – or rather because of it – you would have liked to see Joey Essex and Kellie Maloney go through.
