'MasterChef US' Season 6, Episode 18 Recap: Nick Goes Home, Final Three Ready for Finale
This week's episode "Thinking Inside the Box" was Nick Nappi's final night as he was eliminated from the competition, leaving Claudia Sandoval, Derrick Peltz and Stephen Lee as the final three for next week's Season 6 finale.
The show started with Nick pairing with Claudia to form the red team, and rivals Derrick and Stephen are the blue team as they prepare for the Judge Box challenge. The boxes contain ingredients that embody the cooking style of Gordon Ramsay, Graham Elliot and Christina Tosi.
The two teams have to make an appetizer and an entrée, choosing from Gordon and Graham's boxes. Christina's box will be used for the pressure test later on, as reported by Celeb Dirty Laundry. The red team got Graham's box, which has live crabs, pork chops, salmon, crème fresh and asparagus. The rivals ended up with Gordon's ingredients, which are live prawns, steak, lamb, pomegranates and squash.
The red team presented their appetizer first as they served the judges an Italian crab cake. Gordon said it was good while Christina liked it but preferred if there were more roasted red peppers on the plate.
Meanwhile, the blue team made a spot prawn ceviche. Gordon liked that it had some crunch but did not like the pomegranate seeds while Graham said that the dish was great.
The teams then presented their entrées with Nick and Claudia serving pan-seared salmon over kale. Graham did not like how they used the same sauce on two dishes and Gordon said that the salmon was a little bit raw, but it tasted good.
Stephen and Derrick prepared a crispy seared duck with squash purée and mushroom sauce. Christina liked it but felt that the skin was a bit hard. Gordon praised their purée seared duck.
The judges made their decision and announced that the blue team won. Nick and Claudia will go against each other using Christina's ingredients to make her chocolate malted layer cake for only 90 minutes.
The former partners scrambled to present their cakes to the judges, with Nick saying that it was the hardest thing he did. Christina tasted Claudia's cake first and said that her flavor was great, but Nick's cake was better to look at while Graham said it was delicious. Gordon now tasted Nick's cake and said that it was very sweet.
Nick confessed that he messed up the recipe, which cost him a slot in the top three. Christina announced that Claudia was the winner, and Nick was eliminated. They embraced and said that Claudia reminded him of his mother and proclaimed that she would win it all in next week's two-hour season finale.
According to TV Guide, the top three will compete in a challenge for an automatic spot in the finals. Later in the episode, the final two will vie for the $250,000 grand prize.
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