MasterChef India Season 7 Episode 4  is titled ‘Passion Se Pehchaan’ and the synopsis reads as – MasterChef finds its top 36 home cooks who will be cooking in the MasterChef kitchen for the first time. Will they manage to impress the chefs? On the show returning as judges Vikas Khanna and Ranveer Brar are joined by Garima Arora, the first-ever female chef to be a judge on the show.

The cooking competition show is a nationwide quest to find the best ‘home cook’ and draws out some of the most brilliant chefs from across India. The judges sample recipes from various cuisines that the contestants prepare in their search for India’s ‘MasterChef’. The show is produced by Endemol Shine India and it is directed by Neeraj Shetty.

-MasterChef India Season 7 Episode 4 Review and Recap Contains Spoilers-

The latest Episode takes us to the MasterChef kitchen directly with the selected 36 contestants. Although I had expected other rounds of auditions so we can see all 36 contestants and their selected dishes, it looks like the creators already gave us the spoiler about the final 16 contestants by showing just their auditions, in the previous episodes.

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It starts off with the judges welcoming the selected contestants to the kitchen and unveiling the customised aprons with each contestant’s name. But not everyone will be getting the apron with their name on it. They will have to compete in batches of 12 and the contestants who make it in the cook-off will get the apron and a spot in the top 16.

Contestants were asked to stand on their counters and pick up the cooking board to know about their cook-off challenge. However, instead of rules and instructions, there was a mirror and that was their hint. They had to prepare one dish in under 60 minutes, which will represent who the contestants really are.

It was a nerve-wracking hour for everyone as they were rushing to get the ingredients and get them on the plate in time. Some people were all over the place, trying to keep it all together, while some showed a systematic way of getting things done. Among the contestants that took the challenge today, Santa from Assam was also there and was shown as the first to present her dish.

She prepared a rangeela pitha which looked like a pumpkin hiding under the leaves. The creative dessert had paneer and cinnamon powder filling inside and the judges complimented her for bringing her childhood memory onto a plate while mixing the tradition with some playfulness.

The cake artist, Priyanka Biswas presented Bengali tropical paradise which was made of lemon curd with gondhraj and coconut mousse with chilli mango apple. Judges remarked that the sondesh was authentic in taste but the recreated coconut shell was lacklustre. Contestant Avinash presented flavours of Tatini, while another contestant whom we saw for the first time, Sambhaj Balu brought Kolhapuri missal kachodi.

Soon after we saw Amjad who won hearts with his biryani, got done with his dish before time but his kadaknath chicken gravy was a bit bitter and that didn’t leave a good impression. Nazia was specially commended by the judges for her Nargisi kofta, which includes eggs wrapped in banana flowers. Judge Garima was not sure if the banana flower was the correct choice but the final dish was good enough to win.

Aruna Vijay gave rasam rice a twist by making rice noodles instead, which were put over the poriyal in the rasam broth and a crispy pappadam with chutney on top. Judges shared how the dish could go wrong in many ways but she balanced everything. Lastly, we saw Urmila Baa and Brijesh Srimali make Undhiyu Puri in very different ways, ending with Baa getting the apron before everyone else.

We saw snippets of other contestants’ dishes but nothing that stands out much. Out of the contestants that were shown today, 5 got selected in the top 16 by getting the apron of their names. They were Urmila Baa, Priyanka Biswas, Aruna Vijay, Santa Sarmah and lastly Avinash.

Final Thoughts: MasterChef India Season 7 Episode 4

The episode felt like someone fast-forwarded the middle part from auditions and we landed in the kitchen abruptly. Among the 36 contestants we saw many new faces whose auditions were not shown and neither did they get any screentime in today’s episode. If I were one of them, I would have been very disappointed after hoping that I would at least be in one episode of the show.

The creators really need to get their priorities right and focus on the real essence of the show – the food, and not if someone has difficulty saying some words. They should give somewhat equal screentime to everyone so we could know what dishes worked, and what didn’t. Why was it rejected or what made it so good? As a viewer, we should get to learn and not just get fed the generic reactions where everything is mind-blowing.

MasterChef India Season 7 is currently streaming on SonyLIV and a new episode will be released from Monday to Friday at 9 PM.

Also Read: Check Out All of Our Masterchef India Season 7 Reviews