MasterChef Thailand (season 5)

Sixty successful home cooks arrived at the MasterChef Audition Stadium, loosely built based on the Netflix show, Squid Game. The home cooks were informed that if their aprons are snatched, their journey of receiving a white apron would be over.

• Auditions Round 1 - Skills Test: The home cooks each have to cook 24 successful fried egg dishes, out of 25 eggs given, in 15 minutes. The egg yolk must stay in its original shape at all times and the egg white must be cooked. They are allowed only one mistake. At any point during the round, the home cooks may be asked to stop cooking for judges' inspection.

Thirty out of sixty home cooks advanced to the next round. Before the second round, the remaining home cooks were asked to pick a coloured station (red, yellow and green), each with a corresponding dish that they have to make.

• Auditions Round 2 - Skills Test: The home cooks have to make 250 grams worth of chili paste, corresponding to their station colour (red being Chuci curry, yellow being yellow curry and green being green curry) in 30 minutes. They would also have 5 minutes to select their ingredients to make their chilli paste, in which no conferring is allowed. If there's any incorrect ingredients chosen, the home cook would instantly be eliminated.

Twelve out of thirty home cooks (Angkrit, Arth, Dang, Jake, Joe, Kaowtip, Maam, Medploy, Moo, Roen, Ten, and Tueng) passed the auditions and got their white aprons.

Twenty-four out of the forty-eight already-eliminated home cooks were invited back for another chance to win the white apron.

• Second Chance Auditions Round 1 - Team Challenge: The home cooks have to separate themselves into two teams: pink and light blue. Each team must cook a main dish and a dessert for each of the 50 food critics in 2 hours and 30 minutes, in which the main dishes must be done in 2 hours and the desserts in the last 30 minutes. Any dishes or desserts that are not done on time are not served. Each team is also given rib-eye angus steaks and horse crabs for the main dish and sugar canes for the dessert.

The teams for the team challenge were as follows:

• Pink: Aem, Mai Zung, Yok, Naan, Michel, Phukaow, Tas, Ton, Ann, Phon Leaw, Holly, Nu
• Light Blue: Nhong, Yup, Kwan, Beer, Brad, Oak, Kim Jae, Belle, Namcha, Yu, Boy, Mea

During the challenge, Nhong was switched with Brad as the team captain after numerous mistakes involving his role. After the first 2 hours, the light blue team did not complete 10 main dishes, while the pink team did not complete 16 dishes, meaning that those dishes are not served. The pink team won the challenge with a 29-21 score.

Despite pink team's win, due to their mediocre performance and criticism from the food critics, there were only 7 white aprons available to them. They decided that Holly, Mai Zung, Michel, Nu, Tas, Ton, and Yok would receive the aprons. The episode left on a cliffhanger, with the remaining five members from the pink team and all of the light blue team members given their last chance to win the white apron.

The light blue team, who lost the previous team challenge from the last episode joined the five unselected pink team members for their last chance to win the white apron.

• Second Chance Auditions Round 2 - Invention Test: The seventeen home cooks would need to create a dish, using river snails as the main ingredient. They are given 60 minutes to complete this challenge.

Out of the seventeen home cooks, only eight were able to win their white aprons, including, Brad, Aim, Belle, Kwan, Naan, Nhong, Oat and Yup. Two weeks later, the contestants entered the MasterChef Kitchen for the first time. However, only twenty-two of them were present, as five of the contestants, Jake, Maam, Moo, Roen and Ten, have to be isolated due to them being in the risk group of getting COVID-19 as a precaution. As a result, those five people are automatically eliminated and will not move on to the next round.

• Black Box Challenge: The contestants would have to create a dish with black-coloured ingredients: black chicken, century egg, grass jelly, brown rice, truffle, black olives, shiitake, seaweed, squid ink and dark chocolate. They have 60 minutes to complete this challenge. This mystery box challenge is later revealed to be a black box challenge, meaning that five people will be eliminated in this round.

After the time is up, the judges determined the 7 people whose dishes were not up to standard. They were Aim, Joe, Kwan, Medploy, Oat, Tas, and Ton. Angkrit, Brad, and Nu were deemed as the top three dishes. Nu won the overall challenge.

With Nu being the winner of the black box challenge, he is eligible to save 2 people out of the seven people whose dishes are the worst. He chose Kwan and Ton, despite the fact that those two dishes contain a raw component. Judges later decided that only three people would be eliminated from this challenge. They were Aim, Joe and Medploy.

Before the challenge was officially announced, the judges introduced Chef Tukta, a chef in The Next Iron Chef Thailand chef, who was a home cook at the beginning of her cooking career. She is the owner of Krua Baan Yee Sarn (Yeesarn Kitchen), a restaurant with dishes from Thai original cuisine.

• Mystery Box Challenge: The top nineteen contestants would have to create a dish using any of the following homegrown ingredients: river prawns, climbing perches, hibiscus leaves, lvy gourds, puffball mushrooms, rat-tailed radishes, moringas, madans, mauks, star apples, coconut shoots, and sagos. They have 60 minutes to complete this challenge.

Oat was declared as the winner of this challenge, with Tueng and Yup being the runners-up. Oat was given immunity from the next invention test as well as an ability to choose eight other people to join him. He chose Dang, Holly, Kaowtip, Nant, Tas, Tueng, and Yup.

• Invention Test: The rest eleven contestants would have to create a dish with beef hearts as the main ingredient. They are given 60 minutes to complete this challenge, with an additional 5 minutes in the MasterChef Supermarket.

Kwan, Nu, Yok and Ton were named as four of the worst dishes in this challenge. Nu and Yok were saved as their dishes are deemed innovative and creative by the judges, but lack taste and embrace of the main ingredient. Ton was eliminated from this challenge.