Claire Winton Burn

MasterChef 2010 kicked off with the top 50 contestants cooking a BBQ dish of their own choosing.

For their first team challenge, the contestants took over two Italian restaurants in Sydney. The team who made the most money by 9pm won the challengeand it was up to the customers to decide how much they would pay for their meals.

Alvin, Adele, Claire and Sharnee headed to Cabramatta for a MasterClass with Luke Nguyen. Gary showed the other contestants how to make his mum's roast beefmeal, with Gary's mum visiting the MasterChef kitchen to demonstrate her Yorkshire pudding recipe.

While Devon and Jonathan faced elimination, the red team left to enjoy their reward lunch at Luke Mangan's restaurant, Glass.There was to be three elimination rounds, worth one point each.

The first challenge was a series of kitchen prep tasks. The final task saw Marion, Daniel, Adele and Courtney cut salmon fillets of the correct weight andtheywere given their Top 24 aprons.

The contestants each cooked their signature dishes but were judged by their fellow contestants, not the judges. The women tasted the men's dishes and voted for the best three.