Tag Archives: Ozzy Osman

MasterChef SA Season 2 episode 24: Month-end creation challenge rattles Finalists (and viewers)!

MasterChef 2 24 Five Finalists Whale Cottage PortfolioLast night’s episode 24 seemed far too basic a challenge for the Top 5 Finalists of Season 2, and gave a new perspective on the cooking contestants, the unusualness of the challenge rattling them, and it was a surprise to see how some of the strong ones lost their focus, made mistakes, and will pay the price in a Pressure Test in episode 25 next week.

The challenge was unusual in that the Pantry was the Mystery Box, the Finalists having 60 minutes in which to prepare a dish from what was available to them, 8 minutes being deducted for the briefing.  Each of the Finalists had a SMEG fridge with an odd collection of ingredients resembling left-overs, there being very few things in each, as well as some dry ingredients, including eggs, sugar, bacon, olives, gherkins, cake flour, Cornflakes, pasta, sardines, pilchards, tuna, cheese, tomatoes, maple syrup, and more.  The Finalists were to replicate a typical month-end scenario, prior to pay day, and one having friends arrive unannounced for whom one prepared a dish with what is available.  The judges wanted Continue reading →

MasterChef SA Season 2 episode 21: Kamini Pather in first Pressure Test, Karen Els won’t forget Ethiopia in the long run!

MasterChef 2 21 Yaya Village Whale Cottage PortfolioAfter 20 episodes, MasterChef SA Finalist Kamini Pather, believed by many to win Season 2 of the reality TV show, landed in a Pressure Test for the first time, and experienced what each of her fellow Finalists have sweated through more than once .already

The Finalists were still in Ethiopia, and last night’s episode was filmed at the Yaya Village long distance athletics training centre, especially built at high altitude (2700 meters above sea level) for long distance runners to practice for world events, located 11 km outside of Addis Ababa.

The episode (unusual for Season 2, but the norm for Season 1) had a challenge as well as the Pressure Test in the same episode.  The challenge was making Ethiopian injera flatbread, which is made from teff flour, and the challenge was to make it perfectly round, and to get it out of the pan and onto a grass mat, and then to roll it.  Contestants were Continue reading →

MasterChef SA Season 2 episode 19: Finalists roasted in Coffee Challenge in Addis Ababa!

MasterChef 2 19 Ethiopia sign Whale Cottage PortfolioDespite a long tedious recap of last weeks’s episode 18, last night’s episode 19 of MasterChef SA was exciting and something different, being filmed in Ethiopia, a country in which coffee was first discovered, and it was fitting that the cooking in the episode focused on coffee.

The eight Finalists were very excited to see suitcases, and visas and passports to Ethiopia in their house, generating big hugs and lots of excitement.  Sharing some of the tourist attractions of Addis Ababa, the Finalists went inside the Ethiopian Orthodox Church with beautiful interiors.   Continue reading →

MasterChef SA Season 2 episode 16: ‘Quirky’ cooking, Mucking Afazing Charly’s Bakery, Khumo Twala flaps out!

MasterChef 2 16 Pressure Test Finalists Whale Cottage PortfolioThe Pressure Test that five Red Team MasterChef SA Finalists, who lost the cook out in the Company’s Gardens in Cape Town yesterday, had to go through seemed less stressful and more fun than some of the others the Finalists have been through, in that they could let their creativity shine through.  The winning Blue Team loved their visit to Charly’s Bakery in Cape Town.

The visiting Chef and ‘Bread and Butter’ column food writer for The Times MasterChef 2 16 Chef Andrea Burgener Whale Cottage Portfoliowas Andrea Burgener of The Leopard (no website for her restaurant, it appears) in Melville in Johannesburg,  Chef Pete Goffe-Wood calling her the ‘Queen of Creative Cuisine’, well known for her creative cooking, eclectic and playful dishes created by experimentation, and tasty food.  She presented three of her dishes, to give the Finalists an idea of what her restaurant serves, each dish having a twist on something well known, being ‘far removed from their origins’, she said.  So, for example the steak tartare was presented on a Moroccan theme, and there was a ‘Korean spagbol‘,  and MasterChef 2 16 SpagBol Whale Cottage Portfolioa Gazpacho made with raw ginger.  Textures are important, it was said, and Chef Andrea’s flavours ‘jump out‘.    Chef Andrew MasterChef 2 16 Gazpacho Whale Cottage PortfolioAtkinson provided the brief for the Pressure Test:  the Finalists had to create a dish of their own creation within 60 minutes, thinking out of the box, to be good enough to feature on Chef Andrea’s menu at Continue reading →