MasterChef Australia

MasterChef to get own TV show?

Last year’s MasterChef Australia winner Julie Goodwin is rumoured to be getting her very own food show on Nine. The slated series is called Home Cooked and a possible time-slot is late afternoon on Saturdays.

Clare lands lead role

Aussie actor Dustin Clare has landed the lead role in the upcoming sequel series to Sparticus: Blood and Sand. The American swords and sandal series, which films in New Zealand, will shoot a six-part second series with Clare (Underbelly, Satisfaction, McLeod’s Daughters) fronting the cast.

Jersey Shore strike

The cast of Jersey Shore are striking due to the fact they don’t believe $10,000 each per episode is enough for them. The cast of the MTV show are refusing to shoot any scenes for the third season until the network coughs up more money.

FlashForward actor joins The Good Wife

Michael Ealy is joining the cast of The Good Wife for at least 10-episodes in the upcoming season. Ealy, who recently played Marshall Vogel on the now-cancelled FlashForward, will take on the role of the head of a Washington D.C. firm in the drama series.

CSI resigns actress

CSI has re-signed another of its cast members in the form of Jorja Fox for another season. Fox, who stars as Sara Sidle on the series, will return in either as a regular or in an extended recurring role.

With less than a week to go before Australia’s next MasterChef is determined, the top six contenders were chopped to just five tonight with contestant Alvin Quah being eliminated.

And what a super-charged challenge the contestants faced, with the ‘patissier of pain’, Adriano Zumbo, unleashing his most unforgiving creation yet – an eight-layered vanilla cake named the V8.

The gruelling four hour test of skill and endurance proved too much for Alvin, who failed to rev up the judges with his interpretation of the cake.

“Instead of a V8, I plated up a V6, with two layers of my cake missing,” says Alvin. “I was the worst performer but I’ve never professed to being a good cake maker, let alone an Adriano Zumbo cake which you seem to need a PhD.

“My cake was a spectacular failure. It tasted good but in this case my presentation was so woeful that the judges couldn’t see past it.”

All contestants were firing on all pistons when they discovered what the master of the croquembouche and macaron tower had devised for the pressure test. The eight-layered vanilla cake included the highly difficult technique of tempering white chocolate, a glaze and perfectly balanced flavours in each layer.

“The croquembouche is a walk in the park compared to this cake,” says Alvin. “When I first saw the cake I thought this is ridiculous. The advantage that I got from being in the top three from the Iron Chef challenge was that we got a sneak peek to see what we were cooking, to taste it, and have a look at the recipe.”

But Alvin just couldn’t capitalize on the advantage. He was smoothly cruising towards the checked flag until it came to putting the layers together, when it became apparent that his creation was effectively a soggy mess with some of the elements not set properly.

“I followed the process and each layer turned out perfect for me but it was the assembly of it all when things went wrong,” he explains. “Because the cake hadn’t cooled in time I just couldn’t put the glaze on properly and the gel component didn’t set properly either.

“I ran out of time and nothing cooled and it literally looked like road kill. It got to the point where I wanted to throw the cake away. It was disgusting. I knew I was going home.”

Though he knew his dream run in the MasterChef kitchen had come to an end, he could still hold his head high.

“Tempering chocolate was my main concern,” he says. “But as much as my cake looked like it had been run over by a bus twice, the tempering of the white chocolate worked for me. So I can be proud of that and take it home with me…the cake, not so much!

“I felt justified of my cooking ability that I was kicked out based on that elimination. I’ve never professed to be able to make cakes like that and I’m glad I’m eliminated on something like the V8 cake rather than, say, a Malaysian challenge where I’d be kicking myself now.”

Alvin is disappointed not to have reached the grand final, but he’s proud of making it into the final week of what has been a hotly fought contest.

“I didn’t even expect to make the top 24 and I made it to the sixth place,” he says. “I don’t see it as though I’ve come so close to winning and then missed out. I’ve done everything I wanted to do in MasterChef and I’m really proud of where I’ve got in the competition.

Now back at his Sydney home with his partner, Alvin is taking the first steps into what he hopes will be a long and fruitful career in the food industry.

“I am constantly amazed at the impact of the show on the general public,” he says. “I’m so blown away by the amount of strangers that come up, shake my hand and have kind words to say – it’s unbelievable for a home cook like me. It’s quite heartwarming.

“I’ve had a dream about one day owning an Asian tapas bar, and that dream is still very much alive. And I want to eventually release a cookbook of my own and my mum’s recipes.”

But first on Alvin’s list, is a food website – www.cinnamonpig.com.au – that will see him review eateries and give him an outlet to release recipes.

“The site will review small hole-in-the-wall around Australia,” he explains. “I want to give little, unknown places a plug for the good food they put up and I want to introduce the public to the food I love so at first I’ll be concentrating on Asian food.

“It’ll have regular updates on what I’m doing in the food industry, quirky food tips and I’ll put up recipes too.”

MasterChef may be a huge success with the Australian television-viewing public but not so much with top Aussie chef Neil Perry who has slammed the show and its contestants.

Perry has said blasted the show saying that the so-called best amateur chefs in the country would struggle in a real restaurant environment.

He calls the contestants “nobodies” and doesn’t believe they deserve the hype and attention they are getting on the hit Ten show.

“If you leave MasterChef and think that you are now one of the great chefs of Australia, I think you are probably up for a pretty rough ride,” Perry said.

“These people are just nobodies with very little experience, and [aided by the show] are able to be exposed and have opportunities. That’s why people go on the show.

“Most of them don’t go on the show thinking they will be opening a restaurant … most go on there to get enough media fame to be able to go on and do more media things.”

The scathing comments are surprising considering the fact Perry himself has featured several times on the show this season.

He says that contestants will be in for a big surprise if they think that after they have been on the show they can instantly churn out cookbooks.

However, Perry does see an upside to the series he calls nothing more than a “game show”.

“The good thing is MasterChef gives cooking more notoriety, it gives people more of an insight into cooking fresh food at home and it gets their kids inspired,” he said.

“That’s the really great spin-off of Masterchef, not necessarily the talent that it might unearth because there are already many good chefs in Australia.”

Source: News.com.au

To readers of the Sunday Telegraph last weekend (July 11) Aaron’s elimination from Masterchef would have come as no surprise.

An article, titled “Aaron stirring the pot” was featured in the paper, alongside a story about the eviction of the then favourite Marion who is set to “make it big” launching her own range of sauces.

Aaron, in the article, is also set to launch his own range of sauces, and is quoted telling the Sunday Telegraph “that finishing Masterchef is the number one priority”.

He goes on to say that he would like to concentrate on his food line that would consist of mostly Mexican and Italian sauces. Apparently, there is the rumour that Aaron – a band manager – will be doing a TV show called Rock and Roll Chef – to which he replies “there is nothing signed, but we’ll have to see what happens”.

The article states that Aaron is one of the favourites to take out this years’ competition, now that Marion had gone. Aaron says “My biggest opposition is actually myself because I over-stress and just do crazy things. If I can keep myself under control, I think I am in with a chance.

Aaron was eliminated on Thursday July 16, after the two judges George and Gary chose Alvin’s fish and chips over Aaron’s.

Even the fact that Marion was not to make to finals came as no surprise, as, during the lead up to her eviction, reports started surfacing in the media as to her thoughts on issue like Masterchef being rigged and the judges having favourites they “let” go through over others.

Generally speaking, contestants in reality competition shows do not speak to the media while they are still in the competition, and they certainly don’t go about launching their own food ranges while competing.

He hit the headlines by knocking out MasterChef favourite Marion Grasby, but just a week later it’s the turn of band manager Aaron Harvie to know that being eliminated is not music to the ears.

The beanie-wearing rock ‘n roll cook failed to hook the judges in a fish and chip challenge, with the contestant becoming the 20 person to be told his time in the MasterChef kitchen has come to an end.

“I’d been in a lot of eliminations over few weeks, facing off against Marion the week prior and battling in the Adriano Zumbo macaron tower,” says Aaron, who was in his sixth elimination. “It seemed I was hitting a point where any time I cooked I was ending up in an elimination round. I knew I was on my way out.

“I would have loved to be in the top six but I was under no illusions that getting to the final week was a sure thing and every time you cook in the kitchen you know you can’t put a foot wrong. You need to put up consistently good dishes all the time.”

Unfortunately for Aaron, his signature dish that he cooked the night before for celebrity chefs Kylie Kwong, Alla Wolf Tasker and Jacques Reymond netted him a bad result. He was sent into an elimination round against Alvin and Jimmy, with round one being a ‘name that fish’ and the worst two performers going through to battle it out in a fish and chip cook off.

“Alvin and I were the worst at identifying all the fish properly,” says Aaron, who named four out of five fish correctly. “Fish isn’t something that I use a hell of a lot when I cook. But you’ve got to know the basics and when a challenge like this comes along it really does highlight to you how much you need to know to become a professional.

“We then went off into a sudden death cook off where we had to make fish and chips. Unfortunately, I picked the wrong potatoes so my chips were soggy. I should have used different potatoes. The bad thing is, is that I make them all the time at home and they’re fantastic, but I make them on MasterChef and I stuff it up!”

The battle was tight, with both contestants impressing the judges with how their fish were cooked. But the judges couldn’t ignore Aaron’s soggy chips or his tartare sauce that was too close to mayonnaise, and broke the news that he had missed out on a final six placing.

“It’s definitely not the thing you want to hear, but this journey is so long and stressful and you have to look at what you want to get out of it – and I had reached a point where I was happy,” says Aaron optimistically. “I was happy to go home and see my partner and proud of what I’d done. Sure, I’d fallen one place short of the finals but I would never have imagined in a million years when I put in my application form last year that I’d be sitting here in the top seven people of MasterChef.”

The top six who will appear in next week’s final challenges will be Alvin, Jimmy, Claire, Adam, Courtney and Callum. Although

Aaron is disappointed he won’t be joining them for a chance to named Australia’s next MasterChef, he says he’s leaving on a high note.

“I look back at everything I’ve done in the competition and I’m really proud of what I’ve achieved,” he says. “I cooked up a storm whenever I possibly could and I really did do my best.”

He still can’t quite believe he managed to knock out one time frontrunner Marion, but shrugs off any talk that the pressure got to him.

“Knocking out Marion was not my grand final,” he says. “Any time you cook in MasterChef, someone can cook better than you or you can just have a bad day in the kitchen. I was surprised that I survived and Marion went home but I was still amazed at any rate that I was still in the competition.”

Now back at his Sydney home with fiancée Natalie, Aaron is rocking ahead with plans to follow his food dream.

“Now that I’m at home I’ve been doing a lot of cooking and I’m developing a product line of Mexican and Italian sauces,” says Aaron, adding that his highlight during the show has been meeting all the celebrity chefs. “I’m taking some of my favourite Mexican and pasta sauce recipes and bottling them. I love Mexican food and I’m really interested in bringing some sauces made with all these unique flavours into Australian kitchens.

“I’m also doing some writing on other food projects that I’m working on, and devising recipes in the hope that one day I can release a cookbook. Life is never going to be the same after MasterChef but the best thing is, is that where my life was before [the show] was fantastic – now it’s even better!”

Masterchef finals week is almost upon us.

Four of the final Seven avoided elimination last night after impressing the panel of top chefs with the contestants’ choice of signature dish.

Claire, Callum, Courtney and Adam successfully avoided elimination by producing the best dishes of the day, thereby securing their positions in the finals week.

With only six positions available in finals week, Adam, Aaron and Jimmy face off in an elimination that will see one of the leave the competition.

Next week, the top six will be cut down to the finale two who will go head to head in the Masterchef finale on Sunday July 25 to see who will crowned Australia’s second Masterchef.

There will be eliminations on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, while on Friday will be the usual but final Masterchef Masterclass for this series.

Each episode will run for 60 minutes, with Masterclass remaining as a 90 minute show.

Jonathan Daddia won’t be back in the MasterChef kitchen after the self-confessed ‘Terminator’ succumbed to the pressure of being in his ninth elimination round tonight, becoming the 19 contestant to be eliminated.

Once describing himself as The Terminator for his culinary ruthlessness in elimination rounds, Jonathan finally met his match in guest celebrity chef Christine Mansfield’s highly technical dish of spice roasted squab pigeon with a turnip cake.

“When they told me I was out I was disappointed, but I’ve had a great time,” says Jonathan. “I’ve been in so many eliminations and there’s only so many I could have endured before being knocked out. I was actually pretty happy to go out the way I did and I thought my dish was good.

“I’m disappointed not to get into the finals week but I’m fine with that – it was more of an ego thing of wanting to get that far into the competition I guess.”

Jonathan was pitted against Jimmy and Courtney – both second chance contestants who re-entered the competition two weeks ago – after failing to impress the judges the night before in an invention test.

“It was hard to know I was up for elimination again,” he says. “But I never was cocky going into any elimination round because you just can’t afford it at that stage.”

Jonathan appeared rattled when he realised how advanced the squab dish would be to cook, with the recipe containing a whooping 75 ingredients. He never looked composed throughout the two hour challenge, but in true Jonathan style, he remained supremely confident his squab – which is young pigeon – would be cooked well enough to avoid elimination.

“I was doing quite well during the challenge, and I think I was leading at one stage,” he says. “I looked at my dish and then at the other two contestants’ dishes and I thought: ‘you know what? It’s not perfect but I reckon it’s pretty good’.”

But things went downhill for Jonathan after failing to read the recipe properly and cutting the squab breast to cook separately instead of cooking the whole bird together.

“I carved off the breast which was a mistake so I had to think of an alternative way to cook the pigeon,” he explains. “The tricky thing with squab pigeon is that there’s a real risk you can overcook it quite quickly. It flustered me for a minute and then I got it back on track and refocused.

“People think eliminations are about whether you win, but they’re not. It’s about whether you trip up or not and make a mistake. I obviously tripped up because the judges said my pigeon wasn’t cooked as well as it should have been.”

Sadly for Jonathan, the judges couldn’t ignore that his deep fried squab breast was undercooked inside and he was told his time in the MasterChef kitchen had come to an end.

“When the judges told me my dish was a bit undercooked I was shocked by that to some extent because that was the one thing that I thought was fine,” he reveals. “But I have no regrets at all and I’ve had a really great time in the competition. The London and Paris trip and meeting Jamie Oliver and Heston Blumenthal was incredible; a real highlight.”

He denies that the elimination of Marion last week added pressure, with Jonathan often cited as a fellow frontrunner.

“No, I don’t think I felt any pressure,” he says. “When Marion left, it showed that any contestant could feel like they could win.”

Now back at his Sydney home, Jonathan is finally settling into married life with his new wife Mandy. The couple was married just before filming started, taking their honeymoon between top 50 and top 24 filming.

“It’s nice to be back at home with my wife,” he says. “We’re finally getting to spend some time together and will probably take a holiday soon – I think I owe her one! She’s been very supportive of all this.

“I’m now planning on what I do next and assessing the options, whether it’s following my dream and opening a little French bistro or potentially a nice small wine bar that sells good food and wine.

“I’m not sure what the future holds but I’ll definitely be working in the food industry in the coming years.”

And for a bloke who seems to have polarised viewers, he has a message: “To everyone that loved and hated me, thanks for their support and I hope in some way I’ve stimulated their palates and excited them with some of the food I’ve cooked.”

The macaron tower task has proved not only a challenge for the MasterChef contestants but also for the creator himself as he struggled to keep up with demand following the screening of the episode.

Sydney chef Adriano Zumbo has been swamped with customers at his patisserie in Sydney’s inner West all requesting a purchase his trademark macaron.

Zumbo has seen over 5000 macarons fly out the door over a three-day period following the Monday screening of the MasterChef episode which saw contestants attempt to reconstruct his tower.

”It’s pretty crazy; it’s just a constant queue,” he said.

”Anything we send to the shop, macaron-wise, it’s gone. We take three of four loads up every day.”

The macaron challenge was the fifth time Zumbo’s food had featured on the show but he admits this was the most popular.

”The croquembouche was crazy. And then the mousse cake was crazy, massively crazy, but we just couldn’t keep up with that number of mousse cakes. About 4000 people wanted a mousse cake and I was like, well, ‘Where am I going to make those mousse cakes?’ This time we tried to get ready but we just can’t keep up with the macarons. We’re piping all day, and I worked until midnight last night just piping macarons with one of the guys.”

Source: The Age

7.30pm Sunday, July 11 continues 7.30pm weeknights on Ten

SUNDAY, JULY 11 – Season 2, Episode 72

Tonight’s mystery box carries a coveted prize with the winning contestant finding themselves exempt from the invention test, and therefore the following night’s pressure test. For the rest, their dish of invention must be based on one of the seven deadly sins.

Plus, in an extra advantage for the exempt contestant, he or she gets to pick the sin to match with the other contestants. With greed, wrath, gluttony, lust, pride, sloth and envy to select, the power is all theirs.

MONDAY, JULY 12 – Season 2, Episode 73

Guest Chef Christine Manfield’s has the most technically difficult dish seen so far in a pressure
test – spice roasted squab with a turnip cake. The ingredients list alone tops 75 and there are a massive 18 processes to complete in order to perfect the dish. The three contestants in the pressure test certainly have their work cut out, and for one, this MasterChef challenge will be their last.

TUESDAY, JULY 13 – Season 2, Episode 74

Tonight’s contestant faces off against master of Japanese cuisine Shaun Presland. His challenge
is a complicated tuna dish with three different components – Tuna Avocado Sushi Maki, Tuna Tataki with garlic chips and Tuna Sashimi tacos.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 14 – Season 2, Episode 75

With the shock news that there is no team challenge tonight the contestants learn that they have an individual test in store. Each given $250 they must create a signature dish for a group of their culinary heroes.

World renowned, this group of judges includes: 2010 Good Food Guide Chef of the Year Mark Best, prominent author, TV chef and restauranteur Kylie Kwong, owner and chef of Victorian restaurant The Lake House Alla Wolf Tasker, Melbourne’s most distinguished French born chef, the three hatted Jacques Raymond, and of course MasterChef Australia’s own judge and internationally acclaimed food critic Matt Preston.

THURSDAY, JULY 15 – Season 2, Episode 76

The Winning contestants head off to a reward lunch with Mark Best at his restaurant Marque, and
for the bottom three, an elimination challenge. There are two rounds and each requires a sound
knowledge of fish.

FRIDAY, JULY 16 – Season 2, Episode 77

Gary and George create a delicious Friday night menu taking inspiration from some of the challenges seen in MasterChef this week.

Life after Masterchef on Ten provides for some very different programming with numerous timeslots vacated by the show, as well as a few others that have finished in July.

From Sunday July 25, Modern Family will be seen twice a week with an episode at 6.30pm Sunday and at 7.30pm Tuesday, moving forward into the slot vacated by Masterchef.

Following Modern Family at 7pm Sunday from July 25 will season 4 of Rules of Engagement. It will also be seen at 8pm Tuesday, again after Modern Family.

At 7.30pm, Sunday July 25, is the finale of Masterchef Australia, with the winner to be announced some time after 9pm.

Premiering after the Masterchef finale around 9.30pm Sunday July 25, will be the new series Undercover Boss which is about bosses of large corporations joining their front line workers under cover to see what life is like for the workers.

Undercover Boss than settles into its regular timeslot of Monday, 7.30pm from July 26.

Good News Week continues at 8.30 Monday July 26 after a two week break, while NCIS repeats on Tuesdays from 8.30 are double episodes. NCIS: LA is not being repeated at this stage.

Wednesday 7.30, July 28, sees all new Simpsons back in double episodes. The animated series takes off from season 21, episode 11, having previously been taken out of Ten’s schedule last year.

Wednesday nights remain unchanged with new episodes of Lie To Me and Law and Order Criminal Intent at 8.30 and 9.30 respectively.

From Thursday July 29, Bondi Vet settles into its new regular timeslot of 7.30pm Thursday, while the second season of Recruits premieres at 8pm Thursday July 29.

8.30 Thursdays is Rush, followed by Law and Order: SVU.

From Friday July 30, Jamie’s Food Revolution moves to 7.30pm, followed by an NCIS repeat at 8.30pm. New episodes of Numb3rs follow at 9.30pm. Note that the NCIS Tuesday night repeats are season 5, while the Friday night is season 4.

At 7.30pm, Sunday August 1, Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation returns.

With Hawke on July 18 and the Masterchef finale July 25, it looks like Fans of The Good Wife will have to wait until Sunday August 1 to see the first of the final two episodes.

Later in the year on Ten, expect to see Junior Masterchef, Offspring, Keeping Up With the Jones, the 2010 ARIA Awards and the 2010 Commonwealth Games from Delhi broadcast on both Ten and ONE.