Starter

“You’ll cook in the heart of the Mother City for a group of professionals.”

The ‘heart’ was the old Company’s Gardens, van Riebeeck’s original vegetable and fruit farm for nourishing sailors. The ‘professionals’ turned out to be South Africa’s olympic culinary team, which had brought along a pork trio as a sample of their champion fare. Judges Andrew Atkinson, Benny Masekwameng and Pete Goffe-Wood looked chuffed about yielding the judging to ten culinary olympians.

There’d been five contestants in last Wednesday’s pressure test – Amanda, Herman, Khumo, Mary and Ozzy – and their task had been the most difficult until then: replicating a dessert by one of South Africa’s top chefs, David Higgs. It was a litchi-liquorice beauty, composed of sorbet, panna cotta and macaroon on crumble. Mary the dancer and Herman the electrician were the two eliminated.

It gets sadder and sadder to see fond personalities and good cooks eliminated from MasterChef. But with only ten contestants left, team division was neatly done. Kamini had won the right to pick her own team, so she chose sisters Seline and Leandri, Ozzy and Jason for the blue team, pitted against the reds.

The challenge was to make a heritage-inspired dish containing five separate food elements on ten plates to make an Olympic chef proud, paired with a Nederburg Heritage wine.

Mains

“You are reliant on that teamwork today!”

Kamini, with her Nederburg Masterclass knowledge, chose the wine for the blues. Her spicy style influenced the ingredient choices, too. It was a lamb done three ways and, interestingly, a chenin wine.

Not everyone in the blue team agreed about their wine or cooking methods. Their dish was a combination of pistachio-crusted rack of lamb, and two more styles of lamb with sour apricot chutney and pea-lime purée, along with the Nederburg Anchorman chenin.

The red team shared choices and tasks better, deciding on ostrich three ways, to be accompanied by cabernet. They abandoned a pap-sushi element for want of nori and made pap shapes. Their beautifully coloured dishes bore ostrich rissoles, ostrich with ‘pap balls’ on carrot bases, and ostrich with poached beetroot, served with the Nederburg Brew Master cabernet.

Dessert

“Some seasoning would go a long way.”

The proof of which dishes were truly sublime was to be on the olympic chefs’ score cards. One team would earn 74 points and the other 63.

Kamini gave an exciting blue-team pitch to the chefs, speaking of Dutch-east Indian inspiration. Amanda’s red team presentation was nervous and rushed.

One SACA chef grumbled and Pete concurred, “I didn’t see anyone tasting it!” The criticism was about the red team’s less flavoursome contribution, which left them with fewer points.

So, despite better teamwork, Karen, Tiron, Khumo, Amanda and Joani now face a pressure test. They have to create a dish typical of The Leopard, the Melville restaurant of chef and author Andrea Burgener. One will exit MasterChef… Tune in to M-Net on Wednesday night (or visit Eat Out’s dedicated MasterChef page on Thursday morning) to find out who.

By Marie-Lais Emond