Sunday night’s elimination saw one of the most dreaded challenges return to the MasterChef kitchen: the 1-inch cube taste-testing challenge. With 80 unidentifiable foods on the table, the blindfolded contestants needed to rely on flavour and texture to determine what they were. But as with all eliminations, there was a twist. Not everyone would be competing to save themselves. Instead, they were split into three teams, and only one contestant from each team competed on behalf of the whole team.
Jamie, Audra, and Laura were chosen by their team to taste-test and after a few successful rounds, Jamie was the first to incorrectly identify plums instead of strawberries. That sent him, Andre, Matt, Tim, Steph and Snezana into a cook-off. The task? To create a dish using only the 80 ingredients in round 1.
The pork belly mishap
Steph created a crispy pork belly with beluchun caramel sauce and coleslaw.
“I loved her confidence, but I feel like this one has gone a little bit pear-shaped,” Andy said after tasting the dish. “I can see where her head was going with the sauce. Fish sauce has that beautiful umami funk, so does beluchun, but it is so much more powerful. I feel like it is overloaded in that caramel sauce.”
“When you do pork belly, you’ve got to make sure that there is no part where there is too much fat, and this one, sadly, has far more fat content than meat,” Jean-Christophe added.
After giving it her all, it was the pork belly that sent Steph home. In our interview, she shared,
“Poh said in my last cook, “all you have in this place is your instincts”, which is why I didn’t change my sauce. I loved it so I stuck with it, no regrets.”
After leaving the MasterChef kitchen, Steph shared she was happy with the approach she took this time around.
“After I left the competition last time, I didn’t feel satisfied. I took it so seriously that I forgot to have fun. This time my main goal was to have fun, cook some good food and make some foodie friends. I also wanted to show my followers a different side of me.”
Steph’s go-to dinner
Steph is a brilliant home cook with over 1.3 million followers across social media. “All my recipes are quick and easy,” she said. But one of her favourites is a simple pasta. “I have this great recipe on my website easyrecipegang.com.au for a tomato and olive pasta sauce. It is ready at the same time as it takes my pasta to cook, and is delicious.”
Top 3 MasterChef moments
While picking top moments from her MasterChef experience was difficult, Steph shared a few that stood out and made her excited, emotional and proud.
“I loved watching the highlights reel of all the contestants’ past seasons getting their aprons and the emotion of being eliminated. Those emotions are so authentic,” she said.
But one of her reasons for returning to MasterChef is a heartfelt one. “I loved being able to honour my sister who I sadly lost a few years ago to the horrid Motor Neurone Disease [MND]. She loved me being on MasterChef Australia so much and was my biggest supporter.”
Steph has built an empire on socials and cooking to make her followers proud was one of her priorities.
“Although the audience didn’t get to see them all, I cooked six cracker dishes that I am super proud of. I don’t cook like this anymore and I didn’t have much time to prepare, so I am stoked with them.”
What’s next for Steph?
If there’s one thing we know, it’s that Steph has a lot of exciting things coming up. She just dropped her second cookbook, Easy Dinner Queen, a follow-up from Air Fryer Queen, and she revealed in our interview that another cookbook is brewing!
“Both [of my cookbooks are] best sellers and I have just started writing my next one!” she said.
But that’s not all.
“I will be launching a meal plan subscription on my website, easyrecipegang.com.au and social media in July which I am so excited about. My followers have been asking for this for a long time so I very happy to be delivering it to them. It will take all the stress away of deciding what to cook for dinner and will also be incredibly budget-friendly which we know everyone is looking for these days.”
MasterChef Australia: Back to Win continues Sunday at 7pm, and Monday to Wednesday at 7:30pm on 10 and 10 Play.
