The first episode of 'MasterChef South Africa' was an elimination challenge, seeing three contestants go home. Picture: Twitter/MasterChef_SA
Cooking show MasterChef South Africa saw its long-awaited return on Monday evening and local heritage food is clearly going to be the focal point in the new season.
After an eight-year break, last seen on our screens in 2016 on M-Net, 20 new contestants adorned the famous MasterChef aprons in the hope of winning the R1 million prize.
This new season introduced new judges, chefs Zola Nene, Gregory Czarnecki, and food editor Justine Drake, to help guide and crown the next MasterChef winner.
The competition quickly got into the thick of things, as the first challenge was an elimination challenge with three contestants going home. The challenge was the mystery box, which was an emotive one as it had childhood pictures of the home cooks and their loved ones.
The box also had rooibos, considered the ambassador of our teas, which the contestants had to use to make a starter. Gregory explained that the starter dish must transport them to their childhoods and they had 60 minutes to complete it.
The beautiful pantry for this season is stocked up by Pick n Pay, including a de-packaged fresh produce offering and a packaging-free zone. The packaging-free zone meant contestants select pantry staples – from flour, grains to seeds and nuts – directly from large glass jars, helping reduce packaging waste during the show’s production.
The top dishes from the challenge included Slindokuhle’s magwinya (deep friend fatcakes) with pork and apple that was infused with rooibos but Zola thought the magwinya could have been cooked better , Didi’s chicken and mushroom corn broth with a savoury tuile, and Onezwa’s chicken and rooibos dumplings.
The home cooks eliminated after impressing the judges the least were Sylvie, Lisa and Matthew, who prepared pissaladeire with rooibos creme. His downfall was the puff pastry not being fully cooked.
Viewers were already placing their bets on who would win the show, with Onezwa, Tembisa, Slindokuhl, and Dr Harri coming out as early favourites. Fans were also pleased with how well the judges critiqued the contestants’ dishes.
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