Have you ever been blindfolded and forced to identify a variety of household ingredients? For this was the challenge each MasterChef Australia contestant underwent last night. While blindfolded, they had to taste ingredients like grapefruit and oats, determine what they were, and then correctly name them. If they made an incorrect guess, they were dropped into the night’s elimination challenge.
According to MasterChef Australia’s Lily, the ingredient she had to identify was incredibly tough. Lily was challenged with identifying an eggplant, a vegetable she told The Latch has no distinct taste when uncooked.
“A raw eggplant has no taste and no smell,” Lily said. “So I was just stumped. It took me such a long time to try and work out what its thick skin was. What’s more, the judges were pushing me for an answer. I just said cucumber, knowing it was wrong.”
After misidentifying the eggplant, Lily was thrown into a challenge alongside Sumeet, Steve, Mimi, Juan, and Josh Clarke. With only 75 minutes on the clock, they each had to create a dish with the leftover ingredients from their taste test. They couldn’t access the MasterChef Australia pantry or garden.
Unfortunately for Lily, the night’s taste test had left her creatively drained. She didn’t know what to cook, so she made a straightforward Maryland chicken, covered in a mushroom sauce with a side of leek.
“I was so creatively blocked last night, just off the back of that taste test, which went on for awhile,” Lily said. “I was so exhausted and stumped that I couldn’t think creatively, and I was really struggling to shake that.”
When Lily presented her dish to the judges, they loved her mushroom sauce. But they found her chicken to be undercooked and the leek to be underwhelming. Lily’s dish was the weakest of the bunch, so she was eliminated.
But while Lily is sad to leave the MasterChef Australia kitchen, she’s proud of everything she achieved there.
As Lily explained, “When I was struggling in the challenge, I said to myself, ‘You’ve had some really good cooks in this kitchen. You’ve had some wicked fun. You’ve had a laugh. If you go today, what a way to go out.’ Of course, I wanted to go further. Of course, I wanted to continue the experience. But I had some good cooks. I’m happy because I’ve proven to myself I can cook.”
What’s Next for MasterChef Australia’s Lily?
Before heading on MasterChef Australia, Lily was a nurse. Now, she’s put her career on hold to continue pursuing her culinary dreams.
“I’m going to cook for some private events and some catering gigs,” Lily said. “I’m also going to cook some exclusive dinners in Sydney. I’ve done a few, and I’m going to do a few more. I’m going to be doing some charity dinners as well. Hopefully with charities that mean a lot to me and with the sort of kids that I’ve looked after as a nurse. I will maybe do that in collaboration with some other people.”
“I’ve made people feel good in a hospital setting and in hospice. I now want to do this type of work through food.”
MasterChef Australia 2024 airs Mondays though Thursday at 7.30pm, only on 10 and 10 Play on Demand. Miss an episode? Catch up on 10 Play.
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