First walking through the MasterChef doors in Season 15, Cath admits that she was as surprised as anyone to get the call to return for Season 17’s Back To Win.
“I’m a baby in the MasterChef kitchen, I feel like coming out of my season, it took me a little while to find my feet and what I was going to do after… I said to my husband, ‘Could it just be an adventure? Is that it for me?’ But I let everything happen organically,” Cath told 10 Play.
“I feel like, since leaving MasterChef, I’ve evolved even more, and I feel like I’m a more considered cook, a more intelligent cook,” she added.
Since her original season, Cath has been doing kitchen takeovers, charity events, cooking classes and private dining experiences. “But because I’m still a baby, I’m ever evolving and I feel like I’m a work in progress,” Cath said.
Returning to the competition, Cath wanted to show the judges – and more so herself – that she had a better handle on the nerves that come with cooking in the MasterChef kitchen.
“Last time I was a bit crazy in the kitchen, I got terribly excited, nervous, and it’s just go, go, go. The time really gets me, and that’s something I feel affected me and my stress levels,” she explained. “I really wanted this time to be calmer.”
This time around, Cath was armed with tips and tricks to make sure she was approaching the challenges with a clearer, calmer head. “I was setting my timer every 15 minutes to remind myself to breathe,” she laughed. “Just to try and keep calm and take it all in, to relax a bit more and have more fun and take the pressure off.”
Sunday night was the first elimination of the season, and all the chefs save for Audra were cooking for their place in the competition. Walking in wearing a black apron for the first time since Season 15 felt heavy for Cath, and she was really feeling the stress of a looming elimination. But once the group walked through the doors and saw highlights of each of their journeys in the MasterChef kitchen projected onto the trophy, that stress seemed to lift.
“It was really emotional and I just remember taking the joy of it into my cook, it was a really special introduction to the challenge,” she said. “It was probably the most beautiful, emotional start to a cook that I’ve ever experienced in the kitchen.
“It also invoked memories of me watching every single person, every season, with my daughters,” Cath continued. “Andre was in Season 1 – my girls were only eight and ten – I remember sitting there with my two little girls watching him. The emotions were coming from everywhere, it was beautiful!”
The judges challenged the chefs to bring them a dish that represented who they are now, to display how they have evolved as chefs since their original seasons. For Cath, that meant highlighting that she’s a work in progress.
“I don’t consider myself a chef, I still consider myself a work in progress, a home cook, but a more considered and intelligent cook,” she added.
Wanting to show the work she’s done to experiment with new techniques and flavours, Cath chose to make a Japanese-inspired dish, with marinated Japanese grilled mushrooms, furikake, pickled wakame, smoked soy cream and a shiso gel. The mushrooms were cooked on the hibachi, one of the many new appliances she picked up since Season 15.
“I was really excited about my dish, the concept, that it’s a Cath dish and not a dish that you would see anywhere, it wouldn’t be on just anyone’s menu. It’s totally something that I’ve tested and developed,” Cath said.
But cooking and developing something at home is wildly different to the pressures of the MasterChef kitchen. “I don’t have a glass of wine in my hand or music in the background… I’m a really relaxed cook at home,” she laughed.
Even the heat and coals used in the hibachi made a huge difference. “At home, my husband, Brad, is the one who lights [the hibachi] for me. It’s a really nice ritual for us together, actually,” Cath said.
While hoping to achieve varied levels of char on the mushrooms, the judges found some to be burned rather than charred, leaving them with an acrid aftertaste. Unfortunately, with the competition so strong, that was enough to make Cath the first chef this season to hang up her apron.
‘I can’t even describe, I was really devastated,” she said, fighting back tears. “I left home really wanting to learn, to push myself, to meet everyone and to go all out. I just felt terribly.
“I am proud, I’m grateful, but initially, devastated was my first feeling. I can’t shy away from that and pretend I wasn’t because I’m really disappointed. And that disappointment turned into, oh my god, I’m going to have serious FOMO,” she laughed.
“I was so ready, even more than last time, to just smash this and give it everything, to learn and hang out with the MasterChef fam. But it just wasn’t meant to be, and it really was very, very difficult to take,” Cath said.
“It was short and sweet, but it was so sweet – who gets to cook up against Gordon Ramsay! I had so much fun, and it was just a beautiful memory-making moment.”
While still ever-evolving, Cath is busier than ever with Cath’s Kitchen, running cooking workshops, intimate cooking classes in her own kitchen, working on a social media series all about bruschetta, and is still working on her ‘From How to Wow’ cookbook.
“I’m so grateful because I wouldn’t be doing any of this if it wasn’t for MasterChef. I’m grateful, proud, and I’m brave!”
MasterChef Australia: Back to Win continues Sundays at 7pm and Monday - Wednesday at 7.30pm on 10 and 10 Play!
