Taking place over two days, the chefs were challenged to an overnight cook where they were given just 45 minutes to prepare elements of their dish, surrender them to the sands of time, and then return the next day with just 60 minutes to finish their dish.
Braising a pork belly in the slow cooker, Amy wanted to show the judges a unique fusion of Mexican and Japanese cuisines with her pork tacos. But time can be a blessing and a curse in the MasterChef kitchen and unfortunately, Amy’s meat was dry, her tortillas too thick, and the judges just weren’t sure about the flavour combinations.
“Knowing that it was a two-day cook and I’m not going to be there for half of it was a bit scary,” Amy told 10 Play following her elimination, “and you never know how you do until you go in the next day!
“Time can be your best friend, but time can also be your worst enemy,” she continued. “Going in I was like, slow cooking! You don’t have the chance to slow cook on the show so this was the perfect time to be able to do that. That was my strategy going in, just hoping time was my friend but… it wasn’t,” she said, laughing.
While the challenge gives the chefs the rare chance to slow cook, ferment, or proof their dishes overnight, it also means they surrender all control, unable to check on their elements until the next day when they have just one hour to complete — or fix — their dishes.
“It goes so quickly, 60 minutes is like 60 seconds in the MasterChef kitchen,” Amy said, adding she definitely didn’t get much sleep that night.
Presenting her dish to the judges, Amy admitted that she knew it wasn’t her best dish. “I was just hoping it wasn’t going to be the worst! I knew there were problems, but you just have to stay positive and that’s what I tried to do throughout the whole thing.”
Having cooked her fusion tacos at home before, Amy felt confident that it was a dish she knew going into the competition. “How bad could it be?!” she laughed.
“The thing is, you go in with an idea and you cook something you’ve cooked before but, sometimes it just doesn’t go your way and that’s what the MasterChef kitchen does to you.”
Passionate about her love for tinned fish, Amy said she wished she got the opportunity to create a tin fish dish for the judges before she was eliminated, “But that is something I can do after the show… so stay tuned for that,” she added.
Having watched the show since she was young, Amy always knew she wanted a career in food but never took the steps in that direction. “I’ve always loved it, I never wanted to lose the love for it so that’s why I never made it a job,” she explained.
“But, I think, by not making it a job I was missing out. I was like, what am I doing? It’s always been a dream and, one day, I’d love to own my own wine bar.”
Since leaving the MasterChef kitchen, Amy made the leap into the culinary industry and hasn’t looked back.
“I’m a chef now, I work at a restaurant… I’m the little pizza chef there, which I love, love love… It’s just something that I never knew how much I loved until I was in it and now I’m just obsessed with it.
“I’ve got a few pop-ups on the horizon, so that’s a chance for me to be creative and do the dishes that I didn’t get to do on the show, and I’m designing an apron,” she continued.
“I’m doing it now. No one’s stopping me. I left everything to do this, I’m not looking back at my old life. I’m going to do food as long as I can!”
MasterChef Australia airs Sunday - Thursday at 7.30 on 10 and 10 Play
