MASTERCHEF AUSTRALIA - FANS VS FAVOURITES: Premieres Monday, April 18, 7.30pm (AEST), Network 10 / 10 Play On Demand
Taste buds at the ready as the internationally acclaimed MasterChef Australia returns for its 14th season with judges Jock Zonfrillo, Andy Allen and Melissa Leong once again eager to test the skills of 24 cooks vying for the chance to be the one to lift the coveted silver trophy.
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This series, 12 familiar contestants, including previous winners Julie Goodwin, Billie McKay, and Sashi Cheliah, don their aprons to go head-to-head with 12 avid fans of the show.
Other favourites daring to step back into the MasterChef kitchen are Alvin Quah (season 2), Sarah Todd (season 6), Michael Weldon (season 3), Mindy Woods (season 4), Christina Batista (season 5), John Carasig (season 7), Aldo Ortado (season 10) and from last season Minoli De Silva and Tommy Pham.
Known as the "smiling assassin" by his fellow season 10 contestants, Sashi knows the competition will be even hotter this time around.
"When they asked me why I wanted to go back, it was because of COVID," Sashi says.
"In the last two years I have been focusing on the business [his two restaurants]. My passion was fading away; I was not inventing new dishes. This [MasterChef] brings me back to why I started this restaurant. It brings back my mojo.
"This year, with fans versus favourites, pretty much everyone of the favourites now has experience of working in the industry.
"[Inaugural winner] Julie has 13 years' experience, has run cooking schools and published cookbooks; Billie is an amazing cook, too. It is very hard to pick one person, with all that wealth of knowledge who will be the hardest to beat.
"And the fans are also very, very talented. They are selected as a top 12, and have been following us via the show.
"They know a lot about us, our strengths and our weaknesses, so they may have the upper hand.
"In 2018, all of us [on the show] were brand new and we learned as we progressed, these ones already have so much knowledge."
Of course there will also be some of Australia's best known chefs and international guests setting difficult challenges to push to temperature up in the MasterChef kitchen.
Adriano Zumbo and his sweet tests will have Julie Goodwin nervous, while Shannon Bennet will have all in a frantic rush during a service challenge and no MasterChef season would be the same without Curtis Stone popping in.
Each week will begin with a mystery box challenge on the Monday with the bottom four cooking off to stay in the competition on Tuesdays via a pressure test. Wednesdays will see team challenges for the chance to cook for immunity on Thursdays, with remaining contestants creating dishes to avoid elimination on Sundays.
Surprisingly, Sashi is a Mystery Box fan.
'I love them for one reason - limited ingredients. For me, less is more. When you have an open pantry there is too much trying to get your attention.
"I prefer to keep it simple. Usually, [with a mystery box] I like to go with flavour profiling. I would try to match it with something I'm familiar with."
Sashi loves the MasterChef experience.
"It's like a family - when someone is eliminated it's like a family member leaving. And without the other contestants you aren't learning anything. In the kitchen we are sharing our knowledge about hacks, flavours, cuisines, because it's such a diverse group of people.
He says his experience in this season's contest will be different as the judges are different for him.
"For me personally, I am working for the first time with them. I know of Jock from Adelaide, and have seen him [as a guest chef] from previous seasons.
"I really got to understand more about them with this experience. They are totally different to the former judges, but good in their own ways.
"These guys focus a lot on flavour; presentation is always secondary. There is no point in putting a good-looking dish up if it doesn't have the flavour."
Like so many others, Sashi's restaurants suffered badly with the pandemic. But with his wife alongside him, he has not been idle.
He has a meal kit line in Woolworths called Sashi's Secret, and has just finished his cookbook - Kampong Boy - which is mainly about food he loved eating in Singapore. It will be launched in May.
And, he is opening a global brand restaurant called Pandang Club.
"It will offer Malay/Chinese flavours and Perankan cooking [Malaysian cuisine]," he says. "We are launching it in India. We have a good team there who are also friends. I am going there in May and we hope to open late June or early July.
"It's all about cooking for people you love."