Discomfort food
LIKE a heartwarming bowl of mac ’n’ cheese, or a sickly sweet treacle pie and custard, there’s something comforting about a serving of Masterchef: The Professionals.
But as 32 pros prepare to battle it out in the kitchen over the next six weeks, they are not the only new faces to grace our screens.
After 13 years, judge Monica Galetti has left and Dublin restaurateur, Anna Haugh joins old timers Gregg Wallace and Marcus Wareing for the 15th series.
But don’t be lulled into a fall sense of security by her warm Irish accent or her Alice in Wonderland, innocent looks.
Like Monica and her ferocious steely gaze, nononsense Anna is just as capable of unhinging the most unflappable of chefs. Announcing the first Skills Test – a feat of technical wizardry involving opening oysters, poaching them, smoking them and then serving them with a “beurre blanc” sauce – Anna declares: “It’s all about control.” Something, I deduce, Anna thrives off herself. Things are looking good for former pro gymnast Anastasia, but Anna’s eyeballing Indian chef Parminder as he makes a mess of his sauce.
Parminder also admits he’s never opened an oyster before. He’s hoping he’ll be saved by a Youtube video he watched on it. Oh deary me. In the second skills test – set by Marcus – the remaining two chefs have to make a dizzyingly difficult summer
fruit tart.
Anna’s got her eye on Liverpudlian chef Nathan this time.
The Signature Menu challenge – where the fearsome foursome get to cook their own dishes – is a belter.
Marcus seems to be softening with age. “It’s a little stroke of genius,” he says of one chef’s dish.
“It’s a marriage made in heaven,” swoons Gregg.
Let’s hope the new trio of judges are, too…