Gregg and John were more terrifying than any poisonous spider or snake
A career in live TV couldn’t prepare her for the terrors of having to chop onions in front of hosts Wallace and Torode
WI forgot the difference between rosemary and thyme JEAN JOHANSSON ON PRESSURE IN KITCHEN
HEN your day job includes manhandling wild animals, leaping into freezing lochs and dealing with television executives, there is not much left to fear.
But Jean Johansson found chopping onions in front of a bank of cameras much more terrifying than all the lizards, snakes and senior producers put together.
She is a contestant in this year’s series of Celebrity MasterChef and has lived to tell the tale. Just.
Jean said: “I’ve had a Chilean tarantula in my hand that could have poisoned me. I’ve held a scorpion with a really deadly sting. All that’s fine. But I found MasterChef really, really scary.”
As a reporter on The One Show and presenter on Animal Park and Landward, she has enough on her plate without signing up for novelty shows. But Jean was prepared to make an exception if it involved meeting John Torode and Gregg Wallace.
She said: “I stay well away from reality series but my agent asked if there are there any I would do? I said MasterChef and Mastermind. So now I’ve done one out of the two.
“She knows I do a lot of cooking at home, so when the conversations came up and my name was in the mix, I was lucky to be selected.”
Glaswegian Jean, 34, is a home cook. She said: “I’m not a cordon bleu chef. I do a good moussaka, a strong risotto, I’m known for my Sunday roasts - they are my staples.
“It’s a small family, just me and my son and husband. I just cook for them.”
Pre-MasterChef, Jean found catering for more than three a bit fraught. Several dinner parties have ended in a hot mess.
“When I have people over it always ends in disaster. I’m one of those people who has a glass of red on the go the whole time while I’m cooking. It works when I’ve three plates but there have been a few dinner party disasters when we haven’t made it to dessert.”
When Jean was selected for MasterChef she had to raise her game. First stop was one of her favourite Glasgow restaurants, Le Chardon D’Or.
She recalled: “I went and shadowed Brian Maule for a morning, watching him cook. I’m convinced it helped me.
“His cutting techniques, his attitude towards cooking, watching the love he puts into everything whether it’s peeling a tomato or blanching spinach. I learned a lot just being in the kitchen with him.”
The chef-approved method of getting the skin off a tomato was a revelation.
Jean said: “I didn’t know you had to put it in hot water first. I never blanched veg. I boiled the life and colour of them. All these little tips really served me well.
“I didn’t consider it cheating because I wasn’t there cooking, just watching.”
Meal times at home became practice sessions. Her Finnish husband, footballer Jonatan Johansson, and son Junior, seven, didn’t know what might appear for tea.
“The whole family were served some quite strange dishes. I was spending a good half hour at the fish counter when I’d normally just go past and get the same old salmon and tuna. They tasted some weird and wonderful things.
“My husband was good at telling me when things didn’t work. Junior asked
when his plate of pasta with grated cheese was going to be back.”
Jean is sworn to secrecy about the show. She can say that her haggis-based dish went down well but she wishes she had attempted some of her Ugandan mother’s kitchen magic.
She said: “I wasn’t brave enough. Mum never uses a measurement, never writes anything down. It’s like a witch’s potion. Everything into the pot then, alakazam, out comes this amazing food.
“I regret that. It would have been nice to show a bit of my mum’s culture and the food I grew up on. I’d rather have a go at Michelin star French high quality than attempt to copy my mum.”
With the pressure of the studio, the competition and millions nitpicking at home, Jean played it safe. She said: “I’m a laid back cook at home. I’ve got a glass of wine, Desert Island Discs on the radio, it’s a relaxing place. It’s different once the cameras are there and that time pressure’s on and you’re being watched.
“When Gregg and John say, ‘Start cooking,’ nothing is faked, it’s exactly as you see it on TV. They stop you mid-cooking if you’re not my I cool. calm was “My hands finished. I under consider sweating, heart were pressure, was myself trembling, I beating, lost I’ve being my done live tricky TV situations my whole live career on air, including but nothing compared to MasterChef.
“I started losing my mind. I forgot the difference between rosemary and thyme and a teaspoon and a tablespoon. But once my competitive instinct kicked in and I could recreate a dish I make at home, it was really enjoyable.” ●Celebrity MasterChef is on BBC One this summer.