Featured Image Credit: BBC
Topics: UK Food, TV and Film
Jess Hardiman
MasterChef fans are braced for a few changes as the cooking series returns for series 22, with the debut of Grace Dent and Anna Haugh as the new duo replacing Gregg Wallace and John Torode.
But while the faces fronting the show have been revived, there will still be plenty of tropes you know and love – like someone deconstructing something that never needed to be deconstructed, or inexplicably dedicating a chocolate crémeux to their dead nan.
If you're anything like me, you'll still find yourself scratching your head as you watch the judges bite into an undercooked potato fondant or take a slurp of lobster bisque.
Surely it can't all be hot?
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We don't need to work in TV to know that it involves long days of repetitive takes, re-shooting spontaneous moments because someone wasn't in focus. And with MasterChef, all the giveaway clues are there: no one's scalding their tastebuds on the sticky toffee pudding, none of the contestants have an oven mitt on each hand as they bring the plate over to be judged, and there’s certainly no steam emanating from any of the dishes.
“They’re all cold,” new judge Anna Haugh confessed plainly, speaking to FOODbible ahead of the new series.
When asked if it impacted how each dish tastes, she replied with a shudder: “Yes.”
Grace Dent explained: “Some are colder than others, and it depends on what we’re filming that day.
“What is actually very good, though, is that everybody makes a lot of extra food when they’re cooking, and what is sometimes really useful is to pop in the moment they’ve stopped cooking and left the studio and have a little bit then - just so you can get your head round the flavour profiles.
“But we do try our absolute utmost to make sure that we taste it in its proper natural form.”
Haugh added: “And we’re watching them the whole time. So if you taste mashed potato when it’s warm and perfect, you know what to expect. If you have a perfectly, beautifully made mashed potato, and your brain knows it’s cold, you also know what to look for in that.
“You’re not gonna go, ‘Oh, this is too firm,’ because it’s freezing cold. You do have to be reasonable.”
As for who washes up? Despite contestants routinely getting told off when the scene on their benches descends into chaos, they’re not the ones who have to actually get it back in order.
"I can tell you exactly who washes up,” Dent said.
“We have this amazing team of home ecs [home economists], and when we say, ‘Stop cooking’, this incredible crew come in.
“They’re headed up by the most fabulous man called Karim [Boumnijel], and Karim has worked with us for years, and we all adore him and he just conducts the troops. He’s just a brilliant person.
“It’s a whole big thing. Although it does just look like it’s me and her ambling round a kitchen, there is a lot of people there. There’s nothing like working on MasterChef.”
MasterChef starts on BBC One at 9pm on 21 April, and is also available to watch via BBCiPlayer.