And then Daan Alferink realized that there might also be children watching ‘Celebrity Masterchef’

Which dish made us like it the most?

‘From Asia with love’, that was the name of this episode, although the largest continent on the planet was reduced to one country: Thailand. Star chef Dokkoon Kapueak, the only Thai chef in the Benelux with a Michelin star, first gave the five remaining candidates a masterclass, after which everyone was allowed to get to work themselves. Two participants did not just make ‘a curry with chicken’ but presented themselves as experts of Thai cuisine: Titus De Voogdt and Olga Leyers. The first came up with laab kai, a salad with minced chicken, while the second tried pad krapow – minced meat with beans in a dark sauce – with papaya salad. Olga’s dish looked the tastiest and most colorful, but Titus’ dish stood out slightly for the jury.

Who came up with the most original approach?

“In Thai cuisine it is not so strict,” Olga Leyers explained her love for Thai cooking. “You just have to pick up some nice things.” In the same philosophy, she had thrown a handful of potato strings into her papaya salad, because she had once heard from someone that that is ‘a thing’ in Thailand. Judging by Dokkoon Kapueak’s reaction, potato strings with papaya are anything but ‘a thing’ in Thailand, but fortunately her originality did not earn Olga any penalty points.

What did we find least tasty?

In the elimination test, Daan Alferink, Serine Ayari and Liesa Naert had to prepare ‘street food’ and that proved to be a challenge, especially for the latter. After all, Liesa never travels far, always eats at home and is also very suspicious of ‘street food’. “I always wonder if everything is clean,” she said. “I also hear stories of people who return home with dysentery and then vomit for seven weeks.”

Her own dish was not really clean at first. She made squid skewers but hadn’t properly cleaned her key ingredient. Nick Bril himself had to point out to her that she was supposed to cut the ‘bag of squid’ from the squids and was not allowed to serve them. Liesa: “I thought: if it’s in the shop, you can eat it, right?”

What struck us most?

Most of us will buy curry paste at the store or, if we make it ourselves, use a blender, but the rules of the art are to crush all the ingredients in a mortar. And that is hard work, as we could deduce from the efforts that Serine Ayari and certainly Daan Alferink had to make to make their red curry. “Fortunately, I know this movement well,” Daan noted as he moved his hand up and down before realizing that there might also be children watching. Celebrity Master Chef.

What was the kitchen wisdom from the episode?

Dokkoon Kapueak has her own way of cutting onions: simply in her hand. She also attacked a papaya by holding the fruit and cutting it with a knife. “So you don’t have to do it like everyone else to get a Michelin star,” concluded Serine Ayari after the demonstration, although the example did cause some participants to get started a little too enthusiastically. When Olga Leyers also tried to cut her papaya with a knife, Dokkoon Kapueak and jury member Michaël Rewers quickly stood at her kitchen island to ‘help’ – read: to prevent her from also cutting off one of her fingers.

Who won and who lost?

Titus De Voogdt cooks the best Thai dish, with Olga Leyers as a close second. In the elimination test, Daan used his immunity pin just before the end, because he had little confidence in his double cheeseburger. Completely unjustified, as it turned out. Serine Ayari’s taco with lamb and Liesa Naert’s crappy squid were so evenly matched that the jury had to deliberate for a very long time. Finally, Nick and co. to a Solomonic verdict: Serine was safe as second, but Liesa was also allowed to stay because she had “cooked like a real Masterchef”. Only she starts the next episode with a handicap.