Episode 11 of MasterChef South Africa aired last week and of course I have to share my views. Having been part of the fourth season of MasterChef, I can’t help but compare while watching the show. 

Fun fact - my lighting company LLSA supplied all the lights in the pantry and around the studio, and we are mentioned as a sponsor in the credits. 

Spoiler Alert

If you are behind, I recommend you stop reading now!
Click here read up more about the MasterChef season 5 contestants, or read the summaries from the previous MasterChef episodes if you’re trying to catch up.

Want to Watch MasterChef South Africa?

MasterChef South Africa Season premiered on Saturday July 13 at 7:30 pm on S3, and new episodes are aired every Saturday.
If you miss it an episode, it will be rebroadcast every Sunday on S2 at 6:30 pm and on Wednesdays on S3 at 6:00 pm.

Looking back - What happened on the previous MasterChef episodes?

Click here to jump straight to episode 11 and skip the summaries of the previous episodes.

In the first episode, contestants had to make a chicken dish with a sauce or a broth, but for it to be at MasterChef-worthy standard. They were given 90 minutes and their dish needed to include a mirepoix (a mixture of diced vegetables cooked on a low heat in oil or butter) and it needed to include a Bouquet Garni, which is a bundle of herbs. In traditional French cuisine this includes parsley, bay leaves and thyme but other herbs can be added too. 

What was most shocking about this first episode, is that the contestants went down from 20 to 15 in one go. The contestants who were eliminated in the first episode were Lucas, Lesego, Robyn, Andrew and Ella. 

In the second episode, contestants had to use the single humble ingredient of an apple, and think of the apple of their eye in their life when cooking. The contestants were allowed to make something sweet or savoury.  No contestants were eliminated and Naledi won the mystery box challenge.

In the third episode, Naledi was up in the gantry as a reward for winning the mystery box challenge in the previous episode. The remaining contestants were challenged by guest judge Chef Nokx Majozi in a pressure test to recreate her signature Pepper Steak Pie. Tina, Bridget and Amo had made the best pepper steak pies, and Tina won the elimination challenge. Nash, Lona and Melanie found themselves in the bottom three and Melanie was eliminated. 

In the fourth episode, the contestants were asked to pay tribute to and draw inspiration from the judges’ star signs when creating their dishes in this challenge. They couldn’t choose which judge’s star sign they were going to base their dish on, but it was an elimination based on chance as they had to choose a card in order to determine which protein they would be cooking. Chanel, Shreya and Zak found themselves in the bottom three. Zakariyya Ibrahim (Zak) went home as his curry failed to deliver. According to Judge Katlego, the lack of seasoning was his downfall and both the rice and carrots were overcooked, and the dish was not balanced.

In the fifth episode, guest judge Jackie Burger challenged the contestants to use fashion models and their incredible outfits to make their own creative interpretation of the outfits. Nabela, Ketsia and Tebogo were in the top 3 and Amogelang Maluleke (Amo), Tzu Ting Long (Tina) and Penny in the bottom, with Tina from Home Bao going home in the end.

In the sixth episode, MasterChef contestants competed in their first team challenge. The episode took place at Durbanville Hills wine estate. Contestants were welcomed to the award-winning Tangram restaurant by cellar master Pieter-Niel Rossouw and Head Chef Tamzyn Ehlers. Tebogo was Team Captain for the Blue Team (made up of Naledi, Chanel, Amo, Shreya and Nabila) and Nash headed up the Red Team which also included Penny, Ketsia, Nash, Bridget, Lona and Refe. Contestants needed to create a ‘Buffet of New Beginnings’ which was basically an interactive buffet table re-inventing old-style buffet combinations and pairing creations with wine from the Durbanville Hills Collectors Reserve range. Ultimately, the blue team took home the victory.

The seventh episode saw Penny, Ketsia, Nash, Bridget, Lona, Refe and Nash battling it out against each other in a elimination challenge. They were given an hour to showcase their creativity by whipping up a gourmet meal from the judges’ typical month-end leftovers and were only allowed to use 20 classic frugal South African staples. Ultimately Ketsia’s flatbread and tuna salad dish did not meet the mark and she was eliminated from the competition.

In the eight episode contestants were asked to embrace the air fryer revolution and use it as their main cooking method to reinvent a classic potato dish to a modern bistro-worthy delight. Nash, Chanel and Lona cooked the top 3 dishes and Bridget, Tebogo and Naledi found themselves in the bottom three. Chanel won the challenge with her potato dauphinoise with chorizo caramelised crisp and a little bit of lemon and she was given the opportunity to win an Immunity Pin. She did need to beat Herman Lensing at his game - Herman has published several cookbooks and three with air fryer recipes specifically so he is South Africa’s leading expert on cooking with air fryers. This is when mysterious guest rode in on a Pick ‘n Pay asap! scooter… me!

I took two paper bags out my Pick ‘n Pay asap! scooter, one with a “Land” and one with a “Sky” sticker on them. With that, the judges left to the back and I was left to be the referee for the challenge. Chanel chose “Sky” and needed to cook with duck, whilst Herman Lensing was given lamb.

With the ninth episode we reached the halfway mark of the competition. The top 10 walked in in white aprons and were challenged with making a plant-based dish using the humble cabbage as the hero ingredient. Amo, Nabila and Shreya found themselves in the bottom three, but were safe from elimination due to it being a non-elimination challenge. Refe, Chanel and Lona were in the Top 3 and Lona won 50,000 rand to the best dish.

In the tenth episode, Shreya announced that she would be leaving the MasterChef kitchen without participating in the next challenge. She had been struggling with anxiety throughout the competition, and after receiving “some unfortunate news” from her family, she left, calling it “an act of self-love and an act of self-care.”

After Shreya walked out, the the MasterChef contestants welcomed celebrity chef Alessandro Khojane, “Sotho Italian” (owner of Gemelli in Bryanston). Contestants are given two hours to create an Italian-South African dish. Naledi won the challenge with her chicken roulade.

MasterChef South Africa Episode 11

In episode 11, seven of the top eight contestants walked into the MasterChef studio, as Naledi had won the challenge in episode 10 and so she was allowed to watch the challenge from the gantry.

After the studio was covered with “pasta curtains” in the last episode, this time the contestants were greeted by sausages and stomach casings hanging from the ceiling. There are mystery boxes on the work stations, and the contestants are told that they’ll be cooking in a Mystery Box Team Challenge.

A Mystery Box Team Challenge

Episode 2 was also a mystery box challenge, and episode 6 was a team challenge, but this is the first time this MasterChef season where it’s both a team challenge and a Mystery Box.

The teams are divided up in four teams of two, choosing different colour aprons to pair them up: Amo and Bridget are part of the red team, Chanel picks a yellow apron, Lona and Nabila make up the green team, whilst Penny and Nash form the blue team.

Chanel is not left on her own in the yellow team for long, because Zola announces “We decided to even things out by bringing back a former contestant and giving them a lifeline.” As a big surprise, Refe, who was only just eliminated one episode prior, walks back into the kitchen.

When the MasterChef contestants open their Mystery Boxes they find fat, meat and casings inside. Chanel: “Please do not tell me that I have to make a sausage.” Justine: “Sausage has long played a significant role in many cultures. In Mzansi we favour wors, particularly boerewors, very close to our hearts, cultural identity and our culinary heritage.“

The Challenge

Zola explains: “Today is all about South African heritage - that glorious trinity of pap, wors and ushatini.”

The MasterChef contestants have to make”the best worst we have ever eaten - the kind of wors that becomes the conversation at any braai.” They are tasked to make their wors the old fashioned way - using a manual meat grinder found in their mystery boxes, seasoning it with the spices and herbs provided and stuffing it into the sheeps’ casings provided, then braaing it on the Setamono habatchi provided.

Each team is provided a different meat parcel: Amo and Bridget (Red Team) have been given a leg of goat. Refe and Chanel (yellow team) have to work with venison, Penny and Nash (blue team) have lamb and last but not least - the green team made up of Lona and Nabila have to make their wors using wagyu beef.

The contestants are tasked to making 1.5 kgs of wors, cooking it on the hibachi, and serving their with modern side dish of a heritage starch and a tasty sauce or gravy. Last but not least, they are required to make a true South African delicacy: skilpadjies. All of this, needed to be done within the 2.5 hour time frame.

What are skilpadjies?

If you don’t know what skilpadjies are, don’t be embarrassed. Most of the MasterChef contestants didn’t know either. In fact, Nash kept calling them “snail paddies” and the Red Team seemed to be in real trouble as both Amo and Bridget didn’t know what it was. They were lucky that Naledi helped them from the gantry, because Bridget was almost going to blend the liver into a puree. Naledi advised them to chop it thin. Skilpadjies are traditionally made from lamb's liver, which is spiced and wrapped in netvet (the fatty membrane that surrounds the kidneys), giving it a pattern that resembles a tortoise’s shell (skilpadjie is Afrikaans for tortoise).

Towards the end of the challenge, Refe was feeling very confident about her skilpadjies: “they can hire me at Pick ‘n Pay to make the skilpadjies now”.

Supporting the contestants - Pick ‘n Pay Butcher Noziphiwe

The judges did understand that asking for from-scratch-made sausage, with hand-ground meat, a starch, six skilpadjies and a sauce or gravy, was quite a tall ask, and so they invited Pick ‘n Pay Butcher Noziphiwe Mfabe to support the contestants during the challenge as a mentor. Justine was very clear, that her role was “to help you understanding the types of meat and the cut of meat,’ but that she is “not here to give advice on how to make your wors or how to flavour it”. 

Whilst the contestants were cooking away, the Pick ‘n Pay butcher said she was impressed that all of the contestants were aware that they need to remove the sinew from the meat before grinding it up. Leaving sinew in the meat before turning it into a sausage will make it tough, so this was encouraging to see.

Meat Grinder Battles

The contestants all struggled with grinding the meat using the manual grinders. Bridget admitted having one at home, but never having used it before as she didn’t know how to assemble it. Several contestants are seen dismantling and re-assembling their meat grinder to clean it in between, and putting their meat in the fridge to cool it down before attempting to grind it again as they were starting to get a sludgy mess.

Women taking the Lead

Both Nash and Lona were paired up with strong women. Nash willingly accepted his ‘sous chef’ position, wanting Penny to take the lead as she had made sausages before, and he said that “you’ll find a lot of success as a man if you follow a strong woman.“ Penny: “He’s still trying to pronounce mos bolletjies but he’ll get there.”

Lona struggled a bit more and the judges even pointed out the growing tension between him and Nabila during the challenge, whereas Nash and Penny were complimented for having ‘seamless communication’ during the challenge.

South African Heritage

It can be no coincidence that this heritage-themed episode is aired just before South Africans celebrate Heritage Day, on the 24th of September. South Africa has a big variety when it comes to our cultures, considering we have eleven official languages, and so with that come different food traditions as well. I like that this challenge was quite inclusive of all of South Africa’s cultures: while wors is the South African word for sausage, it is eaten across the different cultures. During the challenge, one of the contestants explains that “growing up in a big black family, where sometimes meat is not affordable, sausage is a go-to.”  A few of the teams decided to make samp or umngqusho in Xhosa and of course skilpadjies are Afrikaans, as explained above.

As Justine says during the challenge, as South Africans we are all brought together by food and I loved Refe’s equaliser that “we all cook from the same place and that’s the heart.” 

The MasterChef Contestants’ Dishes

Refe and Chanel (Yellow Team) made a Venison Sausage with Skilpadjies, Caramelised Onions, Tomato Relish & Steamed Bread. Chanel admitted that she’d never even braaied before (“I’m the one who makes sides for the braai”) and whilst Refe had, she had not used a hibachi grill before. Unfortunately their sausage was dry, which may have been because it was venison. It is very difficult to cook venison sausage. The bread on the other hand, was complimented for being “delicious, light and fluffy”.

Lona and Nabila (Green Team) made Wagyu Beef Sausage with Rooibos Tea infused Skilpadjies, Polenta Krummelpap & Tomato Relish. Throughout the challenge they didn’t seem confident in each other’s abilities, with Nabila criticising his pap (“Since when do you put oil in a pap, man?”) and Lona was “very skeptical about the polenta” and at one stage carefully asked her “Are you feeling comfortable with that amount of fat?” - which clearly she wasn’t, as you later see her pouring it into the sink). Yet there seemed to be some jest as well, as when the judges came around to their work station and Lona stated confidently “We are both leaders,” Zola tried to poke a bit to get a reaction out of Nabila, asking if she’s going to let him do all the talking. Her response “He’s really good at it” cracked them all up.

The fat content of the wagyu made it challenging to grind the meat, but I really like how they decided to roll their sausage and put a sosatie stick through it, rather than grilling and serving it the traditional way. Sadly their skilpadjies had a lot of fat on the outside and so while they were “beautifully cooked,” they were not that pleasant to eat.

Penny and Nash (Blue Team) made a Lamb Sausage with Tomato & Red Wine Sauce, Mosbolletjies, Onion & Thyme Skilpadjies. Whilst I understood that they’d gone for mosbolletjies as Penny had said during the challenge that “the only problem is between the two of us we can’t cook flipping mieliepap”. Unfortunately her mosbolletjies also didn’t meat the mark, but even her sausage was a disappointment for the judges, who had expected more from her considering she was the only contestant who had made her own sausage before. Their sauce was also too acidic and should’ve been cooked out a bit more.

Last but not least, Amo and Bridget (Red Team) made a Goat Sausage with Skilpadjies, Velouté Sauce, Samp, Dombolo, Sun-dried Tomato Butter & Relish. While deboning the goat’s meat of the leg, Amo had complained that the other contestants were just given meat and didn’t need to debone it.

Bridget finally managed to get her dombolo to the judges. She generally tends to take on too much and then ends up leaving some prepared elements off her plate, running out of time in the end. Both Bridget and Amo are known to overdeliver in dishes and components, so the judges initially were worried, saying they “both like to complicate things.” True to the expectation of overdelivering, Bridget made both a traditional, creamy samp, and she fried some of the samp: “if it works it works”, with the idea being that it would be creamy in the middle but crispy on the outside. 

The skilpadjies were a bit raw as they had been overwrapped. Their sausage meat had been overground but this seemed to be a trend across all treams. Bridget’s steamed bread received a great compliment from Zola, who said she can make dombolo “like anyone’s gogo” and Katlego was pleasantly surprised with the velouté, thinking it wasn’t going to work but feeling proven wrong when it really did work.

The Winners of the Challenge

Generally, the judges found that all of the teams had overworked the sausage meat which impacted the flavour. In the end, the Green Team made up of Nabila and Lona took home the victory. This means that they will be safe from the next challenge, spending it on the gantry, and can’t be eliminated from the competition during the next episode.

MasterChef South Africa episode 12

Looking ahead, the preview of the twelfthth episode of MasterChef South Africa gave us a hint of what the next episode will be about: the contestants will be undergoing a taste test as it’s “all about celebrating life’s tiny pleasures'“. It seems to be a fine dining challenge which is what MasterChef is all about so I’m particulalry looking forward to this episode!

Who will win MasterChef South Africa season 5? Time will tell…

MasterChef Season 5 Episode Summaries

Click here read up more about the MasterChef season 5 contestants, or read the summary from the previous MasterChef episodes if you’re trying to catch up:

• Episode 1 - Twenty MasterChef contestants cook a chicken dish, but only 15 remain

• Episode 2 - The MasterChef contestants cook for the the Apple of their Eye in a mystery box challenge

• Episode 3 - Chef Nokx Majozi Signature Pepper Steak Pie

• Episode 4 - Paying tribute to the Judges’ Star Signs

• Episode 5 - Translating Fashion into Food with guest judge Jackie Burger

• Episode 6 - Buffet of New Beginnings at Durbanville Hills wine estate

• Episode 7 - Leftovers and South African staples

• Episode 8 - Potatoes, Air Fryers, an Immunity Pin and two Special Guests

• Episode 9 - Cabbage, cabbage, cabbage!

• Episode 10 - A fusion of South African and Italian

• Episode 11 - Heritage Trinity: Wors, Skilpaadjies on the Hibachi and a Starch (this page)

• Episode 12 - Life’s Tiny Pleasures - a Taste Challenge and Micro Fine Dining

• Episode 13 - A Pressure Test cooking Chef Moses Moloi’s “Enchanted Forest Elegance”

More MasterChef Episode Summaries:

Want to Watch MasterChef South Africa?

MasterChef South Africa Season premiered on Saturday July 13 at 7:30 pm on S3, and new episodes are aired every Saturday.
If you miss it an episode, it will be rebroadcast every Sunday on S2 at 6:30 pm and on Wednesdays on S3 at 6:00 pm.

Or click here read up more about the MasterChef season 5 contestants.

About Shawn Godfrey

Shawn Godfrey is an entrepreneur based in Cape Town, South Africa. After the Covid-19 lockdown saw his business in financial distress, cooking was the creative outlet that helped to keep him sane. To keep track of his recipes, and encourage friends and families to join him, he starts his instagram account The Roasted Dad.

Fast-forward to late 2021 - on a whim Shawn (encouraged by his wife Lianne) enters MasterChef South Africa. It is a crazy time of life: running a 200 people business and struggling to keep it profitable, two small children with a third on the way, and about to move into a new house. But when Shawn gets selected to be one of the 20 contestants participating in the fourth season of MasterChef South Africa, he decides to go all in. Leaving his 7-month-pregnant wife to look after their then three and one-year-old children, he battles it out and comes back home five weeks later with the trophy and a million rand prize money in his pocket.

It all started with an Instagram account, but The Roasted Dad is so much more now. Shawn has stayed his entrepreneurial self and whilst he hosts Private Dinner Parties and Cook-with-Me Demos, does Restaurant Take-Overs, he still runs the lighting company and several other businesses.

On his blog, Shawn shares Restaurant Reviews and Accommodation Reviews, and gives an insight into the wild and wonderful life he leads together with his wife Lianne, and their three children Aiden (6), Olivia (4) and Harvey (2).

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