The most iconic MasterChef Australia moments of all times

WORDS: Ocean Road Magazine Editorial Staff PHOTOGRAPHY Supplied

We do love ourselves a good bit of MasterChef Australia. Not just for the food, which is awesome – it’s also because it so laden with drama. Unlike the UK version of the show, all the international versions have opted to focus a little harder on the drama, creating one of the greatest cooking shows of all time.

We figured that we’d go through some of the most iconic MasterChef Australia moments, just to let you know how great this show really is.

The change of judges

For the first 11 seasons of the show, George Calombaris, Matt Preston and Gary Mehigan were the hosts of MasterChef Australia. Their faces were plastered absolutely everywhere. However, after 11 seasons of doing it, the team behind MasterChef was struggling to find the funds to give them a new contract. They were out of there, and a change of judges was on the cards. Trust us, the MasterChef betting sites were really heating up with people gambling on who the next judges would be. There was a lot of drama in online communities.

Eventually, Jock Zonfrillo, Melissa Leong and Andy Allen became the new hosts, and they weren’t too bad. Obviously, they’re different from the original hosts, but they helped to pump new life into the format, and their introduction to the show remains one of the most iconic MasterChef Australia moments.

Gordon Ramsay’s meltdown

Back in the UK, Gordon Ramsay is not associated with the MasterChef brand at all. However, he has managed to appear in most of, if not all, the English-speaking international versions. When he has appeared in the Australian version of the show, it is always an iconic moment. However, it has never been more iconic than when he appeared in 2018. He was a guest judge, and he went crazy at the blue team.

The blue team, despite being at the late stage of the show, were absolutely terrible. They were both overcooking and undercooking their food. He tossed a salmon to the side, and screamed this iconic line: “That’s raw! I could put it back in the (expletive) sea and it’d start swimming”, and a ton of memes sprung out from that. We like to watch the video on YouTube every so often, just for fun.

Roasted pig’s head

We love it when the contestants on MasterChef Australia get a bit more experimental with their dishes. So, we are reminded of the first season of MasterChef Australia when Chris Badenoch served up a roasted, whole, pig’s head. The judges absolutely loved it, and said the cheeks were the most succulent part of the pig.

The Season 2 finale

We do love when the drama in MasterChef Australia is more on the positive side of things, and there was no drama more positive than the final challenge in Season 2.

Adam and Callum were tasked with creating a snow egg (a type of dessert), and both were struggling with it, likely because there was a whole host of cameras focused on them, and their food career was in the balance.

Despite being in competition, they both supported each other, which is just what we love to see from a show like this. Adam ended up winning, but Callum managed to secure himself a top cooking job not too long after, so it wasn’t a huge bust for him.

Jess and Sashi in Season 10

In Season 10, the contestants were tasked with creating a Sherried Marron. If you’re a chef (and we doubt you are), you’ll know that this is a tough dish to create at the best of times, let alone with cameras and competition. It has 50 ingredients and 90 distinct steps. Get one step wrong and the whole thing goes wrong.

At one point, Sashi ended up burning the recipe page, which isn’t too good when you’ve got all those steps to follow. Enter Jess. She was happy to share her recipe card with Sashi, which meant that Sashi could complete the recipe. It was just as well, because Sashi ended up winning the entire season.

Billie gets her dream job

Billie had always dreamed of working at The Fat Duck in the UK. Owned by Heston Blumenthal, it is regarded as one of the best restaurants in the world. So, when she was offered a job there, by Heston himself, when she won her season, we must admit that tears started to flow from our eyes. It was beautiful. Obviously, she accepted the job on the spot.

Katy Perry

Katy Perry has been a guest judge on MasterChef Australia and she’s always offered countless fun moments that we’ll remember forever. However, the best moment was when Reece (a contestant) went absolutely crazy for her. He was laughing and crying, and he could barely get a word out. Great fun!

So, what are your favourite MasterChef Australia moments? This is our list but we’re sure there are plenty of other moments that you can think of, both happy and sad. There’ll probably be plenty more to come too. All we know is that we’ll be watching.