Masterchef was a success. None of us have to prepare anything in hand and no one knows what it’s all about (except the organizer and her helpers) until that very night.
We were divided into 4 different groups and only then we sort of understood what the night will be. We started the main event with some Q&A sessions on some “common sense” related to food or anything edible, mainly looking at images and choose A or B for one’s answer. Groups who guessed the correct answer per question will gain 10 points and points will be accumulated for further purposes.
After some basic Q&A, the group which has the most accumulated points has the opportunity to pick which main ingredient they will want to have first from the main table. Main ingredients to be picked are covered and non-visible to others, until the chooser picked up the whole thing and go back to their own groups.
Main ingredients which are provided are:
- Fish fillets
- prawns (with eyes, shell and tail)
- chicken drumsticks
- minced pork
Other ingredients which are also distributed among groups are:
- 3 eggs
- 1 carrot (regardless of size)
- an inch of ginger
- couple of bulbs of garlic
- cooking oil
- chicken bouillon powder
- soy sauce
- salt
Each group is entitled to pick additional ingredients, according to their accumulated points from Q&A session. However, to promote a bit of fairness, the group which has the least accumulated points will have the chance to pick first.
Additional ingredients which are provided are:
- Hp sauce
- Black pepper
- Sesame oil
- Spring Onion
- Cornflour
- Honey
- Vinegar
- Tomato sauce
- Oyster sauce
- Curry powder
Kitchen utensils such as knives and chopping board are not limited, however, due to limited woks and stove top (portable ones), each group are only allocated with one set. Each group are to discuss what they are cooking, prepare, cook one dish or more (if they prefer) and clean up their stations in thirty minutes. Additional criteria is that whatever each group’s idea is, one is not allowed to deep fry, due to the risk of having smoke alarms working to its purpose.
The standards of judgment will be based on creativity, presentation, name and taste. Each group’s cooking skills are challenged due to the limited resources that each group has. However, they all survived and lived up even to their own expectations. Each group has to pick a presenter and present their dish in front of everyone.
Nevertheless, in any competition, there will be a winner and runner ups, our winner for that night was GROUP 2, with their dish, namely, 微笑鸡, followed by 蛋包五彩缤纷,鱼上太阳 and 主的恩典.
In a nutshell, everyone enjoyed the whole process, treating it as a learning process and worthy experience.
Group 2 Group 1
Group 3 Group 4
微笑鸡(Group 2) 蛋包五彩缤纷（Group 1)
鱼上太阳(Group 3) 主的恩典(Group 4)