With Jock’s sudden passing away, the telecast of Masterchef Australia season 15 was deferred by a week. A beautiful gesture to honour his memory. RIP Jock Zonfrillo. The telecast started from May 7th but in India it started from the 9th. We managed to watch just the first episode before our short trip to Nagercoil.
We got back and watched the second and third episodes. It does feel very sad to watch Jock Zonfrillo, full of life just a few months back and to remember that he is no more. Andy, Melissa and the participants must be feeling even worse. Anyway the show must go on !
Masterchef Australia Season 15 – Episode #2
Jamie Oliver was still in the kitchen and in this episode the contest was for participating in the immunity challenge. There were two rounds. First, the home cooks had to make a delicious dish in 15 minutes and then 5 of the best dishes would let their makers go to round two.
As the participants were making their 15 minute dishes, Krishnan and I wrote down the items that we could make in 15 minutes. The one big difference being that we are 100% vegetarian while the Masterchef dishes are 100% about animal “protein” :(. That’s the one thing I don’t like about Masterchef. It just feels like you won’t get nutritious food if you ate just vegetarian fare. But that isn’t true necessarily.
The second round was to keep pace with Jamie Oliver as he made the “rotolo” a dish that “made” him THE Jamie Oliver. The rotolo seems similar to a spring roll except for the filling being different and its steamed versus the spring roll being fried. The Gujarati Paatra is also a similar concept of rolling veggies into cabbage leaves and steaming them using Besan as the binder.
Thankfully the Rotolo is a vegetarian dish except for the pasta dough having eggs.
What can you cook in 15 minutes ?
Note – I assumed that I didn’t know OPOS. Because with OPOS I can cook anything under 15 minutes – A full thali can be made twice over within 15 minutes. Standalone items like Avial, Khao Suey, Thai Green/Red Curry, Stew, Sambar, Rasam etc can be made under 5 minutes. Ofcourse Roti and a small quantity of rice can be made separately under 15 minutes. Do read – Don’t Oppose cooking – Do OPOS cooking ! to know more.
Here is the list we came up with –
Regular Kanda Poha, Coconut rice with Poha instead of rice, Aval Payasam (sweet), Eggless Bread Omelette, Morekali (Tamil word, its basically made with rice flour and buttermilk), Upma using grits – sooji, semiya, rice, oats etc, Bhelpuri, Momos using rice paper, Moong Dal Chila, My mother-in-law’s instant Kara dosai, Dhokla using ENO or some soda for fermentation, Paneer Burji with rotis, paneer/aloo parathas with some subzi.
Each one of these items is freshly made, insanely delicious and easy to digest. There is a bus load of nutrients if you use organic raw materials, like organic poha, dal and besan etc. Why load your system with animal protein ??
Lessons from Jamie Oliver
A young Jamie Oliver was asked to help on his day off and he got to make this dish called the rotolo… and he was “discovered”. It made him the world famous chef that he is ! He said something beautiful – “I’ve failed and learned, failed and learned to become who I am” … wow, shows how a truly great person goes through several challenges before becoming great.
While teaching the 5 winners of the 15 minute challenge, on how to make pasta dough, Jamie Oliver mentioned that he had toured Italy several times. He had met several Nonnas (grandmothers) who would make pasta dough with just flour and water. Poor people’s cooking “cucina povera”. Jamie also said, when he learnt to make Pasta dough, he learned about “potential”. Making something out of nothing – the potential that the Italian Nonnas had. Well, as did all our grandmothers !
Two beautiful lessons from Episode 2 and Jamie Oliver – the road to success is paved with failures and potential is making something out of nothing.
Stay tuned for more !!
#MasterchefAustralia #Season15 #JamieOliver #GoVegetarian
Note – OPOS, OPOS logo, One Pot One Shot & CPF cooking are registered. Please learn the methodology by becoming a part of the FB page – OPOS Support group or buy the OPOS Cookbook – 5 minute magic on Kindle. There are several other OPOS Cookbook titles available on Amazon that teach you the method and share different recipes.