I wasn't super keen on Andy winning, I personally thought that Masterchef was over for me when Amina got kicked out just before Italian week. I'm really surprised some of the final 6 actually remained, like Alice who was average in cooking, never cooked anything spectacular but was excellent in team challenges. She also had a crazy samurai sense of honour when it came to competitive things, like choosing savouries in her immunity challenge with Mindy. Alice felt like the dark horse for this years Masterchef, I liked her but I don't think she was good enough to have been where she was in the competition.
The rest of the final six were consistently good throughout the competitions, having gone for immunity challenges or winning multiple immunity boxes and things. On the other hand, I hate Debra. Consistently terrible in team challenges and having no experience in any other culture's food besides stock standard Western cooking. I remember her glass breaking moment for me was the dismal yum cha challenge, where she captained the red team to failure even with Mindy taking the reins, and then proceeding to blame Mindy for sabotaging her leadership and not supporting her. Uhhh, awkward.
I was just glad Julia didn't win. Arrogance personified. Some of her comments throughout the show have made me double take at her sheer rudeness, she seems like she has the potential to be really mean.
Poor Audra getting knocked out for her salad. It was really a bad choice though, the criteria were set down and if you're not going to follow judging criteria in the finals to the T, yowza.
Um. I haven't out or made anything worth posting in a while, however I have a doggy play date tomorrow and am cooking lunch so I figured I would include my much bandied about recipe for nuoc mam cham. The Vietnamese BBQ sauce. It goes on everything :) I didn't bother taking many pictures either, just because its not really difficult. Measure junk out, mix, taste, fix. You get the picture. Its a good Vietnamese staple to know how to do though!
Nuoc Mam Cham - Fish dipping sauce
Use:
Everything Vietnamese should probably be eaten with this basic sauce. Well everything that isn't a soup I guess. Salads, summer rolls, vermicilli salads, steamed chicken, noodles, any sort of fish, whatever you fancy.
Staples:
Sugar, white/brown is okay. Palm sugar melts badly.
Hot Water to dissolve stuff
Fish sauce - squid brand is what we use
Lemon juice OR lime juice OR white vinegar. Lemon/lime based on preference. Vinegar is frequently used if you want this mix to last pretty much forever. I would say, lemon/lime juice would only last a week or something.
 |
| No lemons for me. White vinegar it is. |
Additionals:
Garlic
Chilli
Chilli
Ginger
 |
| One birds eye chilli cause I could feel it scorching my eyes with my glasses on |
Notes:
Same ratio for the staples barring the lemon/lime/vinegar. So if you use one cup of sugar, ditto for fish sauce and hot water. Or one tablespoon, one of each in equal quantities.
Instructions:
1. Mix one part sugar (tbs, tbps, cup, litre whatever) to one part hot water. Stir until dissolved
2. Add same amount of fish sauce to this mixture, stir until mixed.Add the lemon/lime/vinegar/acid of some sort.
3. Taste and see what it needs, too salty, add more water or acid. Ideally all the flavours should be balanced.
a. Once you're happy with the taste, you can add in diced/minced garlic and chilli if desired. Traditionally if eaten with fish or duck, ginger can be added in as well.
Keep in the fridge in a clean, sterilised jar. Stir before use otherwise no floaty bits for you.
Tomorrow I will have more things to post! I promise! At least one cookie recipe or another Vietnamese dish :D!
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