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Today the episode of MasterChef Australia aired where I was the Celebrity MasterChef, So now I can finally talk about it!

I would like to first start by saying how much of a pleasure it was to work with such a professional and friendly crew! I have done Tv all over the world yet I have never felt so at ease from the very first moment like with the cast and crew of MasterChef!

The lady I cooked against (Claire) did an amazing job at being able to follow the recipe I gave her to prepare and I take a little bit of pride from the fact she was able to complete the dish in the set time. This took some amazing focus from Claire and had she not been such an articulate person the job would of been much harder.

When I was first approached by MasterChef to do this Celebrity challenge I was unsure how I could find one of my dishes which was able to be prepared in less than 90 minutes from start to finish. So I started looking back over my previous years of work and I found one I was preparing 5-6 years ago which would fit the task (with a few minor modifications). What I create these days can take up to 7 days in preparation, or there are other that can be prepared in just moments, I believe the Green Peas and Egg dish was the most educational and controversial which is why I chose it, to incite conversation.

So as you may of seen today, the dish we prepared was a “Simple” dish of Peas and eggs.

Eggs and Peas to me is an obvious combination and not one which requires much debate, but after today I will never use the word obvious again as there seem to be an amazing amount of people commenting on this combination all over the internet.

I chose to try and show the viewers of MasterChef as well as my competitor that the same base can be made into many different variations. It is also a great lesson about texture and the use of balancing temperatures and accuracy.

I am very happy at the outcome of the episode, there really seems to be an outpouring of support and more importantly intrigue towards my style of Cuisine.

Remember, all great things start from Curiosity. If you are too afraid to venture out of your comfort zone then you will miss all of the best experiences in life!

For those of you who are in Australia, Tomorrow (Tuesday) nights episode of MasterChef will be the episode where I am the Celebrity MasterChef.

Once it has aired tomorrow I will give a full breakdown of the whole experience, which hopefully you had the chance to see. If not I know you can buy it on iTunes

I will post all the details of this fantastic experience tomorrow,

Watch this space……………………….

On my recent trip back to Australia I was fortunate enough to be invited by a friend of mine Professor Russell Keast to visit him in the Food Science department of the Deakin University. Russell was kind enough to give me a full tour of the university and showed me all the current testing that is taking place.

I will be reporting on several things which I observed over the next few posts.

One of the tests which Russell gave me was a taste sensitivity test, this test was using a compound called: n-6-propylthiouracil, or PROP. This is a compound which not many people can taste and others are born with a genetic sensitivity to. I was instructed to place the strip of paper in my mouth and leave it for a few seconds on my tongue. I didn’t know what I was expected to taste or feel but after about 1 second I had to take it out of my mouth as it tasted 100 times more bitter than grapefruit peel. After eating a chocolate I could finally get rid of the awful taste. Russell told me that when he puts it into his mouth all he can taste is paper, this is the same for most people. There are a lot of things which people can’t taste and this just demonstrates how obvious this can be, one of those things is namely truffle. I read a study about truffle where it said more than 40% of women and 50% of men can’t actually properly taste truffle, yet it is one of the most expensive ingredients. So a large % of these people are paying for Truffle without getting the full effect.

As this is a Genetic thing I took 2 tabs home to test both of my parents to see which one I got it from, the great news is that they both detected the compound, so I got a double dose