In Sunday 16 September's artsy episode of My Kitchen Rules SA, mom and dad Jalal and Adrie were eliminated from the competition. This means that Rox and Spoen, Kim and Pashi, Donald and Luyanda, and Maj and Joleen will contest the semifinals of M-Net’s popular reality cooking series.
For a place at the semis, the home-cook teams competed in their last People’s Choice challenge where the theme was “food as art”. Each of the MKR teams was tasked to represent art with their food, drawing inspiration from the Nirox Sculpture Park. The challenge was judged by some of Johannesburg’s best-loved celebrities, who gathered to sample the dishes prepared by the top five and picked the winners of the challenge, while the show's celebrity judges decided which team went home.
Donald and Luyanda won the majority of votes from the celebrity guests with their art dish titled “Cultured”. It consisted of lamb loin, beetroot dust and cauliflower puree, inspired by an art piece by Esther Mahlangu. Although the dish was a hit with the celebrity guests, the judges, unfortunately, thought the flavour was ho-hum. “Nothing stood out on the plate,” a dissatisfied David said. For J’Something, Kim and Pashi’s dish, “Stone Lake”, inspired by Morphic Resonance by Angus Taylor, met all the requirements. It consisted of soft-shell crab, pan-seared trout, parsley foam and potato - all of which worked for J'. “Out of all the dishes today, yours was the one that I was worried about when I saw it. I thought that there was just too much on the plate. But boy, did you deliver on flavour. My goodness! It tasted incredible,” J’ said.
MORE: Donald and Luyanda's lamb loin recipe.
Unfortunately, the two teams who put forward desserts found themselves at the bottom. Jalal and Adrie’s spiced-coffee after-dinner cake just didn’t hit the mark for the judges and was deemed the weakest effort of the day, sending the couple home. The loveable mom and dad decided to step out of their comfort zone and create a dessert for this challenge but struggled to get their elements to work in their favour. With them at the bottom was Rox and Spoen, who failed to impress with their “Chocolate Wish” dessert of cardamom-spiced brownies, charred kumquats, and brittle. After being rated on creativity, flavours, and representation of the art by the judges, they scraped home one point ahead of Jalal and Adrie.
With the honours of People’s Choice, Donald and Luyanda were given an advantage of choosing which team they would compete with in the first semifinals. The food buddies chose Rox and Spoen, wanting to compete against a team in their own age group, and with similar food knowledge. This means that the second semifinal will be between soon-to-be-engaged couple Kim and Pashi, and Parkview moms Maj and Joleen.
Who will be the first team to make it into the My Kitchen Rules SA finale? With the title and the grand prize of R1 million almost within touching distance, the home cooking teams' nerves must be shot! Tune in next week to catch all the action.
My Kitchen Rules SA is broadcast on M-Net channel 101 every Sunday night at 18:00.
Viewers can watch exclusive interviews with the judges and contestants here.
Follow all the breaking news and conversations around the show on Twitter @MNet / #MKRSA or on the official M-Net Facebook page.