By Derek Schlennstedt
Curry connoisseur and peanut cracker aficionado Tati Carlin was eliminated from MasterChef Australia on 1 July, despite the judges heralding her curry as the best recipe of the season.
Tati tumbled last night after battling to recreate a complex apple crumble set by renowned pastry chef and chocolatier, Kirsten Tibballs.
She left behind the top nine but already has her sights set on a new challenge.
Speaking to the Mail, Tati said her life had revolved around cooking and that the show had given her new-found confidence.
“I think the most important thing about this competition is you get to learn what you can do and sometimes you don’t realise what you can do until you’re made to do something out of your comfort zone,” she said.
“It was a real highlight of my experience in terms of what I am able to make and, of course, the other 23 contestants were fantastic, beautiful people.”
Making an impression on the judges from the very first night, the 49-year-old was celebrated for her peanut crackers, which she said George Calombaris was a big fan of.
“My peanut crackers were definitely a highlight,” she joked.
“The hardest judge to please was probably George because I know Gary loves Indian cuisines and Matt even more so, but when I did my peanut crackers, Gary was the first one who came to my bench and tried that.
“He picked it up and ate it and looked at me and then (went) around and came straight back, pinched another one and then after he said ‘Tati, make some more, some more’.”
While elimination can be a devastating blow for some, Tati was, on the contrary, glad to return to Sassafras and her family and said she was humbled to have been given the opportunity to draw attention to Indonesian cuisine.
That attention also earned her thousands of fans in Indonesia, where she became an instant hit overnight.
“I didn’t know it went viral in Indonesia and got over two million views,” she said.
“We were in the house and there’s no media and suddenly my Instagram went up 700 and 1400 in two nights.”
Tati said the pressure-cooker environment of being “immersed in food culture” through talking about food, reading cookbooks and practising recipes with fellow contestants while living in the MasterChef house had been a huge learning experience, and admitted she still had much to learn about desserts.
As she bid goodbye to her Masterchef journey, Tati confessed she was looking forward to her next culinary venture.
“I’m working at Proserpine a couple of times a week, because I realised that my experience with sweets and desserts and pastry is really little,” she said.
“I also started cooking curry over there as well, so if anyone wants to have my curry come to Proserpine on the weekend – that’s my curry!“
