‘Celebrity MasterChef UK’ viewers riot over decision to send Johannes Radebe home

After Michelle Collins’ elimination, the remaining four Celebrity MasterChef UK contestants, Johannes Radebe, Kem Cetinay, Kadeena Cox and Gavin Esler took to the MasterChef kitchen once again to win their place in the semi-finals.

However, viewers were gutted after professional dancer Johannes was eliminated from the competition.

As usual, the contestants had to do a knowledge test where they had to identify four different ingredients. This time, they had to correctly guess four spices, including Star Anise, Saffron, Cardamom and Turmeric. Afterwards, was the skills test where they had to make brandy snaps and fill them with two different fillings of a clementine cream and a ginger buttercream.

Johannes was the last one up and got one out of the four spices right. The skills test proved to be quite chaotic for Johannes as he didn’t know what a brandy snap was at the start, he then burnt himself on the tray and served up inedible ginger buttercream. However, the brandy snap with the clementine cream was a success.

The next round introduced 2010 MasterChef finalist Alex Rushmer, who is now a successful restaurateur, chef and food blogger. Alex gave the celebrities dishes to cook that would showcase vegetables. 

Johannes was given a cauliflower dish that is cooked in two different ways- roasted in butter and yeast, and as a puree, served with Chinese artichokes and a raisin agrodolce, an Italian sweet and sour sauce. When he started he found the challenge daunting as vegetables aren’t a food he normally cooks.

He began to panic and admitted that he doesn’t eat much veg. After serving it up to the judges, Alex was impressed saying, “It’s so, so close. Puree’s good. The agrodolce, flavour balance is perfect. Cauliflower’s soft all the way through, which is what it should be. I think it’s a tremendous effort. John thought it was wonderful too, and even Gregg devoured his whole plate!

The final challenge was another vegetable-based task where they were asked to design a dish where vegetables were the star. “I’m nervous, and I’m a meat person. I love my meat. This is going to be one of the hardest challenges for me,” Johannes said.

Johannes decided to make roasted aubergine filled with blue cheese, smoked paprika, wilted spinach and kale, rice and aubergine flesh. He also made his own version of a chakalaka, a South African relish, with baked beans spiced with piri piri seasoning, curry powder and fresh ginger.

The judges enjoyed the vibrant flavours, but his rice was overcooked and the aubergine had gone a bit wet and soggy.

Johannes was hopeful that he had done enough to get through, but his brilliant cooking efforts were sadly not enough and he was eliminated from the competition, which left viewers unhappy...

Celebrity MasterChef continues on Wednesday on BBC1 at 9pm.