Culture

Will Laura From ‘MasterChef’ Ever Cook Anything That’s Not Pasta, An Investigation

And why the hell is Jock so obsessed with everything she does?

by Michelle Rennex  30 April 2020
masterchef laura jock pasta

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As we enter the third week of MasterChef: Back To Win, a few things are already very clear. We know that Poh Ling Yeow doesn’t know how to plan timed cooks very well, that hibachi grills have replaced the sous vide machine this season, and that no matter what the challenge is, Laura Sharrad will probably find a way to cook pasta — and Jock Zonfrillo will 1000% froth it.

Now, every chef who has returned to the Back To Win kitchen have their strengths that they play to — that’s no problem. For example, Reynold Poernomo, who owns dessert bars in Sydney, has continued to showcase his amazing dessert skills in the current season.

However, as all good cooks should always do, most of the returning chefs have not only presented up their specialities, but have also challenged themselves by creating dishes outside of their comfort zones. Just as Reynold did earlier this week when he represented the Pink team in a seafood cook-off. Or in the week prior, when the Dessert King served up a red curry during the Taste Test immunity challenge.

However, in this same cook, focused on creativity with a set 24 ingredients, Laura chose Jock’s cloche that just magically had the components for pasta underneath. So naturally, Laura decided to cook a green garganelli pasta — much to the delight of Jock.

Laura’s Obsession With Pasta

Unfortunately for everyone else watching at home, a pasta from Laura was nothing new. After all, in Gordon Ramsay’s 90-Minute elimination challenge, Laura cooked one of Jock’s favourite dishes, Cacio e pepe (which is essentially fancy mac ‘n’ cheese).

If you missed that moment, it’s ok. Laura also cooked pasta in Sunday night’s elimination challenge. Oh, and on Monday night’s showdown where, instead of cooking literally anything else with berries, she cooked crostoli (sweet pasta).

Tuesday’s Self-Pressure test wasn’t much different either. Despite the challenge literally being designed to make the cooks step outside of their comfort zones, Laura decided to cook a ravioli doppio. Even last night’s random Mystery Box ingredients couldn’t stop Laura from, yet again, making another form of pasta after she traded her original ingredients for potatoes.

Do you happen to see a pattern here? That is four consecutive days of the exact same type of food. FOUR!

In almost every cook that isn’t a team challenge, Laura somehow manages to cook some form of pasta which has created a very tired, boring storyline for someone who is clearly a very good cook.

Look, we get it. Pasta is obviously Laura’s specialty and passion.

On her About page of her website, Laura retells stories about preparing Italian food with her Nonna’s growing up, in both Australia and Tuscany. She’s even released a cookbook titled ‘My Italian Kitchen’ and currently co-owns a pasta bar in Adelaide called Nido.

But the question on everyone’s lips is: Why come back to a cooking competition to stay safe by only cooking the things you know you’ve perfected? Yes, pasta is a type of food with many variants. There’s spaghetti, ravioli, lasagne, cannelloni, the list goes on,  but realistically how different can the flavour profiles of the same dough be?

Let’s switch it over to burgers, for example. Sure, you can cook a wagyu beef burger or a chicken katsu bun. Hell, you could even switch it up to a vege patty of some sort, but at the end of the day, you’re still just eating a fancy sandwich no matter how you dress it up.

Repetitiveness is boring for people to watch, and if it were any other season, anyone who cooked the same dish four times in a row would be blasted. But not Laura. Instead Jock praises her for anything she does and the judges make excuses for her repetitive dishes — but why?

Jock’s Obsession With Laura

When Laura first appeared on MasterChef back in 2014, she was just an 18-year-old student who managed to place second in the competition. Clearly a very talented cook, Laura reached out to current judge Jock Zonfrillo after the finale in hopes of securing a job. Jock agreed and ended up giving Laura a full-time job as a junior job chef at Orana, his three-hatted restaurant.

According to an Instagram post from January 2016, Laura only worked at Orana for a year-and-a-half before to deciding to leave to “make her own mark”. With those 18 months of experience under pasta-loving Jock’s wing, Laura was able to learn new techniques and understand Jock’s palate — something that viewers have deemed to be an unfair advantage against the other cooks in the Back To Win season.

An example of this was the Orana Pressure test, where the contestants up for elimination had to cook three dishes from the Orana menu. Unsurprisingly, Laura — who worked at the restaurant that the dishes came from — absolutely blitzed through the cook of scarlet prawns, riberry crumpets and bunya nut chawanmushi to avoid elimination.

While it’s true that the menu could’ve easily changed over the last five years, Laura, at minimum, would have an upper hand in knowing the ingredients, flavours and techniques that Jock uses at his restaurant.

This advantage of having extra knowledge of what certain judges like to eat was also seen in the season premiere. Catering exactly to Jock’s palate with prior knowledge of his fondness for indigenous ingredients, Laura’s ‘Native Winter‘ dessert was definitely a strategic dish that did what it aimed to do — get her ex-bosses attention from the first cook.

Since that first dish, Jock has sung nothing but absolute praises over anything Laura creates — which hasn’t gone unnoticed online. It’s this seeming favouritism towards Laura that’s annoying audiences watching at home, who are made to feel like there are clear advantages at play.

This is because other judges, who are close to some contestants, are able to separate the competition from prior friendships — or at least make it seem that way on camera. Judge Andy, for example, despite being very close to Ben Milbourne, was still able to objectively judge Ben’s food and send his best friend home when Ben’s dish wasn’t up to par.

Jock’s constant praise of Laura has even managed to rub off on the other judges, as we’ve seen in the last two episodes. Instead of the judges criticising Laura for cooking pasta again for the Pressure Test and Mystery Box, Andy and Melissa defended her.

Justifying Laura’s Pressure cook, Andy explained that while Laura was sticking to what she knew, she was also stepping out of her comfort zone because she added kangaroo meat to her ravioli. Then, in last night’s Mystery Box, instead of questioning Laura’s choice to cook gnocchi, Melissa excused her by saying gnocchi wasn’t a form of pasta — even though the Collins Dictionary says it is.

In a shock to no one, Jock absolutely frothed over both dishes, saving his protégé Laura from elimination and then giving her a spot in tonight’s Immunity challenge. However, despite all the questionable judging choices made, Jock maintains that there’s no special treatment at play.

“I said it in the first tasting, there is no favouritism,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “If anything, Laura will be at a disadvantage carrying the weight of cooking for her mentor.”

Sadly, it’s doubtful that Laura will change her cooking tactics for MasterChef: Back To Win. After all, she’s not yet received any negative criticism for the many, many pasta dishes she’s already plated, and Laura is well-aware that it’s one of Jock’s favourite foods — something the rest of Australia learned this week after seeing his at-home commercial pasta machine.

So if it’s not broken, why fix it? Pasta on, I guess.

‘MasterChef: Back To Win’ is back on 7.30pm tonight on Channel 10.