A bodacious butter chicken poutine has put Vernon’s own MasterChef Canada contestant in contention for a top place in the cooking reality show.
Since embarking on the adventure of a lifetime, Jennifer Innis has cooked everything from pies to that Quebecois late-night staple of fries, cheese and gravy, with a twist, and is now one of the top 11 finalists after Sunday’s televised episode.
The dental hygienist and mother of three girls proved herself worthy of the competition once again when she and three other of her competitors won the team challenge, creating a butter chicken poutine, with a mango, yogurt and cilantro coleslaw, for hungry students at the University of Guelph campus.
“It was the perfect story of the underdog; never underestimate us,” said Innis, who was skeptical about the topping for the poutine at first.
“I like butter chicken and I like poutine but there are just some things that don’t appeal to me when they are crossed over. However, after smelling it and tasting the coleslaw, it had this delicious flavour.”
Innis’ entry into the team challenge came as a surprise when the winners of last episode’s mystery box challenge, David Jorge and Sabrina Poirier, were named team captains. Jorge was then given the advantage of naming a third team captain.
He named New Brunswick military veteran Line Pelletier, who had a spectacular loss in the last team challenge, saving herself when she was given the opportunity to save a team member, and then collapsing from dehydration.
Innis was a part of Pelletier’s losing team then, and this time she was chosen last (“It’s just like high school,” she told the TV audience) to be a part of Pelletier’s Green Team, along with B.C. native Tammy Wood and Newfoundlander Kristen Dwyer.
A self-professed chatterbox, it was Innis’ enthusiasm that helped sell her team’s dish to the students.
With tickets in hands, she helped her team win by seven orders over their competitors.
“Its not just about food, you have to make yourself stand out… On and off camera, people were saying it didn’t make sense that we won,” said Innis, referring to her team’s lineup looking shorter than the others. “Our dishes were ready to go, and the first 10 we fired out and we kept firing them out.”
The lineup that the TV audience and fellow competitors saw was actually students coming in for seconds.
“I know people underestimated our whole team from get go, but I knew it doesn’t count if the tickets were not in the students’ hands for our dish, so I made sure I had the tickets in their hands. They would get no butter chicken without a ticket.”
The women from the Green Team also worked as a cohesive unit to prepare their dishes, with Wood cooking up a quick batch of butter chicken sauce when it started to disappear.
“Tammy cooking that in just minutes was just nuts,” said Innis. “Tammy has six kids. Tammy is a workhorse. Even on the last challenge, she was fast,” said Innis. “All the little elements of the challenge were exhausting. It was so hot, and I was wearing black jeans. The potato press was also so hard to work. I was aching afterwards.”
Saved from elimination, Innis and her teammates watched as the rest of the competitors returned to the MasterChef Canada kitchen to compete in the pressure test.
Jorge and Poirier faced a difficult decision when they were told they could each save one home cook from elimination from each of their teams. Jorge chose Toronto fashion designer Michael Motamedi while Poirier picked former B.C. Lion Jon Hameister-Ries.
The remaining home cooks were challenged to prepare the Italian favourite tortellini. Once the hour was up, Christopher Siu impressed the judges with his tortellini stuffed with pancetta, sausage, mushroom, and artichoke, while Kwasi Douglas’ red pepper, anchovy, and raisin-stuffed pasta failed to impress judges Michael Bonacini, Alvin Leung, and Claudio Aprile and he was sent home.
Innis’ advantage as a pastry expert may serve her well in the next episode of MasterChef Canada when it airs Sunday at 7 p.m. on CTV. It finds the home cooks facing a sweet but emotional mystery box challenge that requires them to bake and decorate birthday cakes that express something about themselves.
