Sunday’s episode of My Kitchen Rules South Africa saw Durban buddies, Minnie and Tee eliminated from the show.
The duo failed to impress The South African Culinary Olympic Team and the judges with their South African flavours inspired by Paternoster in the Western Cape.
The seven remaining teams travelled to seven destinations for a weekly culinary showdown where they have to find unique South African produce and hopefully created a winning dish. Minnie and Tee travelled to Paternoster where mussels and foraged greens were the main ingredients.
The teams were each given two and a half hours to create a spectacular South African dish with the ingredients they acquired, and prepare ten identical plates for serving. The team with the weakest dish were eliminated
Minnie and Tee's mussels and foraged greens got off to a poor start when the de-bearding of the mussels consumed most of their time and Minnie's peppers burnt in the oven.
The South African Culinary Olympic team found the spices and flavours uncooked – with raw garlic, ginger and chilli with the heat overpowering the dish.
We caught up with the eliminated pair, who said the whole MKRSA experience was unforgettable and memorable.
"We are grateful for the opportunity to learn more about food and the great people that we met. We learnt that there is more to cooking than just throwing things into a pot as well as the importance of presentation," says Minnie.
Minnie says their biggest challenge was the immense pressure they were put under during the HQ phase. She says you're "never fully prepared for those challenges".
"We were really doing our best in the competition, so we obviously would have wanted to stay, but we're happy with how far we've come and what we have achieved. The de-bearding of the mussels took longer than expected, so we ran out of time to execute a great dish", says Minnie.
Asked who they think will win the competition, the friends say they don't know, but they are definitely rooting for their table 1 friends.
Next week, the teams find themselves in a conscious cooking challenge where the lowest-scoring teams will go into a Sudden Death round.
Catch My Kitchen Rules SA every Sunday at 6pm on M-Net channel 101.