Share
The winner of MasterChef Australia’s season 10 in 2018, Sashi Cheliah is a Singapore-born cooking enthusiast who moved to Adelaide in 2012. He signed up for MasterChef after seeing a Facebook post. After winning, he launched a pop-up restaurant called Gaja by Sashi in Melbourne and Adelaide, which specialised in Singaporean and Indian food. Cheliah is best known for his fusion dishes, which he executes with flair. While on the show, he wowed both judges and audiences with dishes like fish curry with cumin rice, sambal prawn with crispy prawn heads and herb salad and Malaysian pineapple tart with lime ice cream.
He returned to compete in MasterChef Australia: Fans & Favourites. For those who are fans, here are five tempting dishes the chef made in season 14:
Fish sandwich with chilli jam and pickled shallots, with coconut rice
Chicken curry with roti
Crab and turmeric broth, pickled papaya and kohlrabi, grilled maryland
Eggplant curry with cumin rice
Pork and apple red curry with parsnip chips
With this dish, Cheliah gave the humble eggplant a gourmet upgrade. He made a tasty kathirikai, which is a spicy curry from Tamil Nadu. The dish had been a bestseller at his restaurant, and he served it with cumin rice and coriander chutney. One of the judges described it as “massive punches thrown in from individual garnishings”.
Pork and apple red curry with parsnip chips
Another good-looking dish, Cheliah’s pork and apple red curry was an amalgamation of sweet, sour and spicy flavours. For this dish, the pork is slow-cooked along with apple and fragrant spices. Parsnip chips worked well as a topping and added a different flavour and textural dimension.
