…lamb over beef and pork. She made a Mediterranean lamb dish with herb couscous, olive puree and pickled bell peppers. Ramsay called the lamb “breathtaking.”
Jasmine’s final task of the competition was to prepare a three-course meal. This time, renowned chef Wolfgang Puck and Martha Stewart helped judge the dishes.
While Jasmine’s made a scallop and white fish appetizer and lobster tail entree received high marks, it was her dessert — the sticky rum cake with pineapple chips — that helped secure her victory. Tosi said she could open a pastry shop and just sell the sticky rum cake, it was that good.
But this win almost didn’t happen. When Jasmine first went out for the show, she made her way from ‘Top 40’ to ‘Top 20’ to ‘Top 12’ before being eliminated. But it was her second time around that applied everything she learned from the first go round.
She described the biggest lesson learned was “not second guessing myself and staying confident in what I was doing.”
That confidence shined through when she challenged herself and took a risk of cooking chicken oysters.
“I never thought I would have to cook those, but I went for it,” said Stewart, who told herself that while it was a challenge, she could do it.
According to Stewart, she also strived to improve what “mainly tripped me up during the challenges,” and that is time management.
“[MasterChef Jr.] has been a great life experience and lesson. I am focused on having to go for it and I use that moment to push yourself further.
“When I was filming the show you are in the moment, so things that you say are natural,” she said.
Stewart recalled wishing she could maybe change “things I said or faces that I made.”
“When Michelle Obama was one of the guest judges. I said…