MasterChef has brought together a ‘beautiful group’ of contestants, including Indigenous cooks

The chefs are back in the kitchen for the 11-episode Season 9 of MasterChef Canada airing on CTV.

Cooking up the competition are 16 Canadian home cooks who are vying for the chance to win a $100,000 cash prize.

These talented chefs, who do not have any professional culinary training, aim to impress the three judges; Canadian Screen Award-winning host and Season 3 winner Mary Berg, internationally acclaimed chef and author Hugh Acheson, and chef-restaurateur Craig Wong.

The 16 contestants gathered from coast to coast include Aliyaan Amlani-Kurji, Amanda Baker, Brendon Shewchuk, Dre Pao, Geraldine Russ, Harley Maranan, Hekate, Jainesh “Jai” Bali, Jason Yamasaki, Linxi Mytkolli, Manka Umba, Marshall Gu, Monika Baird, Raiza Daniel, Ral Onyeachonam and Rebecca Abbott.

Onyeachonam, Gu, Baker, and Pao were eliminated in the season opener on Sept. 22.

“Viewers can expect a lot of fumbling, getting to know each other, getting to know who we are as chefs and our communication skills, and I think there might be a little bit of sweating going on,” said Russ about the upcoming season. “I think there’s a lot of different elements that I’m excited for people to see. There’s a lot of drama. There’s a lot of excitement.”

Russ is a mom from Haida Gwaii and said most of her cooking skills were passed down to her from her family.

“We all cooked together and my grandma, my nanny Lena, was really the one that just got me into it, making bread and canning all the things that we’d harvested,” she explained.

Her speciality is fried bread; not to be confused with bannock.

“There’s a misconception of bannock and fried bread… To clarify fried bread, you make bread dough but I make mine a little bit looser so that it becomes really nice and fluffy,” Russ said.

She moved from Haida Gwaii to live in Vancouver for 14 years, which she said opened her palate to various cuisines. This experience introduced her to Thai and Vietnamese flavours, which she incorporates into her dishes.

“I like the depths of flavours,” she said.

Since she moved back to her community, she continues to cook Haida dishes, including crab, sockeye salmon, and sea urchin stew.

In the first episode, the contestants were required to make a Beef Wellington, which Russ said she “Haida-ized”. She wanted to sprinkle everything she cooked with her traditional flavours and techniques.

“I want to make sure that I use all of my ability to be able to make the best dishes possible, and, if I’m using ingredients from Haida Gwaii, that’s my first choice every single time,” she said.

 Each of the contestants bring their own personal touch to the dishes each episode in hopes of keeping their spot for another week.

Aside from showcasing her own skills, Hekate, an Indigenous, trans entrepreneur, content creator, and video game streamer from Vancouver, said she had the best experience learning from the other chefs.

“It was obviously an experience of a lifetime just getting to meet the judges, and the other home cooks was just so eye-opening and such a validation of being surrounded by like-minded people,” Hekate said. “Food can really heal and bring so much positivity and love to the world.”

Each of the home cooks shared their unique cooking style and techniques, which Hekate said created a learning experience for everyone.

“I was so grateful for this season because, instantly within talking to them (the home cooks), I was learning so much about cuisines that I didn’t know anything about and even cooking techniques I had never heard of,” she said. “Because we’re all just such food nerds, obviously, when you sit us all down and we’re all starting to learn things from each other, it’s just like a timeless conversation, you know.”

Going into the competition Hekate explained she was a bit insecure that she wouldn’t measure up to the rest of the chefs as she really didn’t have the generational learning from family that so many others did.

Her own food journey began when she started teaching herself how to cook when she was about 15 years old.

“I didn’t have this ancestral cooking ability or foundation to start with, so my specialty really comes from just everything that I’ve taught myself,” she explained. “And, so, I don’t really focus on one cuisine because when you’re learning from cooking shows and the internet it’s very sporadic and you go over all different types of cuisines and so my speciality is global flavours in a way.”

She said MasterChef has really brought together a “beautiful group of people that I think it’ll be hard for viewers to not fall in love with every single one of them in their own way.”

To catch all the ups and downs in the kitchen, tune into CTV every Tuesday at 7 p.m. ET or stream the next day on Crave.