This season on My Kitchen Rules (MKR), no team has stirred up more controversy — or ruffled more pigeon feathers — than Jane and Shane.
From the moment they stepped into the kitchen, the pair were labelled a team to watch. With Jane bringing professional food styling experience to the competition, including work with some of the world’s top chefs, among them MKR judge Colin Fassnidge, the other teams couldn’t help but wonder whether their history could influence the judges’ scores.
But after Jane and Shane’s elimination from the competition on Monday night, any whispers of favouritism were well and turly put to rest. Now, Colin is setting the record straight and revealing how he knew Jane before she entered the MKR kitchen.
“I’ve known Jane, I reckon, for 15 years, maybe, around the traps,” Colin tells TV WEEK.
“And she knows the same people I do. It’s a pretty small world. But she’s not actually a chef.”
Colin says he wasn’t aware that someone he knew would be in the competition until producers told him that someone who calls him by his nickname “Fass” would be on the show.
“I’m like, ‘Oh, that means they know me quite well, actually,’” he remembers. “And then when I found out that it was Jane, I had to say that I know her, because I don’t need any shade cast on me.”
But despite their prior connection, Colin wasn’t worried about claims of special treatment.
“I think she realised, pretty straightaway, that she was going to get treated the same as everyone else, whether she knew that coming into it or not, but that’s the way it goes,” he said.
Unfortunately for Jane and Shane, their first Instant restaurant did not go the way they planned. Their starter, a duck egg chawanmush, was undercooked while their main of a master stock pigeon was overcooked. While their tomato sour dessert was delicious, it wasn’t enough to save them from scoring the lowest in the competition to date.
According to Colin, their elimination came as a huge surprise.
“It was quite shocking actually, to be perfectly honest, to see that,” the chef explained, noting that he had no problem with seeing the pigeon heads and feet on the plate.
“Oh, we would eat that. I wouldn’t have a problem eating that. I was just more perturbed at the way she cooked it. Because it’s a piece of meat with no fat. You would never braise it.”
While Jane’s forthright opinions have received quite a bit of commentary and backlash online, Colin asserts that he the thinks she’s “quite nice” in person.
“I find Jane quite nice, to be perfectly honest,” Colin says.
“I just think she was a bit out of her element. And then when you’ve got Alisha and Deanne firing all barrels at you, I think she clammed up a bit. But look, I don’t have a problem with any of them on there.”
You can tune into My Kitchen Rules on Seven or 7plus.
