Cooking with Baltic and Eastern European flavours wasn’t part of Alyona Iljuhhina’s plan when she first walked into the MasterChef Australia kitchen. But, after some encouragement from judge Poh Ling Yeow, everything changed.
“Poh continuously reminded me that I really needed to lean into my heritage, my origins,” the 38-year-old clinical research manager tells TV WEEK. “It really sparked something in me. I decided I wanted to show something different.”
From that moment on, Alyona built her cooking around the food she grew up with, as well as the flavours she discovered through her travels – making this week’s World Flavours challenge feel very natural for her.
“My superpower is my flavours,” she says. “The flavours I grew up with, the flavours I’ve learnt through travelling, through my stories and my unique experiences. But my home now is definitely Australia. I’ve found my best friends here through food and cooking.”
It’s a philosophy Alyona hopes to continue beyond the competition, with community dinners and culinary retreats being at the centre of the work she wants to do.
But, despite her calm and positive attitude, and her new-found MasterChef family being an amazing support system, she admits the competition tested her mentally.
“We all went through anxiety as a group,” she says. “I really tried to meditate and go for walks. I knew I could be amazing – if I didn’t let my self-doubt get in the way.”
MasterChef Australia airs Monday to Wednesday at 7.30pm and Sunday at 7pm on Network Ten and 10.
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