by Todd Betzold

The first team challenge on Season 3 of MasterChef took place last night and during it we saw Michael Chen struggle with the mushrooms on the grill, but was it really his lack of skills or something else that led to him being kicked off the grill? Michael then put cheddar cheese on top of his apple pie in the Pressure Test, which led to his elimination on MasterChef. Today, we spoke with Michael Chen about the cheddar cheese, the mushrooms on the grill and much more.

Q. Todd, RealityWanted: What made you want to try out for MasterChef?
A. Michael: I've always like cooking and I've always cooked for my friends at like potlucks and bake them a cake for birthday parties. My friends always seemed to enjoy my cooking and always joked that I should try out for a cooking show sometime, like MasterChef of Hell's Kitchen and I always blew it off and said maybe someday, but I doubt it. What struck about me about MasterChef is that these chefs were homecooks and I thought that's what I am. I have no professional experience. I like to cook at home with my friends. If I ever were to get on a cooking show, this would be the one I would get on. After watching last season, I checked out the website and they had an open casting call in Austin, which is where my hometown is and I thought why not? It's close to home and you have nothing to lose. It's just one Saturday afternoon and you cook a dish and if worse comes to worse and nothing good comes from it, then you have a good story to tell. I was able to get where I am now and that definitely came as a surprise to me.

Q. Todd, RealityWanted: During the Team Challenge last night, you were struggling on the grill. Joe and Graham questioned you for not using seasoning on the mushrooms. Frank ended up taking you off the grill. What issue were you having with that last night?
A. Michael: There is a bit of it that was not shown. First of all, one of the tasks as a team that we had to do was set-up tables and chairs for half the Marines that were showing up. So, I was helping set-up the tables at the beginning. For the first ten minutes, that is what we were doing, trying to set-up the tables on the muddy ground. After I had set-up all the chairs, the rest of the team had started cooking, so I walked back and talked to Frank and asked him what do you want me to do? He handed me a pan of mushrooms, walked me over to the grill and showed me how he wanted to mushrooms cooked and he wanted the onions really, really charred. I took them off several times and asked him, is this okay and he said he wanted them more charred than that. I was like okay, I am just going to do what you want because I had never heard of the pasta salad. You know what you are doing and I'm just to listen to you because you are the leader of the team. I was there doing what I had been told to do and the judges came over and yelling and I think they were trying to make me lose confidence in myself. I didn't want to come off as a jerk that continuously throws people under the bus. It was definitely hard and frustrating to be there and hear the criticism because in my mind, I don't really think I did anything wrong. We worked so well together as a team and I didn't want to jeopardize that by constantly throwing my opinion in on things. The mushrooms, I kind of knew what he wanted to do with them. It wasn't that important for them to be seasoned because they were going to be seasoned when they were tossed in the salad. In my mind, it wasn't that big of a deal and the judges made it out to be a bigger deal than it ended up being.

Q. Todd, RealityWanted: In the Pressure Test, you put a layer of cheddar cheese on top of your apple pie. What prompted you to do that?
A. Michael: A lot of people, mainly on social media, and the judges gave me a lot of flak for that, but the combination of cheddar and apples is not as uncommon or weird as people might think. In the northeast, it is a very common pairing, like apples and cheese and melon and ham. It's a strange combination when you first think about it, but it's one many chefs are familiar with and it is also something I have heard about in the past. I remember tasting it once a long time ago and thinking at first it was weird, but that combination of apples and cheese go well, So, during the course of the challenge we didn't have the full MasterChef pantry available to us. We only had significant ingredients available to us, like ginger and cheese was there and I saw that and I kind of put two and two together from what I have heard about. What I did first was take the cheddar cheese back to my station and I wasn't sure if I was going to use it. I tried some of the cheese with the apples to see if I liked the flavor combination to refresh my memory of what I had several years ago. I tried it and I actually enjoyed it. I liked the saltiness of the cheese along with the tart and sweetness of the apples. I decided to use it. My reason for putting it on top was because if the pastry was crispy enough, the cheese would help add crispness to it. Also, I wanted the cheese to add a structural integrity to the pie. Did I execute it properly? No, but I don't think the concept of putting cheddar cheese on top of a pie is really that outrageous.

Q. Todd, RealityWanted: What was it like working with all the time constraints of the challenges and food ingredients given to you?
A. Michael: The time thing wasn't much of an issue for me until that last challenge. I made two big mistakes when I was making the pie. First of all, I swapped the top and bottom crust of my pastry, so the top crust ended up being way too thick and the bottom crust was way too thin and that's why Joe said it had like no bottom crust. I realized I had made that mistake as I was putting the pie together, but the judges were continuously pushing us, so I didn't have time to fix the mistake, so I put it in the oven and hoped for the best. That was a time where the time did get to me and I made a mistake and if I was at home baking for a friend, I would have had time to fix it, but because of the time constraints I didn't get to fix it and ultimately that cost me. In general, I liked the time and the ingredients given to me. My mind tends to wander way too much and if they just told me to go into the MasterChef pantry and pick any ingredients that I want and cook up a dish, I would have no idea where to start. There are so many ingredients there, so how do I pick them to make one dish, so when you have a Mystery Box, you have a focus. You can have a more structured plan rather than a dish that is completely crazy. It's really how I cook at home because I don't have pre-established recipes that I follow to the wire. I go to my fridge, see what I have and construct something that I feel tastes good and that's similar to the Mystery Box Challenge.

Q. Todd, RealityWanted: What is the biggest thing you are going to take away from this whole experience?
A. Michael: There are two things. First of all is the motivation for me to continue on this culinary journey. Obviously when I first left and the heat of the emotion, I was never going to touch a pan again. Being eliminated from MasterChef was probably one of the most, if not the most traumatic experiences of my life. After taking a few weeks, I realized this journey doesn't end here for me. I have amazing opportunity to turn my life around and pursue this new career. I told my parents I won't be going back to school in the fall or maybe ever. I want to continue this culinary experience by working in restaurants. I'm gradually working myself up the ranks. The second big thing is the friendships that were made. That stuff is more important to me than any amount of money or fame or cookbook deals. If I won MasterChef and I didn't have any friends after the competition because I was more competitive, I would be miserable. I'm really glad I have friends, like Christine, who I watched the episode with last night because she could provide the emotional support for me. We were sitting there holding each other and crying because she had her tear-jerker moments in it and I had my emotional exit. It was really great to have a friend like that to spend time with. They are some of my best friends now because we went through this whole experience together.

MasterChef airs Mondays and Tuesdays at 9/8c on FOX.

(Image courtesy of FOX)

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