Loose Women panellist Judi Love took the crown as champion of MasterChef's Celebrity Christmas special, wowing Gregg Wallace and John Torode with a Christmas meal inspired by her Jamaican roots and the comments were incredible.
Her Caribbean Christmas dinner was made up of rolled turkey breast stuffed with jerk seasoning, served with parsnip puree, carrots, stuffing, roast potatoes, crispy turkey skin and a cranberry and Scotch bonnet chili jam, plated with 'real style'.
The Strictly star shared the clip of the judges comments to Instagram writing; "Winner, Champion of @MasterChefUK Christmas Special 2021! #JudiLove All I can do is cook from my heart! The food I was raised up with. My parents were Jamaican born and they loved to show love with food. And that’s what I did tonight!! Thank you @greggawallace @johntorodecooks"
And Gregg was raving about it, saying; "We have moist turkey but also jerk seasoning the flavours of thyme and all spice and that's giving us a lovely smoky flavour but not too chilli hot. Then you go to the sauce sweet and sharp with the cranberries but hot with that scotch bonnet which is delicious potatoes are crispy. The turkey is beautiful and moist.
"What can I say? It's great. Everything's cooked well. And then you've brought in your flavours and they go very, very well with this. I have to tell you that that is nothing short of fantastic."
And her dessert, traditional Jamaican black cake made with various dried fruits soaked in rum with a sorrel source and a stout and Rum Punch ice cream, got an equally glowing review.
With Gregg calling her ice cream absolutely delightful and saying; "If that's not being manufactured already needs to be done right now. You get the unmistakable flavour of a pint of stout, then honey, it finishes with the heat of rum. That is a delightful thing."
Rounding off by saying; "You've done really brilliantly well. I haven't got a single criticism. In fact, all I can say is I am loving every single little mouthful."
John was equally impressed saying Gregg likes the cake, and he... loves it; "What you've done is you kept the heart and soul of the world that you love so much and grew up with and you made them look fantastic. Good on you."
The comedian was quite overwhelmed with the comments, saying; "Thank you, I feel very blessed." Adding in the VT; "Very happy that they enjoyed my food because I always tried to cook with love. and I think they felt that. I'm shaking."
She beat Oti Mabuse, Jenny Eclair and Joey Essex to the title. Way to go Judi! You absolutely smashed it. We'll be coming to yours for Christmas dinner.
Elena Chabo is Cosmopolitan UK's former beauty writer, working on everything from buzzy celeb news and trending beauty, to sincere first-person reviews and engaging video content for social media. She also creates meatier features and expert-led how-to guides, for print and online. Her passion for Black beauty, textured hair, and the ways beauty interacts with culture, society, identity and relationships, quickly took over her writing career and led her into beauty journalism. Following an MA in Magazine Journalism in 2017, she cut her teeth across various roles at Stylist Magazine, before taking on a Digital Writer role at Good Housekeeping. It was here that beauty took centre stage and she launched and ran the site's first stand-alone beauty section. Remaining at Hearst, she joined the Cosmo beauty team in 2022. Find her on LinkedIn.
