Are you cooking like a MasterChef?
Research from kitchen supplier Magnet analysed a sample of 1,254 ingredients from 123 recipes across MasterChef's four most popular UK and US formats to determine which ingredients contestants should consider when creating their finale menu.
Overall, the most popular ingredient was chocolate, followed by apples, raspberry, duck and lamb.
Following in sixth place was lime, seventh was pigeon, with beetroot, lemon and pistachio also featuring.
Cooking methods
Research found the most commonly used ingredient in MasterChef UK is also chocolate, featuring in 18% of all winning recipes in the past 10 series, followed by fennel, lime and lobster. The fifth most used ingredient was mango, then pigeon, saffron, venison, carrot and lamb.
Magnet also discovered the top three cooking methods favoured by the British chefs on the programme were pureeing, in the top spot, followed by roasting and smoking.
However, for the US version it was a slightly different story with quail taking the top spot, followed by lime, with chocolate in third place. Mascarpone followed in fourth with pork in fifth.
Duck came in at number six, cherry at seven, raspberry eight, lamb nine and pistachio in 10th. The American chefs’ favourite cooking method was braising, then searing and poaching.
Traditional ingredients
When it comes to the celebrity version of the programme, more traditional ingredients feature on the winning menus including peas, potatoes, onions and butter.
While three variations of meat feature in the top 10 ingredients, they appear much lower down on the list than in any of the other formats analysed, with scallops being the most commonly used seafood at 7%.
Pea was the most commonly used ingredient in Celebrity MasterChef UK, with apple in second place, ahead of potatoes, onion, butter, scallops and veal. In eighth place was truffle, before pancetta and almond.
MasterChef: The Professionals’ most commonly used ingredient was also chocolate, ahead of lemon, raspberries, pigeon and beetroot.
In sixth place was banana, followed by banana, beef, duck, pistachio and venison.
