Matt Preston - TV presenter, radio host, columnist, author, singer (ok, that’s enough)
Follow Matt on Insta. 📷 Author’s own
Matt Preston is an award-winning food writer, TV presenter and radio host. He has written 10 books, including eight best-selling cookbooks. And his columns in NewsCorp magazines and all metro mastheads are read by over 2.8m Australians every week. For 11 years he was a judge on the record-breaking MasterChef Australia and subsequently worked on My Kitchen Rules, Plate of Origin, The Masked Singer and Dancing with the Stars. But when all is said and done, he’s just a bloke who eats cake for a living.
You’ll find Matt’s recipes and writing on taste.com.au, delicious.com.au and escape.com.au.
1. Who taught you to cook, and what’s the first thing you learned to cook?
I’m largely self-taught but as a hungry kid I was always interested in the “how”. The first thing I cooked was baked curried eggs with sultanas made under the grill in a small enamel dish. My mum kept it (the dish) and gave it to me before she died.
2. What’s one of your most treasured food memories?
Picking tomatoes from the greenhouse with my Grandfather when I was about four or five – I clearly remember the wondrously heady fragrance... and the heat. Eating minestrone with bread and marg with the woman I love in the basic back room dining table of Pellegrini’s in Melbourne when we started dating back in 1994.
3. Best and worst things your Mum or Dad cooked?
Mum - In order; her stuffed cabbage rolls (all silky leaves, crusty cheesy edges, rich mince and sausage filling) and her fish pie which was an act of ammonia-tinged child cruelty.
Dad - His South African-style curries, even if they came with sliced banana and sultanas. The worst was any time he lit the BBQ… we’d call the fire brigade and warn poison control.
4. Who would your dream dinner guest/s be (alive or not), and what would you cook for them?
Catherine the Great and her aunt Elizabeth Petrova. So many good stories, so many brilliant innovations, and they both loved a party. Leonardo da Vinci could drop in for shits and giggles.
I’d make homemade Neapolitan pizza, air fryer pork crackling with Asian herbs and a chilli caramel, glassy-skinned chicken wings (air fryer again) with chipotle and tamarind ketchup, and a mayo (made at the table). Then, classic trifle with table-side instant raspberry sorbet with white chocolate and a Snickers and a mint Aero bar. All wonders of modern cookery!
5. What are the ingredients or flavours you could not live without?
Feta. Parmesan. Lemon. Kasuri Methi. Garlic. Corn. Figs. My homegrown tomatoes. Melons. Chicken. Flour. Avocado. Eggs. Scallops, mud crab and bugs (Morton Bay or Balmain). Chorizo. Goat’s cheese, honey and witlof. Plus cured meats (especially jamon and mortadella), a really good cheese board, grapes, fresh herbs, more citrus, fish sauce, gochujang, soy sauce, ice cream.
6. What’s the one ingredient you always splurge on, no matter the cost?
Cheese or shellfish but never together.
7. Name your best tip, trick or hack for entertaining at home?
I’m probably best known for introducing instant mayonnaise, two-ingredient flatbreads, the burnt Basque cheesecake and instant sorbet to the Australian kitchen 10 to 15 years ago.
8. What do you cook when you just can’t be bothered or when time is short?
Pasta, or a selection of restrained salads of no more than three ingredients.
9. What’s currently on your playlist when you’re in the kitchen?
Royal Otis’ version of ‘Murder on the Dancefloor’
Body Type’s ‘Holding On’
Otis Redding ‘That’s How Strong My Love Is’
Anything by Alice Skye or Maple Glider
10. What’s your ultimate food treat?
Eating with my family
Travelling for street food
White truffles you’ve foraged for yourself served with homemade egg yolk tagliolini, a little butter and a lot of truffle. Smug self-satisfaction and taste overload combined.
11. What’s the most memorable thing you’ve ever eaten, and where did you eat it?
Too many – I have pretty much 100% recall for anything truly delicious I have eaten… and I’ve eaten a lot of very good stuff. There was a salad of fresh porcini, white truffle and shaved parmesan with lemon juice in Bologna that haunts my dreams from when I was in Italy with my mates for the World Cup. And then there were some red prawns in Sicily that were transcendental. You can read about my favourite experiences like this at www.escape.com.au. There was also a donut peach in Donostia (in San Sebastian) that I daydream about.
12. Name a favourite destination for food/dining?
Japan, Italy, Spain, India, Vietnam, Thailand, Portugal, France, Australia, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Copenhagen, Lima, Barcelona, Istanbul… come on, everywhere is amazing if you know where to eat… even Dunedin.
13. What’s the dish you’d travel across the world for?
Anything made with love, and cooked with care and knowledge.
14. Which food destinations are you yet to visit?
Pakistan, Laos and Cameroon.
15. In all your years on MasterChef, what’s one of your most memorable moments?
We tend to remember the big moments – filming with the Dalai Lama, filming in Nitmiluk, working with Prince Charles, standing on the podium of the UN General Assembly to set a challenge, or filming in Hong Kong or Paris, in the shadow of Mt Fuji or under the Statue of Liberty on a deserted/closed Liberty Island, but it’s actually the more personal moments, all contestant driven. like the joy on Julie and Poh’s face when they surprisingly made the first ever MasterChef final, a contestant talking about growing up hungry in Soviet era Russia where “poverty tasted of potatoes and boiled onions”, and all those times they did amazing things and surprised themselves… and delighted us. And, of course, that plate drop which has developed a life all of its own… or so my kids tell me when doof-sticks crowned with that moment float above the packed dance floors at Festivals they are at… that’s just plain weird. And they definitely aren’t impressed to see their old Dad there at 3am!
