What next for MasterChef 2012 winner Shelina Permalloo?

Hurrah for Shelina, the first female MasterChef champion since 2005. We look at what she might do now.

In our popularity poll the day before the final, nearly 70% of you chose Shelina Permalloo as your MasterChef. Just a few hours later we saw her crowned the 2012 champion. So we’ve been burrowing into her background to learn a little more about the lady in question…

Then

Born in Southampton, Shelina grew up in a Mauritian family and credits her mum Sheila for teaching her how to cook. Shelina was Shelia’s sous chef (how’s that for a tongue twister) and only ate Mauritian food at home – a colourful blend of Portuguese, Arabic, Chinese, French, African and Indian cuisines.

Despite dreams of becoming a chef, a teenage Shelina went to uni and, psychology degree in tow, ended up working for charities. She gave up her job to concentrate on MasterChef.

Now

Now 29, Shelina beat Andrew Kojma and Tom Rennolds to take the 2012 MasterChef crown. Her highlights? Anything to do with mango. We drooled over her mango millefeuille with dulce de leche caramel slice and white chocolate sorbet, and would have trampled Gregg Wallace to get to those spiced scones with coriander cream cheese and mango relish.

Her winning menu: Octopus served on marinated fennel with pickled ginger, sliced baby beetroot carrots and concasse tomatoes served with brown shrimp jelly, mango and apple vinegar and tobiko

Mutton curry served with a mustard seed and turmeric marinated bone marrow, biryani rice and a chili pumpkin quenelle Swiss chard roulade stuffed with green banana pickle

Mango cannelloni filled with lime curd, coconut and rum blancmange samosas filled with white chocolate, crème fraiche, and mango jelly squares

Future

Street food: We’d love to see Shelina’s Mauritian delights at t'market. Flavoursome, nutritional, super tasty, and often suitable for veggies, it’s the kind of grub that belongs next to the falafel stand. She’s based in Tooting, London so maybe Brixton market first?

Restaurant: Mauritian restaurants are few and far between, and Shelina admitted on MasterChef that she wanted her own place. Her female predecessor Thomasina Miers, who won the competition in 2005, now has a whole chain of Wahacas.

Cookbook: Keen as she is to start a Mauritian food revolution, Shelina wants to publish her recipes so that we can all have a crack at them. Any cookbook she wrote would probably include vegan and vegetarian recipes too.

Do you think Shelina deserved to win? And what will she do with her new-found fame? Let us know in the Comments box below.

Mango recipes
Kevin Dundon's tiger prawns with mango dressing

Gary Rhodes' Malaysian curry puffs

Rachel de Thample's Thai-spiced fishcakes

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