My Kitchen Rules winners Amy and Tyson share their home-cooking tips

Queensland siblings Amy and Tyson Murr have been crowned winners of My Kitchen Rules for 2017, clinching their victory with a menu of pea and ham soup, parmesan and truffle mousse, a seafood course of butter poached marron and a veal and sweetbreads main.

The duo share how they like to cook at home, away from the glare of the cameras.

What's your go-to recipe when entertaining family and friends?

Amy: We'd probably go to a standard barbecue; we love to cook a steak on the barbie, with a potato salad.

Tyson: I like to flip the steak as often as possible and serve it medium rare. The key is to make sure that it's room temperature when you cook it, and don't just use it cold, straight from the fridge.

Amy: For the potato salad, you want lovely boiled potatoes that aren't stodgy, and then bacon, egg, shallots and a mix of sour cream and mayonnaise. That's the perfect potato salad.

You made a lot of great boozy sorbets and desserts on the show. What's the trick to getting it right every time?

Tyson: A good sorbet is a great crowd pleaser; a home-made ice cream can knock the socks off anyone. We had a lot of interest in our desserts because they are a bit different. I love classics like chocolate, but use a dark chocolate to make it bitter. I'm playing with a brown butter ice cream at the moment, and we did a really fresh cucumber sorbet for the semi-finale that was quite cool.

My sneaky little trick for ice cream to use xanthan gum to stop it from going too icy; you add it in with then you beat the sugar and eggs together. I use five egg yolks to 200 grams of sugar, and half a teaspoon of xanthan gum. It really helps to hold it together.

For sorbet, my biggest tip is to use glucose syrup. I don't use egg white in the sorbet, I just dissolve sugar into the water, cook it for a decent amount of time to reduce it to syrup consistency and then make it as cold as possible before you churn it.

How can you trick up a quick midweek meal?

Amy: We did a quick fish dish in the 90 minute three-course challenge. We made Spanish mackerel with crisp skin and pickled zucchini and charred broccoli. People do steamed vegetables and it comes out quite bland but it doesn't have to be; we just dressed the broccoli with some olive oil and vinegar.

For the pickles, you just cook the zucchini for a couple of minutes, and then soak it in a pickling mix of sugar, vinegar, salt and water. We use turmeric and black mustard seeds for flavour and colour. It's ready after 30 minutes or you can leave it in as long as you want.

What are five ingredients you always keep in the pantry?

Amy: Salt, pepper, chilli flakes (I put them on everything), vinegar and Vegemite.

Tyson: Salt, pepper, olive oil, butter and dijon mustard.

What is the most important technique you learned for the competition?

Tyson: I taught myself to make ice creams and sorbets for the show; I gave myself a crash course and thank god I picked up really fast. I made an absolute tonne of ice creams and didn't eat any of them. I just cooked as much as possible.

Amy: I think just doing your research; watching lots of you-tube videos and picking up on common themes.

Any tips for future hopefuls?

Amy: I would say that you have to pick the right person to go on the show with. I am bossy and can be quite a bit of a lunatic, whereas Tyson is very patient and tolerant. And practice, practice, practice.