It's the MasterChef quarterfinal...
..and this heat's six best cooks are back.
The competition is strong out there, but that competition
is making me push myself.
Anyone who says they're not nervous, there's definitely
something wrong with them.
I'm just going to go in there,
keep calm and work through it.
I'm feeling super proud to have made it this far.
I'm just excited to get going and cook.
I believe I can win this competition. Yes.
It's do or die, win or lose.
Hopefully I'm a winner today.
We have six incredible cooks from this week's heat.
Plus there are only three places in Knockout Week.
These guys have got bundles of talent,
but they've got to deliver on the big day.
It's a big day.
You're not just going to present your food to me and John,
you are going to be cooking for a guest...
..renowned food critic...
..the one and only Jay Rayner.
Your brief today is to make a pie.
It can be sweet or savoury, but you have to make
the pastry yourself and it has to be with accompaniments.
It's got to be a complete thing.
It mustn't just be pastry and a filling
trying to make friends.
At the end of this, three of you will go through to Knockout Week.
That does mean that three of you will be leaving the competition.
So 90 minutes, to cook for us a perfect pie.
Let's cook.
I love a pie.
Making a pie is not easy,
particularly in the short amount of time that they've got.
BEEPING
Oh, that's me.
It's all going to be about timekeeping and scheduling today.
Whatever the fillings of those pies are, they have to be complete.
It has to be a fully merged set of flavours.
I'll be interested to see what they come up with.
Haddy's surprised us with the food of The Gambia and also Greece.
I really think that's absolutely delicious.
She does brilliant flavour.
Can she stick it all in a pie?
I'm not going to lie, every minute here is nerve-racking.
And then seeing a food critic, I'm going to be very nervous.
But I'm going to put on this smile and pretend that everything is OK.
Haddy is making us a mango pie.
Chunky, juicy, cooked mango filling
with lemon juice and some nutmeg and some cinnamon there as well.
Her pastry fascinates me.
She's making shortcrust pastry with butter, flour and vodka.
And the reason she's using vodka is because apparently it stops
the gluten from forming.
I've seen vodka used in batter and you end up with a crispy layer
on the outside. Maybe that's exactly the same thing.
With that, we've got caramelised coconut balls and we've got
a coconut ice cream.
Mangoes and coconut on a plate.
They're a marriage made in heaven.
Haddy, why a mango pie? What's the inspiration?
For me, mango holds lots of beautiful memories
from being a young girl,
planting mangoes myself, which are now gigantic trees.
Do you do much baking in The Gambia?
No, not at all. We don't have a single oven in The Gambia.
All my life in The Gambia, I cooked with only firewood and charcoals.
I started making desserts when I moved to England like five
years ago, and this will be my second
tart/pie I've ever made.
You know, I like to think I've tried most things.
I'm not entirely sure I have tried a mango pie before.
It's an interesting fruit.
It can go to mush if it's overcooked.
It will also be very, very juicy
and juice is not necessarily a friend of pastry.
Haddy's great challenge is not to bring you something
with an utterly juicy, soggy bottom.
I've got to say right now, there's some danger points here for me.
And that pastry and that mango filling not falling apart seems
to be the greatest one.
Yeah, it's not 100% what I practised for.
I think I didn't measure it right.
I think I forgot a bit of my butter.
Steve loves classic British crowd pleasers.
He brings a twist, but that's what he loves.
Bright red chicken,
steak with cocoa and coffee on the outside of it.
I mean, this is stuff which is just a little bit
out of the ordinary.
What sort of twist is he going to put on a pie?
The inspiration behind this is mainly for my late father-in-law.
Just let me take a minute for this one. Yeah. Erm...
My father-in-law, he passed away last year with dementia,
and he always loved his sweet pies.
So this means a massive amount to get this right today.
It would mean the world.
So, Steve, I can see some cherries on your bench.
You certainly can.
So I'm doing a cherry lattice pie with an almond ice cream.
Ooh. This is an old recipe that I've done for my late father-in-law.
He loved desserts, you know, and up until pretty much, you know,
he passed away, he was like always, "Oh, do me a cake, do me a pastry,
"do me whatever." So when you saw this brief, was it a kind of
punch the air moment? It was. But am I overconfident?
That's the thing. Have I put a lot of pressure on myself?
If you think about the almonds and the cherry
and that lovely pastry all together,
you have got the flavour of a Bakewell tart.
He's making a lard pastry.
Half lard, half butter, cos as it cooks,
the lard melts and it fries.
And that means you get a lovely, crispy outside.
The cherry pie filling,
it needs to have the lattice over the top to allow the moisture
to come out of the cherry so it doesn't stay too wet.
That's difficult to do.
The pastry is falling to pieces.
It's getting warm in here.
So, yeah, it's going to be another close one.
I like to keep myself under pressure.
Aaron has mastered a fair amount of technique and he's got
a really good eye for presentation.
He's shown us a perfectly made lava cake.
He's cooked a duck breast.
You crisped that duck skin like a professional chef.
The guy knows a good plate.
It's a bombsite, but it smells good, so... Thank you.
I really need to do well today because it'll boost my confidence,
and it will mean that my mum's not my only fan.
So, Aaron, what are you making for me?
I am making a lobster pie and mash.
I'm doing a shortcrust flake pastry.
My filling is lobster, blended prawns with shallot,
and then a nice lobster bisque sauce to go with it.
I grew up in a little seaside town called Margate.
Going crabbing with my friends, putting out lobster pots,
I thought I'd kind of mix an East End pie and mash
with seaside influence.
Have you done this pie before? Never.
Oh.
Is that brave or foolhardy?
Both. I like to live life on the edge a little bit.
I'm a little concerned that he's decided to poach
the lobster before putting it in the pie.
Lobster, prawns - delicate things.
And you risk absolutely massacring them in the baking process.
JOHN: Then we're getting a mashed potato and a lobster bisque.
He's roasted off the shells from the lobster.
He's got brandy in there, and he's going to boil it down
until hopefully it thickens.
But he's never made it before.
I hope it works.
I'm not going to say I'm ahead of time
cos that will be my famous last words.
You are halfway, everybody. Halfway.
Lee loves takeaways, and he builds dishes around the takeaways
that he's loved for years.
I wanted these chillies to make me sweat.
I've got a bit of sweat on my brow and I'm really,
really pleased about that.
He seems versatile.
He's got great skill. He's calm.
That's the way to get a winning dish.
I'm definitely pushing myself because I've not made a pie
before and this is completely out of the comfort zone for me.
Bosh.
Lee, one crowded bench.
What are you making with it all?
A butter chicken shortcrust pie with a masala mash,
Indian spiced greens with a mint and coriander chutney.
Wow. OK. This is a bit of nostalgia for me.
So going back to my youth with my dad and my brother,
going down the football, after I'm going to get a balti pie
or, you know, a curry pie.
It was the ultimate treat of the day.
So I'm taking a classic British dish and putting my spin
on it effectively.
Every dish you've done for us so far has been themed
on your favourite takeaway. Yeah, this is my style of cooking.
It's what I like to eat at home.
I said, "Well, if I can spend the money on it, why not try and cook
"it myself just as better?" I love a good butter chicken.
I love a pie. You're bringing the two things together. No pressure.
JOHN: Take a curry and put it inside a pie.
What's not to like?
He's got to make sure that pie case is nice and crispy on the outside.
Hot chicken pie filling going inside,
that's the thing that worries me the most, cos he's making a hot
sauce as well as cooking the chicken.
Being a hot sauce, it could melt the pastry.
Masala mash, the challenge there is not to overwhelm
the flavours in the pie. Something on that plate has to be the star.
Do you like a little bit of mash with your butter?
I do like a bit of mash with my butter, mate.
HUMMING
Sorry, you guys can all hear my singing, can't you?
Pete, an employment lawyer with Vietnamese heritage,
and he draws on all the flavours of Southeast Asia.
The cake is really moist. I actually really like the miso.
Now, are those Asian flavours going to go in a pie?
Actually, if they do - brilliant!
So, Pete, lovely smells coming off your bench.
What kind of pie are you making for us?
A Vietnamese steak pie.
The Asian filling is a Vietnamese beef stew called bo kho.
Just your typical stew, but with a bit of soy sauce,
a bit of lemongrass. With wasabi mash.
Big flavours. Big flavours. You've got a pressure cooker.
I do. If I don't, it's going to be tough as old boots.
And what kind of pastry are you going for?
I've gone for a rough puff.
You lived a long time in the north-east. I did.
And you do love a pie. I love a pie.
Not after this week.
So he's got a hot beef stew made from shin in a pressure cooker
in only 30 minutes,
I hope that's going to be soft enough,
going into a pie dish
and then he's putting the pastry across the top.
Rough puff has got butter in it. Too much heat too quickly,
it starts to melt.
I think I'm pushing myself very hard with this dish.
The rough puff pastry is notoriously very fickle, so a lot of things
could go wrong, but I'm hoping I get them right today.
Guys, 15 minutes.
How long have they been in there? About ten minutes.
And how long cooking are they going to need? 25.
Shreya is a vegetarian who likes to cook with the flavours of India.
This was a perfect dish and I enjoyed every mouthful of it.
She's almost made us a pie already.
Can she do something similar and put a top on it?
This competition means a lot to me because I have always done things
according to my family, my friends.
Now, this is something that I have decided to do for me.
We've got the galette, which basically is a disc of pastry,
and then she's going to top that with a jackfruit curry.
Jackfruit is a tough vegetable.
It's already half cooked. But you've got to cook it some more to get lots
and lots of flavour in it.
She's going to add to the jackfruit loads and loads of spices and build
those flavours up.
She's serving the whole thing with creamy mashed potato.
Shreya, I tend to think of a galette as a tart.
Does that mean there won't be pastry over the top?
Yeah, it'll be open.
When I tried it with a double crusted pie,
the jackfruit was not the star of the dish.
And I really want the flavours of the jackfruit to come out.
Jackfruit is not easy to cook with, is it? Yeah. It's not.
It tends to not absorb all the flavours and it's challenging
to cook it through. Why choose it?
Is it special to you?
Jackfruit was the celebratory main ingredient in my family.
So if we were not having paneer, we were doing jackfruit.
So Shreya's doing us a jackfruit galette.
I do think a pie needs a pastry lid.
I'm slightly concerned that she hasn't really met the brief.
I just don't know how it's going to turn out. I'm just a bit stressed.
It's not set enough.
You have just six minutes left, please, everybody.
What a round.
Oh, tight.
Very tight.
What can you do?
If you watch a pie, it never bakes.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
SIGHING
Get that pie out now. You've got about 30 seconds, please.
That's it. Stop, everybody. Your time is up.
QUIETLY: Wow.
How did you get on? Really bad. Oh, mate.
It is what it is.
Inspired by memories of growing up by the seaside,
recruitment business manager Aaron has made a shortcrust lobster
and prawn pie, with buttered mashed potato and a lobster bisque.
So, Aaron, one of the most disappointing things that can happen
when you cut into a pie is you find lots of air.
You don't with this. It's chock-a-block.
The pastry is seasoned very well indeed.
And as for the mash, there are pie shops in south east London
who would be very proud to serve that.
The actual filling itself, really nicely seasoned.
Your bisque is OK.
A good whack of brandy and it needs to be a little bit thicker.
I think that's an absolute cracker of a pie.
Great big chunks of lobster in there, sweet and buttery.
I don't think you've quite got there with the sauce, but I think
the pie is luxurious and rather lovely.
In terms of what Jay said, absolutely over the moon.
I could have used a bit more brandy in my bisque, but I hear some
of them have got to drive home later.
Cybersecurity consultant Shreya is serving
a curried jackfruit and coriander galette,
made with rough puff pastry, flavoured
with onion, garlic, turmeric and chilli powder,
served with a curry sauce and garlic mashed potato.
You were worried about getting flavour into the jackfruit. You have.
There's a nice spice to it and I'm really enjoying that.
Your mashed potato is full of butter. Your sauce is creamy.
I understand the galette, but folding the end over is denying
you a nice edge because we've got no form at all with it.
That jackfruit filling could probably do with a little bit
more sauce around the outside of it, cos it's going slightly dry.
The sauce, there's depth to the spicing.
My whole mouth is kind of firing away.
Is it a pie? Nah, not really.
But it's a very nice dish.
Thank you.
I am happy that I got positive comments from Jay Rayner
and that tells me that I am a good cook.
Auto engineer Lee's shortcrust butter chicken pie is served
with masala mash, spiced green beans,
and a mint and coriander chutney.
That is a triumph.
I've got lovely buttery pastry,
I've got even softer buttery chicken.
And inside there I've got a slight tomato sweetness and spice.
I think you've nailed it.
Honestly, Lee, if you wanted to pack in the day job and go and sell
these down a football ground every Saturday afternoon,
you would make a mint.
That pastry is spectacular.
Your filling's gorgeous.
It does the thing that a pie should do, which is that the full
filling sort of merges into the bottom layer of the pastry.
That's brilliant. Absolutely bang-on the money.
Chicken thigh is nice and moist.
The mashed potato underneath has the flavour with that mint chutney
of a samosa. And it's filling me with joy.
That's... I did not expect that at all.
All I wanted to hear was Jay Rayner enjoy my food,
and I couldn't ask for much more.
Employment lawyer Pete has made his Vietnamese take on a steak pie,
a spiced lemongrass and soy sauce beef stew,
topped with a rough puff pastry lid,
served with wasabi mashed potato, star anise carrots,
and a gravy from the stew liquor.
As a kid you dream of opening into a meat pie and coming up
with chunks of beef as big as that. You dream of it.
But they are a little dry.
You haven't had enough time to cook them down and melt them down as much
as you would. The only pastry on your pie is the lid.
It's hanging over the edge in some bits,
it's ripped in others.
It's just the fact that as soon as you put that rough puff pastry
on top of a hot casserole, that starts to melt
and then the pastry starts to fall apart.
It is a very, very flavoursome Vietnamese beef casserole
with a pastry top on it.
I like your sauce. Very much like your wasabi mash.
The beef stew has been made with lots of really good beef stock.
There's soy in there, all the things you want in that kind of Asian stew.
And I love them.
But it's not a pie.
It was always going to be a risk just putting the top on.
The comments were completely fair.
I knew when I took the pastry out, it was melting in my hands.
It just looked a mess. Yeah.
Inspired by her childhood in The Gambia, Haddy has made a lemon
and cinnamon shortcrust mango pie...
..served with coconut ice cream and caramelised coconut bonbons.
Dessert is an indulgence, and if you're going to eat it,
you want to feel it's worth it. And, boy, is this worth it.
It's a proper fruit pie that makes you smile when you look at it,
and even more so when you taste it.
The balance of spice in that mango puree is bang-on.
Your coconut ice cream, delicious.
Just five years ago, you hadn't seen an oven, and then you come
up with this. That's amazing. Well done.
Thank you.
I didn't think wet mango in a puree would hold together in a pie,
but the mango filling, I think it's absolutely delicious.
Coconut ice cream, it's very, very good.
Good job.
Your pastry work is absolutely perfect, and that mango
is going soft like the inside of an apple pie.
I like your coconut bonbon here.
That's seriously sweet.
I think that's an exceptional piece of work
and an absolute glorious pie, and a wonderful dessert.
Oh, my God. Jay giving me those comments,
I was like...
All I had to do was just look at him and just smile and smile
cos I couldn't stop. It was like an incredible moment of my life.
As an homage to his late father-in-law,
IT manager Steve has made a cherry lattice pie
in a lard and butter shortcrust pastry,
served with an almond and vanilla ice cream.
There's nothing shy about this, is there, Steve?
Not at all. We've got two massive big flavour bombs
of cherry and almond there, that's for sure.
I probably couldn't eat a whole one.
The pastry on the top could do with a bit more cooking.
I think it's probably a little bit too short and that's maybe
where it's gone a little bit wrong for you here.
From what I could see, you were playing around with the lattice work
so much, and the more you played with it, the hotter it got
and the wetter it got. Yeah. Your ice cream isn't thick, creamy
ice cream, but the flavour is absolutely delicious.
It reminds me of, like, marzipan, but I would just rename it.
Cold cream with almonds and sugar.
Oh, Steve. I was very excited about this one.
I loved the story behind it as well.
That pastry is too short.
It hasn't really cooked. Your cherries are under-sweetened
and I am stone-cold certain that you've made this
much, much better many, many times.
But the curse of the MasterChef kitchen,
it's a tough place.
I am disappointed with my performance today.
Maybe I was overconfident and that's where I fell down.
Because it's something that I do on a regular basis at home,
you have more time
and I think it was just the time that got to me.
It's always fascinating being here in your kitchen, and today
was more fascinating than most.
Is there truly memorable pies here, Jay?
Yeah, there absolutely is.
They turned in some really sterling work.
And you get to make the tough decision. Thank you very much.
Thank you. See you again. Thank you, Jay.
I mean, that's a proper test of your cookery skill,
cos pastry work is not easy.
I think pie of the day has got to go to Lee.
Lovely pastry. Great mashed potato.
Really good buttery chicken filling, lots and lots of spice.
It delivered.
For me, the surprise pie of the day is the one I thought,
"There's no way it's going to work." And it was absolutely brilliant.
It was Haddy's mango pie.
Short pastry across the top with that mango,
it had the sort of reminiscence of a country apple pie,
but with the flavours of the tropics.
I thought it was a glorious piece of work.
She is bringing something different to the MasterChef kitchen.
We've only got one more place.
Who's joining Lee and Haddy in Knockout Week?
Shreya's flavours were absolutely delicious.
It wasn't very smart, but the pastry work itself was good.
The thing is, Jay said he doesn't believe it was a pie.
The brief is for a pie.
Pete made an absolutely wonderful Vietnamese beef stew
and put a pastry top across the top of it.
In my mind, that's a pie.
What I have got a problem with was the scruffy nature
of the pie top.
The Vietnamese beef stew didn't cook evenly.
The pastry across the top was unwieldy.
Can we forgive those mistakes?
Aaron, lobster pie. Really well encased and big chunks of lobster
in there, but the bisque didn't quite have the flavour it needed.
The issue is this - when you cut into a pie,
you want wet and you want ooze.
The ooze had to come from the bisque.
The bisque wasn't great.
Steve's got great style, but the cherries
were a little too sharp.
The pastry needed a little bit more cooking,
but it still tasted good.
Timing was not his friend today.
It's something he's made many times before.
It wasn't spot-on, but I'm sure if you gave him another go
it would be absolutely perfect.
We've only got one place in Knockout Week left
for these four. Who stays and who goes?
There is amazing cooks out there who actually delivered a pie,
so I'm not really sure if I've done enough.
Really mixed feelings at the minute, because for Jay to say that my food
was delicious was obviously incredible.
But there were key flaws in the dish.
I think I have taken a risk today to make a pie that I've not done
before, so fingers crossed it pays off.
Timing is one of my biggest nemeses
and my nemesis caught up with me today.
This is going to be touch-and-go.
Well done. Pastry is not easy.
At the start of this, we did say three people are going through.
And that does mean that three of you will be leaving the competition.
There was one person who literally knocked it out of the park.
Lee, congratulations.
You've got yourself a place in Knockout Week.
For us, there was somebody else who was really daring and delivered
something truly delicious.
Haddy, congratulations.
You've got a place in Knockout Week.
Thank you.
Right.
Just one more place in Knockout Week.
The third person is...
..Aaron.
Shreya, Steve, Pete, thanks so much indeed.
I think I've grown a lot with this competition.
I am definitely going to take back a more confident Shreya.
That's something that only the MasterChef experience
could get me.
It's been a thrilling ride. I've loved it.
And this is just the start for me.
I'll look back on this as a one-in-a-lifetime experience.
It's been amazing.
Every bit of it has been amazing.
CHEERING
Touch me. Let me feel like it's real.
I am buzzing, like I'm so excited right now.
Oh, my God.
I feel like I'm living a dream at the moment.
It feels amazing to be in Knockout Week.
I need to ramp it up and really showcase what I can do.
Is it real? Trust me, it's real. Pinch me.
I know it's going to be hard and I know the competition
is going to ramp up. But I've got this fire and I'm ready
to go all the way.
Next time, six more home cooks compete for the right to wear
a MasterChef apron...
You behaved.
Your sesame crackers are burning. Oh, no.
That's a cracker of a dish.
..before battling for a place in the quarterfinal.
Should we give it the test? Go on, then. It wobbles!