It's the battle for the ultimate culinary prize.
Oh!
58 of the country's best home cooks...
I need to stop shaking.
..all with their hearts set...
Fingers crossed.
Your sesame cracker's burning. Oh, no!
..on the coveted MasterChef trophy.
That's a cracker of a dish.
Absolutely ace.
I'm so happy. I just want to dance.
Each week, 12 extraordinary amateur talents...
Come on, come on, come on.
..battle for a place in the quarterfinal.
I think it's exceptionally good.
I can't fault it.
But only the best can earn their passport...
I think we need to kick it up a little bit.
..to the ultimate culinary showdown.
Upstairs there is bow ties,
there's ballgowns, and there are Michelin stars.
Who's got what it takes?
Who can hold on tight, all the way to the end?
We are about to eat ourselves to an absolute standstill.
I'm ready. Let's go!
These six passionate home cooks
all think they've got what it takes
to become MasterChef Champion.
But at the end of today's heat, only three will make it through
to this week's quarterfinal.
I'm telling myself I'm not nervous.
So far, it's working quite well.
I'm sure that that will slowly start to wane.
I've been cooking every single day.
I'm an avid Leeds fan and I missed a Leeds game for this.
To be cooking for John and Gregg,
it's a massive privilege.
You know, if I'd seen them outside, I'd run to take
an autograph or something, but today I'll be
standing next to them and it's just amazing.
Welcome, all six of you, to the MasterChef kitchen.
This is your opportunity to show
Gregg and I how good a cook
you really are.
This round we call...
..Basic to Brilliant.
Taking an everyday item that's in
your shopping basket and turning it
into something absolutely wonderful.
What we're going to do is, we're going to taste everybody's
dish, and then me and John
will choose our two favourites,
and those cooks will get themselves
an apron and they will go straight through to the next round.
You have an hour and 20 minutes.
Off you go.
19-year-old philosophy student
Khinley grew up with his Korean mum's cooking
and now puts his own spin on it.
My style of cooking is definitely fusion, combining elements
which people don't expect, but also
managing to pull it off and
not making it...a bit weird.
Khinley, what's your ingredient, please?
I'm highlighting the humble potato.
Wow! Yeah. Tell me the dish.
So, I'm making potato gnocchi,
served with spicy Korean stew,
and I will have a side of a mango muchim,
which is like a kimchi,
but it's not been fermented.
If you want to do Korean flavours, why are you doing gnocchi?
My dad works for the Foreign Office,
and my parents have moved out
to Rome relatively recently.
Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.
He's making us gnocchi.
He's got to make that gnocchi nice and fluffy.
He's got to put it into a pot -
when it floats to the top, it's ready to go.
With that gnocchi, we are getting
a Korean-style pork stew
using pork neck.
And then we've got this mango sort of salsa on the side.
Mango and potato is an interesting combination.
I have no idea what it's going to be like.
I just hope the whole thing comes together.
30-year-old Ben has a high-pressure job installing large LED screens
for advertising and corporate events.
Cooking, compared to the day job, is my relaxation.
It's go home at night, take four hours...
..which might not translate very well, so much...!
But, yeah, take my time and enjoy myself and just relax.
Ben, tell us about cookery in your life.
I grew up kind of eating a lot of brown freezer food from my mum
and then got inspired by watching TV chefs, seeing
all these exciting flavours and wondering why
every night I'm sitting down to chips and breaded chicken.
What's your ingredient that you've chosen?
Prawns. Got citrus prawns with a...
..prawn, chilli and garlic raviolo, bouillabaisse sauce,
compressed tomatoes, fennel,
little bit of rocket, a few red olives.
And you can do all of this stuff,
including your own pasta - filled pasta - inside that time?
We'll find out! I hope so!
We're having a citrus prawn.
The problem with doing prawns with citrus is, they are acid
and that draws out moisture.
Underneath that, we're going to get
a puree of watercress and wasabi.
There's lots of flavours going on here.
I hope the prawns have got a chance of
surviving with all the big flavours.
50-year-old Yogita moved to
the UK 22 years ago and dreams
of opening a cooking school, teaching her native
South Indian cuisine.
Growing up in India, there's always food in our house.
The recipes were all, like, passed on from generations,
from my grandmother and my mother.
So, food has always been a big part of our lives.
Do you have a style, would you say?
Vegetarian food, always.
Because I grew up back in South India, in a small town.
So I still keep to my...the rustic
cooking that I've been brought up with.
What is your everyday ingredient, please?
Today I'm going with brinjal. Brinjal...
It's an aubergine.
Yogita...
..she's taking small aubergines she calls brinjal.
She's going to stuff the aubergines with a mixture of
sweet coconut, spicy peanuts,
and it's going to be cooked in the pressure cooker,
so the aubergines go lovely and soft.
That's all going into a sauce with tomato and tamarind.
As long as that aubergine is cooked all the way through,
that sounds fantastic.
30 minutes have gone.
All right?
BLENDER WHIRS
Civil servant Max was born in Kenya
and started cooking when he moved to the UK 12 years ago.
I would reminisce about foods that my mum made for me.
I would ring her up and would spend hours with her on the phone,
just talking me through on how to make things
that I would miss the most.
You don't have very many ingredients on your bench.
It's fascinating me. So, my main ingredient is banana.
We didn't grow up with much, and there were times that the only
food that was available in the house was bananas.
So my mum would make caramelised bananas with roti.
And as a child, that was absolutely divine.
What is the dish?
So, I'm making a caramelised banana tart with salted caramel sauce,
caramelised banana ice cream
and a spicy peanut brittle.
Whoa!
I know desserts are your weak point, so I'm hoping that
that apron makes its way to me.
A banana is intensely sweet,
and we are getting it with caramel sauce, which is sweet.
I'm hoping that tart case has not got too much sugar in it, and I hope
the ice cream, he hasn't put too much sugar in that, either.
Sunderland-based Tatiana was taught to cook
by her French-Italian mother.
I have Asperger's syndrome, and
trying to integrate myself socially
has become a big thing for me.
And... INDISTINCT
Cooking is a comfort because if you're eating,
everyone else is eating.
Everyone has something to talk about,
and it is just a way to break the ice.
Tatiana has got carrots...
..and I'm really, really fascinated by what she's doing.
She's making us a carrot taco.
So, instead of the tortilla using water, she's going
to use carrot juice.
She's making it like a carrot stock, with grated carrots and red onions.
Then she's using the carrot peel
to actually make chimichurri.
Then we've also got roasted carrots
with a yeast extract across the top.
It could have the flavour and
texture of a lovely soft piece of meat,
as long as that carrot's cooked really, really well.
Tatiana, what do you do?
I'm an archaeologist.
No way! Yeah.
So, are you away on digs?
Yes, I am. Probably about three quarters of the year.
What, like, up to your waist in mud? Muddy trenches?
Yeah, or in summer, dust.
Lots of dust!
If you're away in digs in the middle of fields and stuff,
digging trenches, what do you cook on?
In my accommodation, I've actually developed a kitchen suitcase
where I've got, like, an induction hotplate, pans,
I've got a mini oven in there.
I've even got a thermometer with it.
That's how much I cook in a hotel room.
I'm amazed.
15 minutes left, everybody.
15 minutes left.
21-year-old Abi currently works
in sales for her dad and enjoys cooking with Asian flavours.
I think the pressure of the competition is probably
going to be a lot more than the day job, although it is pressure
being the daughter of the boss in the family business.
We own a food manufacturing business based in Leeds.
So we've got two factories that
make mayonnaise and coleslaw and pasta salad.
So, you can see I'm adding a pickled Asian slaw as a homage
to my family, I suppose.
What's your ingredient, please?
It's an onion. So...just a plain, white onion.
So, I'm doing beef tataki.
So, it's a seared beef with
three different kinds of onions
and a sesame cracker.
She's taking onions,
she's caramelising some with some miso,
so that should be sort of slightly meaty and quite salty.
Crying!
Very strong onions.
She's doing fried onions with garlic
and then she's doing raw, chopped onions with a ponzu sauce,
Japanese sauce - mixture between dashi and soy,
but a little bit sharper.
Tataki of beef - tataki is where you sear it and
slice it very, very thinly.
Really nice, dark colour on the outside and be almost
completely raw in the middle.
You have just ten minutes, please.
Forgot to butter the, er, tart tray.
Hey! You behaved!
My pastry's failed.
I'm going to make use of what I have and hope for the best.
Abi.
Your sesame cracker's burning.
It's on the stove. Oh, no!
You have just two minutes.
You've got enough. You're OK.
They survived, just about.
You've got just 60 seconds,
ladies and gentlemen.
Right, stop. Time's up.
Well done, everybody.
Very well done.
Ooh. That was hellish.
HE INHALES DEEPLY
Archaeologist Tatiana has taken
the humble carrot and made a carrot juice tortilla,
filled with yeast-extract-roasted carrots,
carrot slaw, carrot skin chimichurri,
and feta.
The fact that you've taken a carrot and used a whole carrot
and its peel and its juice...
..is very, very clever indeed.
A really soft, lovely taco
that works brilliantly well.
My favourite on there is that
yeast extract carrot.
Slight bit of meatiness, and then
straight into the soft, natural sweetness of the carrot.
That, to me, is something you would order in a restaurant.
That's really quite delicious.
I'm actually really happy with the comments I got.
John said I could sell this in a restaurant.
That's insane.
Opting to highlight the potato,
student Khinley has made gnocchi
with a pork stew spiced with
Korean chilli paste, served
with a pickled mango relish.
Your gnocchi are nicely made,
but I think we're losing them,
stirring them into your stew,
and they're also breaking up.
And the mango and gnocchi is...
..odd, for me.
Really, really odd.
The flavour in there, those Korean flavours of sesame seeds and chilli
and spices and a little bit of
sourness and sharpness is great,
..but the pork is too tough.
I have a few kinks to iron out,
and I think those are very helpful comments and they're things
that I can work on.
South-Indian-born Yogita has stuffed her brinjal aubergines
with spiced coconut, peanuts and sesame, and served them
with a tamarind tomato sauce,
coconut rice, a beetroot raita,
and a mung bean salad.
Is there any more aubergines or just one?
There is loads more, yeah.
Because if you're going to highlight the aubergine,
I think that we need it to be more aubergine.
You have a sauce with sharp, with tamarind,
sweet, with tomatoes,
and in the middle of that sauce,
you have an absolutely delicious aubergine.
I love the coconut and peanuts inside.
The aubergines themselves have become really soft, and I think
that is really, really wonderful.
Your coconut rice is divine...
Thank you. ..and that raita is lovely.
But it's supposed to be an aubergine dish.
You need to feature the aubergine more.
Relieved.
Probably could have served a little bit more of the aubergine,
but I think I'm quite pleased with how it's turned out.
Operations director Ben has
taken prawns and served them
in a prawn raviolo.
He's also served citrus-baked prawns,
watercress and wasabi,
compressed tomatoes
and a fennel snow,
finished with a prawn bouillabaisse sauce.
Ben, you've taken on a huge amount of work.
Your prawn sauce...
..is the best thing.
And your ravioli, I think the actual
parcel itself is made really, really nicely.
The prawns themselves,
the problem with citrus is that when you put it on something,
it starts to cook it.
And so what's happening is they're going powdery and dry.
You obviously have technique,
but the dish doesn't work as a dish, in my opinion.
I've got a lovely shellfish sauce with a well-made raviolo.
And then I've got a great big chunk
of watercress and wasabi.
Those things do not go together.
Overall, I'm feeling OK.
I definitely think, moving forward, I'm going to have to
pare back a few little things.
Leeds-based Abi has served her
basic ingredient, onion, three ways.
Miso caramelised onions,
citrus ponzu onion salsa,
and crispy fried onions,
served with seared beef tataki Asian slaw
and a sesame cracker.
The beef - lovely. Lightly seared.
I think it's a really clever use of the onion.
I particularly like your caramelised onion on the bottom.
There's sweetness with the miso.
Your slaw - slightly pickled vegetables.
That's good.
The raw onions through the ponzu
I think is good because you get a sharpness.
But this cracker of yours
is a little bit scorched
because you caught fire and you can still smell
it and slightly taste it.
It's a shame, actually, because I think it's nicely made.
I'm feeling happy it's over, that first cook in the kitchen.
I set the kitchen alight,
which wasn't a great start -
that was just so stressful.
Kenyan-born Max has made
a caramelised banana tart
with a salted caramel sauce,
banana ice cream,
and a spicy peanut brittle.
It's not too sweet, as banana desserts often are.
The saltiness through that well-made caramel is nice.
Your ice cream,
lovely, smooth, creamy.
You have taken the banana
and done wonders with it.
The brittle, I think, is inspired.
I like the fact that you've used chilli salted peanuts
to get your brittle.
You've got some really nice skill here, Max.
I'm sad that your pastry stuck
to the side because this edge
here shows a really lovely bit of craft.
I want that apron really badly.
I'd be willing to fight somebody
for it, but I don't think that'll be permitted.
I've got to say, that was a fascinating round.
At the start of this, we said
that we would choose our two favourite dishes,
and then two of you would get an
apron and go straight through to the next round.
Our first contestant getting an apron is...
..Tatiana. Congratulations.
Delicious, clever. Well done, you.
Second contestant getting an apron...
..Max.
Well done. Max, although your pastry crumbled,
lots of technique. Well done, you.
Tatiana, Max, congratulations.
Up you come, grab your aprons.
Well done, the pair of you. Come on.
TAT: Thanks.
I am feeling elevated and
excited for the next stages of the competition.
It's definitely boosted my confidence.
I just didn't expect it. I'm...
..I think in shock more than anything else.
I am very relieved that
I don't have to cook again!
There are four of you here.
There are two aprons.
We've got a challenge for you which will show us
whether you can think on your feet.
In front of you, you all have eggs.
And we want you to make us brunch.
But that brunch must include
poached eggs and hollandaise.
And you can use any other ingredients
you like from that bench over there.
There is a recipe for hollandaise in front of you.
Follow the recipe and you'll be fine.
Look, time is tight.
45 minutes - we want brunch.
I don't have brunch that often, so it'll be interesting to see
how this turns out.
Just going with it in my head right now for this challenge.
I'm not really that sure.
People go out for brunch.
It's a celebratory thing.
It should be special.
The perfect poached egg.
We want a firm white.
We want a really soft yolk.
They've got a recipe for the hollandaise, so follow it.
Keep your nerve.
Don't let it split.
And they've got to select their ingredients to go
with the poached eggs and hollandaise wisely.
Texture and flavour is all-important with brunch.
What did you learn from that last challenge, Ben?
Just back off a little bit.
Try and get some clear flavours that go together.
Mushrooms, avocado, hollandaise, cayenne pepper, spinach...
I can see where this is going.
There's a lot going on again.
Ben doesn't seem to have learned a lesson from the last round,
and he seems to be piling lots of things onto the plate
without a clear idea of how it ends up as a brunch dish.
Khinley, you look remarkably chilled - are you?
To be honest, no.
I have very little experience
of hollandaise and experience of poached eggs.
Khinley is a very young man.
He's not going to have a great deal of experience.
I do really like, however, that he's made flatbreads -
and it gives him a bed to put
his egg and his hollandaise on.
Guys, 20 minutes gone.
Curdled? Yeah. What happened?
You just added butter too fast, do you think?
Are you going to start again?
What's your brunch going to consist of?
It's going to be some butter-poached asparagus.
Got some nduja to put with it as well.
Poached eggs and some hollandaise on the top.
I do like a brunch, but I can't eat gluten.
So there's no way you're going near a muffin or a bit of toast. No.
Yeah, I wouldn't even know what to do with it.
Abi doesn't eat gluten.
The thing is, that egg needs to sit on something.
It needs a bit of starch.
But there's potatoes there.
She could have done a hash brown.
I'm going to serve the poached egg with some asparagus...
..roasted with mushrooms on the side...
..and avocado, chilli and tomato salad.
Poaching eggs - how are you at poaching eggs?
I can poach them, not to shape.
Then I'll have to cut it and make it look nicer.
Make it pretty. Yeah.
I'm concerned about those poached eggs.
I've just seen a spoonful of egg, with the yolk
that's been broken, floating to the top.
You've got two minutes.
Ooh!
That's it! Stop! Everybody, stop.
Thank you very much.
Oh, geez!
Abi's gluten-free brunch dish
is butter-poached asparagus
with fried nduja, topped with
her poached egg,
hollandaise sauce and chilli flakes.
There you go, Abi.
There is a very, very good poached egg.
I love those flavours.
I like the snap of the asparagus.
I'm loving the chilli that's coming off that nduja,
that spreadable salami.
Your hollandaise is very, very good. It's nice and creamy, but what I'd
really like is something to mop it up with.
I'll tell you what, a hash brown, for me, underneath all that,
would have been fantastic.
It needed an addition of bread, but I don't eat bread.
So I was trying to sort of emulate what I would have chosen.
But I suppose I could have just added it for the diner and not
thought about myself. But, well...
Khinley's poached egg and hollandaise sauce are served
with smoked salmon on a home-made
flatbread with tarragon-fried mushrooms on the side.
That looks like a fine poached egg.
John's slightly disappointed.
Nothing personal. I think my yolk's disappeared.
You should be really proud of yourself that you persevered
and actually made that hollandaise.
Well done, you.
It's a decent texture.
It's slightly too sharp.
However...with the smoked salmon and the poached egg,
I think it works.
I really like those mushrooms
with the tarragon running through them.
But your flatbreads aren't cooked all the way through.
There's a few things that haven't quite worked out here, Khinley.
Yeah.
I feel exhausted, but quite happy with myself.
I'd never made a hollandaise before.
I somehow made one, so that's good.
Yogita has made toast topped
with her poached eggs and hollandaise,
served with an avocado, chilli and tomato salsa...
..chilli mushrooms
and fried asparagus.
I like your hollandaise.
I think your hollandaise is really good.
Your avocado's tasty enough.
The asparagus is nicely cooked.
The mushrooms are cooked very, very well.
But the egg that I've got is...
The white is all watery.
Because of that, the toast has become soggy in the centre.
My poached egg has a lovely yolk,
lovely runny yolk and a firm white.
But none of these things go together.
It's not a complete plate.
It's lots of things.
I could have done better, I think.
Personally, I mean, that's what I would have at brunch,
because mushrooms, avocado are my favourites.
So, I would, I would have that.
Finally, it's Ben, who has served
toast topped with cayenne-pepper-crushed avocado,
smoked bacon, poached egg and hollandaise sauce,
with a side of pan-fried wild mushrooms.
Where's the rest of the hollandaise?
Er, in a bowl...at the back.
I was probably a little bit stingy with that.
A little bit stingy?! Yeah!
That'll do for me, young man.
Poached egg, pretty decent, by my reckoning.
Like the texture of your hollandaise, like the acidity,
like the seasoning.
I like your bacon on the grill.
I think that's good, it's added a little bit of char to it.
Your herbs through your mushrooms - nice.
But I've got most of my plate left, I've got no hollandaise.
The comments, they were very mixed.
Maybe I need to think about...
Focus less on exactly how it looks
and a little bit more on, like, feeding people.
I'm surprised that not all of them
knew how to poach an egg perfectly.
Shall I tell you what the issue is?
Stress and MasterChef nerves.
That's what the issue is.
Abi - really good poached eggs, great hollandaise across the top.
It tasted good.
Nicely cooked asparagus.
But I, like you, would have liked
something starchy to mop up
the hollandaise and the egg yolk.
Khinley had never poached an egg before.
Well, mine wasn't brilliant. Yours was OK.
He had definitely never made hollandaise.
And he split the first sauce,
and he kept his head,
he persevered, and he got a hollandaise out.
Yogita - my poached egg
was not good at all.
Saying that, decent hollandaise,
but didn't come together as a coherent dish.
Ben's got the basic skills.
He did two decent poached eggs,
but he didn't put enough hollandaise on the plate.
John, we need to make a decision.
Two of them are going through to the next round.
Two of them are going home.
I'll be very disappointed if I went home now.
I feel like I've just gotten started
and I've got a lot more to show.
I hope John and Gregg can see
that I would really learn
from this experience, and I think I'm quite capable
of improving quite rapidly.
I hope I've done enough to stay in the competition.
I think it's very touch-and-go.
A little bit confident, but not fully.
For me to get the apron, it would be the biggest thing
I ever have achieved in my life.
At the start of this, we did say we've got just two aprons to give.
That does mean, sadly, that two of you will be leaving us.
Our first contestant getting an apron is...
..Abi.
Congratulations.
Our second contestant getting an apron and going through is...
It's Ben.
Congratulations, Ben.
A massive breath of relief, right?
Yeah. A little bit.
Yogita, Khinley - lovely to have met you.
Sad to say you're leaving us now.
I thoroughly enjoyed myself.
It was a great time.
But there has to be someone who goes home at this stage,
and it wasn't really my time to shine.
Am I going to continue cooking?
Absolutely. That's not going to go away.
I love cooking for friends and family and will continue
to do so for ever.
Congratulations.
Come and collect your aprons.
Feels great to get an apron.
I'm very happy now.
Just happy just to... Whew! ..face the next challenge.
Yeah, relieved, I think, is the main thing.
I wanted to make sure that I did myself proud.
It feels amazing to have it on -
it's a clean apron for now, as well!
You impressed enough to get yourself a MasterChef apron.
Well done.
Today is a big day.
You are going to present your food not just to John and I,
but to three past contestants of MasterChef.
Semifinalist Nisha Parmar,
and two MasterChef Champions -
Thomas Frake
and Saliha Mahmood-Ahmed.
Ah!
At the end of this,
three of you will be quarterfinalists.
That does mean one of you will be leaving the competition.
Two courses - one hour and 15 minutes.
It's got to be exciting and it's got to be delicious.
Let's go.
I have Indian heritage through my parents because they were
born in India.
I want to showcase different
cooking techniques and fuse it with
my Indian style of cooking.
What are your two courses?
My main course is going to be chicken ballotine,
which is stuffed with almond powder and fenugreek,
and masala pommes Anna,
and then classic butter chicken sauce.
My dessert is going to be a vanilla panna cotta
with mango chilli coulis.
As a child growing up in Kenya,
one thing I used to love is raw mango and dip it in a mixture
of salt and chilli and eat that.
And I want to recreate that.
That sounds deli...! I'm going to give that a go!
Max's food, I think, sounds really interesting,
and actually quite exciting.
He is taking the concept of buttered chicken
and turning it on its head
and putting it together in sort of almost a classic French style.
So, a ballotine, a joint of chicken, which is then bashed out.
The filling has got ground almonds and lots of spices.
Pommes Anna - classically, pommes Anna, little discs of potatoes,
lots and lots of butter, salt and pepper.
But we're getting turmeric and chilli going through the potatoes.
Fantastic!
Soft potatoes, please, crispy on the outside.
Chicken, nice and moist still.
It's got to be cooked all the way through.
A classic vanilla panna cotta,
one of my absolute favourites.
The temptation is to put too much gelatine in to make sure
it's properly set.
If he does that, it won't have a wobble,
it'll be like rubber.
Serving that with a coulis - mango and chilli.
What a beautiful idea.
We want just enough chilli to put a tingle on your tongue.
Thank you.
Tatiana,
she's making her own pasta, cooked with a puttanesca sauce -
a sauce made from tomatoes, capers, anchovies.
We get the sharpness coming from those capers in a little bit
of brine, and we get the saltiness coming from the anchovies.
She has to be very careful with the amount of other seasonings
she puts in, otherwise it can go over the top.
Mm.
Yeah. Tastes lovely.
Puttanesca - I have been doing this sauce for years.
It's... It's simple, it's bold.
But one of the issues with simplicity is there's
nowhere to hide.
There are so few elements.
It's all there on the table, literally!
SHE LAUGHS
For dessert, I'm doing black pepper gingerbread with
bourbon-flamed pears.
Tell me why you've introduced pepper.
I love gingerbread, but you don't get enough heat from it
most of the time, in my experience, and I just put black pepper
in it, just to bring that sort of kick in.
Ginger is strong, and we're talking
about upping the ginger pepperiness
with actually pepper itself.
I'm a bit nervous right now.
Right.
What is really appealing to me
is the pear, poached in bourbon...
CORK POPS
..with a reduced bourbon syrup,
then flambeed - set on fire.
I'm very much looking forward to this.
Mm.
Little bit more bourbon.
Ben, on your bench
we have everything from dried mushrooms and shredded chilli
to cauliflower and a block of chocolate.
BEN LAUGHS Indeed!
What wonderful two courses are you going to cook for us?
I'm going to do a sesame seeded tuna loin, which is seared,
with some miso-roasted cauliflower.
We've got a cucumber salad and
some crispy rice noodles as well, for a little bit of texture.
That's just the first course. Mm-hm.
What's the second course?
Yeah. So, we're going to have a venison loin.
We've got a little venison bonbon,
some celeriac puree, kale, mushrooms,
and a red wine chocolate sauce.
There's so much going on here.
Are you sure you can get it all done?
Yeah, I think I'll do it.
So, the menu's come from a couple of things.
So, the tuna has come from my love of sushi and I'm hoping to kind of
replicate that, in a way.
My main kind of represents that British mum style of food,
where it's nice, hearty portions,
but I don't think my mum would ever make any of the
ingredients on this - maybe kale, at a push!
Seared tuna and sesame seeds across the top -
that's fantastic.
Nice sear on the outside of the tuna
and it can be slightly rare on the inside.
Seared tuna, it should not be cold on the inside,
it needs to be just slightly cooked.
Venison is a forgiving meat and it can be quite rare.
But that ham, around the outside,
you want that to crisp up.
But sauces with chocolate...
..walnuts...
Not only are there lots of ingredients, there are also
lots of big flavours to manage.
Flavours that, if they're not managed carefully,
could well and truly clash.
Definitely a lot of nerves today.
I was shaking like a leaf when I was plating the first task.
It's very high pressure.
Now I just need to focus and hopefully calm down.
Abi, what are your dishes, please?
I'll be starting off with a prawn and harissa bisque
with a king scallop on a bed of samphire,
a tail-on prawn and a Parmesan crisp.
And for the main I'm doing lamb loin fillets with fondant potatoes,
pomegranate-and-mint carrots,
and a red wine jus.
First course, we have got
a prawn and harissa bisque -
so, a prawn sauce with harissa running through it.
Harissa's very strong, smoky in flavour,
made from red peppers and chillies.
I hope that that scallop can actually cope with those flavours.
I love the idea of carrots with pomegranate and mint.
That really works for me.
If Abi gets perfect pink lamb
with a really nice, reduced, strong sauce,
she is well on her way to a quarterfinal.
PAN SIZZLES
Guys, you've got just 30 minutes left.
There's always this huge sense of nostalgia
every time you walk back into the MasterChef kitchen.
A little bit of niggling nerves,
but mostly just excitement,
happy memories and a huge desire to eat lots of delicious food.
Since MasterChef, I've become landlord
and executive chef of my first pub.
It's great fun, hugely rewarding,
and I love bringing great British grub to the table.
I think this is one of the hardest rounds.
It's one hour, 15 minutes, and two courses.
Nearly impossible, actually.
This will really set the good cooks apart from the exceptional ones.
Cheers, ladies.
Great to see you. Good to see you. Here's to a MasterChef Feast.
15 minutes. Are you on time here, Max?
I will try my best to be on time.
Max's main is a chicken ballotine with
butter chicken sauce and masala pommes Anna.
Oh, I'm excited!
He's got his work cut out here because we know our
butter chicken sauces really well.
I'm going to be looking for a rich,
tomatoey, creamy, buttery sauce.
It has to be a crescendo of different spices.
That is...looking good.
Cooking a chicken ballotine can be quite tricky.
You've got to cook it to perfection.
It's very easy to overcook them and for them to go a bit dry.
Well done. Potatoes look great.
How many pieces each? Er...
I haven't figured out how many pieces each.
OK. Right, let's go.
Well done. Thank you.
Hello! Hello!
I've got for you ballotine chicken
stuffed with almond and fenugreek,
cooked in butter, chicken butter sauce,
and masala pommes Anna.
Thank you. I hope you enjoy it.
Thanks very much. Thank you.
I think the idea of this was really nice, and the almond stuffing
actually was really tasty.
However, for me, the chicken
and the sauce - both a bit too dry.
There wasn't that lovely, unctuous butter sauce that I was expecting.
In the sauce,
I had some whole spices,
so then all I could taste
was the really overpowering taste
of clove in my mouth... Mm. ..which sort of
destroyed it a little bit for me.
The potatoes are cooked, and there's a mild spicing on there,
but they still could do with being a little bit softer.
The ballotine's been made very, very nicely,
but this needs more.
It needs more chicken - there's not enough of it.
And there needs to be a lot more sauce on the plate.
OK, Max? Yes. You've got 15 minutes for the panna cotta and mango.
Let's have a look at the panna cotta now.
Max's dessert is a vanilla panna cotta with chilli mango coulis.
I think this is going to be simple - nowhere to hide.
But let's be honest, this lives and dies on the wobble.
They look good, Max.
There you go. Come on.
Yay. Hey!
Mango coulis, let's go.
Well done. Nice.
Can we go, Max? We're ready to go.
All right. Off you go. Nice.
Well done, my friend. Well done. Thank you. Well done, Max.
What I've made for you is a vanilla panna cotta
and mango chilli coulis.
Shall we give it the test? Go on, then.
THEY CHUCKLE It wobbles!
I really enjoyed this dessert, actually.
It's got loads of delicious vanilla in it, which just makes it.
And the mango sauce is also really lovely.
I really like that surprise addition of that chilli - that really did
lift this whole dish.
Panna cotta's heady with vanilla.
Really, really lovely.
There's a lovely heat from chilli.
A sweet, almost sort of jam flavour to that mango which has been cooked.
I think that tastes really good.
The challenge was extremely tough.
Time gets away from you, and before you know it, you've only
got five minutes to plate up.
It is baptism by fire.
So, it's dry enough.
That'll do.
Tatiana, you've got 13 minutes on that first course.
Tat's main is puttanesca with
fresh tagliatelle and Parmesan.
That sauce needs to be made perfectly.
Lots of different, tangy levels of capers.
Happy with your sauce?
Yeah, I'm happy with the sauce.
I like the look of that.
If we get that tagliatelle perfectly made, perfectly cooked, al dente,
this could be a real bowl of soulful comfort food.
Perfect. You've got three minutes, my friend.
Take your time. That's it.
Sauce on, please. Yes, sauce on.
Right, back for your dessert.
Yeah, yeah. Off you go.
Hi! Hi.
Hi, Tat. Hey.
So, for main, I've cooked
puttanesca fresh tagliatelle and some Parmesan.
Thank you. Thank you.
Hope you enjoy. Thank you.
I mean, she really does know how to make pasta.
It's really thin. It's really lovely.
However, it is overcooked.
It's really salty, because there's so many capers.
It hasn't quite hit the mark for me.
I like it.
I've got a nice sauce, partly sweet with tomatoes, and very,
very salty, of course, with anchovies and...and capers.
My issue here is there's really two component parts here -
pasta and sauce - and they're nice.
That's it - it's not brilliant, it's nice.
Tat, you've got 15 minutes now, yeah? Yeah.
Are you going to be OK? Yeah, I'm fine.
Don't worry about it.
I'll get this done, one way or another.
I love a sticky, moist ginger cake.
The flamed pears, I mean, they want it completely...nicely poached.
This dessert sounds like an inferno of spices.
We've got really hot black pepper, we've got hot ginger,
we've got that lovely, spicy,
caramel warmth coming from the bourbon.
I'm quite intrigued by this.
Oh, I like them.
Give everyone an extra pear.
You done?
Syrup over the top. Whoa!
Right. Ready to go?
Yeah. Go, go.
Well done. Thanks.
For dessert, I've made for you black pepper gingerbread cake
with bourbon-flamed pears and some creme fraiche on the side.
The bourbon syrup complements it really well.
She's cut the pears and they're perfectly cooked.
I love the way that it blends
with the creme fraiche, so that sweet
and slightly sour combination is quite nice.
Layered throughout the whole thing is heat.
Heat from the bourbon, heat from the ginger.
And then I'm left with almost this really intense, peppery heat
on my tongue as well at the end.
It's actually a really interesting dessert.
Oh, yeah.
I really like that.
That cake has taken on some of that bourbon syrup
and it's made it soft.
The lovely, comforting flavour
of a poached pear with ginger,
and black pepper, which just kisses the top of your tongue.
I think it's absolutely delightful.
I am very relieved that it's over
because that was so stressful.
I'm still having a hard...hard time
getting my heart rate down.
So, it was very tough.
SHE INHALES
SHE EXHALES
Ben, you've got a couple of minutes.
Where's our tuna? Ready to slice and go? Fingers crossed, yeah.
You've got to start now, then. Yeah.
Wow! Ben is giving us everything here.
There's so many ingredients.
Sesame seared tuna loin with miso and wasabi-roasted cauliflower,
cucumber salad, burnt garlic and peanut crumb chilli threads,
crispy rice noodles, and a garlic and ginger oil.
Wow!
I do love a sesame seed tuna,
because the outside, the colour
is really nice because you've got those seeds stuck to it.
And then there's that really lovely thin ring of cooked tuna.
We haven't sliced this tuna yet, have we?
You've got a minute.
Are you slicing the tuna?
I was going to, but... They're waiting for us now.
Yeah, I think I'm just going to go. There's your spatula.
Go. Go on, then. Just go on, then. Good boy.
There we go.
Wallop. Whoa!
Look at that.
Chilli threads and what else?
Er, aromatic oil.
About a minute over. Yeah. Can we go?
Yep. Let's go.
Well done.
So, I've cooked a sesame tuna loin
with miso cauliflower, some crispy rice noodles,
and a burnt garlic peanut crumb,
and a cucumber salad.
Lovely. Lovely. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Seared tuna is a little bit raw, normally,
but this is far too raw and it's not been sliced up, either.
The cauliflowers were cooked quite nicely and the cucumbers, I thought,
gave something to the dish. But unfortunately, that miso
coming through,
it is very, very over-seasoned.
That fish is really salty with soy.
I always thought Ben was attempting too much, and that means he simply
can't focus on the really important things, like the cookery
of his tuna.
BEN SIGHS
Ben, you've got three minutes.
I'm guessing you've still got a fair bit to do, right, chef?
Yeah, a lot. What have you got that you can serve? Er...
Well, most things, it's just not the bonbon, I think.
No bonbon. Bonbon gone? Fully gone.
Ben's main - still so much going on to the plate.
Ben has been quite brave here to wrap his venison
in the Serrano ham, so he's got no idea if it's cooked or not inside.
So he's going to find out at the last minute.
Right. Are you going to check that that's cooked?
Yeah, that's the plan.
That looks all right to me. Yeah.
And then it comes down to flavour, putting as much flavour, depth
of flavour as he can into that
red wine, blackberry and chocolate sauce.
And what have you got left to do?
Er, I think it's just kind of doing my kale, to be honest.
You've got mushrooms to finish off, and you want to do kale?
Do the mushrooms properly and forget the kale.
Yep.
We're off. Here we go.
BEN LAUGHS
You're three minutes over.
You happy with that venison? I am, yeah.
Are you done? Yeah, unfortunately.
Big breath and smile. Yeah.
OK? Yeah. Go. Cool.
Thank you.
So, you've got a Serrano ham-roasted venison loin with
some girolles and morels with a celeriac puree, a beurre noisette,
and a red wine, chocolate and blackberry sauce.
We're missing the bonbon, the kale and the pickled blackberries.
Just ran out of time - somewhat predictably, I think!
LAUGHTER Thank you.
Thanks very much, Ben.
I think the venison's been cooked really well,
and the celeriac puree is really smooth against it.
But wasn't the sauce meant to have some chocolate in there?
I was expecting it to have that really nice, silky texture,
which isn't there.
I think Ben has fallen foul of MasterChef, hasn't he?
And he's given himself way too much to do.
We've got things missing from the plate.
In the last two rounds, you and I tried gently to tell Ben
that he's just doing too much and to do less,
and actually he hasn't listened at all.
I think what went wrong started with writing the recipe!
HE LAUGHS
And trying to do all of that in an hour and 15.
You've got two minutes.
Just two minutes.
Where are the tweezers?
Abi's starter is chilli butter king scallop and
tail-on prawn on a bed of samphire,
with harissa and saffron prawn bisque and a Parmesan crisp.
Hopefully she's roasted those prawn heads and got maximum flavour
out of that prawn bisque.
Searing and cooking that scallop to perfection,
not overcooking the prawn.
I actually think there could be
a huge amount of technique and skill on show here.
Nice-looking scallops.
So, it's the Parmesan tuile and the micro herbs and that's it,
you're done? Yes. You're on time, Abi.
Yeah. Go.
There we are. Looks great.
Off you go. Go for it. Yeah. Well done.
Lots of good work there as well, my friend.
Yeah, good on you. Well done, well done.
Thank you. Thank you.
Today I've made you a
seared king scallop with a tail-on prawn
and Parmesan crisp, with chilli butter
on a bed of samphire, and a prawn and harissa saffron bisque.
Enjoy. Thank you. Thanks very much.
Oh, that smells good. Mm.
That smells very, very good.
I think the seafood was cooked really nicely.
The scallop was great, the prawn was nice and juicy.
The sauce is lovely.
There is a beautiful warmth and a slight sweetness running
through it as well.
Overall, I think that has been my dish of the day.
Boom! Come on, Abi!
Ooh, that's a... That's a cracker.
That's a cracker of a dish.
That sauce is fabulous.
It is thick and heady with prawn flavour.
I'm really impressed with Abi, actually.
She's done lots and lots of things here, and done it very, very well.
OK, Abi. Yeah. Well done.
You're under control here, aren't you? Yes, think so.
You've got lamb in 15, please. Yeah. And the sauce.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's fine.
This almost sounds like a Sunday lunch. It sounds excellent.
So, the lamb loin, there's not much fat on there.
It's very, very lean.
So let's hope that she tries to keep that quite juicy, seared well.
Fondant potatoes can actually take quite a long time to cook as well.
So, there's nothing express about her dishes, is there?
Oh, Abi!
Looking good! Yeah.
Abi, two minutes, we need to go. OK.
What's in there? The fondants? Yeah.
Oh, yummy!
60 seconds, Abi.
Have you tasted it?
Yeah, it tastes lovely, it's just a bit thin.
Come on. Well done, you.
For your main course, I've made some lamb loin fillets
with fondant potatoes, pomegranate and mint carrots in a red wine jus.
Thank you so much.
I think it's fair to say that Abi knows how to cook.
The lamb is cooked nicely.
The carrots are cooked well.
Yeah, I liked the potato.
They were nice and soft. But overall,
the sauce has just not brought the dish together.
I don't feel like there's any sort of depth or any harmony.
The pomegranate is inspired.
I love mint with the lamb - sharp, cuts through the fat of the lamb.
Lots of technique on show, but in a very simple appearance.
This is what good food is all about.
That was definitely the hardest challenge.
The time that you've got to make the two dishes, you've got
to be so organised, and I'm not organised.
The jus obviously was my let-down because it was a bit runny,
but it did taste nice, so they might let me off.
I don't know!
Really big round, lots and lots of pressure.
We did see tension and we did see issues.
That doesn't mean we haven't got talent.
The dining room have had their say,
and today their cook of the day is Abi,
and I have to agree with them, Gregg.
Two good courses and delicious food.
Abi is going through, my friend.
We've only got two more places.
Max, Tatiana and Ben -
one of them's going to go home.
The fact is that there were ups and downs, ifs and buts
for all of them.
Max, I think all of us - me, you, the dining room -
really loved the dessert.
We found aspects of his chicken main questionable.
There wasn't enough chicken for me.
There wasn't enough sauce for me.
The potatoes could have done with a bit more cooking.
The most ambitious cook in the room today was Ben.
All sorts of different things on a plate.
But what happened was, he didn't focus on that piece of tuna.
Main course, he didn't get everything done.
With Tatiana, our thoughts were completely echoed by the guests
in the dining room - unimpressed by a bowl of pasta,
enjoyed the dessert.
That ginger sponge with the pepper going through,
I thought was absolutely delicious.
Who's joining Abi, going through to a quarterfinal,
and who's going home?
Who are we prepared to take a chance on?
I want a place in the quarterfinal
more than anything else in the world right now.
And I will fight tooth and nail to get that place.
Now more than ever, my reason for staying is to prove a point.
I hate not doing everything absolutely perfectly.
If I could go back and do it again right now, I would.
I have no idea if I've done enough.
I know what my chances are mathematically.
But in terms of what I've done, I have...I have no clue.
Well done, that's a lot of pressure.
This early in the competition, that was a big, big challenge.
We gathered the thoughts from the dining room.
A mixed response.
Some of the stuff they loved, some of the stuff they could
clearly see the issues.
There was one person today who stood out
as a great cook, impressed Gregg and I,
and really impressed the dining room.
Abi, congratulations.
You're through to a MasterChef quarterfinal.
Thank you!
Honestly, really, really well done.
At the start of this, we said
there were three quarterfinal places,
and that does mean that one of you is leaving us.
The person leaving us is...
..is Ben.
Ben, thank you very much for all your hard work.
Thanks very much for your ambition.
It's been great to meet you.
A little bit of regret with how much I decided to do.
A lot of regret, I guess.
I'm still going to keep cooking complicated food,
but I won't be trying to do it in an hour and 15 minutes.
It's going to be quite nice
to just get back to my own kitchen and chill out a little bit.
Congratulations. You three are MasterChef quarterfinalists.
Well done.
I can't believe it!
I'm feeling...I'm feeling, obviously,
very happy, very proud of myself.
I am very relieved.
I am more shocked than anything.
I was not confident with that round.
I'm elated.
I'm just over the moon right now.
There's more to come.
There's always more to come.
I'm just getting started.
Next time -
six more home cooks compete for the right to
wear a MasterChef apron...
My hands don't work.
Sorry. Whoa! Whoa!
That is powerful.
..before battling for a place in the quarterfinal.
This is bloomin' delicious!
SHE EXHALES