It's the MasterChef quarterfinal,
and this week's six best cooks are back.
It feels unbelievable to be a quarterfinalist.
The pressure is mounting up quite a lot.
I am willing to physically fight for a place in the knockout week.
Confidence, I'm not sure... SHE LAUGHS
..but I'll be fine, just act cool.
The judges need to see perfect dishes now,
and there's no room for any errors.
I have not come here to play,
I've come here to slay, and I'm going to slay it today.
Let's do it, let's make some mouths really happy, I think.
Tonight, they will face one challenge - to cook an exceptional
dish from a brief set by esteemed food writer Leyla Kazim.
If they are serious about winning this competition, they've got
to shine right now.
But they've got to get through this round, and it is brutal.
Congratulations, all six of you, because you are now
MasterChef quarterfinalists,
Whoop, whoop!
Today, you will not be cooking just for Gregg and I.
Ladies and gentlemen, renowned food writer, Leyla Kazim.
Wow!
So my brief for you today is to create a dish that you would make
for someone if they came up to you feeling a little bit
under the weather or in need of a pick-me-up, something
that is going to nourish and restore them.
After tasting all of these dishes, I want to feel really good.
Only three of you will be going through to the next round, which,
of course, does mean three of you will be leaving the competition.
90 minutes. Off you go.
I think what's particularly great about this brief
is that people are going to interpret it in different ways.
So you can go down the kind of "food is medicine" route and really focus
on the potent properties that a lot of foodstuffs have.
Or you could go down more of a comfort route.
I'm open to both. I want taste,
I want a story, I want to feel good after eating it.
Abi's got a sense of finesse about her.
She takes classic ideas, but she pulls them apart
a little bit.
I think that has been my dish of the day.
She's got to continue to deliver.
Food, for me, is definitely
all about nourishing and restoring others anyway.
I'm definitely focusing on flavour rather than flair today,
but hopefully it works in my favour.
So today I'm making an Asian take on a beef and carrot stew,
with wasabi mash, tempura enoki mushrooms and garlic green beans.
Oh, and why have you chosen this dish and those ingredients?
I took the brief almost as, like, a hug in a dish.
I think mashed potatoes are one
of the most comforting things you can eat.
And I always aim towards Asian flavours, so it wants to smell
and taste like a Chinese takeaway, almost,
but then and look and feel like a stew as well.
Things that are stews and broth-y are always good
for wanting that sense of eating something that's going to make
you feel good inside.
What Abi's doing is she's taking her beef with bacon and onions,
she's adding to that star anise and five spice, the flavours
of the inside of a Chinese duck.
That beef can go dry or it can be tough.
I hope it's somewhere in the middle where it falls apart in your mouth
and it's lovely and succulent and moist.
I like a very smooth mashed potato.
I love that there's going to be this kind of horseradish wasabi
heat in there.
So I'm excited to eat this one.
Da-da-da-da-da-da.
What I admire about Max,
he takes few ingredients and he produces
really good, tasty food.
You have taken the banana and done wonders with it.
Please tell me what you're cooking today.
So I'm making for you what my mum would normally make for me
when I was ill.
And this is my ethnic identity, this is my mum's food.
Wow!
We have got quite a complex dish here.
He's starting off with a tarka dhal.
He's taking lots and lots of lentils, cooking them really,
really well, almost like a soup with lots of different spices.
On top of that, he's doing a rice mixture,
and that is rice and lentils with lots and lots of turmeric.
We're then getting curried okra,
and then a piece of pan-fried sea bream.
He's kept the skin on, so I hope that skin's nice and crispy.
And then he's going to serve that whole thing
with a fish curry sauce.
This, for me sounds like something which is really nourishing.
His issue now is how wet the dish is.
Why would your mum make you this dish when you were ill?
What's so special about it? Being the last-born,
I was loved, cherished and pampered...
SHE LAUGHS
..and all these foods combined together would really help
overcome any illnesses that I had as a child.
There are a lot of spices going into this, which I'm very pleased
about because spices are the cornerstone
of health-giving properties.
But there is the possibility that the fish gets drowned out.
Folks, you have got just one hour left.
Yeah, leave that to me next time, I think.
Oh, they must be the strongest onions I've ever met
in my life. Should have brought the swimming goggles, big, old
snorkelling mask on.
Tom from Scotland has got his heart and soul firmly
in classic European cookery.
This is, quite straightforwardly, absolutely blooming delicious.
It IS popular, and if he does it really well, it's unstoppable.
Cooking for John, Gregg and a food critic, it doesn't really get
any bigger than that,
so today is all about focus and perfection.
Please tell me what you are cooking today.
So I'm making a curried battered cod
with some goose fat chips... Mm-hm. ..chip shop
curry sauce, home-made pickled onions and mushy pea.
How do you think it's going to make me feel when I eat it?
Because I want something that's going to nourish me and restore me.
I'm hoping it's going to put a smile on your face. Oh!
We've just been to the Isle of Mull on our holidays, and it's something
that our kids loved.
However you're feeling, whether you're on top of the world
or whether you're at rock-bottom,
it's a dish that kind of just makes you feel good inside.
We've got to have a good crisp batter.
Plus turmeric in there is like a powerhouse of so many potent
health-giving properties.
Now, he's making a curry sauce
from onions, curry powder and apples.
Great. Now, the chips themselves,
he's using an apple corer to make sure they're perfectly round.
Then they're going to goose-fat in the oven like a roast potato.
I want a flappy chip.
Dinta is a vegetarian,
she loves the flavours of India, but she's also a fusion cook.
Perfectly spiced, a little bit of heat. I think it's great.
Hooray for Dinta!
Dinta, she is doing us a thali,
and on that thali, she has a paneer pasty.
We have a puri, which is a lovely little puff, a piece of bread,
a khadi, which is a chickpea almost soup made with yoghurt.
Then we have a bhindi, or an okra curry, which is going on the side.
Then we've got rice, shrikhand,
which is a sweetened strained yoghurt,
flavoured with saffron.
Then we got a little palate cleanser, which is a chocolate cup
flavoured with rose syrup and fennel seeds.
I mean, I just don't know how she's doing it all.
I need to lie down, just thinking about it.
As a doctor, as a GP, what did you think when you got the brief?
Obviously, it's really good to make sure that you are going
to be eating nutritious food. As you know, you don't want to get unwell.
So, actually, a lot of my components of my dish, they are healthy, apart
from the fried stuff, but you're allowed to indulge,
it's fine once in a while.
Dinta's given herself a huge amount of work to do,
but she seems quite calm, she seems quite ordered.
Pressure has got me where I am so far in my life.
I've done night shifts,
I've done placements where I'm looking after over 100 people.
Pressure makes me thrive.
Lulu has introduced to the flavours of Tanzania.
She's got skills, she's got style, and she likes it fiery-hot.
My eyes are sore with the ferocity of that sauce. Well done, you.
The food I'm going to cook today,
it's like having a warm blanket on a chilly day on your body,
and it just gives you a nice cuddle and hug,
and I want the judges to enjoy that as well.
Lulu, what are you making for us?
I'm making ugali,
African stew, spinach with coconut milk, and a sambharo.
What's an ugali? Ugali is a cornmeal mash,
which is a food from my heart from home.
So you're going to take a piece of it, like,
as if you'll have a bread or naan, and dip it in the sauce that you
like, and put it in your mouth.
The cornmeal porridge is really hard to get right, cos you've got
to beat it and beat it until such time as it's quite sticky,
otherwise it doesn't hold your food when you pick it up.
She's made a beef stew with lots and lots of garlic, lots
and lots of ginger.
That beef has to be lovely and tender and melt in our mouths.
I don't want tough meat.
Sambharo, which is a mixture of carrots
and onions, mustard seeds with scotch bonnet.
That's a chilli-hot relish which needs to have a crunch to it.
I do this every week cos my fiance will not stop eating it,
and he goes red like a beetroot.
But also, that's such a great ingredient for if, you know,
you've got a cold and you need to... It does, it just cleans out
everything. It just gives you a bit of a...you want to dance a bit more,
you want to eat more.
Guys, you have had one hour, and you have 30 minutes left.
Tatiana really surprised us in the first round.
That, to me, is something you would order in a restaurant.
That's really quite delicious.
It's almost street soul food,
but can she bring a point of difference to it?
I really love the brief, because it's something
in my household that we do a lot
whenever we feel down, and I hope
they like it.
I'm cooking a French onion soup
with a bourguignon-style beef short rib.
That's going to be in a toasted sandwich with some Roquefort,
and it's going to be fried in beef dripping.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! SHE LAUGHS
Tat, why have you chosen to do such a hearty meal like this?
We had little money at one point, and just when we got home,
we would open a can of tomato soup and have a ham
and cheese toastie with it, and it's just something that always
puts a smile on our faces.
It is very French. Is there a reason for that?
Well, my mum's French, and she taught me how to do both
onion soup and bourguignon.
This is pretty much "Ode to my Mum".
French onion soup is classically served with a piece of bread
with cheese across the top of it. No, no, no, we're not getting that.
Instead, we are getting a toasted sandwich with blue cheese
inside it, and a short rib which has been braised.
You dip it in your French onion soup.
I think that's just about right. Put the flour in now.
It's got to be a classic, good, old-fashioned
French onion soup.
Peppery, warm, sweet with onions, rich with stock, where it
really tickles the back of your throat.
I don't want onion gravy.
We have just 15 minutes left.
Guys, big day, big dinner, let's go.
I think it's going OK.
The mash is a little bit behind,
which I'm a bit anxious about cos I don't want it to be lumpy.
There we go, nice and golden.
I need to stop shaking.
OK, breathe.
Right, ladies and gentlemen, sorry to scare you,
you've got less than five minutes.
Come on, come on, come on.
You have just two minutes.
Come on, up the pace. Two minutes.
Always a last-minute rush,
always the last minute.
Oh, come on.
Guys, that's it. Stop.
Oh! Stop, stop, stop!
Well done!
Tat, if you wouldn't mind, please.
NARRATOR: As an homage to her heritage,
archaeologist Tatiana has cooked French onion soup, served
with a beef short rib and Roquefort toasted sandwich,
fried in beef dripping.
The sandwich is great.
I tasted the beef on its own, it's fantastic.
The soup is kind of a bit too sweet for me,
I felt it was a bit under-seasoned, but the two together
is very comforting and also restorative.
For me, French onion soup is just
onions, stock, a good amount of pepper.
And here you've tried to thicken it with flour, and I've got lumps
of flour in here, which is a real shame.
And I just feel it's a bit too thick and it's becoming
more like onion gravy.
I think your sandwich is great.
Soft bits of beef with a real saltiness that only
the blue Roquefort cheese can bring up.
It's a shame there's bits of flour floating around in your soup,
it shouldn't be there.
I am a bit disappointed that there were bits of flour
still in the soup.
I thought I got them all, but, clearly, they multiplied.
SHE LAUGHS
NARRATOR: Salesperson Abi's
restorative dish is an Asian twist on a beef stew.
Braising steak, cooked with carrots, bacon, ginger and Chinese
five spice, with wasabi, mashed potatoes, tempura
enoki mushroom, garlic green beans and courgette ribbons.
Your beef stew,
I'm getting that gentle flavour of star anise and five spice
in the sauce, which is really nice and it's warming,
and you don't expect it, so it's a really nice surprise.
I like the enoki mushrooms on top,
I think it looks great and I think it's a really good idea.
And the beans are lovely, so it's a very tasty meal.
The mashed potato is perfectly smooth, and in there's a heady
amount of wasabi.
Your beef is cooked well.
We have got the flavours of Chinese duck with gravy and mashed
potato and wasabi, and I think you've done that really well.
I think this is fantastic,
and I think your flavours are daring, and I think you've balanced
them really well.
I'm feeling pretty good after those comments.
You never want to jinx it and say you think you've done enough.
Gave my best, so, hopefully, that's good enough.
NARRATOR: Inspired by childhood remedies from his mum,
civil servant Max has made fried sea bream in masala,
on curried okra, yellow rice with lentils, tarka dhal,
served with pickled onions, poppadoms,
and a spiced fish and tomato sauce.
Your fish, you marinated it first, then fried it, and it's going dry,
I think that could probably be a bit moister, and I think the skin
could be crispy.
The thing for me here is there's very little definition.
I can understand it's very comforting, but I'm finding
all the flavours fusing into each other.
Sauce with the dhal and rice, which is also wet,
it's becoming all a bit wet.
OK.
My favourite thing on the plate is the dhal. With the mustard seed
and the curry leaves, it's like, "Mm!"
This sauce has great heat.
It is a bit thin and a bit oily, but I love the flavours in it.
I particularly like the okra with the sweet onion, but I think
the dish is a little messy, and all the flavours are blending
into one, which I think is a shame, cos I think you've got some
great stuff going on here. Thank you.
There was a lot of pressure with cooking this dish,
since it represents the love
and affection that I got from my mother.
And it's a bit difficult to hear it being criticised, but I hope
that I've done enough to go through.
NARRATOR: With nourishing memories of Tanzania,
teaching assistant Lulu
has served a traditional East African beef stew.
Sirloin steak in tomatoes, aubergine and okra.
Coconut spinach, sambharo,
a spiced carrot, papaya and scotch bonnet relish,
served with ugali, a stiff cornmeal porridge.
That tomato beef stew that you've got has got so much
garlic that, actually, the garlic is making it quite hot.
There's a lot of garlic in there.
That beef itself, I feel, could be just cooked
a little bit less. OK.
The sambharo is fantastic.
You totally could have kept more scotch bonnets in,
but the beef is a little bit hard and a little bit dry. OK.
However, the ugali, it is a great vehicle with which to enjoy
everything on the plate. Thank you.
I love you use a coconut with the spinach. It's well-seasoned.
Your flavours are wonderful.
The texture of the beef is a slight issue.
No two ways about it,
all three of us have picked up on it.
Erm, a bit disappointed.
Dammit!
I should have paid more attention on my beef and given a bit
more love to it.
Kick myself. Like, kick, kick.
"What did I do that for?"
Looking back at family holidays, sales manager Tom has served
his take on fish and chips. Turmeric-spiced battered cod,
chips fried in goose fat,
mushy peas, pickled onions and a chip shop curry sauce.
The fish is slightly overcooked.
However, you've got a very lovely crispy batter,
and I immediately get the flavour of turmeric.
The curry sauce is sweet and tastes very good.
I really like that. Thank you.
Your chips, I think are really good, crispy on the outside,
and they have the flavour of that goose fat,
which is very, very opulent.
I think it's a good-looking plate of food, I think you've shown
some great skills, I like it. Thank you.
The peas are, like, you've got a little bit of sharpness
in there with the sweetness as well, which I like.
And your take of a pickled onion, I think are great.
I'm really happy with it. It is nostalgia,
it is most certainly comfort food, no doubt about it.
I feel I've hit the brief in what my family enjoy in food,
but when you're cooking for a food critic, it just needs
to be up another level.
But overall, I was happy in my dish.
NARRATOR: GP Dinta's nourishing dish
is a vegetarian Gujarati Thali,
bhindi, okra curry cooked in ginger, tomato and chilli,
saffron and cinnamon rice.
Kadhi, a spiced chickpea yoghurt.
puri breads, paneer pasties,
shrekhand, a hung yoghurt spiced
with cardamom, and paan chocolate filled with rose and fennel seeds.
Your bhindi, delicious,
really smoky, with loads of ground coriander
and cumin in there.
The khadi, I really like. Mustard seeds going through there,
that's really wonderful.
I feel comforted. I feel elated by it,
and I love the fact that it's so pretty. Thank you.
The puris puffed up nicely and are crispy.
Your rice is good.
We then ended with this hung yoghurt.
It's got all these beautiful spices and pomegranate seeds,
so it's just been like a whole wonderful voyage
across your plate. Thank you.
I started with the pasty - nice, crumbly pastry,
and inside there is the saltiness of paneer.
And then I got to that chocolate... HE CHUCKLES
..and with all the aniseed, it's like having a square
of chocolate with a liquorice allsort.
Your food is dainty, elegant,
and just so bursting with flavour.
I'm really into this.
Can you tell?
Really happy. I can't believe all the comments.
They loved my dish. So I'm, like, beyond happy right now.
SHE LAUGHS
This is proof that I've had a great day.
Really, the dishes were fabulous.
This is why I think it was a good brief, because it depends
on their culture, on their memories or their stories,
but they absolutely all met it in their own way.
Leyla, thank you very much.
See you later. Take care. Thank you. Bye!
Great quarterfinal, but we've now got a tough decision to make.
We've got to pick three from these talented six.
For me, there's two people today who have really shone.
I think we all agree that Dinta actually did a brilliant job.
From making pastry to pasties to puris, the best work she's done
in the competition so far.
Abi. What a fantastic dish, succulent bits of meat, thick gravy,
smooth mashed potato.
But it carried the flavours of a lovely Chinese takeaway!
Very, very, very clever.
We've got Dinta and Abi going through to knockout week,
that means there's only one more place.
Tatiana. I thought the idea was excellent.
The soup was the let-down.
She tried to thicken it, we had lumps of flour in it.
Right now, there is a question mark over the quality of the soup.
Elements of Max's dish, I thought, were absolutely delightful.
I thought that the fish was overcooked,
I felt the whole thing became all a bit wet, but great flavours.
Tom. The fish was starting to go a bit dry, but we had crispy chips,
which he'd cooked in goose fat,
I thought they were really, really good.
He made his own curry sauce.
Great mushy peas. And it tasted good and it made you feel good.
Lulu made for us ugali, a cornmeal porridge.
The spinach with the coconut, I like that.
The beef with the sauce was the issue.
The beef was drying out. I don't quite think it worked.
If I went home today, it would be devastating, because this is not
a game for me, this is something I've wanted all my life,
so I'm nervous.
I want to stay in this competition because this has lit a fire
in my belly.
Winning this could lead to a complete career change for me.
The level everybody was at was very, very high.
I wasn't kidding myself that it was
going to be a walk in the park today.
But to be honest with you, I done my best.
If I go home, hey, I got to the quarterfinal.
Not many people can say that.
But I would really love to go further in the competition.
In a room full of great cookery,
we did have two absolutely stand-out contestants,
and those contestants are going straight through to knockout week.
Dinta.
Abi,
congratulations, well done.
Tatiana, Tom,
Lulu, Max,
we have room for just one more contestant.
The third and final contestant going through to knockout week is...
It's Tom.
Tom, congratulations.
All right, big fella. Oh!
Tat, Lulu, Max,
Guys, sorry to see you go.
Thank you. Thanks so much. Thank you.
I've done all I can, and I'm going home on a high.
I'm happy with everything I've achieved,
and this is definitely not going to stop me cooking.
This is a minor setback,
but it's my nature to bounce back
from things like this,
and upwards and onwards
is now going to be my motto.
It's sad to go home, but
the MasterChef experience has been incredible.
It was just like a dream come true.
Congratulations, you're in knockout week!
Oh, you dancer!
Get in.
Well done. Well done.
Oh, what?!
Weak at the knees, absolutely weak at the knees.
It's, er... one of the best feelings I've ever had in my life.
Definitely want more the knockout week.
You can't just get to knock out or you can get knocked out, that would be rubbish.
Of course, you go through highs and lows as you go through the competition, so...
..right now, it's a high.
Next time,
six more home cooks...
HE LAUGHS
..compete for the right...
SHE LAUGHS
..to wear a MasterChef apron...
That is so ludicrously yummy, I love that.
That's delicious.
..before battling for a place in the quarterfinal.
I'm really, really impressed by this.