It's the battle for the ultimate culinary prize. Ooh!
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 passports...
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.
There is no doubt about it,
we are going to find some incredible talent.
Come in here, prove your worth and make your dreams come true.
The MasterChef heats continue, and six more 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 of them will make it
through to this week's quarterfinal.
It's unbelievable to be in the MasterChef competition.
I'm still waiting for someone to actually wake me up.
Like, please don't pinch me.
I'm so excited to cook for John and Gregg.
Hopefully, I'm going to surprise them. Fingers crossed.
I'm very serious about this competition.
I'm definitely in it to win it, yeah.
Welcome, all six of you, to the MasterChef kitchen.
You're about to go on a great adventure.
This first round we call Basic to Brilliant, taking an everyday
item, something you'd find in your shopping basket,
and elevating it to something absolutely brilliant.
Your job today is to swap your apron
for a MasterChef apron.
We're looking forward to tasting your dishes,
and once we have, we will choose our favourite two.
Those two will get an apron each and go straight
through to the next round.
Remaining four, you'll have to stay in this kitchen,
cook again for the last two aprons.
You have one hour and 20 minutes.
Let's cook!
42-year-old Charlotte became a vegan five years ago and enjoys creating
plant-based dishes inspired by her worldwide travels.
She injured herself in an earlier heat, but is back to try again.
I feel more nervous this time around and I don't know why...
SHE CHUCKLES
..but now that I'm back, I do have something to prove,
I just want to show them what I'm all about.
Charlotte, good to see you. How are you?
I'm good, thanks. Healing well. I'm so happy to be back.
What is your ingredient, please?
My husband has chilli with everything.
SHE LAUGHS
So every time I cook something for him, he wants it hotter
and more spicy.
So chilli is a very basic ingredient in our house.
Brilliant. So I'm making charcoal pot sticker dumplings
with a fiery chilli sauce
and a Sichuan and green chilli oil,
and then some crispy chilli peanuts.
Why this Asian take?
This was inspired by a trip to Shanghai.
When you walk around that city, you just smell all these incredible
smells every five metres.
And so, hopefully, this will be like a mouthful of Shanghai.
Inside that pot sticker,
we've got a mixture of cabbage, carrot, lots and lots of chilli,
Chinese wine, five spice and soy sauce.
That dumpling filling can't be too hot because we've got
chilli garnishes going with it.
I think that's quite a difficult thing to get right.
38-year-old lawyer David, credits his nature enthusiast mum
for his love of cooking.
What's your dish, David?
So it's a squash and seafood bisque with squash-filled ravioli
and a griddled and roasted squash.
Fabulous!
Yeah. A box of vegetables delivered from Mum every week,
and then we have to make things out of it.
So it's a Crown Prince squash from my mum's allotment.
So Mum grew that? Yeah, Mum grew that.
She's very excited for you to see it as an ex-greengrocer.
I admire his ambition, I really do,
cos we are going to get lobster, prawn and crab bisque,
we're going to get ravioli filled with squash,
we're going to get a grilled piece of squash with lots of spices,
we're going to get a parsley oil across the top. Now, that's lots
of different things.
If he can do all those things and do them very, very well,
fantastic.
I'm not a quick cook. I'm known for serving a dinner about 10.30/11.
The timing is what I'm most worried about.
30 minutes gone, everybody. 30 minutes gone.
Retired software engineer James first competed on MasterChef
with Gary Rhodes in 2001, and reached the quarterfinal.
Are you preferring it now? No. GREGG LAUGHS
I'll tell you what, it was easier then,
and I was younger, Gregg.
This time, he's determined to prove he can go further
with his classic European cooking.
I've been holidaying in France for decades and I love French
bistros, so my style of cooking is very much sort of French bistro,
which is simple ingredients, but cooked well.
James's ingredient of choice is a potato.
He's going to make Parmentier potatoes, little tiny cubes of
potatoes, and then they're fried, and they should be nice and crispy.
We've got with our potatoes, peas, broad beans and little spring
onions, a chicken breast and chicken sauce.
There's only a few ingredients on that plate,
and if this works, it's brilliant.
What got you into cookery?
When I was at work, a female colleague joined.
I invited her round to dinner, and must have done something right,
Gregg, we've been married 35 years next year.
Brilliant!
JAMES CHUCKLES
Born in Belgium to German parents, new mum-of-one Vera
spent her childhood living in Italy before studying in Paris
and the Far East.
So what style is your cookery, then?
Erm, to be honest, I like quite basic, good ingredients,
hearty food, I guess that's the German-Italian side kind
of coming out.
So my main ingredient is mushroom, cos, I mean, that's used a lot
in Germany. I grew up with, like, thick mushroom sauce, etc, so I
thought I'd honour that ingredient.
And I'm cooking it in three different forms,
so mushroom ravioli with a ricotta filling,
then, chestnut creamed
mushrooms and asparagus spears with mushroom crisps.
Good luck, Vera!
Thank you very much.
She says they're ravioli, but,
actually, it's more like a tortellini, it's round in shape
and she's folded it. Inside that pasta parcel,
we've got ricotta, cheese, parsley and wild mushrooms,
and then we're getting creamy mushroom sauce sitting underneath.
Well, that's fine, But with pasta,
you want a sauce which coats the whole thing.
I've followed MasterChef for a long time, and I would want to raise my
son to kind of pursue his dreams and be brave
and follow his passions, so I will definitely give it my best.
24-year-old Sami moved to the UK from Sardinia five years ago
and works as a cognitive behavioural therapist in Bristol.
My job is definitely stressful at times.
I help people managing symptoms of anxiety, depression, managing
lots of things at once.
I guess I can use all of these skills into the competition.
So, yeah.
Sami, you look ridiculously happy! Are you?
I'm very excited. Oh, give me a fist bump, come on.
SAMI CHUCKLES
What is your dish? My main ingredient is pears.
I love pears,
my partner, Jack, he loves pears,
so I just wanted to take something as simple as pears and turn them
into something special.
It's risotto with pears and gorgonzola cheese
and flambeed pears.
So is it a savoury dish or is it a sweet dish?
It's a bit of both, actually.
We love this combo in Italy.
I'm hoping that you and John will fall in love as well.
That sounds to me like a clash.
Risotto, lovely, creamy rice. Pears, very, very sweet.
Gorgonzola, quite salty.
We're also getting pears which are going to be flambeed in rum.
And, actually, I'm quite concerned about it.
We have 15 minutes left.
Mum-of-two Patricia was born in South Africa
and dreams of opening her own family-friendly
street food restaurant.
My basic ingredient is milk.
And today I'm cooking a milk tart inspired by my home.
It's made from condensed milk and milk.
It's one of my favourites.
I actually cook it every week for the kids.
In English, it's milk tarts, and in Afrikaans,
it's a melktert. Just like a creamy custard.
Stir it until it becomes quite smooth.
I'll place it into the fridge for it to set just in time.
So there's no pastry in this? No.
No, I'm going to make some ginger biscuits to go with that.
That's a brave thing to do, you're making a bowl of custard.
Hmm, it's milk tart.
SHE LAUGHS
This is cooked milk that's been thickened with flour.
What she's got to do now is elevate it so it's MasterChef-worthy.
You have just two minutes, everybody.
Be quick. Be quick. Be quick, quick, quick.
Could have been better, for sure,
but could have been worse as well.
I think I did it.
That's it, stop. Everybody stop. And breathe.
First up is vegan Charlotte,
with a chilli-inspired dish. Charcoal pot sticker dumplings
filled with Savoy cabbage, carrot, chilli,
and shiitake mushrooms, with a fiery chilli sauce,
Sichuan pepper, spring onion and green chilli oil,
and crispy chilli peanuts.
Charlotte, I think your use of the chilli is really good.
The chilli sauce on the bottom, that's quite ferocious.
Inside the dumpling,
you've got lots of fresh chilli as well.
The peanuts, they're salty with chilli.
So we've got a salty chilli, we got a sweet chilli,
we've got a sour chilli with that sauce.
And it all comes together really, really nicely.
Your dumplings are really well-made.
A little bit of sesame across the top, a little bit of nuttiness.
Love how brave you are with your flavours. That is hot!
Everything I know about John and Gregg is that they love
lots of heat in things, so that's what I was going for.
Lawyer David's basic ingredient was his mum's Crown Prince squash.
He's made squash, ricotta and thyme ravioli in a shellfish and squash
bisque with a side of cayenne and paprika-spiced roasted squash,
and finished with a lemon, basil and parsley oil.
That's good ravioli, and they taste great.
Really lovely, sweet squash inside.
The major issue here is your bisque,
it's very, very watery,
and you haven't captured enough shellfish flavour.
But the amount of work you've done here is extraordinary.
The flavour of your squash is absolutely delicious.
The piece of squash on the side's been cooked really well.
But it looks chaotic because what you're doing here is throwing
so many different things at here
you're detracting from the beauty of the squash.
The timing's always going to be challenging.
Maybe focus on one thing rather than doing seven.
Retired software engineer James chose to highlight potatoes,
and has served them Parmentier-style with pan-roasted chicken, peas,
broad beans, spring onions and pancetta and a chicken jus.
The chicken's probably the star of the show, cooked beautifully,
but, actually, your sauce is really, really nicely seasoned.
I think that's great. Your potatoes are crisp,
they've got a really nice little bit of dry herb running through them
and a good amount of seasoning.
You are showing a really good touch.
I think your choice of ingredients is absolutely classic.
Well done, you.
I got some good comments, better comments than I was expecting
from John and Gregg, so I feel pretty good at the moment.
Financial analyst Vera's dish features mushrooms three ways,
Ricotta and mushroom-filled tortellini on a chanterelle
and chestnut mushroom puree, with roasted mushroom crisps,
smoked pancetta, asparagus and hazelnuts,
and finished with a parsley and lemon oil.
This thick mushroom sauce underneath your pasta
is really, really delicious.
It's rich, smoky with mushrooms, slightly creamy. That's great.
The pasta's made beautifully. I don't think you need the asparagus
because there's lots of stuff going on here.
Your crisps are interesting. In cooking them in the oven, you've
actually made them slightly chewy and you've actually intensified
the flavour of the mushroom in there as well. I like.
The pasta - ricotta filling with the mushrooms, a little bland. Mm-hm.
Maybe a little bit of seasoning, maybe a little bit of nutmeg,
something to liven it up. And the lardons are overcooked.
It could have gone worse, could have definitely gone better,
but I'm really dying to get that apron, to be honest.
Using pears as his basic ingredient,
therapist Sami has cooked a gorgonzola, saffron and pear risotto
topped with hazelnuts and pears flambeed in white rum,
with shallots, thyme and chilli.
You've got lovely saffron and you've got the saltiness
of that lovely blue sticky cheese.
The pear has disappeared, and I think your risotto is too dry.
The pears in the rum are so sweet,
but at the same time they taste of
shallots, thyme and chilli, which is unusual.
And I don't feel the hazelnuts work at all with the whole dish.
What you're doing here is trying too many things all at once.
It hasn't completely worked for me.
I think I've been disappointed.
Hopefully next time it will be better.
Just fingers crossed.
Finally, it's Patricia, who's made her family's favourite dessert,
a South African milk tart served with ginger biscuits,
fresh berries and cinnamon.
I love it. It's not too sweet, it's creamy, it's thick,
it's got a lovely bounce to it.
And it's got lovely, like, cinnamon across the top.
Where's the cookery skill? Where's the technique on show?
The custard is completely set, it's nice and cold.
These little ginger biscuits that you made,
lovely, but it's a bowl of custard and some fruit.
But I know very little about you as a cook. Oh!
I could have pushed myself a little bit more.
I'm feeling a bit nervous, stressed, everything.
Thank you very much for all your hard work.
At the start of this, we did say we would choose our two favourite
plates of food, and the people who cook them will get
themselves an apron.
Our first contestant getting a proper apron...
..Charlotte.
OK. Well done, Charlotte.
Our second apron...
..James.
Come on, come and get your aprons.
Well done, big Jim.
Yeah, there was such a big build up to this, and it feels
really satisfying to have earned that apron, and I'm really happy.
22 years on, I've got another apron!
I feel great. Everything now is a bonus.
If you're feeling any disappointment right now, just shrug it off, OK?
You have a job to do, and that job is to get yourself an apron.
We've given each of you the same ingredient, a butternut squash.
There's a load of beautiful ingredients over there
to enhance that squash.
You do whatever you want.
You've got to think on your feet.
But we want the butternut squash to be the star of that show.
The reason you've got to think on your feet is you only
have 45 minutes.
You've got to make a plan.
This needs to be a delicious plate of food if you want
one of those two aprons.
Let's cook!
Well, I didn't want to see a squash again for quite a long time
after the first round.
I'm not sure what I'm going to go for, completely.
I'm just trying to get all the ingredients right.
Butternut squash is really versatile.
A big bowl of soup with some seeds across the top of it and a loaf
of soda bread will be absolutely perfect.
A little bit of nutmeg, some cinnamon, in a pie.
It's very stressful, but going to just do what I like.
You boil it too much, it goes all soggy and watery.
If you roast it too much, it ends up being quite bitter.
It's about understanding the textures and the flavours of it.
Not being able to prepare beforehand is a little bit
more daunting this time.
Why are you so nervous? Cos I'm trying something I've not tried
before, so it could be good, could be horrific.
So I'm going to make a butternut squash and sweet potato soup
with Asian flavours.
I do make a lot of soups with pumpkin, but not
really Asian styles.
It's going to be a little bit of trial and error.
You'll be fine! Be confident, Vera.
Soup by itself is a comforting bowl of deliciousness.
What Vera's got to do now is make that lovely spicy soup.
A touch of lemongrass, maybe a little bit of ginger
and a little bit of chilli.
The problem is going to be to get the flavours into the soup in time.
She's doing little vegetable fritters on the side.
That's showcasing some more cookery technique.
Guys, you've had 15 minutes, you've still got half an hour left.
Plenty of time.
David, you actually look quite upbeat.
It's like riding a horse, I guess. Got to get back on, on the squash.
So it's going to be a butternut squash curry. Are you going to serve
it with rice? Serving it with rice, yeah.
How confident are you you'll be grabbing an apron?
50/50 at this point, isn't it?
David's sounds interesting.
He's got lentils and butternut squash in a pot with some spices.
So make that really spicy and then give us some things
on the side we can mop it up with.
I like the idea of that.
Sami, have you got a plan?
I think I do, yeah. I'm going to try to keep it simple
because my first dish was a bit too much.
So now I'm just going to make, like, a soup.
Do you cook with butternut squash very often? I do sometimes,
yeah. Sometimes I make a gnocchi out of it.
Do you make gnocchi out of butternut squash? Yes. Brilliant!
OK, but we're going to get soup instead? Yes,
this time it's going to be soup.
Why don't you make gnocchi?
That would be so different. All he's got to do
is that squash into flour and he's got gnocchi.
It's a good soup. It reminds me of home.
I think it's going to be OK.
Patricia, what did you learn from the last round?
Basically, just push myself a little bit more, but not a lot
of time to put something together.
I actually really wanted to make some bread so it could turn out
to be like a spicy butternut, almost bunny chow.
But I've hollowed out the end of the butternut, and hopefully
it cooks well enough on the inside.
Patricia's doing a South African bunny chow, a curry served
inside a hollowed-out loaf of bread. But she hasn't got any bread,
so what she's doing is she's serving
it in a hollowed-out butternut squash.
Now, I like the idea of that.
It shows some creativity, some imagination.
How long do we have?
90 seconds, everybody!
That's it! Stop. Time's up.
That really tested me to my limits.
Vera has made an Asian-inspired butternut squash, sweet potato
and coconut milk soup, with a coriander and chilli potato rosti.
Your soup is creamy with coconut, a little bit of spice
coming from chilli, you CAN taste the butternut squash.
It's quite nutty all the way through.
I'm pleased you made the rosti cos you wanted to show
off some more skill.
This rosti is lovely. Thank you.
It's crispy on the outside, soft in the middle.
It's got the distinct flavour of coriander, chilli and a fair
bit of seasoning. Very much enjoying the flavour and the texture.
Well done, you.
I hope I've done enough.
I definitely want it more than ever now.
David has cooked a butternut squash and lentil curry, topped
with walnuts, served with cumin rice and roasted cumin,
coriander and chilli-spiced butternut squash.
It's not the prettiest plate of food in the world, but I'm really pleased
you've cooked rice as well just to show off some more skill.
Lovely flavour of cumin running through it, that's great.
The actual sauce on your curry I quite like.
There's a sort of freshness, almost, of lime in there,
some chilli heat, the lentils are cooked very, very well.
You've got some interesting flavours running through here.
You have spiced up the roasted butternut really well,
and there's a smokiness to that and a slight bitterness.
But you've got to work on your presentation.
I knew it wasn't going to look pretty, you know,
a curry on a plate, but that's something to work on.
Patricia has made her take on a South African bunny chow,
a spicy chilli butternut squash curry inside roasted butternut
squash, flavoured with butter, sage, brown sugar and cinnamon.
That's not cooked.
There is a sweetness, a creamy sweetness to it,
and a little bit of chilli,
I like your flavours, but even the bits that are stewed here,
there's still a thick skin on there
that's virtually inedible.
Oh, Patricia!
I'm sad the outside of that butternut squash
isn't cooked all the way through,
cos it would have been really nice, actually.
There's almost a lime pickle flavour in there,
sort of sweet coming from brown sugar.
Across the top, you put little flecks of chilli,
which are quite hot, and little bits of raw shallot which sort of burst
in your mouth and give you a bit more flavour.
But it hasn't been a complete success, which is a shame.
The challenge was really tough.
I didn't want to overcook the squash because I wanted it to hold
the curry, but it came back to bite me.
Sami's dish is a butternut squash, carrot and Parmesan cream soup,
topped with Parmesan and black pepper-toasted croutons,
pan-fried garlic and chilli, pancetta and thyme.
I like the thick creaminess of your soup.
I also like the flavour of thyme that you've got running through
there, but I think we could have actually done with some
more cheese, a little bit more Parmesan.
I like the crunch of the croutons, the bits of pancetta across the top.
It still doesn't tell me a lot about you as a cook,
cos in the last round I saw
you make a risotto, which was done in a pot.
Now I've got something quite similar here.
It's just trying to work out what other skills you have.
I could have done more, yes, but I feel like in 45 minutes,
there's only so much you can do.
Actually, I think they did pretty well.
Vera made for us a really tasty bowl of soup.
Asian-inspired. Potato rosti, which was crispy on the outside,
good amount of chilli in it.
I think she's demonstrating a bit of skill, a bit of technique.
Let's put her through. Vera gets an apron.
Patricia made for us
her version of a bunny chow. It's usually a curry of some type
inside a piece of bread.
Although the flavours were good, that squash needed more cooking.
Sami made a decent bowl of soup.
What made that soup good was the crispness of the pancetta
across the top and the bits of bread.
But as far as technique's concerned, I'm a little bit worried.
David wanted to show off as much skill as he possibly could.
Rice flavoured with cumin seeds, and then the roasted squash
on the side, great idea.
But it didn't look elegant in any way at all.
I really don't know whether I've done enough, but hopefully
I've shown enough skill. To get an apron would be amazing.
Now that I've had a taste of the MasterChef kitchen,
I definitely need more and more and more.
I want to prove myself,
I want to show what I can actually cook.
Thank you so much for all your hard work.
Great day. Two good rounds, well done.
Two aprons up for grabs.
The first person joining Charlotte and James is...
..Vera.
Well done, you.
Second person getting an apron is...
..David.
Patricia, Sami, thank you so much for all your hard work.
You're leaving us.
That was extremely challenging,
but at the same time it was so much fun.
I gave it my best shot.
I'm quite disappointed that I'm going home,
but this experience taught me so much and inspired me
to be a better cook.
Who knows? One day, you know, I might open a restaurant. We'll see.
Vera, David, come and collect your aprons.
It feels amazing. Yeah. Much better, much better than the old one.
HE CHUCKLES
I need a new apron.
I'm feeling great, I'm really chuffed.
It's tough, but it's definitely enjoyable.
You are actually now cooking for a place in the quarterfinal.
You're going to have to present your food, not just to me and John,
but to three past champions of MasterChef.
Kenny Tutt,
Natalie Coleman and Tom Rhodes.
There are only three quarterfinal places.
That does mean that one of you will be leaving the competition.
Ladies and gentlemen, one hour, 15 minutes, two courses.
Deliver something delicious.
Let's cook!
I think I've still got stuff to prove.
I really want to get two dishes up that look good.
I wouldn't say I like pushing myself to the edge, but I always do it.
That's my nature, so I'm going all in.
Where did you learn to fillet a fish like that?
Erm, self-taught.
It's great to see you do that.
What are your two dishes, please?
So a tandoori rack of lamb to start, with a squash and chilli puree,
mint, coriander and chilli sauce. How are you going to cook the lamb?
It's going to be griddled on the top and then finished on the oven,
just hopefully get it nice and pink, but cooked in the middle.
The cookery of a lamb rack is now striking fear into my heart.
There have been so many undercooked lamb racks.
He's got to get some serious heat in there,
he's got to render that fat down, it's got to go crispy.
Main course is? It's pan-fried spiced gurnard fillet
with a coconut curry sauce and a fennel and lime salad,
served with a side of rice.
Why have you chosen gurnard?
I think it's got a great taste. It's really under-appreciated.
Good luck with it, David. Thank you. Cheers.
Gurnard can be quite a difficult fish to cook.
It's quite tough in the flesh, and pan-frying it, it's hard to get
that absolutely right.
With a coconut-flavoured curry sauce,
that reminds me of the south of India.
That will work really well, but we've got
to have smart-looking dishes.
For my main, I'm making squid ink tagliatelle with a prawn, saffron
and cream sauce, topped with butter-poached prawns.
Squid ink pasta, probably one of the most difficult pastas to make
because the squid ink itself is actually really, really wet.
There has to be enough egg to bind it, otherwise it becomes a bit
slippery and slimy.
You want really lovely crispy pasta from that squid ink.
What she IS showing here is lots and lots of technique.
And for my dessert, I'm making a vanilla bean panna cotta
with the pistachio creme anglaise
and a hazelnut caramel brittle on it.
Pistachio creme anglaise with a vanilla panna cotta,
highly unusual.
At its best, it's super, super rich and indulgent.
At its worst, it's a complete clash of the creamy titans.
You've got a very Italian feel to your menu, haven't you?
Erm, yeah, because I properly grew up in Venice and used to love
having squid ink pasta.
And then pistachio was my ultimate favourite.
I'm not a big dessert person, but I'll always have pistachio.
It's obviously had a lasting impression on you, your time
in Italy. Yeah, for sure.
With this menu, I'm hoping to demonstrate again my pasta skills,
and also desserts, I haven't done any desserts yet.
I am really trying my best to incorporate as many
techniques and flavours.
I think these two dishes reflect the fact that I cherry-pick
lots of different things from all over the world
and don't stick to a certain style.
You seem a bit frantic, Charlotte.
I've got a lot to do. I feel like I might have overstretched myself.
That's MasterChef - ambition is a fine thing.
What are you going to make for us? So I'm making torched butter style
tofu with a butter sauce and baby parathas.
So tell us about your butter sauce. So the butter sauce has got all
sorts of spice in it. It's got cloves, fenugreek, coriander, cumin,
garlic, ginger, tomatoes.
It's inspired by a street dish that I tried in Delhi,
which was just straight from the tandoor - butter chicken,
before I was vegan. And it was wonderful.
Tofu, which has firstly been smoked,
then covered in a plant based yoghurt
marinade with lots and lots of spices.
Because it's been smoked, it will give us the flavour
as if it's been in a tandoor oven, which I think is very clever.
Served with parathas, little tiny flatbreads,
and they need to be lovely and soft, but cooked all the way
through and not too thick.
My pudding is a bruleed lemon tart with a blackberry and bay sauce.
My mum always used to make the most incredible lemon tart
and then we've got blackberries where they live,
so I'm trying to combine two huge loves of mine.
I love the sound of Charlotte's dessert.
A very short sweetened pastry.
In that, she's going to put a lemon curd.
Then she's going to put a sugar top across and fire it like a brulee.
Technical and hopefully a little bit elegant.
I'm just getting too stressed. I've got too much to do.
Cooking for past champions of MasterChef is very daunting,
but making it to the quarterfinal would be unbelievable.
A big bonus.
This is fish, chips and tomato ketchup,
French bistro style.
Pan-fried sea bream, sauteed potatoes, pancetta,
spring onions with a sauce vierge. Ooh.
Oil warmed? Yeah.
Shallots. Yeah. Tomatoes, parsley. Yeah.
Classic sauce for a fish. Yes.
And tell me about the dessert.
Chocolate fondant... Ooh! ..with espresso syrup
and Cornish clotted cream.
Are you aware of how many failed fondants there's been?
Yeah, I am. This is the kiss of death of desserts.
Well, why do it, then?
It's a challenge, isn't it?
He's got to make sure everything is absolutely perfect
because we've all had things like this before.
Crispy potatoes, please.
Sauce vierge, nice and vibrant. Fish cooked all the way through.
Chocolate fondant, we know what we want.
You cut it and of course, the chocolate oozes out onto the plate.
It's classic work.
It's been done thousands of times before, but it's good.
And if you can get it right, it's a crowd pleaser.
It will either work brilliantly or be a disaster.
So my life before MasterChef was finance and DJing,
living the party lifestyle.
But now it's like 60 hours in a kitchen.
We won a Rosette, we won the Best Food Pub of the Year,
won the Chef of the Year at the Great British Pub Awards.
It is a good thing. It's really good.
The advice I'd always give about this stage
of the competition is do what you love.
Can I see a little bit of you, a little bit of your character
on the plate? And that's really important for me.
Hi.
We want to see ambition, but if you're too ambitious,
you're going to run out of time and it's going to show on the plate.
Cheers, guys. Cheers, guys. Lovely to see you.
Always a pleasure. Cheers. Cheers.
David, you've got five minutes on your first course.
Great.
David's dish sounds delicious.
Tandoori rack of lamb, mint and coriander.
A classic combination.
How's that lamb? As succulent as? Fingers crossed.
I love anything with a little bit of spice, but as we know, lamb
is a bit of a nemesis, especially on the bone, the rack.
Very easy to not render the fat.
The moment of truth.
Is that how you wanted it?
It is, yeah. It's warm through.
The squash puree I hope is nice and smooth.
It sounds delightful, you know, with the hint
of chilli going through.
Hi.
So I've cooked for you a tandoori rack of lamb
on a lentil, chilli and squash puree with a side of green chilli,
coriander and mint dressing.
I hope you enjoy.
Might just be a touch under.
David's definitely mastered the spice on the outside of that lamb,
but there's still quite a hefty chunk of fat
on there that really needed to be rendered down.
It is raw in places.
This probably needs another sort of five to eight minutes.
The puree could have been a little bit looser, but there's a lot
of interesting flavours going on.
And the mint and coriander sauce cools down those spices
from the tandoori mix.
That's raw. I'm so sad.
All he had to do was cook that lamb and we had a perfect dish.
OK, 15 minutes on your next course.
Are you OK? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I just forgot to put my rice on. Just need to get that done.
You haven't got rice on? No, not yet. Mate, you better move!
Yeah. Come on, let's go.
Spiced pan-fried gurnard with coconut curry sauce.
Gurnard is one of my favourite fish.
Hopefully he won't overcook it.
Fennel and onion salad sounds delicious.
That's going to bring some freshness to the plate.
It's a really good contrast to those spices as well.
Where's the rice? The rice is in the pan.
Three minutes, please.
Rice can make it or break it.
So hopefully he's got his down to a T.
Fish ready? The fish is ready. Yeah.
Lovely fish.
We've got to be going now, David.
David's main course is spiced pan-fried gurnard
with aromatic rice and a fennel and onion salad,
served with a coconut curry sauce.
The fish was cooked perfect.
But that sauce, that sauce is amazing.
Like, it's almost got a fruitiness going through it.
So I'd quite happily eat that all day long.
The rice, it's a touch al dente,
but I'd rather it be a touch al dente than the other way,
so I'm happy with that.
There's like a lovely freshness running through it all
with the salad, it's really pleasant.
The only thing, if I was being really super critical,
is just a tiny bit more seasoning throughout.
That fish is cooked beautifully.
That sauce, I think, is absolutely delicious.
Smoky with curry leaves. But I like that a lot.
The guest judges are such good cooks.
I hope they kind of see what I'm about and can see some potential.
Vera, four minutes. OK. Thank you.
Are you happy? Yeah.
Charred prawns with squid ink tagliatelle,
saffron and prawn sauce.
This is right up my street.
With charred prawns, she's got to get them just right.
If you overcook it, it becomes quite rubbery and tough.
Tagliatelle, I mean, look, we've made pasta many times,
and if you don't get it quite right, it's difficult to work with.
Right, what's to go on here, Vera?
I'm going to add the prawn sauce on top.
Got to be careful with the saffron here because it can go
from being a really nice flavour to kind of
tasting like perfume.
This, I have to confess, looks better than I thought it would.
Thank you. Well done, you.
Go, go, go, go, go, go!
Hello. Hello. Hello.
So I've cooked you some squid ink tagliatelle with a prawn and saffron
sauce, and a butter poached prawn on top with some salmon roe.
I hope you enjoy.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
This would grace the tables of any fine dining restaurant.
It's so pretty.
I think you can say that Vera absolutely smashed that one.
That is proper peng.
The sauce is so rich, the prawn has been poached well.
It's still got a bit of bite to it. The pasta is, for me,
perfect, like a bit al dente, lovely and silky.
Everything's spot-on. Ten out of ten.
Eleven out of ten.
I'd be happy to eat this in a restaurant and pay for it,
that's for sure.
Absolutely stunningly good pasta.
It's a very good dish indeed. She showed off lots of skill.
Lots of skill.
For dessert Vera's cooking us a vanilla panna cotta.
Very classic, but it all depends on how the panna cotta has set.
You've been very brave with this. It's just set, hasn't it?
Yeah, yeah. Good for you.
But you're going to have to move quick now. Yeah, for sure.
To make a creme anglaise as well,
she's really pushing the boat out here.
I just hope that she pulls it off.
Hopefully it's not a disaster, but at least it's not curdled.
Vera, you're doing fine. You've still got three and a half minutes.
You're doing fine. Thank you.
That nut brittle crumb is just going to add that nice bit of texture
so that everything isn't too kind of soft and wobbly.
So I've made you a vanilla bean panna cotta with a caramel
and nut brittle crumb, and a pistachio creme anglaise.
Thank you so much. Enjoy!
Well, there it is. There it is.
I think my plate says it all. It's completely empty.
It was really fresh, like the vanilla-y panna cotta.
If she wants a job,
I hope she taps me up after this because her cookery is amazing.
We've got a perfectly silky creme anglaise, beautiful pistachio
flavour running through it, and then that little crumb,
which adds some texture.
Technically, she's nailed it.
Here's to Vera. Cheers to that.
There's some really good pastry skills in there.
Really nicely made.
Two very successful courses from Vera.
It's an amazing experience. High adrenaline,
so still feeling quite buzzed now, to be honest.
I did the best that I could have possibly done.
You have about four minutes, Charlotte. Thank you.
Torched spiced tofu with a butter curry sauce.
If I was to go to the curry house, butter chicken was my favourite.
So I'm looking forward to tofu with butter sauce.
Tofu is quite bland by itself, but you can add so many flavours
to it, and I really hope Charlotte manages to achieve that today.
Nice.
Freshly made paratha is just such a beautiful thing,
but it's got to be cooked well,
so it's not still sort of like raw dough.
What leaves are they? Curry leaves.
Well done, Charlotte. It looks great. Thank you. I really like this.
Great smell.
It looks really good. It looks nice as well.
Charlotte has served torched tandoori spiced tofu,
topped with crispy curry leaves on a butter sauce
flavoured with tomato, coriander, fenugreek and ginger,
with home-made paratha bread.
There's some good spicing in there, but it hasn't
really penetrated the tofu.
So you've got a bit on the outside, but, you know, really that
would need marinating 24 hours, 48 hours,
to really pick up that spice.
I don't know how she's made the sauce, but what I'm getting
is quite a lot of raw spice flavour and quite a bit of bitterness.
The parathas taste still quite raw with the flour.
It was a beautiful looking dish and it promised a lot,
but for me it just didn't quite hit the mark.
The sauce is very, very thick.
I was expecting layers of spicing.
It definitely needs more seasoning in there.
Bruleed lemon curd tart with a blackberry and bay leaf sauce.
I love those woody herbs.
But the bay leaf, if left in there too long,
could really sort of almost overpower it.
It's got just the right amount of bay that I wanted.
With pastry, obviously, you expect it to be nice and buttery and flaky.
No soggy bottoms.
How she's going to make a lemon curd without eggs, I'm not quite sure,
but I'm interested to see.
I like the colours here. Good.
So do I.
Let's go, Charlotte. Let's go.
Charlotte's dessert is a brulee lemon curd tart, topped with fresh
blackberries, on a blackberry and bay leaf sauce.
It is absolutely beautiful.
It's fantastic.
It is sort of lip-smackingly sweet.
But there's also this lovely zing and freshness to the lemon curd.
The pastry was quite crumbly.
It dissolved in the mouth and it was a really, really,
really well done dessert.
I would certainly eat the whole thing.
The blackberry and bay leaf sauce
works fantastically with the flavours of lemon.
She's really executed it really, really well.
What's not to like? That dessert has delivered on both
appearance and flavour.
I'm feeling relieved that that's over.
My dishes weren't perfect and I wanted them to be perfect.
But I hope the guest judges will see that I really tried to be ambitious.
Some real classic, classic flavours on the plate.
Pan-fried sea bream and a sauce vierge.
It's quite a simple dish, essentially, but there's
nowhere to hide. And it's all about fish cookery.
That's lovely, my friend. Good job.
I hope that sauce vierge adds a nice pop of freshness to the dish.
I want enough acidity in there to kind of really make it sing.
This is so hard. So hard.
Anything else to go on the plate after this? No.
You need to get that out and then come back for your fondant.
This is where I drop the plate.
Don't do that. Beautiful dish, my friend.
Thank you. Well done, James.
Hello. Hello. Hello.
I'm James.
I've cooked you pan-fried sea bream with sauteed potatoes,
pancetta and spring onions, with a sauce vierge.
Right. I hope you enjoy it.
It smells lovely, James. Thank you. Thank you. Lovely.
It's absolutely stunning.
I love the acid that comes from the sauce vierge, and the fish
cookery is just perfect.
It's so juicy and it just falls to pieces.
I love that taste of the spring onions, bacon and the potatoes.
I think that really works well together.
And then these little darts of tomato just, you know, giving
you a bit of freshness in there.
It's all seasoned perfectly.
I can't fault it.
Mm.
Mm!
This is fantastic!
Well done, James.
I've got no complaint whatsoever.
Right, James.
Chocolate fondant. Yeah. All good?
All good at the moment. OK, brilliant.
Chocolate fondant, as we know, can make you or break
you on MasterChef.
It wants to be sort of set on the outside, but then really gooey
and like a chocolate river inside.
Espresso syrup, that's going to add a nice little bitterness
to the dish, I think, which I always kind of crave in a sweet.
I mean, I just say "put clotted cream on everything."
I just hope that James absolutely smashes that fondant.
Not literally.
If they're overcooked, they're overcooked.
Ah!
Hey! Hey!
Well done, Big Jim. Proud of you.
I think this looks really smart.
That is fantastic.
Thank you.
Hello again. Hello.
This is chocolate fondant with a coffee syrup,
Cornish clotted cream and crushed pistachios.
A little over, the old fondant, but let's give it a taste.
Oh, James!
Oh, chocolate fondant,
it just always sets you up with so much anticipation for that kind
of gooey centre. And he's just not pulled it off.
But one thing I will say is the flavours
in this dish are fantastic.
Got loads of rich cocoa and the syrup's lovely.
A lovely coffee flavour coming through.
I love the little bits of nut running through it as well
for that bit of texture.
It doesn't matter whether it's cake or fondant,
I'd happily polish it off.
And the touch of the clotted cream
is just genius because it's proper smooth.
It brings everything together.
That is not a fondant. That's more the texture of a chocolate brownie.
However, I find it utterly delicious.
That was the most stressful cook I've ever done.
But I also feel quite elated that I got both dishes out in time.
I don't know what I'm going to do tonight other than sleep.
All of the cooks should be so proud of themselves today because I think
we've had some delicious food.
I think the real standout for me has got to be Vera.
She's so accomplished as a cook.
You would have thought that she's been a chef for years.
We've got ourselves four absolutely brilliant cooks.
There were some ups and downs. A few things didn't quite work out,
but the standard I thought today was sky-high.
There is a cook of the day and that cook of the day is Vera.
Lots of skill on show.
Really beautifully presented. So good, in fact, Natalie in
the dining room today said that she would give her a job now.
Vera's going through, right?
She's got herself a quarterfinal place. I'm really, really pleased.
There's somebody else, I think, in the room today who did
a great job. And that was James.
It was classic food at its best.
Delicious.
Yes, the fondant didn't quite work out.
However, the flavours were fantastic.
John, I like his style. He's going through.
We've got to make a decision now between David and Charlotte.
And both of them have delivered one really good course,
and both of them have disappointed in the other.
David had lovely spicing on his lamb.
The flavours were good, no doubt about it.
It just wasn't cooked enough, as simple as that.
The main course, however, the gurnard was delicious.
Charlotte gave us a dish inspired by the street food of Delhi.
Tofu still on the skewer,
I thought the dish looked fantastic, but actually I found it quite
disappointing in its flavours.
Her dessert was wonderful.
It was stunning in looks and it was stunning in flavour.
I think it was a great, great dessert.
It was tougher than I thought it was going to be.
But I've worked really hard to get here
and really, really would love
a place in that quarterfinal more than anything.
Cooking in there today, it's been such an enjoyable process
and I've learnt a lot and I'd love to do it again.
Thank you very much indeed.
It's a hard round, but you were truly impressive.
Three quarterfinal places.
That does mean, sadly, one of you is leaving us.
Our first quarterfinalist is Vera.
Thank you very much.
Very, very well done.
Our second quarterfinalist is James.
WHISPERED: Well done.
Lovely cookery, mate.
Thank you very much.
Our third and final quarterfinalist is...
..Charlotte.
Congratulations. Well done.
David, sorry to see you go, mate.
Thank you very much indeed.
Thanks, David. Thanks.
I'm pretty deflated right now to be going home, but I've tested myself
and I've learned some new skills, and I'll take those with me.
Congratulations.
You are MasterChef quarterfinalists.
I think I'm in shock, honestly!
There's nothing in life that I've experienced that gives
you this much of a high and this much of a low,
all in the space of about four hours.
MasterChef quarterfinalist, it sounds OK.
I think there might be a glass of red tonight.
I'm super happy. I still can't quite believe it.
I think it needs a little bit to sink in.
Now that I've made it this far, I want to make it all the way.
Next time - it's the quarterfinal,
and Vera, James and Louise will be joining
Charlotte, Ecrin and George to fight
for their place, cooking for one of the UK's hottest culinary talents.
We have 90 seconds. Very, very last touches.
I think you're demonstrating lots of skill here.
Strawberry and cheese, who knew?
You have done a really, really good job.