It's the Celebrity MasterChef semifinals
and only the seven best cooks remain.
I am living, sleeping, breathing this competition.
It's crazy.
If you asked me at school, "Revise for an exam,"
I would have said, "No chance."
So to be here and going home and practising food,
I must be enjoying it.
I am always last to leave the party, right?
And I want to be the last to leave this party.
Tonight, the pressure ramps up
as the celebrities are challenged
with cooking for one of the UK's most exciting young chefs,
Big Zuu...No pressure.
..before battling it out to keep their place
in the competition.
Every challenge just gets harder and harder.
I'm sort of hanging on by the skin of my teeth.
It literally feels to me like I've been thrown in the deep end.
I'm not really a strong swimmer - I don't think, anyway.
There are a lot of eliminations
between the start of the semifinal and the final.
So you need to be on your game.
Excited, but nervous.
But, you know, what can possibly go right?
We will keep testing them and we will keep pushing them.
We want them to get better and better.
Today, we are bringing the big guns, literally.
Welcome back.
You are our magnificent seven.
If you're good enough to get here,
you are good enough to win it.
But you've got to keep pushing,
you've got to keep getting better.
Today, you'll be cooking the dishes
of one of the most exciting
young powerhouses in food in Britain right now.
Ladies and gentlemen, please let me introduce you to
Big Zuu.
Hi, guys.
How you doing? You all right?
Oh, I got a clap! What a clap!
Hello, guys.
Big Zuu is Britain's two-time Bafta-winning TV personality,
rapper
and self-taught chef...
..whose unique take on food...
..has taken the country by storm.
My mum's from Sierra Leone, Dad's from Lebanon.
My mum is a massive chef,
so I just kind of copied her and that's how I got into it.
I grew up in West London, where there's, like, heavy influences
from Jamaicans, North Africans.
There's so many different sides of the world just in one little place.
I always try to venture out and try different recipes
and different things that I see online.
I don't think that my food could be put in a box.
I would say I'm a global chef.
I try everything
and I want to embrace everything.
Today, you will all be cooking some of my most prized recipes
that have come from my family.
So this is deep-rooted in my heritage -
I'm from Sierra Leone and Lebanon.
There's no pressure, but if you get it wrong,
my mum will be very angry.
THEY LAUGH
At the end of this, we will choose a star cook,
and that person will go straight through
to the next round.
The remaining six will have to cook off against each other
to stay in the competition.
Ladies and gentlemen, you have one-and-a-half hours.
Big Zuu,
what does John Torode say?
Let's cook.
I've been waiting to say that my whole life.
I'm excited by Big Zuu being in here.
I just wish HE was doing the cooking.
This will be a cook and a half, that's for sure.
I don't know what half these things are.
I can follow recipes,
but there's actually five recipes in one.
That's the problem.
I'm excited to see, like,
my dishes come to life in the MasterChef kitchen.
But if things aren't right,
I will not be afraid to tell them the truth.
Musician Max has the challenge of making Big Zuu's
saag paneer bhaji bun.
What is that?!
Saag paneer bhaji bun - one of my greatest recipes ever.
Max has to make paneer, which is cheese.
Never made cheese before in my life.
A paneer - take vinegar with milk
and you warm the two together.
The milk starts to curdle.
Then he's got to strain it,
compress it...
Just trying to get all the liquid out of it, cos there's a lot.
..put it on a tray and cool it.
If he doesn't do the process right,
he'll end up with scrambled paneer.
Smells good. Smells cheesy.
On top of that, we're getting an onion bhaji.
He's got a coriander chutney with lots and lots of coriander and mint.
And then we've got saag -
spinach which has been flavoured with lots and lots of spices.
And he's got to make all those things taste absolutely brilliant
to go with that bland brioche bun.
I loved Indian food growing up and I loved a bit of saag paneer,
and I thought, "Why don't we make all of this
"into a burger and make it exciting?"
You never put saag paneer in a burger bun?
Oh, mate, I make jam sponges.
That's about it, really.
How do you feel about this challenge?
I'm really enjoying it, but it's just timing.
I've not got that much time
and I've got to make sure that that cheese is cooked properly.
I've never cooked Indian food.
I've eaten a lot of it.
First-ever driving instructor,
he didn't really teach me, we just used to drive round to his house
and he'd give me an onion bhaji...
..and then I'd drive home.
So I've eaten a lot of onion bhajis!
Comedian Marcus is in charge of one of West Africa's most iconic dishes.
Jollof rice with slow-cooked lamb leg,
bang bang broccoli deep-fried in spicy breadcrumbs
and a sriracha mayonnaise.
I've never even heard of jollof rice.
I've certainly never made it.
Making the jollof rice,
there's a huge amount of process.
First, he's going to take lamb and make a lamb stock.
Once he's made the lamb stock,
the bits of lamb that are left inside there,
he's got to take those and fry them so they go nice and crispy
so that they can then go into the actual rice itself.
There's lots of spices, including cloves, in the recipe,
but also Scotch bonnet to give it heat.
Is that going to be too much?
That is a hell of a lot. That's a lot.
That's going to be too punchy, right? That might kill us.
People always argue about who has the best jollof.
I'm saying Sierra Leone has the best jollof.
So today they have to prove
that my country makes the best jollof.
I've cooked biryani, but it's not really the same as this.
It's not the same, but you're on the right track. I know THAT's good.
This is my mum's speciality.
So if I get this wrong, I'm offending your entire family.
Yeah, you will not be invited to my house. Oh, mate. Mate. Come on.
Let's just put it like that.
Mama Zuu's jollof rice -
anything with Mama's name written on it,
you know there's going to be trouble,
because it has to be perfect.
This sounds insane.
Actor Amy is responsible for Zuu's take on a classic cheeseburger,
using dried noodles as the bun.
I had to cook for a celebrity that didn't like bread,
so I said, "I'll make you a burger with noodles."
And that's it - ramen noodles sliders was created.
I've never made a bread bun out of noodles
and served it around a beef patty.
Bring it on.
What do you think's the trickiest bit of this?
It's that bun. Is it? Making sure it sets correct.
You don't want a bun that's all over the place.
If I can't pick up the bun,
then you have not completed the task.
Oh, good. Make sure that bun is set
and getting that flavour into that meat, into the burger as well.
She's got to take the noodles and make them into a burger bun...
..by mixing them with a little bit of egg,
cooling them down
and then putting them in the oven and baking them
till they go crispy on the outside
but stay soft on the inside.
Oh, my God, I've just realised I've done something wrong with this.
I've missed the egg out. What have you done?
You're meant to bind it with egg, and I didn't do it.
I don't know what I was thinking.
And I'm going to just do it again.
No pressure.
She's got to make cheeseburgers, which she's flavouring with miso
and dashi, the flavours of Japanese soup.
Then she's got to do halloumi fries.
This is a great example of what Big Zuu does.
He takes the everyday and turns it into something fun and exciting.
There's so much. So much.
Reality star Luca is tackling the first of four elements
to Big Zuu's all-you-can-eat trap box.
During like lockdown and stuff,
people were just selling these boxes of lobster tail, macaroni cheese,
corn, fried chicken - all in one -
and they'd pay like 30, 40 quid for a box,
but you won't complain because you get everything you want.
An hour-and-a-half and he wants that much food?
They leave things too last-minute,
they might not get the whole box together,
and you need every element for it to be a trap box.
How tough is this for you?
There's a lot going on at once.
I'm kind of finding myself running about and stressed,
so I just want to do you proud
and, hopefully, you enjoy the food.
Luca, what are you learning here?
Too much for one day, I think.
Luca is in a bit of a panic.
There's so much stuff in it.
A whole lobster tail needs to be cleaned properly,
cut down the shell
and then opened up with chilli butter across the top of it.
I'm shaking. Don't shake, bruv.
Come on, boy - you've been through
more high-pressured environments than this.
I don't think I have... You haven't? OK, damn.
I tried to help you.
That mac and cheese needs a nice crust across the top of it.
It's got to be seasoned really well.
You got this.
Opera singer Wynne is tasked with a beef and okra stew
popular in Sierra Leone,
Mama Zuu's birthplace.
Woo!
That might be the toughest dish today.
It needs time, so they need to get onto it straight away
to let that stew boil down.
They've got to make sure that that beef is tender
and that it falls off the bone.
The stew will be served alongside sweet and sour carrots
in a panko crumb
and fufu.
My first impressions are, what the hell is fufu?
Fufu is like an African maize porridge.
It's really thick and it's completely bland.
Think of it being really sort of firm mashed potato.
If you've never made it before, good luck.
Your fufu is the vehicle to the stew. OK.
Like a grain. It's what's going to hold it all together. Exactly.
You want to be able to pick it up
and you want the shoe to stick to it.
I'm just going to follow your instructions
and use the wooden spoon
and keep that going like a mash.
We should do a duet. Yeah, any time, mate. I think I can hit falsetto.
GREGG:Right.
SINGS A HIGH NOTE
That's nice.
BELTS NOTE
Wow.
Making fufu is just hard work.
I mean, it really is.
# Here comes the fufu... #
You've got to stir it and stir it and stir it,
and it can't have lumps in it - it's got to be as smooth as silk.
What, you've just got to beat the hell out of it? Yeah,
till it comes back together.
What, is it like a corn meal or something? Yeah. Yeah, exactly that.
Come on, Wynne! It's got to be smooth, come on!
"In a large bowl, whisk the sugar, eggs."
OK.
Comedian Shazia is working on the batter mix for Big Zuu's
salted-caramel waffles
topped with caramelised banana and honeycomb,
served with vanilla ice cream.
This is a dish that I developed with a restaurant.
It's a beautiful dessert.
This one's all about flavour,
getting that balance of the salted caramel with the banana
and making sure that your waffles are made correctly
because that is going to be the star of the dish.
I'm glad it's a sweet dish.
Everybody's happy with a bit of sugar,
so I hope that I create
something fun that everybody will like.
Are you under pressure, cooking one of Zuu's recipes?
Is it harder than your own?
Yeah, because I don't want it to go wrong.
Have you ever made a waffle?
I think when I was about five, I used the waffle machine
and I made a waffle, but I haven't made it for a long time,
but I have them in America all the time.
They have waffles with everything.
I'm going to stop waffling now.
You waffle on. I've got work to do.
A good waffle needs to be crispy on the outside,
soft and soggy on the inside,
but brown all over.
Vanilla ice cream -
the problem with making ice cream with eggs in it is that she's got to
continue to stir it and stir it and stir it
and really keep an eye on it or it can curdle.
If it curdles, there's nowhere you can go with the ice cream.
You have to start all over again.
It's looking a bit curdled.
What's happened?
It looks like it may have curdled a little bit.
Might have over-boiled it.
What do you think I should do? You may need to start again.
Oh, God.
I've got a really huge need
to please Big Zuu.
Like, I want him to be proud of me.
Jamelia is making a chocolate peanut butter ice cream...
Ooh, look at that.
..to accompany one of Zuu's favourite childhood desserts.
Akara, which is like a West African
sweet dumpling that they fry.
And then, the ice cream is like just this crazy combination
of all the chocolate peanut butter goodness in the world.
Together, the warm akara
with that cold ice cream,
it's beautiful.
I've got a sweet tooth.
I grew up with my mum frying akara for me.
Aw! If there's, like, a celebration or people coming over,
she'll fry 15 million akaras...
I'm not confident, but I'm confident in your recipe.
I'm not trying to suck up to you... It's all right, don't worry.
But I'm just like... Keep going, keep going!
I feel like, if I follow the recipe properly,
then I should be fine.
Jamelia's smiling.
That's a good sign, Zuu. Let's go.
She's got an African doughnut called akara.
You mash the overripe bananas,
and you'll add to that rice flour.
You don't want it to be too, too loose. That's what I thought.
Because then it won't fry.
The akara needs to be absolutely crispy on the outside
and just soft and steamy in the middle.
They look good, they smell good.
I just hope they taste good.
25 minutes left, everybody.
No pressure.
Max is making good progress with his saag paneer bhaji bun.
That chutney... Uh-huh. ..is banging. Full of flavour, innit?
Yeah. Crazy. So good.
Bhaji's got to be crispy,
but also, like, full of steamy onion goodness
when you open into it.
Looking good, bro. Yeah?
Bro, if you went to a local Indian shop and you saw that,
what would you say? Oh, I'd smash it. There we go! Know what I mean?
The jollof is a little bit scary because, once it's in,
you just have to let it do its thing
and trust that it will all come together.
The big bang Broccoli,
you've got to make sure that panko is nice and crisp
and the broccoli is nice and firm.
I'm just trying desperately to get panko crumb
which is now a bit soggy...
..to stick.
Ah!
It's got to come out of the fryer crispy and looking nice.
Is that your sriracha?
Yeah. It's looking good, you know. Is it? Uh-huh.
Amy now needs to cook her soy and miso
marinated cheeseburgers perfectly.
The flavours in it are amazing
because you have that, like, Asian influence
in, like, such an Americanised burger.
Oh!
They're looking good.
They smell so good,
the miso and the sesame.
It plays on your mind.
I'm cooking the halloumi fries now.
I just did a little sample and it was delicious.
It's going to take me a while because
there's quite a few left to do.
How do you know when your mac's done?
How do you want your macaroni cheese to look?
I want a bit of crust on the top.
There we go. Let's have it.
Luca's halfway to making all the elements of his trap box.
My mac and cheese is done.
My corn on the cobs are oh-so done.
The lobster tails need to be nice and pink when they've cooked
with lots and lots of butter.
Looks good. That smells banging as well.
Then we've got chicken nuggets, deep-fried.
You're doing it, it's wicked. Yeah, but I ain't cooked the chicken.
As soon as it goes kind of golden-brown,
you'll know it's ready.
Having put in a shift,
Wynne's fufu is finally made.
That's perfect.
That's the exact consistency.
It don't get better than that, mate.
Shazia is still on her second attempt at the vanilla ice cream.
It's not as hard as I would like it to be -
more like cream than ice cream...
..but...
..it tastes good.
Having fallen behind,
she's now racing to make her garnish.
The honeycomb...
..could be better.
It's not as hard as I would like it to be.
No, no.
A bit of chewy honeycomb, right?
Honestly, I can't believe I made that.
Ooh, that is so nice.
Jamelia's final job is to make a chocolate soil
and chocolate sauce accompaniment.
If she melts the chocolate too fast
or she adds the cream too quickly...
..the whole thing could split apart,
and then you end up with a fatty sauce
which looks like scrambled chocolate.
This is just...
I'm in heaven.
Whatever you're doing, you have to do it in five minutes.
# Oh, lovely, yeah! #
Just putting the jollof on.
I am pretty happy.
I'm trying to do presentation.
Guys, you have got 90 seconds left.
SHAZIA:What?!
This guy is living life on the edge, bruv.
Oh, it looks good, though.
Final touches.
Final touches to your masterpiece. Come on!
Ooh! Oh, no, we lost one.
That's it, stop, stop, your time's up.
I thought I was going to have a heart attack.
I'm pleased. I just hope I've done it justice.
I hope that I'm teacher's pet today.
Wynne, please, come and join us.
Wynne has cooked Big Zuu's spicy beef,
okra and tomato stew
and fufu served with sweet and sour carrots
and crispy panko crumb.
This fufu looks incredible.
It looks like it was created by auntie
in the back streets of Freetown.
Your fufu is on point.
To ask someone to cook fufu who's never made it before is a big ask.
And the consistency is correct.
It holds on to the sauce, amazingly.
Your okra stew -
I love the beef, beautiful flavour in there.
Get that scotch bonnet coming through.
Can taste everything.
My mum would be proud.
The flavour of that stew is brilliant.
Your carrots, I really like - they're nicely cooked.
Across the top, this crumb, which gives it the texture.
It's really good.
I am loving it.
There is sweet and there is salty and there is chilli hot,
and that makes me really, really happy.
I'm really pleased with the outcome.
He said the fufu was good.
I think I was pretty close.
Max has served a saag paneer bhaji bun -
a brioche bun topped with saag spinach,
paneer cheese, onion bhaji
and a coriander and mint chutney.
The chutney is amazing.
The flavour, it's just punchy it's herby,
it's very fresh.
I feel like you're paneer's under-seasoned.
There's no real flavour in it, but it is good paneer.
Considering you made your own cheese from scratch, well done.
Cheers, mate.
Your bhaji is great - it's really crispy on the outside,
soft on the inside, nice amount of spice running through it.
That's really good, but I'd like some more seasoning.
I love that chutney.
It tastes like a sharp mint sauce.
However, you haven't drained your spinach enough. Mm-hm.
So all that water in the spinach is making your bun soggy.
OK.
It could have gone better
and it looked good.
I literally just rushed at the end,
which is, like, a bit of a shame.
I didn't know you made your own paneer.
Was it easy? No. I... No!
I didn't have a clue.
Marcus has cooked Mama Zuu's jollof rice
spiced with Scotch bonnet chillies,
served with slow-cooked, diced lamb leg
and bang bang broccoli
deep-fried in spicy panko breadcrumbs
and a sriracha mayonnaise.
The jollof, all that seasoning there.
You get that tomato paste in there, you get all the lovely onions
and scotch bonnet.
You put just enough - it's not too hot, it's beautiful.
I can't really fault the broccoli. That is big bang broccoli, 100%.
Feel like you've done yourself proud here. Thank you.
Your bang bang broccoli -
I've never had it before but I think it's absolutely brilliant.
I love the crispy outside,
and inside there you've got Chinese five spice.
And then dipping it in that lovely mayonnaise sauce,
which has got chilli on it
but just hits the front of your lips, which is just great.
Your lamb is too dry.
That's the only fault I can find.
I'm loving the rice, the jollof and I'm loving the broccoli.
And I don't know whether to praise you or the Big Zuu.
This is a great dish.
Feel pretty good.
I feel like I delivered what I was asked to.
He loved the broccoli, they all did.
So, yeah, I'm really, really happy.
Amy has made a ramen noodle slider filled with
a miso-and-dashi-flavoured cheeseburger
and sriracha mayonnaise,
served with halloumi fries
dressed in harissa yoghurt.
Straight off the top,
the noodle bun is amazing.
Got a beautiful seal on it,
inside is nice and spongy, it holds together.
The burger is a little bit too dense,
but the flavours are there.
The halloumi fries, really good.
Great crisp on there, sauce is amazing.
I'm really happy with this.
If I was to serve this in the restaurant, I'd be excited.
My burger is fine.
There's a hint of pink in there.
I love that I've got a slippery noodle at the end of a beefy burger
with cheese on there to give it saltiness - I think that's great.
I love those fries.
They're crispy on the outside, slightly chalky on the inside.
That's wonderful.
I really enjoyed that challenge.
Making a burger bun out of noodles, like...that was just brilliant.
I think I did it justice.
Luca has cooked a trap box - lobster grilled in a chilli butter,
served with sweet chilli chicken nuggets,
spiced corn and mac and cheese.
I love the chicken - nice and moist.
That coating has taken all that sweet chilli sauce.
That macaroni cheese is lovely.
You get little hums of the, like, mustard,
the black pepper, the cheese.
Your corn, it's missing the seasoning
but, overall, if I got this as a trap box,
I would not be disappointed.
The lobster meat itself is cooked really nicely
and the butter that seeped into the meat is great,
but there should be more butter on it.
Your lobster meat is cooked perfectly.
And your macaroni cheese, I love the crust on the top of it.
I mean, it's really, really impressive.
Very, very impressive.
Yeah, I'm pleased. I am pleased with how it come out.
It was a good experience.
I learned a few things in there,
and hopefully I can take that into the next challenge.
Shazia has served caramelised banana and honeycomb
on a salted caramel waffle, with a vanilla ice cream.
The waffle, I really like it.
It's held all of those amazing toppings on top
and not gone super-soggy.
It's still got its structure. It still got its form.
Your honeycomb is not quite the consistency
of what honeycomb should be.
It's a little bit too tough.
I like the ice cream.
It's not set completely
but the flavour in there is beautiful.
Feel like you could have done better in certain aspects,
but together it tastes really good.
Thank you.
Bananas are well done.
You've got good colour on there.
Your honeycomb isn't brittle, it's chewy,
and your caramel sauce isn't dark enough to give it that bitterness.
The issue for you was that your ice cream curdled the first time.
That meant it threw out all your timings
cos you had to start again.
I thought, actually, that was quite a challenge.
Sounds easy to make, but it was a lot of work that had to go into it.
WHISPERS:It was OK. I thought it was going to be worse.
Hiya.
Last up is Jamelia.
She has made akara - African banana fritters - with a chocolate soil,
chocolate sauce and a chocolate and peanut butter ice cream.
The akara is cooked amazingly.
It's not raw in the middle. Crispy on the outside.
And you get that banana flavour straight away.
The chocolate soil is beautiful.
Your sauce is really good as well.
The ice cream is banging.
It's proper good.
It's a great dessert.
Thank you.
That ice cream - beautifully creamy.
It is one of the nicest ice creams I've ever tasted.
Jamelia...
..I'd pay for that.
Oh, my gosh!
I think it's ace.
And you did presentation. Yay! Yeah, I tried. Phew!
Oh, well done. Thank you.
I feel amazing. Like, absolutely amazing. I can't believe that.
I'm genuinely like, "What just happened?"
John saying that he'd pay for it was just like, "What?!"
That was amazing. Thank you.
Thank you.
Big Zuu, what do you think of the standard of our seven?
They took some dishes they've never seen before,
recipes they've never worked with, and gave us something incredible.
A little bit of Zuu magic rubbed off
in the MasterChef kitchen there, I think.
Oh! I thought that went pretty well, that.
I love Big Zuu. Yeah. I thought he was so fun.
Wicked recipes.
Could you pick a top three out of those?
Jamelia definitely has to go in there.
The dessert was just a different level.
I've got to shout out Wynne as well. He made a fufu from scratch.
Also, I would say I think Amy's in there with her noodle burger.
Honestly, thank you so very much.
Thank you. Thank you.
Good to meet you, mate.
I think they've all done a really good job.
However, who's it going to be?
Who's our star cook?
Who's safe and goes straight through to the next round?
Well done. Zuu's recipes were interesting, fun,
and you executed them brilliantly.
Only one of you, however, is heading straight through to the next round.
Our star cook is...
..Jamelia.
Oh, my God. Oh, we knew you'd won.
Yay!
Brilliant. Thank you. It was great. It was so good. Brilliant.
Thanks very much.
There you go. Aw! Go and sit this one out.
Bye, guys. Thank you so much.
Oh, my God.
JOHN CHUCKLES Thank you.
Oh, my gosh.
Me?!
Genuinely can't believe it.
I'm so chuffed.
So chuffed. I can't wait to go home and tell my kids.
We don't want you to be disheartened.
There are places in the next round up for grabs,
but we want you to now give us food from the heart.
You've learnt from Zuu that food comes from memories,
it comes from culture, it comes from family.
Right now, we've got a fantastic task - to cook for us
a plate of food that transports us to a special time or a special place
in your life.
We want to be stirred with emotion.
There are five places left in the competition.
That does mean, at the end of this, one of you will be going home.
Ladies and gentlemen, one hour and 40 minutes.
Let's cook.
I think this is going to be a really exciting round.
A proper plate of food with a real story behind it.
When I think back to memories in my life...
..it's always around a dinner table, and that's just so special to me.
Tell me about your dish, please.
I am cooking for you lobster and scallop tortellini
in a lobster champagne bisque.
So what's the memory that's inspired this?
Pasta-making is something I've done since I was about ten,
with my uncle, at my auntie and uncle's house,
and then I kind of wanted to pimp it up a bit.
Last year, my other half proposed to me,
and the meal that we ate was scallops for starters,
lobster for main
and, of course, champagne.
And it just brings back really, really, really fond memories.
Amy's making pasta, which is great.
Said she's made pasta since she was ten years old.
If I mess it up after harping on that I've made pasta
since I was ten,
that's going to be really annoying.
Now, they're quite small, a tortellini,
and the filling of that tortellini
is going to be both lobster and scallop.
Look at that!
How she's going to get a good amount of filling into each tortellini,
I'm not quite sure.
Mm!
Literally my favourite thing in the whole world.
A bisque is a lovely, rich sauce.
Amy's going to take all the mixture of the vegetables and the bones
of the lobsters, and she's going to blend it all together
and then strain it.
Oh, my God. Within that bisque, we've got champagne.
CORK POPS Woo!
AMY GASPS
This has to be an opulent dinner.
This is about a celebration.
Why not, eh? It can only enhance the flavour, champagne, surely.
MAX:I love the brief. Yeah, it takes me back to my childhood,
and my nan and grandad's house
played a massive part in my upbringing,
so it's a nice place to go.
I remember being eight, nine, ten, how much I loved eating this.
So if I can make John and Gregg enjoy it
sort of half as much as I did,
then I'll be happy.
Max, you're doing something sweet.
I'm calling it my sweet nan and grandad.
I'm doing my nana's syrup sponge with custard.
And my nan used to make it every Wednesday for me
cos it was my favourite thing to eat.
I'm going to do a passion fruit creme brulee.
My grandad used to make it.
He used to be a cook on the ships for the Merchant Navy.
So who was the better cook, then, Nan or Grandad?
Well, me nan's still alive, so I'm going to say me nan!
Max's dessert is inspired by his nana and his grandad.
Syrup sponge - a sponge batter made first
and then baked in the oven,
turned out so that what happens is, the syrup then cloaks the top of it.
The problem with a syrup sponge is, if the top falls off,
it looks like the whole thing's completely broken.
MAX EXHALES SHARPLY It's stressful,
cos I'm trying not to rush.
Then we've got a passion fruit creme brulee.
Passion fruit is acidic, and that means it can curdle the custard.
With that, we've got raspberry sorbet.
We have raspberry soaked with amaretto.
We've got little bits of raspberry which are frozen.
A raspberry gel.
And then we've got a raspberry jelly.
Everything that Max is doing is hugely technical.
He's really pushing himself. I hope he gets it all done.
You have an hour left. OK, guys?
I'm feeling the stress today, feeling the pressure.
I want to do myself proud, you know.
When I've tried this dish in the past, it's never gone right.
Even though it sounds really simple...
..it's actually really hard.
Wynne, tell us your dish. Tell us your memory.
This memory today is quite personal to me, actually,
because my grandfather came over during the war,
fleeing the Nazis from Belgium, and he met my grandmother.
He fell in love with my grandmother.
They had a baby, which was my mother.
Unfortunately, he was married,
and so he went back to his family in Belgium after the war.
My grandmother was devastated,
so my memory of my grandfather was always tainted.
And then I was involved in a Welsh television programme
at Christmas-time and they managed to find my first cousins in Belgium.
And my first cousin,
he said, "I've got to tell you one thing.
"Your grandfather used to sit me on his knee all the time
"and tell me that he wanted to go to his love in Wales,
"but his family would disown him if he went."
So this is a meal of a love story.
How emotional is it, Wynne?
Because I've never seen you so... Yeah, it's... ..so quiet.
It just brings back all those memories of going over to Brussels
as a child at Christmas-time,
and we had boudin blanc, chicory, stoemp,
so this is as Belgium as it gets today.
So, we've got a Belgium-inspired dish.
We've got boudin blanc, a white sausage.
It's cream with chicken, a little tiny bit of pork
and lots of seasoning all put together inside a sausage skin.
What you've got to do is, first and foremost,
get rid of the air out of here. Yeah.
And once your air's out, then you've got control over it.
For the moment... There's too much air.
If the mince is minced too much,
it goes grainy - and it should be lovely and smooth,
almost like a mousse inside.
Full of self-doubt today. It's not going brilliantly.
I just feel I might be screwing this up,
so I've just got a bit nervous now.
And then we've got stoemp, where you crush potatoes, leeks
and carrots together.
With that, beer gravy, using Belgian beer.
I put a little bit of butter in with the sauce just to end.
Gives it a nice little glaze when you put it on the plate.
I've got high expectations,
and I think Wynne has set the bench really high.
I'm making a lot.
I'm cooking tapas.
A wide range of tapas.
It's a feast.
It's a lot to turn around in the amount of time I have.
Why are you doing tapas?
Because when my wife, Rachel, and I got together,
I was in a West End show.
When I came out of the show,
there was almost nowhere left open
but a wonderful tapas place that sort of came to expect us.
We'd go in and we'd do the last orders in the tapas.
Now, when Rachel and I have tapas together,
we don't even have to say it.
It's like a quiet, beautiful, romantic thing between us.
The tapas selection that Marcus is giving us is enormous.
There's so many dishes.
As per usual, I have gone for overstretch.
We've got a squid ink paella, which has got the flavours
of chorizo and prawns going through it.
We've got filled Padron peppers with manchego cheese.
I can get those peppers in now.
On the side of that, we've got a smoked pepper dip.
We've got prawns - pil pil prawns -
cooked in lots and lots of shaved garlic, huge amounts of butter.
And then there's chorizo cooked in red wine, served with honey.
Oh, the toast!
Goddammit, the toast.
We're also getting pan Catalan,
which is bread which has been rubbed with
lots and lots of fresh tomatoes.
I mean, there's so much going on.
I have a lot left to do.
I hope everything has a touch of finesse to it.
There's a lot that needs to happen in the last ten minutes.
I don't mean to scare you - one hour gone,
40 minutes left.
My dish is going to be a vegetarian Rajasthani paneer tikka masala.
I've been vegetarian for 14 years
and this was the first-ever vegetarian dish that I ever had.
Tell me the memory of this dish for you, please.
Well, I was about seven the first time I went to visit my grandmother
in a village in Pakistan, in Hyderabad.
And she used to cook this because they couldn't afford meat.
And that's what I'm doing here.
This is really a Rajasthani dish.
This food reminds me of that place.
Shazia is taking us back to her childhood in Pakistan.
We have got this rumali roti,
which is a large piece of bread
cooked on an upside-down wok with coal.
Depending on how hot the wok is,
it can take between five and seven minutes.
But because we're outside and it's snowing,
temperatures have dropped slightly,
so it might take ten.
It's being served with some paneer, which she's made herself.
Made your own paneer. Yay!
I love paneer.
She's added herbs and chillies to it,
cut it into pieces and then made a coating for the outside,
made with ginger and various other spices.
And I'm happy that it's turned out well, it hasn't broken.
And then there's a gravy going with it,
which has got cashew nuts, which are being ground up to make milk.
And the cashew nut milk makes a lovely sauce
that goes with the whole thing.
I just hope she concentrates
and gets this dish up and it looks fantastic.
Because it sounds delicious.
Why go to all this trouble?
I could just cook a curry, couldn't I?
But it wouldn't have the memory that this has for me.
Ooh!
The pressure's on.
It's all a bit of Italy today.
I'm just hoping it comes through with how it usually tastes
when my nan cooks it for me.
What're you making, Luca?
I am making a fagottelli pasta,
home-made pasta, as well as a tomato sauce
with home-made meatballs and a Parmesan crisp.
Why this dish? In Italy growing up, I was there every summer.
My nonna and my mum would be sat at the table making their own pasta.
Every house you go in,
you kind of see tables of just home-made pasta laid there.
And I know my nonna will be watching and making sure I'm doing it right.
Does nonna know you're doing a dish in her honour?
No, she'd probably cry.
They're very dramatic, the Italians,
so as soon as she hears her name mentioned, she'll love it.
We have a fagottelli, which is a stuffed pasta
filled with ricotta cheese and Parmesan,
shaped like a bishop's hat.
I'm shaking. Why? Cos there's 15 minutes left.
Then the pasta is also going to be dressed with another sauce -
cacio e pepe.
This is just a little of the sauce
that's going to go in after, just to give it another glaze.
It's made up of cheese, the pasta water, mixed together, and pepper,
and it's a creamy sauce.
Meatballs in tomato sauce - great.
Luca's got to be careful he doesn't cook them too much
in the oven, because they will go dry,
and the fat of the beef is really important
to keep them moist.
Guys, you have ten minutes left.
The time has literally just run away with me.
It's plating now, so we'll see.
I'm trying to make it look nice as well today.
I've got my stoemp. I've got my chicory.
Sausages are just chilling a bit so they slice better.
I think I'm back. I'm back in the room.
OIL POPS Ah! Goddammit.
We're getting there. I'm going to start plating up in a minute.
You've got a final 90 seconds, everybody.
Got a nice texture to the boudin blanc.
I think it looks OK.
That's it. Stop!
Everybody, stop.
Amy, come on, please.
Inspired by her childhood memories cooking with her aunt and uncle,
and her engagement surprise,
Amy has served lobster and scallop tortellini
in a lobster and champagne bisque
with sauteed samphire and a parsley oil.
That is a beautiful-looking bisque.
I love the filling of your tortellini.
Nice and chunky, the flavour of lobster and scallop.
I think that's really good.
Your bisque is wonderful and smooth.
The depth of lobster is great, enriched with cream,
making it really opulent.
It's very, very good.
Your pasta parsley, absolutely lovely.
That's a really well-made bisque.
That's really smooth, really, really luxurious.
As far as technical ability,
as well as judgment and palate goes,
you're bang-on.
Oh, God, I am blown away by those comments.
I feel very lucky to have those memories
and to be able to create a dish with that love in it,
and that's why I am so pleased that they liked it.
In homage to his grandparents' love of puddings,
Max has made a passion fruit creme brulee
served with a syrup sponge,
vanilla ice cream, vanilla custard, raspberry sorbet,
amaretto raspberry gel, frozen raspberries
and a raspberry jelly.
I can't believe the amount of work you've done here.
The negative thing is the presentation -
it's just all over the place.
Your syrup sponge is fab.
You get the vanilla on the golden syrup.
That's really, really good.
Your raspberry sorbet - just vibrant with raspberries,
sharp and sour, but sweet as well.
Your jelly, again,
more flavour of raspberry.
The raspberries in amaretto I really like
with the almond flavour in there as well.
Your creme brulee has a great flavour of passion fruit.
Love the crispy top.
It's just a little bit starting to curdle.
It's not unforgivable, but I'm amazed at the amount of work.
Your custard is just alive with vanilla.
Your ice cream,
it's like clotted cream with vanilla, chilled.
It's just beautiful. Technically, the only thing
I can really find a bit of fault with is your creme brulee.
Presentation needs looking at.
But an incredible amount of technical work.
Well done, you. Thank you.
I think that's the most work I've done since I've been here.
And, like, technically, the most difficult.
Looks good, man.
Yeah, that was all right. Cracking.
Presentation was a bit of a shame but, in general, like, really happy.
Everything tastes really good, I think.
In memory of his Belgian grandad's post-war love story,
Wynne has served boudin blanc -
creamy white sausage and chicken mince
flavoured with truffle, nutmeg and thyme -
served with stoemp - mashed potato, leeks,
carrots and bacon - beer-braised chicory
and an onion-and-Belgian-beer gravy.
Your stoemp, really well-made,
lovely, smooth mashed potato laden with cream.
Love the gravy - sweet onions, but the bitterness of the beer.
Your boudin blanc is a little bit grainy.
It should be sort of more of a mousse texture.
It's not quite perfect, but it's pretty good.
Chicory's got bitterness.
Beer's got bitterness.
The two together is working really, really well.
The boudin blanc, I admire your courage,
but it's such a difficult thing to do
and I find yours just a little bit dry.
Not my finest hour in the MasterChef kitchen,
that's for sure.
There were some positives.
It's just the sausage, and the sausage is centre stage.
All the rest is the chorus.
And if the guy in the front is rubbish,
it doesn't matter what the chorus sound like,
because everybody's looking at that.
Marcus, come on.
Tell us about your feast.
In honour of his first date with his wife,
Marcus has cooked Spanish tapas -
Padron peppers stuffed with manchego cheese coated in an almond crumb,
a squid ink and anchovy paella with deep-fried calamari,
chorizo in a honey and red wine sauce,
prawns cooked in chilli and paprika,
a smoky pepper and paprika dip,
saffron aioli and Catalan tomato bread.
You've done a huge amount of work, Marcus.
You really always want to push yourself. Yes.
Incredible.
The paella you've done really, really nicely
with a really lovely, rich stock
coming from the anchovies and the squid ink.
I think that's great.
Around the outside, crispy bits of squid.
Lovely, fine, thin batter.
Lovely and crunchy.
What you've done with these peppers is inspiring.
I love the fact the cheese is inside. That's salty.
The crumb on the outside of it, giving it both texture and flavour,
I really, really like.
I find the tomato and the bread a little disappointing.
I think you could have toasted the bread a little bit more.
You were running out of time.
You could have got a bit more garlic across it.
Everything else is just delicious.
Your allioli - garlic, strong. Saffron, strong.
Putting the chorizo into honey and red wine is really nice.
Prawns are perfect, with loads of chilli and garlic.
Fantastic. Well done, you.
I'm gobsmacked by what just happened.
I'm really, really thrilled.
Yeah, it means a lot to have shared something so intimate
and for it to have gone well, you know?
To celebrate time spent with her Pakistani grandmother,
Shazia has cooked Rajasthan tikka paneer
coated in a ginger, cumin and garlic crust
in a tomato, onion and ghee masala gravy thickened with cashew nuts,
served with a charcoal-grilled rumali roti.
I really, really like that bread
and it has that sort of smoky flavour coming from the charcoal.
I think your paneer's fantastic.
I really like the flavours that are inside there
with the seeds and the cumin.
But I also love that crust you put on the outside,
which has got ginger and garlic, and that's really quite ferocious.
Then that gravy sort of almost calms everything down a little bit.
I'd just like it to have a little bit more depth of flavour.
It's got chilli heat,
it's got the sweetness of the tomatoes,
but in between it's a bit flat.
Your paneer - not too crumbly, not too dry, not too wet. Well done.
Your sauce - it's very, very rich.
I'm not sure I could finish the whole bowlful,
just because of the amount of butter,
the amount of ghee in there.
I did my best.
I managed to recreate it in the best way that I could.
I think those people in that village in Pakistan,
they'd be really surprised that I'd done that on MasterChef.
Last up is Luca.
He served his nonna's fagottelli,
filled with ricotta, smoked cheese,
and Parmesan, topped with cacio e pepe cheese sauce,
served with meatball ragu,
Parmesan tuile
and a basil and Parmesan emulsion.
I really appreciate all the work in this dish.
It's modern. It's interesting.
I actually really like it.
It tastes great.
The pasta's really nicely made. It's lovely and thin.
Across the top of that, the cacio e pepe,
that sort of creamy cheese sauce,
flecks of black pepper round the outside,
giving you a bit of spice.
Your meatballs - lovely and soft
and cloaked with this bit of sharp, almost sort of bitter
tomato sauce.
Good job. Thanks.
Your pasta is delightful and divine.
Inside there is creaminess and salty tang of cheese.
If you wanted even more cheese, you've got a parmigiano tuile.
There is the flavour of Italy on a plate.
I think it's really well done.
You should be very proud of yourself.
Thanks.
Yeah, I'm buzzing.
Obviously, I've got Italian in me
and to come here and cook pasta,
it would have been embarrassing if I didn't get it right.
I thought it was a brilliant round.
The amount of work, Gregg. The amount of skill on show.
The determination from our six.
It is nice cooking from the heart, isn't it? Yeah.
Everybody did amazing, really. Yes.
Jamelia's through to the next round.
That means we've only got five more places to give.
One of them is leaving the competition.
Luca is my dish of the day.
I thought his pasta-making was superb.
Meatballs, perfect.
Tomato sauce, absolutely beautiful.
And great presentation.
Luca is going through to the next round.
My dish of the day is Amy.
The actual filling inside those tortellini - nice and chunky
with the lobster, which was good, and that bisque was full of flavour.
I was really impressed.
It's very difficult to criticise Max's presentation,
cos there wasn't any.
However, look at the work.
Mate, come on. For ambition, I can't fault him.
Marcus gave us dish after dish of quality tapas.
It was wonderful.
The bread, he didn't have time to toast it enough
and he didn't get enough garlic on it,
but the rest of it was REALLY good.
We've got two people left to discuss,
and that is Wynne and Shazia.
Whoa.
I really liked the flavours on Wynne's plate.
But that boudin blanc wasn't smooth and creamy like a boudin blanc.
It was too grainy.
Shazia's breads were really, really good.
That lovely paneer was put in a sauce
that was very, very rich and, for me, quite flat.
The sauce wasn't brilliant. I couldn't finish that dish.
That was far too rich. Far too much ghee for me, far too much butter.
It was such a personal dish.
I'd be very disappointed if I went home on this dish today.
I'm gutted because I just want to stay here,
but I just don't think I cooked to my best today.
A fantastic display of talent and commitment in the semifinal.
Thank you very much, all six of you.
One of you, sadly, is leaving the competition.
The contestant leaving us is...
..Shazia.
Thank you. Shazia, thank you so, so much. Thank you.
Thank you.
Well done.
Thank you for all you've done. Thank you.
It was great to have you in here.
Thanks, bye. Thanks, Shazia.
Obviously, I'm disappointed, but I'm proud I got this far.
It's been great fun
and it was a great experience.
Wynne, you live to cook again.
You are through to the final six, all of you. Congratulations.
Relieved, but I've got to get my act together.
I just need a really big glass of wine to settle my stomach,
and then I'll be able to go, "Right, OK, this is tomorrow."
Like, I'm absolutely buzzing that I'm through.
But now everyone else involved is so good.
So, yeah, I've got to step it up now.
I'm still in it,
and that's the main thing.
I'm really pleased.
I think my nonna, she'll be over the moon.
And just to see her smile will be happy.
Oh, my God, I'm elated.
You know, if you apply yourself, you can do anything you want.
I just need to have a bit more of that belief.
INHALES DEEPLY
Next time,
it's the last of the semifinals
and the six remaining cooks battle it out
for their place in finals week.
I am currently freaking out.
Beautiful.
That's lush. It is properly lush.
Oh, my gosh.
Where's Wynne?