It's the ultimate culinary showdown.
Come on!
20 up-for-it celebrities...
Hello!
..with their eye on one prize...
This is what we call it! Yeah!
..the Celebrity MasterChef title.
Each week, five new celebs face off against each other...
You need to dance.
Oh, it's burnt. Cor.
..in a quest for culinary stardom.
It's been emotional.
Nobody won MasterChef by playing it safe.
They have shone in their careers.
Can they shine in the kitchen?
One of them is going to take the title.
Let the fireworks begin.
It's the last week of Celebrity MasterChef heats,
and the final five celebs about to put their cookery skills
to the test are...
..Strictly Come Dancing professional...
If I hear "Vito" and "MasterChef" in the same sentence,
I still cannot believe.
I am so ready to do this.
Ah!
I'm so happy!
Late night radio DJ...
Done a bit of cooking - everything's gone wrong.
So, you know what they say, never have a good rehearsal.
Singer and Sugababe...
I love going onstage, singing in front of thousands,
but this is very intimidating right now.
Traitors breakout star...
I asked my husband how he would consider me as a cook,
and he said it would be a bonus if the food landed on the plate.
And master make-up artist and TV judge...
So, you're going to see me running around with a sweat on.
I'll have a powdered centre, obviously.
But other than that, Sweaty Betty.
They could well be great singers, great dancers.
They may even know a couple of mind tricks,
but can they cook?
An exciting week to come, I feel.
I hope you don't mind me saying that you five look a little bit nervous.
Welcome to Celebrity MasterChef.
You are our last batch of five celebrities
in this year's competition.
I do have to warn you, we have had some real quality
go through here. OK?
Well, that's pressure. I know.
This, your first challenge, we call Under The Cloche.
There are five cloches here.
Under each, there is a different ingredient.
We're going to ask you to cook for us a dish with that ingredient.
It must be the centrepiece of your dish.
Dom, would you come up, please, and choose a cloche?
Cooking for myself and cooking for friends is one thing.
Cooking for John and Gregg...
Oh, I'm a little bit sick.
Do you have lucky numbers, Dominic?
Yeah, six.
JOHN LAUGHS
I'm just hoping that, one judge to another,
they're going to be a little bit kind.
Lucky lefty.
What the hell is that?
Is that from Doctor Who?
It's called a celeriac.
Ah.
Have you eaten a celeriac before?
Probably.
Dominic, thank you very much indeed. Great. Thanks.
Oh, my God...
Diane, would you please come and choose?
I've never been judged on my food.
Well, I was, actually, once.
Cos once I made a pavlova which only rose half a centimetre.
My guests took it out into my garden and played Frisbee with it.
OK.
Do you know what it is? It's a...
Well, it's a small chicken of some description, anyway.
Beauty! There you go.
It's called a poussin. Yeah.
That would have been my next guess.
Thanks, Diane.
Mutya, it's your turn.
Oh, lucky me.
I like to think I can pretty much pick up anything
and be able to cook it.
But that's what we all say.
I'm going to go in the middle, I think. OK.
There's a lot of pressure going on right now.
I feel very...discombobulated.
Oh...
Is that sca...? Scallops?
Hey. Oh, amazing.
Well done, you. OK.
I've not really cooked it properly, but...
But if you're eating them, that's fine. Yeah.
That's not a problem.
The problem is, they're in their shell. Yes, I see that.
Which means you've got to get them out. OK.
Let's see how we go. I'll figure it out.
OK. Good, you've got a smile on your face. I like this.
Yeah, I'm happy with this one.
Beautiful. Thank you.
Hey, we've got one happy customer, right?
OJ, it's your turn.
You see, I'm a lifelong vegetarian, a proper '80s vegetarian.
So, if I have to cook meat, I think they'll think I have no skills.
If I cook them vegetarian stuff,
they'll just think I've got very few skills.
Are you used to daylight, OJ?
Nope.
You're usually up at, like, midnight to 3:00 in the morning or something?
Sleep is for losers. Is it?
I wish I was a loser.
THEY LAUGH
I'm going to go...this way.
It's a pineapple.
Yeah! You know what it is!
Beautiful.
OK. I'm not ecstatic, but I'm not upset.
Great. I'll save the tears for later.
Wonderful.
OK, Vito, up you come.
My turn. Hello.
My plan is to always bring first my Italian roots.
Yeah, I really feel that this is here, yeah.
If the ingredient is something that I never seen before,
I will ask the energy of my grandparents to stay with me.
Like, I will have my grandmother here, my grandad here.
It's not a sausage roll?
It's cheese. Si.
Ah, it's cheese.
Do you know what animal it might come from?
Goat.
Clever.
Yeah. Thanks very much.
Thank you so much.
She looks like a sausage roll, but it's cheese.
Righty-oh.
You all have one hour.
Alongside that ingredient, you can also use whatever you like
from this larder behind us.
Make us something truly delicious.
Let's cook.
Oh. Hey.
Fear. Trepidation.
I'll be fine.
Ooh.
Just, yeah, keep it simple, but flavoured, I think.
I feel a bit nervous.
I have this anxiety, you know?
I'm just fondling produce now.
I'm going to take some potatoes, as well.
Now I feel like I'm just filling my pockets full of potatoes.
Where I take the flour?
Where?
Ah.
Come on, you can do this. It's peeling.
It's peeling, that's all it is.
Make-up artist Dominic Skinner is best known as a judge
on hit TV talent show, Glow Up.
What if I only peel it in the hour?
He has 20 years' experience working with some of the world's
most iconic fashion designers and beauty brands.
I am very much about opening the fridge, staring at it,
and then just creating something.
It's a bit like my make-up case - a bit of this, bit of that.
What's the point of a recipe, other than making you stay in a lane?
The world is a big enough place.
Adventure. Go on, go out.
See what's around.
Dominic, you are an absolute magician... Thank you.
..when it comes to make-up and makeovers.
Yes. All right?
Does that mean that the appearance of your food
is very important to you?
The idea is, yes.
But I think with this case, I just want to get to the end
and have something you can eat.
Right, OK. So, what are you going to make?
I'm going to make a rosti. Nice idea.
Because it's something I used to eat quite a lot, like, as a teenager.
What are you serving with it?
I would normally have it as a breakfast thing. OK.
So, I'm going to have some bacon, some egg.
Like, come on, we can do... I can do this.
Of course you can. Yes.
I think people with bald heads and glasses naturally fit
into this kitchen. Well, you know what?
We're similar, we have very similar looks.
We get mistaken... Do you get mistaken for me?
I've often got people coming up asking me to do their make-up.
Oh, see, that's the thing.
Everyone's asking me to cook things, and I just...
I'm like, no.
Dom got the celeriac.
He is making us a breakfast, which is a great idea.
Celeriac, he's grated, and then he's going to mix it with a little bit
of potato and turn it into a rosti.
A rosti is a vegetable cake.
You just got to let it do its thing.
You can't rush a rosti.
And you can't say that when you've had a few drinks.
He needs to make sure those rosti are cooked all the way through,
otherwise the celeriac and the potato will be starchy
and taste raw.
I feel like I need to be looking busy.
He's never used a celeriac before, and he's going for it.
Do we at least get to keep the aprons?
Yeah, I hope so.
Cos otherwise I've come here for nothing.
THEY LAUGH
Retired school teacher Diane Carson shot to fame in the 2024 series
of The Traitors, appearing alongside her son, Ross.
Over seven million viewers watched as she met her demise,
sipping pink prosecco from a poisoned chalice.
The thing is, of course, don't forget,
that I have something to prove.
Because during my time in The Traitors,
my son told the world my Sunday roasts were awful.
And my Sunday roasts aren't awful.
They're not amazing - but they're not awful.
So, I sort of want to vindicate myself in some way!
Diane, look, we loved you on The Traitors. All right?
So, you can work things out really quickly.
Mm...
And successfully. It depends.
Can you apply that same sort of logic to MasterChef and the cookery?
I'm hoping to, yeah.
Do you have a style with your cookery?
Chaotic.
You're in the right place. Yeah.
You got the poussin. Mm-hm. What are you going to do with it?
It's going to be stuffed and roasted with chips.
So, chicken and chips.
And I'm going to do a nice crispy chilli kale.
Are you making a gravy of any sort?
I do hope so, yeah. Chicken jus.
What have you stuffed the poussin with?
Just a shallot!
But it's still stuffed, you know?
Diane got the poussin.
She's roasting the chicken whole.
Diane's got to make sure that the chicken is seasoned really,
really well. Hopefully the skin on the outside will be nice and crispy.
But it's going to be actually cutting it and presenting it -
how will she do that?
Whenever she does, it needs to look pretty.
Come on, Vito. You're Italian.
You should know how to make pasta. Come on.
Born in southern Italy, professional dancer Vito Coppola
joined the Strictly line-up in 2022.
Just a year later, he won the competition
with Coronation Street star Ellie Leach.
Because I'm a dancer, I don't dance on my own, I dance with a partner.
So, the kitchen will be my dance partner.
Come on, why...? Why you are sticking on my finger now?
I will spin, probably, you know...
Will be flour, like, flying around and salt everywhere.
I just have to connect with the ingredient I will have.
I have no idea how to do this.
Vito got goat's cheese.
He's going to make a bowl of pasta.
In a pan, he has got a little bit of the goat cheese,
which is in some flavoured oil,
and that will come together like a creamy sauce.
Then he's going to put more goat's cheese through the pasta
right at the last minute.
And maybe he's going to sprinkle pistachio nuts across the top.
Is there a shape you call this?
The shape? Yeah.
The shape of pasta... Yeah. ..is a pasta rettangolare.
I've never heard of rettangolare, but I'll give it a go.
Garlic, goat's cheese, olive oil and pasta together?
It could be fantastic.
He's got to make sure there's plenty of goat's cheese in there,
cos goat's cheese needs to be the star, not the pasta.
Vito, should I be surprised that a southern Italian
is making pasta or not?
No, I mean, I spent all my childhood with my grandma,
my nonna, my mum, you know, and I want to make them proud.
For us, food is a big thing, it's very important.
You cook and you talk like you dance, lots of expression.
Yeah, I do, actually. Lots of passion.
Very expressive, yeah!
And that's why, you know, I have to try to be very focused.
The main thing is, always try to channel everything, you know,
in the thing you do, otherwise it's too away.
You know, up and down, diagonal.
I'm exhausted.
I know!
You move around more in five minutes than I do all day. I know!
Guys, you're halfway.
OK.
Try not to rip them...
Singer-songwriter Mutya Buena is best known as a founding member
of pop supergroup, the Sugababes.
I've never done this in my life.
After three multi-platinum selling albums, she left to pursue
a successful solo career, before the band reformed in 2022.
I'm not a chef, you know,
but I do know how to mix good flavours together.
And I also don't measure.
So, I literally throw.
I throw in and pray for the best.
So, this is kind of what I'm going to be doing today.
Mutya's got the scallops.
She's never cleaned a scallop before in her life, but she's done
very nicely with that.
Oh!
Close.
The scallop needs to have a nice little colour on the outside of it,
and then it should be soft on the inside and slightly bouncy.
Then she's making a dressing separately in a pan.
Ginger, chilli, spring onions and soy sauce.
Mutya's cooked some rice. Free flowing rice, please, Mutya.
Hopefully seasoned quite well,
and not in any way hard or soggy or stuck together.
Do you have a style of cookery, would you say?
Well, I grew up on Filipino foods.
My dad's Filipino.
So, I pretty much eat meat and rice every day.
But I've not done scallops before, unless it was out of a packet.
Have you eaten scallops?
I have, in a nice restaurant.
I like spice, so I thought I'd just try a bit of butter
with a bit more spice.
But my nerves are taking over.
So, you've performed in front of tens of thousands of people. I have.
And you're nervous of cooking a scallop for me and John?
Yes.
This sounds great. Thank you.
You know what they say - less haste, more speed.
Well, I'm more speed...
..lots of anxiety.
44-year-old OJ Borg has hosted BBC Radio 2's midnight
to 3am slot since 2018.
By day, he lives in Manchester, and cooks regularly for his family.
Am I competitive? Yes, but in a really wholesome way.
Like, I love a competition.
I love competing, I love trying to win.
And I never lose.
I just sometimes haven't finished winning when the time runs out.
OJ, I used to work through the night. Yeah. You work funny hours.
Does that mess up your meal patterns?
Mate, I have about 4,000 meals a day, at all weird times.
Like, I don't eat at the same time as anyone else.
I try not to eat during my show, cos that is a short cut
to falling asleep during a long record.
Put Meat Loaf on - my producer will be kicking me awake.
OK, now, you got the pineapple. Yes.
Which I don't think is easy.
No.
But had I got the poussin, I don't know what I'd have done with that,
cos I'm a vegetarian, never cooked meat.
I am going to attempt to blacken it, which is a good way of saying,
if I burn it, I've meant to do it.
I'm going to turn that into a salsa with mushrooms,
and then put it into a tortilla.
Potatoes on the side with some paprika on it.
Do you make tortillas at home?
Never done it. OK.
This is pretty ambitious, OJ.
Listen, I like ambition.
I like to go big, and then normally go home.
OJ got the pineapple, and I would have thought he would go sweet,
but he's not, he's going savoury.
He's going to make us tortillas.
He's going to have to make sure they get really thin.
But he's going to put them in a pan, get some colour on the outside.
That is...
LAUGHING:Look at this.
With the pineapple, he's going to make a charred pineapple salsa.
Well, that's great.
Charred pineapple, chillies, tomatoes, coriander.
As long as there's a nice amount of spice in there,
I'll be really excited about it.
The mushrooms, he's doused in soy sauce.
I hope they don't become too salty.
Let's see if it works.
That feels better. That feels better.
Guys, I'm sorry.
You have eight minutes left.
Right, I suppose I should really start cutting that now, shouldn't I?
I'm looking at everyone running around, and I'm just sitting here
waiting for two very small frying pans to cook.
So, I'm panicking that I'm not doing enough.
I didn't expect this.
They're becoming huge...!
They look like towels.
Right, I'm going rogue.
I'm going to make a mustard creme fraiche sauce.
Do you know what, I'd like to point out I never carve meat.
My husband does it.
As you can see.
Presentation, OJ...
I smell burning.
90 seconds. That's a minute and a half.
Let's finish up now, please.
Actually, that's not too bad.
God, I cannot believe I'm even here doing this.
Oh! This is very cute.
That's it, your time is up. Stop!
Well done.
HE EXHALES
I sweat everywhere in my body, yeah.
I think more than when I dance.
Mutya, are you ready?
I am. Come on. We're ready for you.
I'm nervous.
First up is pop star Mutya.
Hello.
She's serving her main ingredient of scallops with chillies,
rice and a pepper, chilli, ginger and soy sauce.
My observation here, you've got the scallops out of the shell
really well. Thank you.
That may well be the first time you've ever cooked a scallop,
but you've cooked it perfectly. Thank you.
Oh, I'm going to... OK.
You've got colour on the outside.
That is a perfect texture inside there.
There's a little hint of chilli on it, as well.
Your rice is light and it's fluffy.
I think your food's fantastic.
Thank you. Oh!
Great sauce. Those flavours to me are quite familiar,
as far as being really Filipino. Yeah.
Lovely saltiness, sweetness of peppers, a little bit of chilli heat
coming through there, as well.
You were clever here. You stayed with things that you know. Mm-hm.
And you paired it with something you didn't know.
Good job. Thank you.
I'm so proud. Thank you.
Oh!
I was so nervous this morning, and now I just feel like, OK,
I've got that out of the way and... there's a chance.
So... But I'm... I'm just over the moon.
Like, they actually carried on eating it afterwards.
So, I'm still trying to come back to Earth right now.
Yeah, I'm on a high. I'm on a high.
Dancer Vito has cooked his ingredient of goat's cheese
with butter and olive oil to make a sauce for his handmade
pasta rettangolares, garnished with chopped pistachios.
Now, the shape of this pasta...
Pasta rettangolare.
Yeah, is there such a thing, or is it something you made up?
It's something that I made up.
Beautiful. I'm glad you're honest.
Yeah!
Firstly, can I say, I love your passion?
Love that you've made pasta.
You can definitely taste the goat's cheese.
And I like the sweet pistachio nuts with it, I think that's wonderful.
With the garlic coming through the background,
salty Parmesan, that's really good.
But that sauce and the pasta hasn't become one,
because you haven't used the pasta water.
If you use the hot pasta water,
you won't get these big lumps of cheese.
It will become more like a sauce.
It doesn't have that unity that you would want...
With the dancer. That's right. Yeah.
Your pasta is rolled out thin enough.
You've got a lovely, lovely flavour of that goat's cheese.
It's clear throughout. It's salty, a little bit tangy.
I think you must have spent a lot of time with Mama and Nonna
at the kitchen table eating pasta, cos that is really quite lovely.
All right, thank you. Thank you.
I mean, wow!
I just have my heart inside, like, boom, boom, boom, boom.
I feel, honestly, like, overwhelmed.
I didn't expect all of this.
It's like...my mind is blowing.
Radio DJ OJ has used the pineapple to make a vegetarian main.
Blackened pineapple salsa with tomatoes and chilli,
served in a tortilla, with soy mushrooms and sour cream
and paprika spiced potatoes.
I'm pleased to tell you, the pineapple is the star of the show.
Good. Well done, you.
I believe that pineapple could be a little bit more spiced.
Tortilla - lovely, nice and soft, not too crisp, but really thin.
Mushrooms' all meaty, with a little bit of saltiness coming from soy.
The red onions and the coriander running through the whole thing,
giving you a bit of freshness. I'm really impressed.
Give it a bit of chilli...!
That real heady, almost sharp sweetness of the pineapple is great.
These potatoes that are smoky with paprika are absolutely lovely.
If you've been a vegetarian all your life, you have to be creative
in your cookery, and you can see that here.
I think that's great. Thank you.
OJ, are you happy with that?
I wish I'd got more chilli into it, cos I could taste the lack of chilli
and I just... I panicked at the end and thought, oh, it'll be fine.
When it wasn't.
Right now I'm feeling like I've just run 94 marathons back-to-back.
What their comments were, were absolutely bang on, and I want to...
..make it right!
TV personality Diane got the poussin.
She's roasted it, stuffed with a shallot,
and served it with crispy honey and chilli kale,
chips and a chicken jus.
I seem to have a breast and a leg.
Gregg seems to be missing an appendage.
Yeah, I mean, to be fair, I don't do the carving at home,
so I sort of just muddled my way through carving the chicken for you.
Your chicken is glorious.
It's really soft and moist.
It looks like it's been hacked away from the bone, but...
Yeah, it has, really.
But it tastes fantastic. Thank you.
Now, am I telling the truth, or am I a traitor?
Well, in this case, you're telling the truth.
Your chips, they're a bit soggy.
They haven't quite worked out.
The sauce could be thicker, but it's got the lovely chicken flavour.
The kale itself, with a little bit of spice coming through it,
and then sweetness of honey, that's fab.
I'm impressed with your palette, Diane.
Your carving is atrocious.
Thanks, Diane.
I knew the carving was going to be a problem, and I worried about it
from probably the beginning.
It was a bit of a hash.
But it still tasted OK.
Finally, it's make-up artist and TV judge Dominic,
who has used his ingredient of celeriac to make a breakfast dish.
A celeriac and potato rosti, fried egg,
crispy bacon and roasted tomatoes,
with a wholegrain mustard, soy and creme fraiche sauce.
I love your rosti, I really do.
I think it's a very, very clever idea.
It's cooked all the way through, it's not burnt, it's not greasy.
Fried egg across the top with the yolk running down onto it
and crispy bits of bacon.
I'm liking this a lot.
Your splodge, it actually tastes all right.
But, you know, a grey splodge just looks to me like
grouting for the tiles in your kitchen.
But the design and cookery of your rosti breakfast is wonderful.
Brilliant.
Dominic, I'm really impressed. You season well, you cook calmly.
Taking your celeriac and doing what you did,
I thought was very, very brave. Thank you.
I think that's great.
It's quite emotional up here, isn't it?
This is probably more stressful than Fashion Week.
I can handle 50 models - bring them on.
This?
HE EXHALES SHARPLY
I feel so sorry for all those make-up artists that I have judged
over the years, because I now totally understand how they
must feel, and I just... I feel like I need to phone each
and every one of them and apologise, because it's just the horror...
It's horrifying.
We got through this, didn't we? We got through this.
But I did it. I made a rosti!
I mean, what?
I don't even know where that came from.
Maybe I got a little chef inside me that's just desperate to come out.
A bit like Ratatouille is like going to pull my hair.
If I had some.
From a very nervous start, these five have truly impressed.
Ooh!
Well done, guys.
That was quality!
Mutya with her scallops and that ginger, chilli sauce
I thought was just outstanding.
But rostis, perfectly cooked chicken.
Making your own pasta, making your own tortillas.
I mean, what's not to like about these five?
The only problem now for them is our expectations have
just gone flying high.
That was intense.
It was. It was, very.
Cos they said nice things. They did.
That's, I think, setting us up possibly for a fall.
What comes up next, of course, is going to be tough.
And they're going to have to step it up.
110% of commitment, effort, and we smash it.
I agree. We've got this. Yeah...
THEY LAUGH
Can I just have a nap first?
Welcome back and congratulations.
You have got off to an absolute flying start.
This we call a dinner party challenge.
It's your dinner party, and we are the guests.
We want something with a bit of glamour, please.
A bit of sophistication.
You'll have one hour and 15 minutes - a main course and a dessert.
At the end of this, one of you is going home.
You know what you got to do.
Ladies and gentlemen, let's cook.
Oh, no!
Oh, no, I've got a shell. I've got a shell.
I got it. I got it, I got it, I got it.
Still nerve-racking.
But I've done this a lot... a lot more times than scallops.
So, I grew up in a Filipino household. My mum's English,
but my dad was more of the chef.
I never thought I would be trying to be like him.
And cook like him.
Mutya, we now know that you like big, bold flavours.
Are we getting those same sort of flavours again?
Yeah, very similar.
So, I'm going to be cooking chicken adobo,
served with rice and pak choi.
Adobo - classically, in the Philippines -
basically means it's a stew. Yes.
Do you cook this adobo for your father?
No, I don't. He cooks it for me.
And are you making a cheesecake?
I AM making a cheesecake. It's the only dessert I can make.
I'm not..I'm not great at desserts. I'm so sorry.
What makes for a great dinner party? What does it need?
Great company, great food, and lots of alcohol.
Have you got the alcohol?
No, I wish.
I think I need some right now. I'm nervous.
Mutya, she's got an adobo, chicken adobo.
That is the chicken cooked down with the sauce, with vegetables in it,
ginger, garlic, soy, until it's nice and thick.
Like a real proper sticky stew.
All the flavours go into the chicken to make the flesh itself
full of flavour.
The chicken in this sauce should just fall off the bone
and still be lovely and moist.
I don't really have a worry about the main.
But the dessert... I have worries all around with that.
OK, I don't know how to work this stuff.
All I've been thinking about is, how am I going to make this cheesecake?
Because I've only done it once.
Oh, my God, this is going to go terribly wrong.
MUTYA LAUGHS
A vanilla cheesecake from Mutya.
We would like a nice buttery biscuit base, but not too thick.
And on top of that, cream cheese with a good amount of vanilla.
They're not massively challenging recipes,
however, they do sound delicious.
Oh. OK.
If I can get both of them right, I'm hoping it could keep me
in the competition, but... I mean, no-one wants to be out first.
I don't want to be out first.
OJ:You can practise as much as you want, can't you?
You can do it a million times.
But, realistically, until you are here doing it...
..ain't real, is it?
I am doing a roast cauliflower covered in harissa and a chermoula
and tahini and lemon and pomegranate,
and that'll be served with flatbreads.
And then I'm doing a torta tal-Lewz,
which is the Maltese almond frangipane cake
that my nana used to make.
So she owned a B&B in Malta, and I remember having them,
I remember loving them.
They're super sweet, you know.
And then I'm doing a whisky cream on top.
Big, big flavours here, OJ, and quite a lot to do.
Oh, tons to do. You only get one chance. If somebody's going
home today, I'd rather have left it all out there
and gone as big as possible. Why not?
OJ, good luck.
OJ's main course is a roasted head of cauliflower.
That's a massive risk.
Cauliflower is quite bland.
I think with both my dishes, I want to be able to show
that I can create tasty vegetarian food.
The cauliflower I grew up thinking was rubbish.
No-one liked cauliflower, so the fact that you can do it
in an entertaining way I quite like.
He's going to cover it with harissa, which is a spice mix
from North Africa, and then roast it so that all the flavours
of the spice comes out.
Then chermoula.
Chermoula is a herb mix.
Then tahini, sesame seed paste,
and then he's going to make his own flatbreads.
I think it sounds delicious.
Dessert is a Maltese tart I've never heard of before.
Apparently it's pastry, with jam in there,
and then he puts frangipane across the top.
Frangipane is an almond mixture.
And then he's going to bake it and it's going to puff up.
I've made six just in case four go wrong!
Belt, braces and a helmet,
and a safety line,
and a stunt coordinator.
The pastry has to be cooked really, really well.
Then the frangipane, lovely and firm.
Forgot to trim them.
Trying to do pastry under the powerful gaze
of Gregg and John,
I don't know, it's a stupid thing to do.
Some of them are a bit agricultural.
So if I end up serving them something that looks like
a tumbledown house...
There'll be a lot of cream on it - let's put it like that.
I'll try and hide it in cream.
OK.
Dinner parties...
There's a time when people need to leave and...
..my friends don't know that time, so I won't necessarily have them
round for a dinner party.
But if they're around and it's dinner time,
I will cook something.
Dominic? Yes?
How different is it cooking for us than cooking in your own kitchen?
Quite different.
But the similarities are that I've got two cats
who spend the whole time in amongst my feet, so I've actually
nicknamed them John and Gregg, as a little useful tool.
I think we've been called a couple of things in our lives,
but I don't think I've ever been called a cat.
Well... But thanks very much.
Thank you. Two courses. What are you going to cook for us?
I'm cooking chorizo chicken pasta.
This was a meal that I forgot that I had friends coming over
and I was running late from work, opened the fridge,
and it was like a bit of this, a bit of this,
put it together, and everyone liked it.
So I'm kind of feeling like you may like it as well.
I am making fresh pasta.
I never make fresh pasta.
Why would you make fresh pasta when you can get it in a bag?
But you know why I'm doing it?
Because this is MasterChef.
They want to see it made with these two hands.
They may regret that too.
So he's making his own pasta and then he's going to make a sauce
mixture by taking chorizo, cooking it down so you get the oil
that comes off, lovely sort of rich with paprika,
cook the chicken in it with some onions
and then add to that some cream.
Chicken and chorizo I have had before.
In a cream sauce with pasta and lime juice at the end?
I'm not quite sure.
Dessert is?
Dessert is... I'm thinking, sort of barbecue,
sit back in the sun, and then you just want
something really refreshing.
So it's a peach and raspberry cheesecake.
I love cheesecake.
Like, I love cheesecake.
I will happily devour a whole cheesecake on my own,
Sunday afternoon, a bit of Murder, She Wrote.
Blanket, cat.
Easy life.
It's delicious.
Peaches and raspberries together.
I like the sound of this.
Peach is not too sweet.
Raspberries bring in sharpness.
That'll be down to the quality of his palate,
to blend those two fruits together.
And you get a little tiny jam jar, you can go outside
and sit as the sun sets in his mind, and while his party is going on.
35 minutes gone.
I haven't had a dinner party probably for about two or
three years because we've had building work going on.
I used to do surprise parties for every member of my family.
I love entertaining, but I sort of think more
it's about having people round and the food is slightly incidental.
You said at the moment your kitchen's been redone.
Are you looking forward to throwing dinner parties?
I cannot wait. I miss it.
I used to throw dinner parties for 30 to 40 people.
I think it's time to relax, chill, chat to people,
exchange recipes, exchange stories, have a drink.
Two courses for a dinner party. What are you going to cook for us?
Yeah, so I'm cooking a five-spice mango chicken
and I'm cooking lemon pudding.
My inspiration has come from my mum's old school cookbook
that she wrote in the '40s.
So it's recipes that she had,
and in it was the lemon pudding.
And I just know she'd be looking down and smiling and going,
"Oh, God, Diane, I hope it works!"
Dessert - a baked lemon pudding.
She's made a lemon sponge mixture.
It should puff up just a little bit and be lovely and soft.
And when you eat it, you get the pudding across the top,
and underneath almost like a lemon marmalade,
which keeps it lovely and moist.
Diane, she's got a mango chicken that she's serving with rice.
I hope it's not too sweet.
You can't flood the dish with mango, but that could work,
especially if she brings a little bit of spice into that mix.
Obviously, you know, we've seen you on Traitors.
In a competition like this,
does your competitive edge click in?
Well, it would do if I thought I was amazing at cooking.
At the minute I'm just surviving, so I'm OK with that.
I have to dance with the pasta, you know?
We make a dance together.
You need to dance.
Vito, do you do dinner parties or are you always out dancing?
I have never done a dinner party. I always dance.
This is my first dinner party, honestly.
Your first-ever dinner party? Yes.
Well, I've got to say, then, I feel honoured to be amongst the first...
My guest! The first guest, yes. Wonderful.
Yes. As your guest, what are we going to be eating tonight?
We are going to eat truffle tagliatelle.
And then what's your dessert?
The dessert is a tiramisu.
Because the tiramisu was the dessert that my auntie used to make
for all of us, you know, because tiramisu in Italian
means "pick me up". "Tirami su", no?
So we used to be a little, "Oh, come on, pick me up. Auntie, pick me up."
So she was used to doing all this tiramisu for all of us.
What music do you play at the dinner party?
Samba!
We like samba.
Yeah, we do this, we spin and we make pasta!
LAUGHTER
I dance the whole time, so we dance all the time.
Brilliant.
Vito loves Italian food.
He's really passionate about it.
He's promising us tagliatelle with truffles, strips of pasta
which he then is going to put into his sauce with butter, olive oil
and truffles, all together with a little bit of Parmesan cheese.
Not that dissimilar to the first thing he cooked for us
with the goat's cheese, but I hope this time that pasta and sauce
marry together and become one.
He's got two whole truffles on his bench,
so right now Gregg and I are going to be completely indulged.
And that's what dinner parties are all about.
Go for it, Vito.
In my family, when I do things I'm very excited,
I start to jump.
They call me the cricket.
Dessert from Vito, we've got tiramisu.
Layers of sponge finger biscuits, flavoured with coffee
and one layer of flavour with some sort of alcohol,
and with that a cream mixture with mascarpone.
But he's not just making cream cheese and mascarpone - he's making
a zabaglione first, which is quite technical.
You take egg yolks and sugar, beat it till it fluffs up.
Then you fold in the mascarpone.
It's very, very light and really, really creamy, and it'll make
the mascarpone lovely and soft.
I made once the tiramisu and I gave my auntie to try
and she said like, "Oh, it's OK."
I mean, "OK" from my auntie is a lot for me because
my auntie is very critical.
So I am confident and I think hope is with me, and a bit of luck.
You've got just ten minutes, everybody.
Ten minutes left.
That ain't a lot of time.
OK...
Oh, God, no, wait.
Well, the tin's at the bottom.
I don't know how I'm going to get this off.
Oh, man.
Ooh!
OK.
Gentle. A little gentle.
We got this.
They need to come and judge it,
just looking at it because it looks really good at the minute.
I think they're OK, I think.
I THINK they're OK.
Actually, I'm going to put them back in. Decisions!
Oh, that was very close. Let me do this.
Whoa! Whoa!
Oh, my God!
OK. Mutya, come on. Stop that.
You've got just five minutes left, everybody.
You know what to do.
No, I do this.
No, I... Yeah.
Agh!
Oh, Jesus! Please help me!
OK.
Oh! What's that?
Oh! It's burnt. Oh, my God!
Why is that on?
What happened?
Oh, that was on.
Have you burnt your rice?
Yeah. Can you... Can you save any of it?
I don't know.
We'll see what happens if you put some out into a bowl.
You might be able get away with it.
Oh, my God!
Agh!
That's not OK.
The paprika just came out way quicker than I thought.
Try and scrape it off, I guess.
Come on, OJ. 60 seconds.
OK.
Come on, come on, come on.
Sorry. Come on.
Ah!
That's it, ladies and gentlemen. Time is up.
Well done.
Hey! Hey!
We did it!
I think.
Oh, my God!
Mutya, please.
First to serve her dinner party menu is pop star Mutya.
Her main course is the Filipino dish chicken adobo,
a sweet and sour stew made with onions vinegar, soy and peppers,
served with rice and bok choy.
Your rice started to stick to the pan.
We can smell it was burnt.
I just tried to save what I could.
The secret to this adobo is getting that chicken to be cooked
all the way through,
but still be moist and fall away from the bone.
There's the bone, clean as a whistle.
That's fantastic.
Good.
You've got away with the rice because what happens is you've got
that lovely sauce going in the rice, and it's mopping the whole thing up.
It's a good dish.
I've got slippery, lovely, slightly sweet onions.
There is a little bit of warming spice in there.
There is saltiness from soy in there.
And your bok choy, as well, just gives crunch, and it gives
a little bit of juice.
Listen, I've never been to the Philippines,
but I'm enjoying your food.
Could you thank your dad for me?
I shall. I will.
Mutya's dessert is a strawberry and vanilla cheesecake.
The size of your base.
I know. If you don't eat it, you could use it as a doorstop.
Lovely sharp cream cheese.
There's a lot of vanilla, sweet strawberries left across the top,
and then the caramel that comes from the butter and the biscuit.
Your flavours are ace.
Thank you.
There's nothing wrong with the flavour of the base.
It's buttery. A little bit salty.
That's great. It's just far too big. Just too thick.
It's a buttery biscuit base base, base.
I never thought I would ever be able to make two dishes
in that amount of time, so I'm very surprised with myself.
Pat myself on the back, to be honest.
Radio DJ OJ's dinner party main is cauliflower
roasted in harissa chilli paste,
topped with the herb and citrus sauce, chermoula, tahini,
pomegranate seeds, feta cheese, paprika and almonds,
served with flatbread.
I think taking a whole cauliflower and making it the centrepiece,
and then flavouring it, is a really, really difficult thing
to get absolutely right.
The actual marinades across the top are really lovely,
and then on top of that, the nuttiness coming from tahini,
saltiness of feta cheese,
the sweetness that comes out of those pomegranates.
What looks like quite a simple dish is a lot of hard work.
Very daring, very bold, very tasty.
That is just such good cookery,
without any expensive ingredients at all.
Your flatbreads are really well made as well.
Really yummy. Really tasty.
Really, really well done.
Thank you.
For his dessert, OJ has made the Maltese torta tal-Lewz,
a pastry case filled with strawberry jam and frangipane,
topped with whisky cream.
You panicked here towards the end,
and the presentation is telling.
That tart needs to be trimmed around the edges.
I think your pastry is absolutely great.
Nice and thin. That's fantastic.
I like the flavour of the whisky with it,
but the frangipane is not firm enough for me.
It's a real shame.
It's a brave thing to do.
The pastry certainly showcases skill.
You're good on flavours,
but that frangipane is too wet.
If you've got the skill to make the pastry,
you've got the skill to make the frangipane.
Just make sure you've got enough time. OK.
It's just that wait as you watch them eat.
That moment is just terrifying. It's awful.
It's like a yawning chasm of sadness.
Overall, I am very, very proud of the judges' comments,
but I think there's loads of things I should have, should have,
could have, would have done.
Make-up artist Dominic's main course is his own pasta creation.
Handmade linguine with chicken, chorizo, peppers, chilli and cream,
finished with lime juice.
For me, in here, got some really lovely
what I would call Spanish flavours.
We've got smoky chorizo sausage
with chicken, peppers and chillies,
but then I've got cream.
The cream, because it's reduced so much,
it's becoming a little bit cloying with the pasta.
Pasta is really well made, really well made.
You do have an interesting palate.
Those flavours do work.
We're somewhere in the Mediterranean.
The lime isn't.
The lime has just gate-crashed your party.
Dominic's dessert is raspberry and peach cheesecake
with a white chocolate biscuit base
topped with raspberry coulis and fresh peaches.
Your flavours are magnificent.
I really liked the white chocolate through that biscuit.
It's not too much sweetness.
And then you get peaches, which are almost wine-like.
It's like a dessert wine.
And then, of course, the raspberry is the sharpness.
And, in between that, there's lots of cream.
That's got a summer garden party written all over it.
You've got this great imagination. I love the colours.
I like the way you presented it. That's very, very good.
I'm feeling positive.
Yes, there were some criticisms,
but I'm pretty chuffed with what I did.
Traitors star Diane's dinner party main
is chicken cooked in a five-spice and mango sauce
topped with Peppadew peppers and served with rice.
I think you can spend a bit more time on presentation
with this chicken.
Allow yourself the time.
I like chicken and mango together,
but it's too sweet.
It's too fruity, the whole thing for me,
and the chicken is now drying out.
You do get the tang of five-spice. I like that.
The rice is cooked well enough,
but I'm sorry, it's not quite working for me.
Do you have a sweet tooth, Diane?
I quite like sweet-savoury meals, actually.
I can tell that. Yeah.
And it's the sort of creaminess and the mango
and the spice and everything coming together,
it bombards your palate.
There's no two ways about it.
That will divide the crowd.
My family were divided as well, actually.
There we go.
Diane's dessert is her mum's baked lemon pudding,
served with blueberries and cream.
My grandmother used to cook that,
and that is, just takes me back to being a kid.
The crust across the top is almost like a baked sponge pudding,
but in the bottom, then, you've got the jamminess,
and then in the middle, you've got baked custard.
So it is a sponge-custard-sauce all in one.
It's great.
We have a nice crusty top and we have a nice wet, sticky
lemony pudding underneath.
I like that. Mum's done a good job.
Thanks, Diane. Thank you.
I think my main course is a very personal choice,
and it was a bit of a risk taking it.
And my family did say it was probably far too sweet.
And I won't be taking a risk like that again
if I stay on. SHE LAUGHS
Last up is dancer Vito.
He's starting his Italian-themed dinner party
with tagliatelle in a truffle and Parmesan sauce
topped with truffle cream
and shaved truffle.
Vito, it's the second time we've seen pasta from you.
The last time, the sauce and the pasta didn't become one.
This time, you've done it. Oh.
Your tagliatelle's not too thin.
It's got a nice bit of bounce to it.
The sauce is so rich with truffle.
Really opulent.
This is a dinner-party dish.
It's about celebration.
It's not everyday food.
And I like it a lot. Thank you.
Perfectly made pasta, sauce is magnificent.
Salty Parmesan making your tongue tingle.
Pepper, when you get it, making your mouth tingle,
and that truffle just completely filling your senses.
I think you've done really, really well.
And I think you do it because it's food that you understand,
and I think it's actually food you're in love with.
And I think it shows.
For dessert, Vito has made his aunt's tiramisu.
Magnifico. Oh, grazie. Thank you.
Absolutely fantastic! Thank you.
Tiramisu, in this country,
we find sometimes it's quite thick
because people use mascarpone and cream.
You've made a zabaglione. Egg yolks, sugar, mixed together
so it goes nice and fluffy and fold it through the mascarpone.
Ample amount of espresso
and then a good amount of alcohol, giving you warmth.
I could not eat a whole one.
No, no. That's enormous.
WHISPERS:I know.
There is so much coffee
and the alcohol is just oozing out of those biscuits.
It's really well made.
It's too big, but its flavours
and its textures are delightful.
Thank you so, so much. Grazie mille. I'm overwhelmed. Sorry.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Vito.
Thank you.
WHISPERS:Oh, my God.
When they gave me the feedback, I was like, "Yeah!"
You know, I was keeping, like, very calm, like...
WHISPERS:..yeah, thank you.
But inside me, I was really, "Ah!" I was screaming like a baby.
I felt like, you know, like a child again, the little Vito was there.
What a fantastic bunch of five.
They were good in the first round under the cloche.
There was some wonderful dishes in this round.
I feel drained.
I feel like a plant without water.
My, my rice was done and somehow it switched back on.
So, yeah, it was burnt.
You know what that means? I'm home.
We've got a traitor.
Well, it wasn't me.
SHOUTS:No!
Wow!
I know that Vito has done us pasta in two rounds.
However, his two dinner-party dishes were fantastic.
Beautiful pasta with the truffle, and that tiramisu was delightful.
Fab! Vito goes through to the next round.
Oh, Mutya, I really liked her scallops in the first round.
This round, the adobo,
those Filipino flavours, I love.
Her cheesecake.
Yes, the base was too thick, but it was delicious.
er flavours are great. They're bold, they're exciting,
but they're also crowd-pleasing.
Mutya goes through.
Two places left.
Dominic, OJ, Diane.
Actually, all three of them produced one really good course
and one course which we had a bit of a question mark over.
I was impressed with OJ in the first round
with the pineapple and the taco.
I thought that was good.
Loved his cauliflower in the main course.
Flavours with it was absolutely superb.
The dessert from him, that Maltese tart,
pastry, perfect, frangipane was too wet.
As a cook, OJ, I can see the positives.
He's showing us good vegetarian food.
I can also see he's rushing around
and being very, very nervous about the competition.
Diane did pretty good in the first round.
She got a poussin. She cooked that really well.
In this round, Diane's dessert was absolutely delicious.
Lemon pudding, as I remember as a kid - fabulous.
The main course, John, I didn't enjoy it at all.
That mango chicken. Chicken drying out.
Really, really sweet.
Presentation was non-existent.
Dominic made great pasta, tasted great,
but he reduced the cream too much and it became cloying.
The cheesecake, he really nailed the flavours.
I think the peach and raspberry was really good.
We've got a decision to make.
Who stays and who's going home?
I think I've tried the hardest I could try
and things went wrong,
but it depends on whether they see that I have room to grow.
I don't want to go home the first day,
but John and Gregg have a tough decision to make.
And if I were to go home, I've enjoyed the challenge.
Oh, if I was to go...
..I'm not going to get upset.
I've really enjoyed myself
and I don't want to go.
I don't want to go.
It's too much fun.
What an absolutely fantastic start to this week's heat.
Courageous, adventurous, exciting.
Some really delicious food.
Thank you very much for all your hard work.
As we said at the start of this,
we only have four places in the next round.
It's been a really tough decision.
The celebrity contestant leaving us is...
..Diane.
Diane, honestly, mate.
That's fine. There's not a bad cook here.
I really hope you enjoyed your time here.
Yeah, I did. Thank you so, so much.
It's no problem.
Thanks, Diane.
Disappointed but, you know, somebody has to go home.
This experience has definitely brought a bit of passion back
for cooking, actually.
I can't wait to have dinner parties again.
The four of you, well done.
I think this has got the makings of something pretty exciting.
MUTYA:Love you lot.
Well, the elation, the fact that I wasn't first out
is going to last forever.
It's literally, it's like trying to get away from a shark, isn't it?
You don't need to be the fastest swimmer, just not the slowest.
I feel so excited.
I mean, I pride myself on being stone-cold and heartless,
and I don't know what this room is making me do,
but I'm feeling all sense of emotions coming out.
I'm loving every moment of it.
I'm just out of... I'm lost for words.
I still can't even believe I'm still here.
I can't wait to, like, brag about it.
I am buzzing, buzzing.
I feel happy and super, super grateful.
Over the moon!
Next time...
..the remaining four celebrities are back...
Oh, mate, that looks great. That looks really, really nice.
Oh, this is good!
..and the heat is on...
Oh, my God, they are absolutely rank.
They are the worst chips ever.
..as they cook for a place in the quarterfinal.
I think this is great.
It just looks like a food truck takeaway.