It's the MasterChef quarterfinal -
and this week's best four cooks are back.
Honestly, I still feel like it's a dream.
I can't believe I can call myself a MasterChef quarterfinalist,
so I'm just super, super happy about that.
Don't get me wrong, it's intense, it's exhausting
but, you know, I love it. I love cooking in that kitchen.
Life is pretty much on hold.
The only thing that I've got the brain space for is MasterChef,
but I wouldn't have it any other way.
It feels like you've achieved something,
even if by the skin of your teeth, in my case.
Tonight, just one challenge stands between them
and a place in the semifinals.
That is so off the charts.
Delicious.
JOHN: They've got to deliver under pressure, and I don't think
they're going to take any prisoners in that dining room today.
GREGG:Just good isn't good enough.
It's going to have to be touching brilliant.
Welcome. This is your MasterChef quarterfinal. In fact,
this is the last quarterfinal of the competition.
It is a big challenge, no doubt about that. You are going
to have to be at the top of your game.
You have got to do two courses in 1 hour and 15 minutes -
and we want four plates of each course.
This is the toughest round of the competition.
Today, you are going to serve your dishes to three
past winners of MasterChef.
Winner from 2005, Thomasina Miers.
Winner from 2007, Steven Wallis.
And winner from 2018, Kenny Tutt.
At the end of this, two of you will be semifinalists
and two of you will be going home.
Ladies and gentlemen, cope with the pressure.
Let's cook.
Time is tight, so I'm trying to, er,
keep my nerves in control.
Mark has had an interesting competition.
We loved his first dish.
In the middle we were a bit unsure.
And then that last dish he served us
was sensational.
What he's got to do, he's got to have two perfect dishes.
For me, it's been an up-and-down experience.
The only person who knows I'm in this competition is my husband.
And, you know, when I get stressed in that kitchen
I think of him, cos the thought of him keeps me calm.
What are you making today, Mark? For a starter, monkfish fritters
served with pickled star fruit
and a fresh star fruit.
The second course is venison with butternut-squash puree,
maple-roasted squash.
This is inspired by - me and my husband went to Lapland in 2017
and we got engaged there, and we ate loads of elk.
And what I can think near to elk is venison,
so I would like to do that for him.
The first course, we've got monkfish, which is in batter,
but he's going to marinate the monkfish first with sherry vinegar,
cumin and paprika.
What I don't understand is a star fruit.
Fruit and fish?
They're not easy bedfellows.
Main course, venison Mark is cooking in a water bath, that concerns me.
A good old-fashioned frying pan, that's what gives colour
to the outside of venison. It also gives the flavour.
Radha has only been cooking for a year, but I tell ya,
she's a cookery force to be reckoned with.
Radha's really impressed with her desserts.
What she's got to do in this round is impress with a savoury dish.
My mum's Indian, my dad's English,
so I like to take classic Indian food, but give it the Western twist
in the way that it's presented, so hopefully I can do that today.
She is doing what was the everyday street food of India.
First course, aloo tikki, a little potato cake,
inside a little bomb of flavour.
Coriander, mint, some chilli, some garam masala.
She's serving that with a tamarind drizzle,
and then she's got a yoghurt dip on the side of it.
The main course, we have got dhal. Lentils.
She's serving it with rice. She's making a bread,
which she's going to deep-fry.
And then across the top of that, we've got okra.
To do a dish of dhal in a MasterChef quarterfinal
may be the bravest thing I've seen in a long, long while.
Tell me about the dhal.
The dhal is the first dish that my mum taught me to cook,
and it's the dish that my mum was brought up on, and it was the dish
that I was brought up on. It's not the easiest
to make pretty on the plate,
but I'm going to do my best and, like I said, it means
a lot to me. Aloo tikki and dhal.
Yeah. Good luck.Thank you!
I've got a tonne to do today.
Hannah likes to take a classic idea and turn it on its head.
Well, that's brilliant. But the fact is, we all love the classics,
and you start to play around them, you're entering a dangerous world.
Hannah, you've got MasterChef champions in the dining room today.
I'm really excited about serving them. Thomasina is, like,
my ultimate inspiration. I feel like she's like the poster girl
for what you can do if you win MasterChef. So, yeah, to serve them
is going to be quite amazing. What are you making, please?
Main course is seared harissa tuna
with blackened red pepper baba ghanoush,
hasselback carrot, crispy kale, and some preserved lemon salsa verde.
Whoa!
And then dessert is a mulled beetroot tarte Tatin
with yoghurt and rose water ice cream... What?!
..pomegranate and pistachio tuile. What?!
Yeah, you're getting sweet beetroot today.
Hannah's going really daring.
Our main course is going to be a piece of seared tuna
with harissa around the outside of it.
If there's too much harissa on there, that's going to be
really strong and very, very chilli hot.
This is an unusual mixture.
Dessert, we've got a mulled beetroot tarte Tatin.
Beetroot with caramel round it?
I dunno.
This is a cook playing with fire.
This is a risky dish, though. It's divided opinion
when I've been practising.
My boyfriend hated it on its first outing, but I was convinced
it was great, so I stuck by it.
Farokh has shown himself to be really adventurous,
very imaginative, but also really pushed himself.
He's a clever cook, but he can divide the crowd.
I think my style of cooking comes from the things that I like in life.
Surprise, fun, a little bit of absurdity and irony
and unexpected tastes.
So, my first course, I call it a mushroom forest.
So it's mushrooms two ways with some crispbreads,
a little bit of lemon cream,
and a confit egg yolk.
And then main course?Main course is Octopus in a Black Hole.
You're being slightly salacious, aren't you?
You're trying to get the diner to question themselves
to what they're going to get. I think a dining experience starts
the moment you sit down. Something called Octopus in a Black Hole
will taste at least sort of holistically different
than octopus and lentils.
Fascinating, as always. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Farokh's first course, mushrooms cooked two different ways.
The first one, dried mushroom, hydrated in beer and then roasted.
The second one, we got a king oyster mushroom cooked in butter
and balsamic vinegar.
And then we have a confit egg yolk.
I like an egg yolk that, when you cut into it,
it's runny, like, you know, on your piece of toast.
But I don't want a raw egg yolk.
Farokh's main course.
For all the talk of things going in black holes,
what you've got there is an octopus on lentils.
That could be a really nice, tasty dish
as long as his lentils are soft
and, importantly, he has time to properly cook that octopus.
Feels great being back,
and I've been doing this quite a few years now,
but the talent is getting better and better and better.
They've got to bring their A-game.
I mean, it's not something that you're going to walk.
I don't care about fancy words or fancy ingredients.
I just want the food to be really well-executed and taste delicious.
That's all I care about.
In the MasterChef kitchen, it's like a sort of time hole.
So you might have an hour and 15 minutes, but I tell you what,
the minute you've started preparing, chopping, cooking,
you look at the clock and it's gone.
Don't run, you've still got ten minutes.
Sorry.
I love a fritter.
I'm an absolute sucker for anything deep-fried,
and fish deep-fried is delicious.
Star fruit is quite juicy,
but it's not really adding huge amounts of flavour.
Are you happy with that batter?
Not 100% perfect, but...
..it looks crispy and thin.
Right, let's go.
Well done, you.Thank you.
Hi. Hello, Mark.
Today I made you monkfish fritters.
It's marinated with smoked paprika,
cumin and oregano and sherry vinegar,
coupled with mustard mayonnaise, pickled star fruit,
fresh star fruit, and a lemon balm to garnish.
Thank you. Yeah, thank you.
I really love this dish.
That fritter is really delicate,
and it's really nicely seasoned.
I personally would have done away with the fresh star fruit,
because the pickled one is so delicious.
The monkfish is slightly overcooked, but I can forgive that.
The fact that he's treated them with the paprika and the cumin,
it just takes it up a notch.
The little bit of lemon balm,
adding even more freshness, as well.
Mayonnaise, a great consistency.
Yeah, I would have happily just kept going on that one.
The batter on the outside of that fish is really lovely and crispy.
The pickled star fruit, I really like.
But the fresh star fruit has got lots and lots of juice,
and that's washing water into my mouth and washing away the flavour.
It's like having a bite of the fish with the bite of apple.
It's just odd.
So 15 minutes for your main course, you OK? Yeah.
So the venison is out of the water bath. Yeah.
That's got to be coloured in a pan. Yeah.
You look a little bit pushed for time, there, my friend. Yes!
Quite a traditional-sounding main course.
I mean, pan-seared venison and the squash and the Parma ham.
Venison is such a beautiful meat when it's cooked to perfection.
We need to start plating now, Mark.
Oh!Ooh.
Wipe yourself, mate, first. Wipe yourself down,
You've been squashed.
Right, venison.
You OK with that? The cookery?
I think so. It's very rare, right?
We're done, right? Yeah, we're ready.
Couple of minutes over, we can live with that. Let's go.
That venison is really rare.
So I've made for you venison...
..with butternut squash puree,
maple-roasted crown prince squash,
crispy Parma ham,
Sichuan peppercorn
and a venison reduction sauce.
Thank you very much. Thank you, Mark. Cheers.
Oh, my God, that was so intense!
Where did the time go?
I'm nervous about that venison, it looks rare.
The meat is just quivering, it's just so tender.
It's bled a tiny bit but, actually, I can forgive that.
If I was really picking holes,
you'd want that sauce to have a bit more body and texture,
but in an hour and 15 minutes, very hard to achieve that.
The sauce may be a little bit thicker.
A touch of seasoning.
Everything else, I just love it.
I really like the flavours on this plate,
if you get to have a little bit of venison.
I can eat rare. I can eat blue. I'm not eating raw.
Radha's serving us an aloo tikki chat.
I think it's going to be a real assault on the senses,
or at least I hope it's going to be.
You've got about two minutes, boss. OK, thank you.
I think, when you're using spices, be bold with them.
Don't be shy of them.
That's sweetened yoghurt? This is sweetened yoghurt, yeah.
What's happening with the chickpeas? Chickpeas are going on top.
What else after this?
I'm just going to put some deggi mirch over the top
and some cumin, as well.
Careful with that.
That's hot.
Well done, you're on time, dish looks great. OK, lovely. Go get 'em.
Hello. Hi.
So today I have done an aloo tikki,
with a tamarind drizzle,
mint and coriander chutney,
a sweet yoghurt,
some crispy chickpeas,
pomegranate, cucumber
and some deggi mirch,
which is a red chilli powder,
and some cumin powder.
So I hope you enjoy. Thank you. Thank you.
That is so off the charts.
Delicious.
The lovely soft potato flavour.
And then you get this dusting of chilli,
and then you get the kind of sweetness of the tamarind.
Wow!
It's really well seasoned, too. I mean, she's really nailed it.
There's sweet, there's sour, there's heat, there's crunch.
You know, this is something that's been passed down.
There's generations of flavours in here.
Nice soft potato, and then the yoghurt's sweet.
Then a bit of coriander, and then chilli heat.
I find this adorable.
So you've got 15 minutes for your main course, yeah? Yes.
Main course is a dhal with white rice,
crispy okra fries,
bhature and cumin.
Pickled red onion raita.
I mean, I love dhal.
Who cooked the best dhal in your house?
You know what? I'm still going to say my mum.
Yeah?Yeah.
The okra fries, I'm hoping these are going to be crunchy
because they can go soggy if they're not cooked at the right temperature.
Would your mum like that?
I think she'd like that. I'm happy with it, so... Good.
Well done. Thank you. Well done. Lots of work, well done.
Radha has made white rice and lentil dhal,
spiced with mango powder,
chilli and cumin.
Topped with tempura battered okra,
served with bhatura bread
and cucumber raita.
When I started eating that, I didn't care how it looked,
you could have put it in a Wellington boot.
I just thought the flavours, the warmth,
the cooking of the rice, the bread -
I just love it.
The dhal is really well seasoned,
and her total understanding
of texture and flavour and technique
is really impressive.
I love the okra,
and I think the way she's balanced the spice,
she's not been shy, but it's not been overpowering either.
The dhal - the lentils are wonderful and soft and explode in your mouth,
but are coated with the most amazing amount of spice.
It's a big mound of food
and tastes absolutely delightful.
Oh, seriously, my heart is pounding!
I can actually breathe now, and just relax a little bit.
Hannah. Is your tuna pan on? Tuna pan is on.
OK, because you've got 7½ minutes.OK.
So I think when you see seared tuna on the menu, you know,
that's what you want to see - a nice pinkness, you know,
not overdone.
Harissa can be a real fierce, pungent spice.
I love that, but we don't want it to overtake everything.
To make a beautifully seasoned baba ganoush,
to hasselback her carrots,
to make sure that kale is actually crispy and not soggy -
she's set a bar quite high for herself, which I really like.
Are you happy?
My tuna's a little bit more cooked than I would have ideally wanted.
Are we done? Nothing else to put on the plate.
Well done, on time.
Yay!
Hi. Hi.
Today, I've cooked for you seared harissa tuna,
blackened red-pepper baba ganoush,
a salsa verde,
hasselback carrot and some crispy kale.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The tuna...
I mean, mine is incredibly overcooked and grey.
I'm really quite underwhelmed by the lack of seasoning
of what promised to be quite punchy flavours.
Obviously, with the baba ganoush, I don't think that's been tasted
because there's not a lot there at all.
I'm not just talking about salt, but your garlics and your sesames,
and the smoke, as well, which is a bit - you sort of really expect.
The harissa wasn't really evident.
I wanted a bit more heat, you know,
just to tweak those flavours,
just to get it... Make it sing better.
The salsa verde is innocent enough, as is the baba ganoush,
but they both lacked punch.
It needs more flavour.
That's what it needs.
15 minutes, you going to be on time? Fabulous, yes.
I'm loving that Hannah is using beetroot in her tarte Tatin.
I think that's really inspired.
I want to see how she's overcome the earthiness of it,
and made it kind of sweet enough.
It's got to be full of delicious sticky caramel,
but it's got to be flaky and crispy, too.
How's your ice cream looking?
Ice cream is - yeah, it's good.
So it's yoghurt and rosewater, right? It is, indeed.
You're doing really well. You've got a minute left.
That's it, we done? I think we're done.
For your dessert, I've made for you a mulled beetroot tarte Tatin,
pistachio tuile,
yoghurt and rose water ice cream
and some pomegranate.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
That was definitely the toughest test we've done so far.
I hope they can see that I like to play around with flavours a bit,
and I hope they like this divisive beetroot tarte Tatin.
The beetroot is still really earthy,
it isn't soft and yielding.
There's no caramel, burnt sugar flavours.
The yoghurt, it's super sharp.
It needs a bit of tempering sweetness.
Really adventurous idea, it's quite bold flavours,
but this beetroot could have some goat's cheese on top,
and you would be thinking she'd meant to do a savoury dish.
I do appreciate what she's trying to do
but, unfortunately, when you do stuff that is a bit daring,
maybe a little bit wacky, they're always harder to execute.
I think the creation of the beetroot tarte Tatin is a really nice idea,
but the beetroot's quite hard,
rather than being lovely and soft.
That ice cream's not working.
You get the rosewater, loads of it, and it's a little bit too strong.
And then the whole thing disappears,
and then you get nothing else at all.
OK.
Farokh's mushroom forest.
I love the flavours coming out of this.
The mushrooms and the confit egg yolk.
Lovely crispbreads to scoop up all that delicious sauce with.
I love it when people give dishes a title.
It adds a little bit of fun to it.
Farokh, you got six minutes. How are we doing here?
I am...
..surprisingly ready to go.
I mean, it's a daring dish.
I love mushrooms.
And I've not had a lot of lemon cream with egg yolk before.
I'm really intrigued.
Three more things to put on there.
One is this - a mushroom ketchup.
Have you've broken some of the eggs?
Yeah, just think I put the garlic in too vigorously.
Are you done?
Yeah. Well done. Back for the octopus.
Hello. Hello.
Farokh has made Mushrooms in the Forest.
Mushrooms hydrated in beer, and then roasted,
and a balsamic oyster mushroom,
served with a confit egg yolk,
lemon cream,
mushroom ketchup,
and crispbreads.
This is really beautiful.
It's really bold.
That king oyster mushroom, it's unctuous and caramelised,
and full of flavour and rich.
The ketchup is lovely.
The lemon cream is kind of haunting and sweet.
The creamy confit yolk, I think's absolutely brilliant.
You know what? I just love dishes like this
that make you think a little bit.
Playful, exciting little dish.
I really like the king mushroom.
It's cooked properly. It's firm.
The mushrooms in beer, I mean, I like a pint of ale,
but that's not something I want with my mushroom.
Technically, there's a lot of work in here.
Farokh's really pushing hard.
I think it's interesting.
Well done for getting your starter out on time.
Yeah. Here we go.
Octopus in a Black Hole. Let's do it.
For me, octopus, it needs to be, I think, chargrilled,
just to add that little smoky edge.
Lentils are cooked.
What's made them black?
They are black lentils, but also there's some squid ink in there.
I don't really know what to expect,
other than that I'm going to get some octopus, some lentils,
some leeks and some chive
but, you know, given his artisticness from the last dish,
it could be really out there.
What's that?Just a bit of mirin.
You're happy to go? I am ready to go.
Fantastic. And I'm as happy as I can be.
Thank you. Well done, Farokh.
What I've made here I call Octopus in a Black Hole,
and it's octopus with some fishy lentils and bone marrow,
charred leeks
and some chive cream.
Thank you. Hope you enjoy it. Thank you.
The octopus is cooked very, very well.
I like that, it's flavoured very, very well.
The leaks are lovely and soft. The lentils are cooked well.
It's an unusual dish, that's for sure.
I'm going to be fascinated what the dining room thinks of that.
I think this is a really joyful plate to eat.
I think the octopus, at the thicker end,
it probably could have done a bit more time.
But as you get down to the sort of thinner, wispier bits
of the tentacles,
they've got that lovely chariness, which is beautiful.
Then the cream just finishes it all off.
I'm completely with you.
I had some octopus, I had the lentils, I had the chive cream,
and then I bit into a chunk of that leek,
and that allium sweetness and kind of earthiness hit.
I think there's some squid ink in there to highlight the blackness.
I think the pressure cooking on the octopus,
there's been some aromats and almost slight ginger notes, as well.
It's one of those dishes, when you get everything on your fork,
that's it, I get it. I get it.
They are as close to my vision as I can do under a lot of pressure
in a stranger's kitchen,
thinking that I will be judged by people whose job is food.
The last quarterfinal of this year's competition,
and I have to say all four of them took real risks in this round,
and some of those risks have paid off
and some of those risks haven't.
We need to make a big call.
Radha cooked beautiful food today. I mean, delicious.
It was cooked with love, with feeling,
and it tasted fantastic.
We like it. Dining room like it.
We've got ourselves a semifinalist.
Absolutely.
After that, Gregg, we've got a few ups and downs here.
Shall we talk about Hannah?
The tuna - a little bit overcooked.
The whole thing needed a little bit more flavour.
Dessert - Hannah took a risk.
The guests in the dining room didn't particularly like it.
Hannah's got an issue here.
Mark gave us what he called monkfish fritters.
They were very nicely made,
but the raw starfruit was a mistake.
Fruit and fish, I'm not convinced that works.
The venison dish - now, you and I, our dish of venison,
that venison was not cooked enough.
The centre of my venison was raw.
The dining room didn't raise that as an issue at all.
Farokh did for us the mushroom forest.
I liked the king mushroom with the balsamic.
I also liked his mushroom ketchup.
I didn't like the mushrooms in beer.
The dining room, overall, thought it was lovely.
Farokh is an exciting cook.
He is adventurous.
That octopus was perfect.
If I went home, I'd feel disappointed.
But you know what?
I enjoyed every bit of it, so I'm at peace.
I've done what I can.
I think I have more capabilities.
If I go out today,
it means that the judges thought that I didn't,
which they are more qualified than I to know.
At the start of this, we did say
that there were two semifinal places left in the competition
and that two of you will be leaving us.
Our first semifinalist is...
..Radha.
Very, very well done.
Our second semifinalist is...
Farokh.
Farokh, congratulations.
Mark, Hannah, sorry to see you go. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much indeed.
I'm feeling like I really want to have a good old cry
into an even bigger glass of wine tonight,
but they'll be happy tears.
It's been amazing.
I can sit and eat beetroot tarte Tatins on my own for ever more!
So, back to work, but obviously the passion continues.
I had a great time in that kitchen today and I take that,
I take all the small wins, and celebrate on that.
Congratulations.
You two are the last semifinalists
of this year's competition.
I don't think it's sunk in yet that I'm now
a MasterChef semifinalist.
I can't stop smiling.
I don't think this smile's ever going to leave my face!
I'm pretty proud of myself.
I like the fact that I've gotten this far.
I find it a bit daunting, because I don't know what's next.
I think the semifinals are going to be scary.
Next time, it's the semifinals
and this year's ten best cooks return...
How many more minutes? One minute, one minute.
Sorry, are you burning something else? Yes.
..to battle it out for the title of MasterChef Champion.
How long are we going to be? I'm going to be 20 seconds.
Guys, I need these desserts.
I need them.