It's the last of the MasterChef semifinals.
There's a nervous energy in the air today.
On the cusp of getting into Finals Week -
this is just beyond, like, what I ever thought was possible.
Everybody's, like, so brilliant.
I feel inspired.
Honestly, I take this opportunity.
I'm grabbing it like a koala.
No-one will take this from me, that's for sure!
Tonight, just one unique challenge stands between these five
exceptional home cooks and a place in Finals Week.
No-one wants to have come this far and then go home.
This is a massive round. A huge round.
Now it's time for them to raise the curtain
and show us a showstopper.
Welcome back.
This is a big round.
You get through this, you will be in Finals Week.
You have a brief today, and that brief is to cook for us something
theatrical and fantastical.
This is about surprise.
We want to taste food that gives us goose bumps,
something that makes Gregg and I go, "Wow!"
Show us what you've learnt and dare to push the boundaries.
It's got to demonstrate skill and technique,
and it's also got to be delicious.
Ladies and gentlemen, you have one hour and 45 minutes.
Four of you will go through to Finals Week.
One of you will be leaving the competition.
Let's cook.
I want a dish today that plays with my mind
as well as plays with my senses.
It could look like one thing and taste like another,
or it could just look absolutely stupendous.
It's got to be touchy, feely, aroma, texture,
but it's no good looking amazing and tasting like the stage curtain.
I think this brief, they just make it for me.
I love it because I'm very artistic myself.
I love to create something.
I have, like, thousands of ideas, trust me!
My head is just like, "Oh, we could do it.
"We could do that. We could do this."
It's like, "Calm down! You only need one!"
Are you doing candyfloss? Yes, Gregg.
Yay!
What's your dish?
Today I'm bringing you to Japan.
It's the spring season in Japan.
The cherry blossom is blooming.
You see the whole road full of cherry blossom tree.
So I'm trying to replicate that into a miniature
and bring it to the MasterChef kitchen today.
I went there for international exchange student programme.
I went there to study Japanese, study culture,
I lived there for two years.
That's great. So what's it made up of?
So I'm making raspberry sponge with mascarpone and raspberry cream,
lychee liqueur jelly and then on top lime and yoghurt snow.
It looked like a little miniature cherry tree
with the candyfloss on the top.
I know, it's very challenging, so fingers crossed!
Chariya's dish sounds absolutely delightful.
We've basically got a trifle type of affair.
We've got a mousse, we've got a sponge with popping candy.
Fantastic.
And then we've got a fine chocolate tree
that has to support coloured candyfloss to represent the blossom.
Mate, where do her ideas come from?
Really fine, brittly chocolate,
A lovely soft sponge, creamy mousse,
lychee jelly which melts in your mouth,
and then we are going to have yoghurt and lime snow.
It's a complicated dessert and the balance is all-important.
If there's too much candyfloss on there,
it's going to be way too sweet.
I quite like this brief. I think it's out there.
It's something that you wouldn't normally do.
You don't stay in your kitchen on a Saturday and cook
a theatrical showstopper. It's creative.
It gets your mind thinking about food differently.
And, yeah, so I quite enjoyed, like, coming up with
different ideas and recipes for this one.
Terri, tell us about the dish. What is it?
Today, I'm making you dippy eggs and soldiers.
Ooh!
So, yeah, this dish is... It's nostalgic for me.
Since I was a kid, on a Saturday I'd go to my nan's house,
she'd make me dippy eggs and soldiers for lunch.
If I go back to Ireland now, she'd still do it.
Yeah, so it's a sweet dish, not savoury.
So I'm doing a tempered chocolate egg with coconut mousse,
mango puree - to represent the egg whites of the yolks.
I'm doing it with churro toast soldiers.
So churros are obviously like a deep-fried doughnut.
Whoa! So how did you devise this?
When I heard the brief, this was the first dish
that came to my head. I think it's a dish that lends itself really well
to the playfulness of seeing one thing and eating another.
Does your grandmother know you're doing a dish in her honour?
She's got no idea I'm even here, and she is MasterChef obsessed.
She watches them all.
So, yeah, she's going to lose it when she realises I'm here.
Terri's undertaking a huge amount of technical work here.
The tempering of the chocolate is really important.
Egg shells are looking good. They're all coming out nicely.
All I need to do is stick them together now
which is the next tricky bit.
That chocolate layer has to be thick enough that she can get
it out of the mould, but thin enough that it's not like a hard egg.
It is the flavour of the tropics - coconut, mango and chocolate.
Those flavours could work
but the balance of chocolate to coconut
is going to be really interesting.
We've got churros going with it as well
to represent toast - that's lovely.
But that is choux pastry -
probably the most difficult pastry you can make.
25 minutes gone.
One thing that's always on my side when I come and cook
is that there's always slightly that bit of the unexpected.
I don't do classic flavours.
Everything I do is stuff that's building out of my head.
So when they read my dishes, they're always a little bit freaked out,
but then when you execute it really well,
that's where the good expectations come.
Omar, you've got a massive smile on your face. Yeah.
Are you loving this competition? Yeah, I absolutely love it.
Like the way it makes you think, the creativity.
Not everyone gets to be creative every day,
so I feel really lucky at the minute.
So come on then, tell me what you've come up with.
Yes, I'm taking you to like 1600 Salem today.
It's based on kind of an old school Halloween film
that I used to love as a kid.
Me and my nan like watching these kind of films.
So it's all based around some hocus pocus,
some trickery and some spells today.
Tell us what the dish is - this hocus pocus dish of yours.
At its high it's monkfish, beetroot and sweetcorn.
So there's monkfish three ways,
there's a roasted monkfish, monkfish cheek, deep-fried,
and then there's also a dumpling that looks a bit
like a monster's eye.
Then there's a beetroot blood sauce,
kind of plays on the flavours of a Burmese fish soup
called a mohinga, that I love.
So it's all served in a cauldron.
So I have some dry ice, so it kind of looks like it's come straight
out of a witch's cottage.
I wrote you guys a spell, so as you read the spell,
it will kind of be an instruction for you to build the dish yourself.
Wow!
So if we get the spell wrong, does that mean it doesn't work?
Oh, no. You should get...
If you read it correctly, you should be able
to get the spell right and magic will happen
and I'll be in the final week.
I'm not going to turn into a frog. No! No, no trickery.
No trickery like that today.
Omar's dish sounds a great deal of fun,
a witch's cauldron and a monster's eye.
But we've got a beetroot soup here with monkfish.
Now, that is highly unusual,
but unusual combinations is what's got Omar this far.
Guys, you have 50 minutes left.
You have wonderful creations,
and we need them finished in 50 minutes.
Jack, on this journey of yours, what's the next dish?
So I'm doing bone marrow and bread,
so it's going to look like bone marrow and bread,
but it's actually a creme brulee with biscotti.
Are you serving it in bones? Yeah. Oh, my word.
And then some chocolate soil and some carbonated fruit.
Are you going to make the fruits fizzy?
Yeah, so using these guns here, a bit of CO2,
then when you bite into them it'll be like a fizzy drink.
Hopefully, if I get it right.
Where's the inspiration for this come from?
I mean, everyone likes bone marrow and bread.
It's one of the best things I've had.
It's very simple and it stays true to my cooking, like simplicity.
So it's going to look nice and elegant and simple on the plate,
but it's not going to taste like what you're expecting on first glance.
Have we changed you, Jack? You definitely have, yeah.
I've tried to take all your feedback on board,
because I'm quite casual cook at home.
When it's ready, it's ready.
That doesn't cut here.
So I've tried to take that on board, yeah.
Fizzy fruit and bone marrow. There's a thing!
We are getting instead of bone marrow and toast,
which is a savoury dish, we're getting a sweet dish.
We're getting a piece of bone marrow
which is going to be filled with creme brulee,
bittersweet top of the caramelised sugar
and then underneath it, a lovely, sweet, creamy mixture.
I hope it doesn't turn out like scrambled custard.
And then we're getting biscotti.
He's going to make a loaf of biscotti
and slice it so it looks like bread.
Well, I love the idea of dipping a biscuit into creme brulee.
That is lovely.
So visually you get that, like, wow,
you're not quite sure what's coming.
You know when you get the caramelisation on a bone marrow?
You've got that as well in the creme brulee. It does look good.
But the carbonated fruit, I have to confess,
I don't understand it at all.
At this stage of the competition, it's as creative
and as much work as I could do.
I'm pushing myself in the time.
So it's definitely challenging.
Ladies and gentlemen, you have just 20 minutes left.
20 minutes left.
I was quite excited to get this brief
because there's a fun element going in
and there's a mystery around what you're serving what it is.
As a person, as a cook, I feel I'm getting a lot of acknowledgement
to my creativity, and I think that's quite fulfilling.
So I'm taking you to Vegas today.
I'm making coffee in Vegas
by serving boozy floating island dessert.
So why are we going to Vegas then, Anurag?
Vegas I've added because I visited ten years ago.
If you get up in the morning in a lovely hotel and you ask
for a coffee and somebody will give you a boozy dessert,
you'll be happy in Vegas
because that's what you're meant to do there.
But the inspiration of this dessert comes from my childhood memories.
So whenever we go to big, fat Indian weddings,
there used to be like big coffee machines steaming the liquid.
So that used to be very fascinating.
And my parents every time said,
"No, you can't have it because it will
"make you drunk like the lunatics in the wedding."
So I used to think coffee will make you drunk.
So imagine we're sitting in Vegas,
we're getting room service for our coffee. Yes.
And then we go to a wedding?
The wedding is not there.
Whatever happens in Vegas stays there!
Brilliant, my friend! Brilliant.
Thank you very much.
Anurag's dish is really, really impressive.
Floating island is a soft poached meringue
that sits on top of custard.
That's a technical dessert, and that's great.
With that it then gets even more impressive.
We've got three different sugar lumps made out of different
ingredients that sit in a caramel basket with a biscuit.
This is really challenging.
I know Anurag can get through a great deal of work,
I'm just a little bit nervous he's given himself a bit too much
to do this time.
My concern right now is that poached meringue,
it's half sugar, half egg white - that's really sweet.
We've got a custard, which is sweet.
We've got three different sugar cubes in a basket made from sugar.
By the time we've finished this, forget the coffee high,
we're going to have a sugar high.
You have ten minutes.
Ten minutes for these incredible creations.
Well done. ten minutes.
Pushed for time, but just need to plate now
and just get all the final elements like the fruit together.
Three minutes. Three minutes, people, please.
I've got all the separate elements plated,
so now it's just getting all the last bits done
in the cauldrons.
You need some focus.
Hocus-pocus focus. Come on. Hocus pocus!
Time is running out,
but I'm trying to make it look pretty as fast as I can!
SHE LAUGHS
Yeah, I'm happy with my spoons.
That's it. Time's up. Stop!
Well done, well done.
Let's see yours. Ah! Breakfast in bed.
They got a little bit messy but... And the spoons as well.
Wow, that looks amazing.
Anurag, coffee time. Up you come.
First up, accountant Anurag is serving coffee in Vegas.
A tray with a floating island dessert
made of Irish whiskey cream-flavoured custard
topped with a poached meringue, dusted with chocolate,
served with an edible sugar work bowl
containing three sugar balls
made from dark chocolate and hazelnut,
white chocolate and salted caramel and honeycomb,
a ginger biscuit spoon and a vase of rose meringue flowers,
finished with dry ice infused with coffee.
THEY LAUGH
GREGG LAUGHS
That's great!
Smoking flowers.
I really like your lovely soft floating island,
that poached meringue,
and I especially like it with all that chocolate across the top
because it's got a lovely bitter finish to it.
Your custard that's underneath is really delicious,
and there's enough warmth in the back of your throat
from the alcohol.
Your ginger nut biscuits - a lovely flavour of ginger.
For me, I couldn't eat it all, I couldn't drink it all,
but I really love the combination.
A beautiful looking flowered meringue.
Very artistic.
Love the dark chocolate, like the richness of the white chocolate.
It's probably too sweet and too rich to finish it all.
But I do admire the knowledge,
the artistry and the skill.
It went very well. I'm really pleased.
A bit of constructive feedback around the size,
but I am very happy that I was able to create that fun element,
so I feel excited about it.
Master coffee roaster Chariya has created a dessert
representing cherry blossom season in Japan.
Made of a tempered chocolate and strawberry flavoured candyfloss tree,
a trifle made with raspberry and lychee mousse,
a raspberry sponge coated with popping candy
and a lychee liqueur jelly with lime and yoghurt snow.
It actually reminds me of being a child and loving candyfloss,
and your tree almost looks like a kid's cartoon.
It's so playful, yet so beautiful.
It's lovely.
You break off a branch of chocolate
wrapped up in all of that fruit flavoured strawberry -
it's delicious.
You've got flavours of raspberry
and you've got a slightly sharper, but sweet lychee.
And if that's not enough, we've then got popping candy
dancing on my tongue.
I marvel at your creation.
That's a beautiful, beautiful dessert
and it tastes fabulous.
Inside that glass, there was this really lovely light sponge.
The raspberry mousse itself with the mascarpone is creamy,
like a cheesecake, and you've got sharpness coming from yoghurt
and lime inside the snow.
I love your imagination. I love the way it looks.
You've hit the brief, and I think it tastes delicious.
Thank you.
They liked every component that I put in there.
I'm really happy, really happy!
I think I have a really good chance
to secure one of the places in the final four.
Accountant Terri's created a sweet treat of dippy eggs and soldiers,
a tempered chocolate eggshell filled with a coconut mousse egg white
and a mango puree egg yolk served with churro toast soldiers,
a tempered chocolate spoon and a mango orange juice cocktail.
I love the fact we've got breakfast on a tray
as if we're sitting in bed together.
It wouldn't be the first time. That's right.
He always moves his legs around and the tray never stays stable.
Your egg shell itself is absolutely brilliant.
The chocolate's lovely and thin and it does crack like an egg shell.
That's good.
I really like the mango that's sitting inside there.
The coconut cream - I'd like some more coconut flavour in there.
My churros - they're really lovely in light,
however, they're a little bit greasy for me.
Despite a couple of little errors, it's an absolute delight.
Love the combination of mango and coconut.
Your little soldiers -
very, very much enjoying dipping that into your egg.
In terms of the brief, you've given us breakfast
that tastes like dessert.
I think you've done that brief very well indeed. Thank you.
Although it was a simple looking dish,
there was a lot of technique behind it.
So, yeah, I think the comments were completely fair.
Some of the comments from John was that he'd like more coconut
and that the churros were a little bit greasy.
But apart from that, yeah, I was happy with everything I put up.
And, yeah, I feel good.
Sports journalist Jack has invented his sweet take
on bone marrow with bread.
Bone marrow filled with creme brulee on chocolate soil,
served with almond and pistachio biscotti
and sparkling carbonated fruit.
I understand what you're trying to do with the bone and the bread.
I think when you hit the fruit on the side,
it takes it slightly out of context.
Love your biscotti.
Thicker than you would normally have,
but they have to be because you want it to look like bread.
Lovely, sweet creme brulee.
Not too much sugar on the top,
but it's just going a little bit bitter.
It's just on the point of curdling.
Don't understand the fruit at all.
I'm not getting any fizz.
It's not adding anything that a cold grape wouldn't add.
You put the chocolate in with the creme brulee,
mix the whole thing together with that biscuit
and you've suddenly got yourself the flavour of a chocolate cookie.
The fruit - I think it's slightly out of place.
It doesn't really quite work.
I'm a bit up in the air, really.
I think at this stage, everything you put on a plate
has to be perfect.
But it wasn't executed as good as it could have been.
I did my best and hopefully it's enough to get me through.
Toy developer Omar has conjured up a witch's cauldron.
Double, double, boil and trouble.
He's cooked roasted and deep-fried monkfish cheek,
corn puree, a black garlic tuile,
a prawn and monkfish monster's eye dumpling,
witches' teeth made from roasted sweetcorn,
a beetroot blood sauce spiced with chilli, ginger and lemongrass
and coriander ginger oil slime.
So we've got a spell here, all right,
which is kind of Shakespearesque, isn't it?
Macbeth-esque, right? Right.
"Double, bubble, boil and trouble.
"Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
"We hope this dish turns the competition to rubble."
Nice.
Your monkfish is great.
You've given that a lot of care and attention.
A lot of butter's gone over that and it's perfect.
Your little monster eye - that's a little prawn dumpling.
It's lovely.
And I love the bit of ginger that's coming out the green test tube.
It's absolutely delightful in there.
I love the fun element of it, but I'm more impressed by the quality
of your cookery and the ability to combine chilli, beetroot,
sweetcorn and monkfish. That's very clever.
This beetroot tomato sauce inspired by a Burmese soup,
it's fiery with chilli, but fragrant with lemongrass,
and then woody with beetroot.
Your monk cheek with a little crust around the outside and all
those little seeds is absolutely delicious.
I love that puree that's sitting underneath,
which is really lovely and creamy.
I think it's absolutely delicious.
Omar, you have absolutely hit the brief.
It's theatrical, it's fun,
it's exciting.
That was genuinely the most amazing thing.
I thought I would just get laughed out of the room.
I thought they would think it was just too silly.
Yeah, they absolutely loved it.
I can't believe it. So surprised.
Thank you very much indeed.
I've tasted and seen things I never thought I would ever see
and taste ever.
And I've got to say, I'm truly impressed.
So thank you very much indeed.
We've got a big, big decision to make right now.
Thank you very much indeed. Thanks, guys.
John, that's extraordinary talent we've got in this kitchen.
Nothing short of brilliant.
We've got amateur cooks coming in here working like professionals.
Really exciting food, really delicious food.
We now have a decision to make.
Four of them going through to finals week,
one of them is going home.
Omar's dish I thought was just wonderful.
That witch's cauldron was delicious.
That was my favourite dish to eat.
It's dining of the highest order with a real sense of fun.
Omar's got himself a place in Finals Week.
Chariya is a workhorse. Technique after technique.
I thought it was an absolutely fantastic dish and it was fun,
it was theatrical and it was interesting.
It was almost edible art. It was stunning.
Chariya has got to go through to Finals Week.
I totally agree.
So we've got three more to talk about.
Terri, Anurag and Jack.
Jack made for us bone marrow and bread.
Really clever.
But that creme brulee wasn't quite perfect.
It wasn't 100% smooth and there was a bowl of fruit on the side.
It's an unusual concept that he didn't pull off.
Anurag's dish was a little sweet,
but there was some delicious stuff in there.
I can't deny the amount of work he's done,
and I can't deny how delicious it was.
Terri's dish was a really clever concept.
It looked like breakfast, it really did.
My churros - slightly greasy.
But the rest of it I thought was great.
I really, really liked it.
Dipping that cinnamon-flavoured churros
into that coconut-flavoured egg was lovely.
Bit nervous. Not quite sure what's going to happen.
I don't want the journey to end now. I want to keep going.
I want to keep developing.
Fingers crossed it's enough to get through.
If I go home on a dish like that,
then I can walk out with my head held high.
I did... I did me proud. So that's all I can do, really.
I'm pretty happy to what I put on the plate.
But you see in the room the level has gone up so high.
So it's kind of 50/50 chance for everybody at this stage.
I think that was a fabulous, glorious celebration
of culinary talent.
And I think all five of you should be incredibly
proud of yourselves.
We thought there were two absolutely outstanding dishes.
The first contestant going through to Finals Week is...
..Omar.
Congratulations.
Hubble-bubble!
Mate, it was great!
Thank you so much.
Well done.
The second contestant going to Finals Week is...
..Chariya. Well done. Splendid.
Terri, Jack, Anurag,
two of you going through to Finals Week.
One of you, sadly, is leaving the competition.
The contestant leaving the competition is...
..is Jack.
Jack, your journey from beef chow mein all the way
through to brulee in a bone.
The tacos, the tacos!
No, mate, I've got to say it's always tasted great.
Thank you so very much indeed. Well done, everyone.
Cheers, Jack. Good luck. Take care, Jack.
Devastated. I wanted to keep going,
not leave right on the cusp of the finals,
but I was up against some incredible people today.
I leave proud.
It's been more than I could ever have dreamed of. It's been amazing.
You can now call yourself MasterChef finalists.
Yeah, I'm absolutely ecstatic.
It's sinking in that I'm a MasterChef finalist.
My spell worked!
Fantastic, fantastic. I never dreamt of that.
It feels so unreal now, but very, very fulfilling, very humbling.
I'm going to go home and then I might get a glass of wine.
Normally, I don't drink,
but I might just do it tonight just for the finalist.
I mean, this is the dream. I've grew up watching this show.
I can't believe it. It's an amazing feeling.
There's only four of us left, yeah. Fantastic Four!
We have some amazing challenges lined up for you.
First up, we are taking you to one of the undisputed ancient food
capitals of the world.
Guys, pack your bags. We will see you in Istanbul.
Oh, my goodness! Oh!
Next time...
Oh, nice! Yeah, perfect.
..it's the MasterChef Finals.
It definitely feels like the pressure's stepped up a gear today.
I can't use this. It's garbage.
This is attention to detail on a level I'm not used to.
Oh! It's a piece of art.
This is remarkable.
At the end, one of these four exceptional cooks
will be crowned this year's champion.