It's the battle for the ultimate culinary prize.
Ooh!
58 of the country's best home cooks...
I need to stop shaking.
..all with their hearts set...
Fingers crossed.
JOHN: Your sesame cracker's burning.
Oh, no.
..on the coveted MasterChef trophy.
That's a cracker of a dish.
Absolutely ace.
I'm so happy I just want to dance.
Each week, 12 extraordinary amateur talents...
Come on, come on, come on.
..battle for a place...
DEEP BREATH
..in the quarterfinal.
I think it's exceptionally good.
I can't fault it.
But only the best can earn their passports...
I think we need to kick it up a little bit.
..to the ultimate culinary showdown.
Upstairs, there is bow ties, there's ballgowns
and there are Michelin stars.
Who's got what it takes?
Who can hold on tight all the way to the end?
We are about to eat ourselves to an absolute standstill.
I'm ready. Let's go.
These six passionate home cooks all think they've got what it takes
to become MasterChef champion...
..but at the end of today's heat,
only three will make it through to this week's quarterfinal.
I'm so excited about entering the MasterChef kitchen.
I've watched it for years on the telly and now I'm here.
Right now, I think the nerves have taken over.
Having an aubergine in front of me
and being told to cook a two-course meal
probably scares the life out of me!
I feel good about cooking for John and Gregg,
but when I'm there, in the kitchen, it might be completely different!
Welcome to MasterChef.
We call this first round Basic To Brilliant -
who can take the most humble of ingredients
and elevate it to something truly fantastic?
Your ingredient must be the main feature on your dish.
John and I are going to choose our two favourites.
Those two cooks will grab their aprons
and go straight through to the next round.
That'll leave four of you who will have to cook again
for the remaining two aprons.
1 hour and 20 minutes.
Off you go.
HUMMING
Growing up in the Scottish Borders,
interior designer Saffron enjoys creating dishes
that play on her love of colour and texture.
Saffron, before we start... Mm-hm.
..we here want to wish you a very happy birthday. Thank you.
Oh, happy birthday! What a weird way to celebrate.
It's good, though. No, it's great. It's great. Right.
What's your humble ingredient? Natural yoghurt.
We eat tons of the stuff because I've got two toddlers at home.
They're three and two. Wow. You're busy! Mm-hm.
Saffron, what are you doing? I've no idea!
I'm here on MasterChef because I feel it's my time.
I've been Mum for the last three and a half years,
and it's now my turn.
As long as Gregg or John
don't chuck my plate on the floor like my toddlers, then I'm happy.
Saffron's going to use her yoghurt to make labneh.
Now, labneh really is just a thick yoghurt.
You hang it up in a muslin cloth, all the liquid drops out of it
and you end up with a lovely thick mixture.
She's going to serve hers with roasted mixed peppers and tomatoes,
which will then be mixed with harissa paste.
Then we've got crispy chickpeas and buckwheat.
We're also getting some spicy nuts.
We've got plenty of flavours going on with different spices,
but process-wise, I wonder if there's enough going on here.
54-year-old Charlie works as a copywriter
and aspires to combine his two passions - food and writing.
I'm here on MasterChef for two reasons.
Firstly, to prove to myself, what kind of cook am I?
And secondly, I had a bet with my daughter
that if I went on MasterChef, she had to go on a singing show.
And now I've got here.
The pressure's on her.
Charlie, explain to me your passion for food, please.
It comes from an early age
of wandering the streets of London with my father.
In the pre-internet generation, we used to go and look at all the menus
and we went to Lebanese restaurants and Italian restaurants,
all over the place. I had some amazing food with my father.
What's your dish?
My humble ingredient is mince.
I'm doing pork balls, polpette with a little jug of broth on the side,
with ricotta and spinach, stuffed ravioli
and some braised fennel and beurre noisette
with some sage on the side.
So you're doing meatballs with a filled pasta? Yes.
Are they both on the same plate? Yes. OK.
I think that Charlie's got a crisis of confidence here,
because, for me, these are two different dishes -
a plate of ravioli and a plate of meatballs.
I don't know if Charlie really needs to do the ravioli.
I'd like to see him concentrate on that pork mince
and do a really good job with it.
It's a race against the clock, isn't it?
But trying not to hurry everything.
Having grown up in Kolkata, cybersecurity consultant Shreya
wants to showcase the cuisine of her childhood.
My style of cooking is inspired by
the traditional Indian ways of making things,
but I try to blend it in with ingredients
that are produced locally.
So I like to believe that it's a bit of a fusion.
My basic ingredient is paneer.
It's an Indian cheese.
Why have you chosen paneer? I'm a vegetarian,
and when I was a kid, whenever we had a good celebration
or there was something like a party, paneer was always involved.
The dish is karahi paneer.
It comes with peppers and onions,
so it's a version of a butter masala,
but it has a little bit of a smoky element to it.
Paneer, a curd cheese,
and she's going to cook this inside a sauce
made from roasted tomatoes and cashew nuts.
Then she's going to smoke it using charcoal.
If you make something too smoky, it becomes very acrid.
It's very hard to tell,
when you've got a piece of charcoal chucked in a sauce.
I'm serving it with baby naans.
What's the difference between a naan and a baby naan?
Are they just smaller? Yeah. They're smaller, so easier to eat.
I like the confidence that Shreya's got.
There's lots of process going on here,
and it sounds really delicious.
How much time have we got?
Guys, you're halfway!
Mapping driver Enya previously waitressed
in a Michelin-starred restaurant and shares her love of food
with her avid home cook dad and pastry chef sister.
My cooking style is go to the reduced aisle,
pick a meat or a fish and work my way around that,
so I've never followed a recipe.
I just go for it. See what I fancy.
Enya, do you have a cookery ambition? Yes.
Just have a family-run restaurant. Have, like, my sisters, my dad,
everyone just working with me, and that's my dream.
What's your humble ingredient, please?
00 flour. I'm making a chorizo and ricotta-filled ravioli.
I'm making the actual ravioli itself,
putting chilli seeds running through it.
Making that spicy - and it looks just prettier
with the chilli running through it, as well.
The issue here is, the pasta will have to be quite thick
to make sure she doesn't tear it with the chilli flakes,
and if it's too thick, then it could be chewy.
And that becomes more like a dumpling
rather than actually like a ravioli.
What's the sauce? It's a tomato, black olive and chilli sauce
with a dash of cream in there.
Honey... I won't use it if I don't need it,
but I just like to have it there
in case I want to add a tiny bit. To the sauce? Yep.
Got to be sweet and spicy. And a bit creamy.
Lots of big flavours here. Honey, cream, tomato and chilli.
It could be a little bit gluggy.
You have just 15 minutes left.
31-year-old Pete grew up in Newcastle,
where he was taught to cook at a young age
by his Vietnamese grandmother.
My grandma is the best cook I know.
My Vietnamese heritage,
it inspires a lot of my cooking,
but I love food from all over Asia - Japanese, Korean -
I love it all, so I try and infuse that all into my cooking style.
What do you do for a living?
I'm an employment lawyer.
Are you? Yeah.
So, is food your passion outside of work?
Yeah, my way of relaxing from work. I cook for my family.
I've been cooking for my girlfriend lately,
although she is sick of this particular dish.
But I would love to be kind of cooking for a living.
What's your humble ingredient, please, Pete?
My humble ingredient is chicken. OK. What are you doing?
It's khao soi, which is a yellow curry chicken noodle dish.
I'm doing my own noodles,
and then I'm trying to kind of panne the chicken.
Make that a bit crispy, give it a bit of texture.
Pete, it smells wonderful over here. Thank you.
Khao soi is an amazing, amazing dish.
Rich coconut curry sauce flavoured with lemongrass and galangal.
Fish sauce, he had a good amount of chilli with it -
and it's mixed with chicken and then it's served with noodles.
He's going to have to be really careful
that he gets those noodles right. If the noodles don't work,
what we've got ourselves, we've got a chicken schnitzel and curry sauce.
Auto engineer Lee's love of street food and takeaways
has inspired him to replicate his favourite dishes
at home for his family.
I'm here on MasterChef,
the brutal and honest answer is,
cos my wife applied for me
and we didn't think we'd get this far
in the competition,
and...here I am, so I'm just here to give it my best shot.
Lee, how long have you been cooking? Er, probably about seven years now.
We went travelling in 2015 to Vietnam,
and that just changed it for me.
I really enjoyed the flavours, the different types of cuisine,
so that really sparked something inside of me.
The first time I cooked was chicken wings in three litres of olive oil.
Didn't go down too well with the missus
when she walked in the house and it absolutely stunk, but...
My basic ingredient is chilli. Crispy chilli beef
with a garlic and ginger fried rice and a Vietnamese salad.
Are you sure that the chilli
is going to be the main thing on this dish?
Well, I hope you can feel it when I, er...
..add it to every element of the dish, so we'll see.
Seems to me we're getting ourselves a takeaway delivery service
all the way through Asia.
I've ordered gochujang mayonnaise from my local Korean,
crispy chilli beef from my Chinese and salad from my Vietnamese
and we're bringing it all together.
But if he's promising chilli, I want to sweat!
You have five minutes left.
Let's get going.
I can't save that. It's gone too mushy.
It'll just be a chicken dish.
That's it!
Stop, everybody.
Interior designer Saffron's basic to brilliant ingredient
is natural yoghurt, which she's made into labneh,
served with roasted peppers and cherry tomatoes in harissa,
cumin-fried chickpeas and buckwheat,
spiced nuts and seeds
and raw beetroot.
You're an interior designer - it's a pretty-looking plate.
Thanks.
I've got sweetness of tomato,
smokiness from the peppers and smokiness from harissa,
but if somebody said, "What did Saffron make you?"
I'd have to go through a list of the ingredients
and I couldn't actually say what it was you'd made.
I am enjoying eating it - I'm just not sure what it is.
I know you can spice things up very, very well.
The textures are good,
but there's not a huge amount of process going on.
OK.
The elements I put together, I was really happy with.
I just think I could have pushed myself a bit more.
Copywriter Charlie has taken his basic ingredient, pork mince,
and made lemon and thyme polpette meatballs
served with spinach and ricotta ravioli in a sage beurre noisette,
braised fennel and a chicken broth.
You actually can make flavour and you can cook,
but, you know, all of these ingredients
would have fitted inside your ravioli parcel.
You don't normally have ravioli as an accompaniment to something.
I think those meatballs taste fantastic,
but the ravioli's just adding a weird, crunchy texture
to the whole dish.
Were you trying to show us how much you could do on one plate?
Yes. OK. Too much, maybe.
The pasta, I made three times because I kept getting it wrong
and I wish now I'd kept it more simple
cos it would have saved me an awful lot of time and bother
if I'd...done a bit less.
Cybersecurity consultant Shreya has taken paneer
and made a smoked karahi paneer curry
in a spiced roasted tomato and cashew nut sauce,
served with an onion seed and coriander spiced baby naan bread.
Your paneer is lovely and soft.
Your naan, I think, are great.
The sauce itself is wonderful and rich.
There's enough smokiness for me,
but it doesn't taste like it's acrid at all.
It tastes like it's been cooked on a fire outside.
We see a lot of paneer. Mm.
You've made yours different, so you've elevated it.
I've never had one that's smoky like this.
I think it's complex in its cookery, complex in its flavours,
and I'm finding myself very, very much enjoying it.
Well done. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
I was really happy that Gregg and John both understood the flavours
and I did definitely breathe a sigh of relief.
Opting to use 00 flour,
mapping driver Enya has made ravioli flavoured with chilli flakes
and filled with chorizo, paprika, honey and ricotta
in a spicy tomato, black olive and cream sauce.
I like the way in which you've made your pasta.
I think that's really good. It's nice and thin.
I like the chilli heat that's running through the background -
but the ricotta has split.
You've overworked the ricotta inside and it's going a little bit grainy,
but you've taken a simple flour
and you've turned it into a majestic-looking dish.
I like the combination of the smokiness,
the sweetness and the heat.
It's not perfect, but I like your flavours.
I'd like to think I've done enough. I've got my fingers crossed,
but you just don't know what you're up against.
Employment lawyer Pete's basic ingredient was chicken,
making his version of chicken khao soi.
He's serving sliced, panko-encrusted crispy chicken breast
in a chicken, lemongrass and chilli curry sauce.
The noodles weren't rested enough, so when I rolled them out
and cooked them, they just went to mush. OK.
It's a shame you didn't serve the noodles
because I've got perfectly cooked chicken
with a lovely, crispy coating on the outside.
I'm really, really enjoying it.
I like the fact you used chicken two different ways.
You used the wings to make a broth
and you make a really good breaded piece of chicken.
I think it's great that you rescued a dish. I like that.
But it's not the dish you exp... You wanted to cook for us!
Sometimes, things are going to mess up
and you have to think on your feet and react.
And if I have to cook again,
if that's my way I have to get an apron, then I'll...
I'll cook again and I'll smash it.
Auto engineer Lee has chosen to highlight chilli.
He's made crispy chilli beef with garlic and ginger fried rice,
a cabbage, mint, peanut and lime Vietnamese salad
and gochujang mayonnaise.
I think this looks fantastic.
I love the colours. I love the style.
The star of there is the chilli in those bits of crispy beef.
Those strips of beef are properly addictive.
Well done. Thank you. Appreciate it.
What's brilliant about this dish
is I said I wanted these chillies to make me sweat -
I've got a bit of sweat on my brow,
and I am really, really pleased about that.
And this dish here, Lee, I think shows off so much.
Perfectly cooked rice flavoured with ginger and garlic.
A great little salad.
I like it a lot.
To be honest, that felt... It was a bit surreal.
I wasn't expecting the comments.
I would love an apron after that challenge, yeah.
I'm ready now to take an apron home.
Thank you very much for all your hard work.
In a room full of great food, two of you really did stand out.
The first person getting a MasterChef apron
and going straight through to the next round is...
..Lee.
The second person...
..Shreya.
Lee, Shreya, congratulations. Come and get your aprons.
Well done.
Smashed it. Yay!
Yeah, I did not expect to get the apron first,
but right now it feels amazing, so...
Really proud of myself.
I am absolutely gleaming with joy.
It's been my dream and it's in my hand now and it feels surreal.
There are two aprons up for grabs,
which does, of course, mean that two of you
will be leaving the competition.
We call this round Thinking On Your Feet.
You have the recipe for floating islands - a poached meringue,
perfectly formed into a shape like a rugby ball,
sitting on top of a lovely, creamy custard.
A lovely crust of caramel.
The job for you today is to follow that recipe
and embellish it any way you wish
from the ingredients that are over here on the bench.
You've got 45 minutes.
Ladies and gentlemen, let's see you do it.
"Until peak form..."
"Teaspoon of sugar... Milk..."
This is a recipe that simply takes three humble ingredients -
eggs, milk and sugar.
I want a bowl with a lovely rich custard underneath it,
the meringue, that cuts through almost like a marshmallow,
and that caramel across the top
that, when you crack it with a spoon,
you hear it crack.
Those three things are really tricky.
Can I get another couple eggs?
I want to start my meringue again.
Saffron, so what's your plan?
My plan is to read this to the letter... Yes.
..and add some... I'm thinking passion fruit.
Are you using almonds as well?
I'm thinking about using almonds.
It looks like you've made meringues before.
I love doing a pavlova in the summer.
Do you put passion fruit with it? Yeah. Mate, passion fruit,
a bit of mango, pavlova.
Mate, you'd be welcome to my barbie any time you like.
Great!
Saffron's made meringue before, and she knows how to make a caramel.
All she's got to do now is get the custard to work.
Oh, sh...
The first batch of custard,
the egg yolks have gone wrong for Saffron.
I'm going to start that again...
Can I have some eggs, please?
How many more eggs do we give to these contestants
before we say, "That's all you've got"?
Can I have two more...two more eggs?
Oh... One more egg.
Charlie is staying calm under pressure.
He's reading the recipe. He's got caramel on
and he's going to flavour his custard with a hazelnut liqueur,
and across the top of his floating islands, he's putting hazelnuts.
That's coherent. I like it.
You seem quite happy here.
I've never made this before. Never eaten them.
It's the most difficult thing I think I'm going to have to cook.
OK, so tell me how you've gone about doing this task then.
Read the recipe and don't overcomplicate it,
is a lesson I learned from the first round.
Fantastic. Charlie, off you go.
The thing is with Charlie, though,
he's trying to cram the poached meringues into the tiniest pot.
Shall I do an extra one for that?
No, I haven't got space for that.
Meringue puffs up and it gets bigger and bigger and bigger.
And the problem is they're now bashing into each other.
You have 20 minutes left, please.
Have you eaten a floating island?
Er, no.
I'm the furthest person from a sweet tooth ever,
so I tend to actually avoid going to the dessert side of things.
If you've never made one of these before, where do you start?
As long as I go step by step,
I think in my head I can't get it wrong,
even though I still could get it wrong, but...!
Enya, she's made a decent meringue, but she can't make the quenelle -
the rugby ball shape with the spoon -
so she's shaping them in her hands.
Bits stick to your hands, so they are unshapely.
Are you planning on adding anything else to it?
I am just starting a little bit of a coffee liqueur,
just because I love coffee flavoured things.
A little bit of booze in the custard. A little bit of booze.
Coffee liqueur into the custard?
I think it's a nice idea.
You've got to add it a little bit at a time.
Otherwise, you'll make your custard very, very wet and watery,
and it's going to taste like a cocktail.
Agh...
Pete, you looked very calm, almost like a lawyer, in the last round.
Now you look a little bit like the defendant.
I... I agree.
I'm finding cooking this a bit of a challenge,
but that's the point, right?
Are you adding anything to this meringue?
I've got some hazelnuts, some amaretto through the custard.
But other than that, just trying to kind of nail the technique.
I don't know what's happening to Pete.
He is really, really nervous.
You have just three minutes.
And now I'm just trying to get it off the rolling pin.
That's it.
Your time's up.
THEY SIGH
For her floating island dessert,
Saffron is serving her poached meringue on a passion fruit custard
topped with caramel
and sliced almonds.
You've done a great big one in a shallow bowl,
so it's not floating.
Mm. You were supposed to make a floating island
and you've done a sitting island, but that's OK. OK.
Your meringue is light and fluffy.
Your caramel is the perfect colour.
This is very, very good indeed.
Passion fruit custard, I think, is lovely,
especially with the caramel.
I've got to say, I'm really impressed.
It felt like a massive improvement because in the last round,
I don't think I proved myself so this one I did, I feel.
Pete is serving his floating island meringue on an amaretto custard,
along with a caramel and hazelnuts.
Pete, your custard's fantastic. It's lovely and rich.
I like that amaretto flavour in the background.
Your meringue,
it's a pretty looking thing, but those need to be cooked
a little bit more.
We're talking about a couple of minutes in the pan here
with this meringue, and you've got a perfect dish.
Your caramel is good.
Very, very well done.
That test was pretty tough.
Just a shame I couldn't do a little bit better.
For her floating island dessert,
Enya is serving a coffee liqueur custard
and has topped her meringue with a coffee liqueur caramel.
Lovely flavour through that custard,
but your creme anglaise is going a little bit grainy.
You've cooked it a little bit too much.
I like the flavour of the coffee liqueur going through.
That's good.
Your meringues, they've gone a little bit a bit stringy,
sort of hard on the outside and very soft on the inside.
Maybe it's got to do with moulding them in your hands.
SHE CHUCKLES
When I walked in and seen that I was blatantly
going to be baking something,
my heart sank.
I'm just not a dessert maker,
so I just did what I could.
Charlie is serving his floating island meringue
on a hazelnut liqueur custard
topped with caramel, toasted hazelnuts, raspberries,
strawberries and spun sugar.
You like to put lots of things on a plate, don't you, Charlie?
I wanted to make it decorative. Right.
I think you may have sprinkled salt on there instead of sugar,
because I'm picking up a little bit of salt.
Fingers in the wrong jar.
Plenty of vanilla in your custard, but it's scrambly.
Your meringues are really, really nice.
They're nice and firm. They're well flavoured.
Your caramel is great.
But there was a mistake, which is the salt,
and that custard, it's lumpy.
Nobody cooked a perfect ten out of ten
and it was new to all of us,
and so it's just a question of who did best on the day.
Now, two of these contestants get their apron and go through.
And, of course, two of them leave the competition.
Saffron made us two good looking dishes.
The last round, it would have been nice
to have seen a bit more skill on show.
I think in this round she showed us she does have skill.
I'm finding it hard to judge Charlie,
because he makes really good meringues, but he curdles custard.
He makes really good meatballs,
but doesn't seem to know how to make them into a dish.
But he's definitely got a decent touch.
Pete in the first round promised us a Thai noodle dish.
His noodles didn't work, but I liked the flavour of it.
Perfectly cooked chicken with a crust on it.
I loved his sauce.
In this round, his custard was good, his caramel was good.
I think he may have talent.
Enya's ravioli in the last round, I thought it looked lovely.
But inside the ravioli, the ricotta was split.
Enya did struggle with her floating islands.
We had an odd-shaped patchwork meringue in there.
The custard had curdled, which was a real shame.
We've got to make a decision. Two get aprons, two go home.
If this was it, I am super happy -
but, ultimately, I want to stay.
I think it's a toss of a coin whether I stay
in the competition or not -
but I want to stay in the MasterChef kitchen as long as I can.
If I went home now, I would regret not being able to carry on
in the competition and having another crack at it.
I want to stay to the point I can actually cry right now.
I want to stay really, really badly.
I don't want to go home.
As you know, we have just two aprons to give.
We have made a decision,
and we've made it across the two dishes that you made for us.
The first contestant getting an apron and going through is...
..Saffron.
Congratulations.
Our second contestant...
..is...
..Pete.
Charlie, Enya, sorry to see you go.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Thanks, Charlie. Thanks, Enya.
I'll look back with enjoyment and an experience,
but one that I wish I'd gone further with.
It's going to change my life in my own little ways.
Like, I've made it to MasterChef, at the end of the day.
So I'm just going to look at the positives
and just keep looking at it that way.
Saffron, Pete, congratulations.
Yay!
Whew!
Come and get your aprons.
Well done.
Saffron, probably one of the best birthday presents you'll get
in a while. Ever. Ever! Ever.
The emotions are yet to enter my face,
but I am super happy.
Yeah!
I'm thrilled.
I didn't think it would go like this.
I think I'm going to go and lie down
and just get ready for the next round.
Welcome back.
You all look very smart in your MasterChef aprons.
Congratulations.
Now you have to impress not just me and John,
but three especially invited guests that are in that dining room.
Winner Eddie Scott,
runners-up Claire Fyfe
and the wonderful Pookie.
Your job now is to keep those aprons.
We only have three quarterfinal places.
That does mean, at the end of this, one of you will be going home.
You've got 1 hour and 15 minutes, ladies and gentlemen.
Two courses.
Let's cook.
Bosh.
Lee, in that last round, you really impressed us.
What have we got in this round?
We're going Indian today. I've done an onion bhaji to start
with a mint raita and a tamarind chutney.
And then we're going Kashmiri chilli chicken masala
with an onion fried rice and a garlic and coriander flatbread.
So, do your whole family love these rich, vibrant Indian flavours?
Absolutely, but I'm more of a spicy, rich kind of guy.
My missus likes them more creamy,
so I've basically chose to mix the two.
Lee is full of energy.
The amount of spices on his bench, I think, is really impressive.
I think I'm in the zone.
Lee is making for us an onion bhaji.
It's got to be soft and really warm on the inside,
but crispy on the outside.
And then main course - Kashmiri creamy chicken curry.
He says it's got to be big and bold, but he's putting cream in it
because his wife likes it a little bit milder,
so how's he going to make that work?
Pressure, this is, mate.
I want to show the judges today
that I can really play around with spices
and create bold flavours -
and also that I'm not just a one-hit wonder.
I think I'm concerned about the flatbreads,
and also the onion bhajis. If I don't cook them all the way through
and they're stodgy in the middle, that's a concern,
but...we're going to do it.
Shreya, what are your dishes to impress, please?
The starter is going to be a chaat. Forgive me. What's a chaat?
A chaat is a very popular street food in India.
We call it a katori chaat in Hindi,
which is loosely translated into a basket,
and it's filled with masala mashed potato.
It's got the yellow chickpeas, it's got three kinds of chutneys,
a whipped mint yoghurt...
And your main course? It is going to be a makhani dhal,
which is comforting. It's like a big hug.
You've got a great smile on your face. You seem excited by this.
I am excited - I'm really nervous about the time.
The main course, we're getting what she calls makhani dhal -
a very, very rich dhal with the black mung beans.
Then we've got a minted basmati rice and poppadoms,
which are going to be crispy across the top.
She's got to make sure that dhal has got lots of spices in it
and it's really, really flavoursome.
The first dish she calls a katori chaat.
A little deep-fried basket, and inside that you get your chaat -
a mixture of spiced potatoes with a masala,
which is a mixture of spices,
chickpeas, yoghurt and sev, which is deep-fried noodles.
The most important skill for the chaat is patience,
because the basket is actually wrapped around the bowl.
If I tamper with the bowl a lot, the katori will split.
This has to work, yeah.
This is the first time I'm making that, as well.
And this one's stuck.
Shreya is in a real panic,
and she's spending so much time getting her baskets made,
I'm concerned we're going to get nothing else.
I need to make two more baskets.
Just so you know, 30 minutes for your first course.
You all right? No.
PRESSURE COOKER HISSES
Eight plates of food in an hour and 15 minutes. That's tough.
I feel I've pushed myself quite hard to show the judges
that I can put lovely flavour combinations together
and, ultimately, give them a really great plate of food.
Three guests in the dining room today.
What are you going to make for us? Starter, crab parcels
wrapped in smoked salmon with filo pastry nest.
Pea and wasabi puree, a beetroot puree
and garlic and chilli prawns.
Is this all cold or hot? Bit of both.
Saffron's starter is a lot of stuff on one plate.
We could get something tasty. I just can't figure out what it is.
The next course is a crispy chicken skin supreme
on a bed of puy lentils
with crispy cavolo nero and a chimichurri.
GREGG LAUGHS
Wow. You're going all round the world, aren't you? Yeah.
We've got chimichurri, that Argentinean steak sauce,
the spiced Indian lentils, the French chicken supreme
alongside the crispy cavolo nero, a vegetable known very well in Italy.
It seems to me Saffron's dish is going to be all about colour
and the way it looks.
I'm just adding beetroot puree for my starter,
just to kind of change the colour of my lentils.
But does it make a great plate of food?
Yeah, man.
Pete. Yep. Two courses for a quarterfinal place?
I'm making thit kho.
It's a comfort classic from Vietnamese food,
which is braised pork belly in a very sweet, salty sticky sauce.
Next course is sticky toffee pudding with a miso caramel sauce,
hazelnut ice cream and walnut crumb.
So, the main course is Vietnam in a bowl,
and the dessert is the British food that I love
with a little Asian twist on it.
In the last couple of rounds, you've made silly mistakes.
What are you going to do to make sure you don't make mistakes?
Stay calm and sing Abba in my head.
Are you an Abba fan? I do like a bit of Abba.
What's your favourite?
I've got Dancing Queen in my head at the minute.
Pete's main course, lots of different technique on show here.
He's got soy, he's got fish sauce, he's got sugar.
I just hope that sauce isn't too sweet.
He's got rice, then we have a slaw he calls Vietnamese slaw.
Then he's got pork belly he's cooking in a pressure cooker.
What we've got to hope is those layers of fat melt into the meat
and into the sauce. Mate, if that's true,
I'm going back for seconds and thirds.
My biggest worry about the main course
is that the pork doesn't get tender in time.
It's a real kind of rush to get that cooked and ready,
like...ASAP.
Got a sticky toffee pudding.
He's putting miso in,
to give it almost a little bit of - whew - umami.
And then we've got a hazelnut ice cream.
I've never used an ice cream machine before. It's definitely risky -
but at the end of the day, if you play it comfortable,
then you might not get through, and that'd be my biggest regret.
Please, Pete, please - no mistakes this time.
MasterChef just changed my life instantly.
It made me realise
that cooking is what I want to do,
and it's just been the most fun.
I've been working on a really exciting cookbook
and hopefully working on a restaurant, as well.
Life's turned out brilliantly,
and it's all thanks to what went on in that kitchen with John and Gregg.
It feels, honestly, a little bit surreal being back here.
I still have those... I got, like,
heart palpitations and sweaty palms,
but it's honestly just like coming home to a family.
This MasterChef journey is something pretty incredible.
I'm really looking forward to tasting the contestant food
because, in this round, it's one of the most difficult challenges.
Mm!
I still have nightmares when I'm thinking of this round.
So...good luck, guys!
Lee, you've got 15 minutes till your bhajis go out. OK.
We're kicking off with Lee.
His starter is an onion bhaji with mint raita
and a tamarind chutney.
Ah, there he is!
That onion bhaji needs to be so nice and crispy, doesn't it?
You don't want something soggy.
The mint raita... I think it needs to be light
and needs to show some refinement.
The thing about tamarind chutney it's very difficult to get right,
I think, because you want to have a bit of sharpness
from the tamarind, but you want a bit of sweetness.
JOHN: OK, Lee, you've got five minutes on your first course.
OK. It's time.
Mm.
We're just going to sprinkle it, finish it off
with a bit of coriander and think... Mate! ..we're good. They look great.
Let's go, let's go, let's go!
Bhajis out!
Hello. Hi. Ladies first.
So, today I've got an onion bhaji with a mint raita
and a sweet tamarind chutney.
Thank you. Enjoy. Thanks, Lee.
I love the presentation.
Modern.
This raita is really nice and light, full of garlic, full of mint.
I really, really like that.
The bhaji, the outside of it's crispy,
but the inside is a bit dense.
I want to have a lot of spice in the bhaji.
I just think it's a bit... It's a bit... It's a bit polite.
But I'm glad that he hasn't put in too much of the tamarind.
It's an OK dish, but it's got room to be improved.
GREGG: More than enough crisp. Not greasy at all.
There's spicing on there, there's really sharp tamarind.
I'm very, very happy with this.
Well done, Lee. Are you all right? Nerve-racking, that is.
Right. Now, listen - you've got 15 minutes.
You all right for your main? Yeah, I think we're good.
So Lee's main is Kashmiri chicken masala,
so I'm expecting a yoghurt-based chicken curry
with lovely Kashmiri chillies.
Whether he executes it properly, we'll see.
The onion fried rice - I don't want it to be too greasy.
I really want it to work with the curry.
I'm really, like, sort of excited to try the flatbread.
These need to be cooked just right.
Lee, you've got a couple of minutes, Chef, all right?
We've got to go. OK. Right, let's do it.
The crew are going to be really, really upset
there's nothing left in the pot.
Don't worry. We'll leave them some, then.
All right. We're going to get some ginger quickly on there.
How long we got?
You are out of time.
No worries. Let's go.
That's a lot of hard work. Well done. Thank you.
Big smile on your face. Well done, you. Whew!
I've got a chicken Kashmiri chilli masala with an onion fried rice
and a garlic and coriander flatbread. Enjoy.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
For me, it's mild, and I actually quite like a mild curry.
I really like the way that Lee's used the Kashmiri chillies
in his curry,
but, other than that, it doesn't have the layers of flavour
that you expect with Indian food.
The flatbread is just soaking in oil and butter.
I love it, I love it, I love it.
There's so much garlic on the bread, it's fiery.
The chicken is still moist, and that creamy sauce is delicious.
Tell you what, Lee can really cook.
He understands flavour, and it all tastes really good.
Whoa!
I think, when you're in there, your plan goes out the window.
It's kind of just, scramble.
Just run around and try and get things done. So, yeah.
15 minutes, Shreya. Yeah.
For a starter, Shreya's making a katori chaat served with yellow peas
and chilled mint yoghurt.
I want to see this contrast, you know,
different textures, different flavours.
I'm really looking forward to try this.
I want explosion of flavour, something to excite me,
something that's going to make me jumping up and down and dancing.
My potatoes have not cooked.
I'm just going to put the potatoes in the microwave
and see if it works.
OK. You've got two minutes.
Oh, my God.
Are you going to check your potatoes?
Yeah, I'm going now.
It's done. Go, Shreya, go. It's done, it's done, it's done.
Let's go.
Shreya's starter is a katori chaat -
a deep-fried pastry basket layered with yellow chickpeas,
mashed potato, raw onion, tamarind chutney,
mint chutney and whipped yoghurt...
..topped with crispy sev noodles.
There's so much love in this dish.
It looks so simple,
but then, underneath, there's all these layers, textures, flavours.
I love that chutney.
She's absolutely nailed this.
Number-one fan. Love it.
Shreya's pulled off a lot of skilful work in this dish.
That basket - really crispy. It's not absorbed any oil.
It's the perfect vehicle for everything that she's put inside.
This was a perfect dish, and I enjoyed every mouthful of it.
The tamarind sauce, the potato. That layer is just amazing.
And I'm so happy, I just want to dance to this dish.
The crispy outside basket, that's perfect.
And you've got tamarind sharpness in there.
I think that's rather lovely.
It's all the chutneys coming together
that make it a real delight.
15 minutes. Yes.
15 minutes for your main course.
For the main, Shreya's going to serve us dhal makhani
with fragrant basmati rice.
This one is going to be tricky to get the flavour,
to get the beans to melt, for the dhal to be really unctuous.
It's difficult in the time, but it's possible.
The rice I'd love to be really nice and fluffy
because you need that light element with this rich, creamy dhal.
When I put the dhal together with the rice and put in my mouth,
it's like creamy, dreamy, like satisfying my tummy.
What have you got to go on here?
Just the rice.
OK.
And that'll be it.
And that'll be you done. You did well.
You did good.
For her main course, Shreya is serving dhal makhani
made with black mung beans and kidney beans,
and flavoured with tomatoes, ginger, cardamom, cumin and chilli,
served with basmati rice and a poppadom.
Overall, I thought this dish was really lovely and warming.
Lots of flavours going through it.
This little poppadom was my favourite element.
The rice, I thought, was lovely and fluffy.
This dhal is layer and layer of flavour, and comforting.
Soft beans in a rich sauce.
Nicely seasoned, little hint of chilli.
It needs something else. It needs a chutney, it needs a bread,
to elevate it and take it from just a bowl of rice and dhal
to something special.
Oh!
Oh, my God.
The challenge was immense.
I can still feel the pressure.
The last round, we had to make one dish,
and this time, we had to do two dishes.
And that really got to me.
You doing OK? I think so.
Saffron's starter is smoked salmon parcels filled with crab,
pickled cucumber, beetroot puree,
wasabi pea puree and garlic prawns.
Wow. There seems to be a lot going on here.
I just hope all of this
won't confuse what should be a wonderful dish.
She's got to balance these flavours.
That's the main challenge.
Four minutes, Saffron.
Aah... OK.
I've got a white jacket. I'm going to stand away
from your beetroot, if you don't mind. Yes, please do.
Where are the prawns going?
I think I'm going to put them at the side.
You haven't really considered this, have you? No.
Right. You done?
Yeah.
I have made you today a smoked salmon parcel filled with crab,
a filo basket with prawns, a wasabi pea puree,
a beetroot puree, and some pickled cucumber.
I hope you enjoy it.
Saffron's tried to put so much on the plate.
It's never going to work.
There's far too much of the crab stuffed in the salmon.
And, also, I don't get crab.
So, she's taken beautiful ingredients,
and she's exhausted them.
Actually, for the wasabi pea puree, I don't mind that,
because it's quite exciting, it's something new.
This crab mixture, which is pleasant enough,
I don't mind it at all.
But why we've got a prawn and a filo basket on the side of this dish,
I'm not quite sure.
It's very decent.
I still think it's very confused and it's not sure what it is.
Hey. Hey.
You all right, Saffron? Yeah.
15 minutes now for your next course, yes? Yep.
For main, Saffron is cooking us crispy chicken supreme
with puy lentils,
crispy cavolo nero,
and chimichurri.
She's taking this classic chicken and lentils dish,
and putting her spin on it.
Happy with the chicken cookery?
I think we'll know when I cut it open. Cut into it.
Chicken's got to be cooked to perfection.
And the puy lentils have got to be seasoned,
because otherwise they can be a bit...a bit bland.
The crispy cavolo nero have got to be lovely and light and crispy.
And that chimichurri has to pack a punch.
How's your chimichurri?
I've added lemon juice to it. I don't quite know why.
You like last minute things, don't you? Yeah.
Right, let's go. You got four minutes.
Perfect. There we go, beautiful.
Let's have a look. Wahey!
Well done.
You've got 30 seconds to go.
Anything else to go on it? No, that's it.
Done. Let's go.
Well done.
For your main course, I have cooked you a supreme of chicken,
crispy skin, on puy lentils,
with crispy kale and some chimichurri.
It looks really smart, doesn't it?
Looks like kind of thing you find in a modern restaurant.
That actually was way better than I thought it was going to be.
I've normally got people screaming, wanting supper.
So, yeah, it felt sort of weirdly natural.
So, we'll see.
The chicken skin is nice. I think the chicken is well cooked.
But I was expecting big contrasting flavours with this chimichurri sauce
with the spice, lentils. Big, bold flavours -
but I can't really taste any spice.
The chimichurri, it's too sour.
A little bit like Saffron's starter,
I think there's just far too much on the plate.
The cavolo nero hasn't worked.
It's supposed to be crispy, and that is not crispy.
You've got seven minutes on your first course, Pete.
All right, mate.
For Pete's main, he is making braised Vietnamese pork belly,
some Thai jasmine rice,
Vietnamese slaw and crispy shallot.
The pork need to be soft, tender.
That's my slight concern -
how you can cook that pork belly in this time.
A little bit worried.
OK, you've got three minutes. OK?
Go, go, go.
Best pork belly you've ever done?
No.
How do you say "delicious" in Vietnamese?
Oh. Tho'm ngon. Tho'm ngon.
Tho'm ngon?
Lovely.
Pete, that's lovely. Let's go.
So, what we have here is thit kho,
which is braised Vietnamese pork belly,
with steamed rice, crispy shallots and a Vietnamese slaw.
We knew that the execution of the pork in the time
is going to be near impossible.
And, yeah, the pork's a bit tough.
But that's got a lot of flavour, a lot of heat in there,
a lot of energy.
That sauce is lovely and sticky and sweet.
I could eat that sauce with the rice and the slaw all day long.
It's delicious. I love the slaw.
I can actually eat a whole plateful of the slaw.
Brilliant.
I would like my pork a little bit softer,
but the flavour around it is lovely.
That slaw is fabulous.
A great combination of flavours and textures on this plate.
It's sweet, it's sour, it's salty, and it's hot.
Hey. You all right, Pete?
15 minutes.
Sticky toffee, ice cream. Come on!
This, to me, sounds like it could be the perfect pudding.
It's a classic, but Pete's putting his little twist on it
with a bit of miso in there.
But he's got to be really careful when it comes to balancing
the flavour of the miso.
For the hazelnut ice cream, it needs to be strong hazelnut flavour
to fight with the sticky toffee pudding and the miso.
Let's just hope he nails it.
How long have I got left? Three minutes, OK?
What's left to go on here?
Just the hazelnut ice cream.
Look at that, that's what you want. Straight on.
Go.
We're on target. Go, go, go!
Thank you.
So, what we have here is sticky toffee pudding
with a miso caramel sauce and a walnut crumb,
with some hazelnut ice cream on the side.
The cake is really moist.
They've got those dates flaked through it. I really...
I actually really like the miso.
It is very difficult to balance the savoury taste of miso
with the caramel.
Erm, I think just nearly there.
And I would say it's not a hazelnut ice cream.
It's a hazelnut sorbet.
And I think it would have carried its flavour
had it been more creamy, like an ice cream.
The sticky sponge is lovely.
The ice cream, lovely flavour, but it's slightly granular.
I think there's some really nice technique.
I think it's a good dessert.
That was such a tough challenge.
It was so hard -
but I've done it now, and I'll sleep well tonight.
So, we've had all the dishes, guys.
Now we've got this really tough decision
to put the best cook through.
I think I have a good idea in my mind who I want to put forward.
And I think I got someone in my mind, as well.
The dish of the day.
Cooking for a place in a quarterfinal
is always going to be a tough task,
because what they've got to do is not just impress you and I,
but also impress three invited guests in the dining room.
The dining room loved Shreya.
That deep-fried basket was delicious.
Loads and loads of different things going on,
and lots and lots of skill on show.
That dhal makhani was cooked very, very nicely.
I liked the flavours -
and Shreya is the dining room's favourite.
Therefore, Shreya is going through to a quarterfinal.
We've got two more places between Saffron, Pete and Lee.
I loved Lee's two dishes.
The onion bhaji, and then that lovely creamy chicken curry.
The dining room weren't as convinced as you and I.
But I thought it was great.
Saffron's an interesting cook.
Rather than a whole plate of food,
it's like a plate of bits and pieces.
The chimichurri sauce and the crispy cavalo nero, it didn't quite work.
We've got something being built around colours and shapes,
rather than about flavour and things that come together.
Pete is probably the most technically proficient in the room.
Pete took a pork belly and tried to cook it in an hour.
That's near on impossible.
But tasted really good.
Sticky toffee pudding, not bad.
The ice cream, we know, wasn't quite right.
It was a little grainy.
Overall, though, I do, do like his style.
Who stays? Who goes?
Now I've got that taste, that drive,
it would mean a lot for me to stay now.
I'm loving cooking in the kitchen, at the minute.
It's so much better than my one-bed flat.
And I want a place in that quarterfinal so bad.
I feel like I've just had, you know, a taster of it.
So, yeah, I'd love to keep going.
We have, of course, with the help of the guests in the dining room,
made a decision.
Three of you are going through to a quarterfinal.
Sadly, one of you is leaving us.
Our first quarterfinalist is...
..Shreya.
Our second quarterfinalist...
..is Pete.
Very good, Pete.
Lee, Saffron, we have just one quarterfinal place left.
Our third quarterfinalist is...
..Lee.
Congratulations, Lee.
Saffron, thank you so very much.
I loved it. Thank you.
Thank you very much indeed. Thank you.
I've had such a fun journey.
I will look back on my experience with pure joy.
I've loved every second of it.
You three now are MasterChef quarterfinalists.
Yes!
Smashed it.
I am feeling like I'm on top of the world.
Oh, my God. It's unreal.
Been a tiring day. I feel like I've done ten rounds with Tyson Fury.
I'm absolutely knackered.
Little bit taken back, to be honest, did not expect to be here still.
A few mistakes today,
but it's time for me to stop doubting myself now.
Next time...
This is going to be interesting.
..six more home cooks compete
for the right to wear a MasterChef apron...
Get food on plates right now!
It's going to be tight. To the wire, this is.
I really think that's absolutely delicious.
..before battling for a place in the quarterfinal.
My tongue is, like, dancing.
Yeah, really, really delicious.
As soon as we've finished having this chat,
I am finishing this plate of food.