It's the last of the Celebrity MasterChef semifinals.
It'd be really sad to leave now.
Like, I am living and breathing MasterChef.
Everyone's so good now,
so any little mistake, like, you're gone.
Logically, it's scaring me.
But, like, physically, I'm just like, "OK, we can do this."
Tonight, just one challenge stands between the six best cooks
and a place in Finals Week.
That's lush.
It is properly lush.
These semifinals, they're not just hotting up.
Mate, they are steaming!
It's boiling point right now.
We are looking at something truly exciting.
Aye-aye, Captain.
Nice, it's a good look.
Welcome back to the MasterChef kitchen,
and the last round of the semifinals.
John and I today will not just be your judges and your guides,
we'll be your captains.
Today, we want you to cook for us
a meal that celebrates the golden age of travel,
the ultimate airline food.
And of course, everybody was presented with a silver tray,
real cutlery, a lovely white, crisp napkin.
And on your tray, we would like, please, a main course,
a side dish to match that main course,
and a dessert...of opulence.
There are only five places in Finals Week.
That does mean one of you will be going home.
One hour and 40 minutes.
Let's cook.
I've got some ideas, and hopefully they work.
Today, we want our celebs to give us a fine dining experience
that you could eat on a plane.
It's got to be first class.
Stuff I like to eat today.
Got to get it right.
Wynne can be big or hearty,
or he can be super, super creative.
We had faggots with onion gravy,
and then he does stylised food like a crab cake
with avocado and rice that looks like an ice cream cone.
Somewhere in the middle today would be lovely.
I'm really up for it today.
Just buzzing. Buzzing again.
Wynne.
Ultimate airline dining experience.
What are you going to cook for us?
I'm cooking food I eat myself.
I want to do this theme of land, sea, and air.
So we leave from land,
we go over sea,
and we're in the air.
The land element is the steak.
The sea element is the oyster.
And then dessert,
when you're in the air, you look at the sun -
a biscuit base, panna cotta middle,
and then some lovely roasted plums on the top
in this beautiful sunshine colour.
Wynne, would you like a place in Finals Week?
Course I want a final place. I've had the best time here.
This has been the first thing I've really done for me.
You know, being a single dad,
I've devoted the last ten years to bringing up my children,
and so now I'm doing this for me.
Wynne has got a nice menu.
He's got a piece of Wagyu beef, lots of fat running through that.
We want lots and lots of colour on the outside.
We've then got a red wine jus.
I hope he's got some herbs in there, some garlic, some onions,
properly build up flavour.
Then we have some oysters.
He's doing a Vietnamese dressing across the top of them.
Sharp and sour, as well as slightly chilli hot.
Wynne's promising us a hybrid dessert
which is a mixture of a cheesecake and a panna cotta.
But the panna cotta has got to be firm enough
to hold the slices of plums
without ruining the texture.
I think this is a really difficult balancing act, this.
I like this brief.
I think it's fun.
Today, I've got some props.
Do I want to share with everybody what the props are?
Not really.
I'm going to leave it as a surprise.
I actually really wanted to come into this round
so I could use the props.
HE LAUGHS
I'm such a child.
Amy, throughout this competition,
has aimed for the highest standard she possibly can.
Amy's dishes are aiming for fine dining already.
This is a round made for her.
I do love plane food, in a weird, sick way.
If it actually is edible, it's kind of like a result.
Yeah?
What's your idea of supersonic first-class travel food?
With this brief, I kind of went to the retro
kind of fine dining experience of the '70s.
I just thought a little nod to the food they ate back then,
but posh it up.
We are starting off with duck a l'orange,
an absolute '70s classic.
Duck breast cooked really well,
she wants crispy skin, pink flesh.
That orange sauce has to be sweet,
but at the same time quite sharp and almost bitter.
We've also got some fondant potatoes.
Great way to start.
The middle course is going to be a chicken and mushroom vol-au-vent.
Got to make sure that puff pastry is cooked all the way through.
We want it to hold its shape and have nice, creamy mushrooms inside.
That is lovely.
And then a salted butterscotch whip,
which is essentially a light mousse,
and brandy snap biscuit filled with berries.
I'm a massive fan of butterscotch.
It might be one of my favourite flavours in the world.
Salted butterscotch in a creamy whip mousse-type affair?
I'm in.
The sweet thing on that dish is going to be a brandy snap,
and that's the challenging thing.
If I owned my own premium airline, every seat would have a bed,
champagne on tap,
and at least a three-course meal every two hours.
Where the hell can I put these?
Message from the flight deck.
25 minutes gone.
You've got an hour and 15 minutes.
Excuse the pun, but Luca right now should be flying high.
He's had a couple of really strong rounds.
He is getting better and better.
I just want him to take this momentum and keep it going.
Tell us what you're going to cook for us, then.
I've got stuffed guinea fowl... Ooh!..with some...
What are the, like, tiny potatoes called?
I'm going to chop them up.
Parmentier? ..parmentier potatoes and caramelised beetroot.
What do you like about the guinea fowl?
I just got told a guinea fowl's a posh chicken,
and if we're trying to be posh, I just wanted a posh chicken.
Luca is stuffing his guinea fowl breast with chicken
which has been minced up, cream, and mushrooms together.
That should keep it nice and moist,
but he's just got to make sure it doesn't go dry.
I just want to get it all done in time,
so I'm just trying to get it all in there as quick as I can.
He's making a sauce out of Muscat wine.
Muscat wine is very, very sweet,
so he's got to be very careful with that.
For dessert, I've got a mango limoncello cheesecake.
In the bottom, he's got a cheesecake base,
which is biscuits with butter.
Then he's making a cheesecake middle,
and then the whole top of it is going to be a glaze of mango puree.
I am concerned about the cheesecake setting in time.
And what's the inspiration?
My great auntie used to fly first class quite a lot.
I got one dish out of her which was sort of along these lines,
but the main thing she used to do was smoke and drink on the plane,
so I didn't get too much out of her.
I would say this is my hardest dish.
I think it shows how far along I've come,
but let's see if I can get it done first.
Max has really impressed me with how fast he's learning
and the technique that he's showing.
I love Max's style.
I love the fact that it's really, really honest,
almost sort of old-fashioned, but very, very classic.
What he's got to do now is build on that.
My aim today is to be right at the top of the class.
That's what I'm aiming for.
But I shouldn't have said that,
because normally I don't aim for anything
and I end up doing all right.
I'm doing a jumbo prawn green Thai curry with coconut rice,
an Asian salad,
and a strawberry panna cotta with...
It's like a lime ice cream, almost.
But I've never made it before, literally, I'm trying it today.
Why this sort of change in direction to going towards Thai green curry?
It's just something that I used to eat a lot when I went over to Asia,
and it's one of my favourite dishes to eat.
With that curry,
he's got to make sure he gets all those aromats cooked
and inside that sauce, and it's flavoured beautifully.
What you don't want is something thick and stodgy.
That panna cotta, nice and soft, slightly wobbly, just falls apart.
The zestiness of the lime ice cream going really nicely
with our Thai-flavoured prawns and our Asian slaw.
I'm just trying to make the dressing for the salad,
and then I've got to get the prawns ready.
You are halfway there. 50 minutes gone, 50 minutes left.
Marcus is our master of technique.
He wants to display as much knowledge as he possibly can,
but sometimes he does a little bit too much.
He can afford to just pull back a little bit
and just do delicious things.
I would say this is the one that has caused me
the most anxiety and difficulty.
Yeah, there's a lot at stake today.
I'm cooking pork fillets stuffed with nduja,
with crispy hazelnuts and fennel...
Pork fillet has no fat on it,
so the fat's going to come from that nduja.
Nduja is spreadable salami.
Lots and lots of chilli flavour inside.
And fennel as well, which is aniseed rich.
But that pork has to be cooked all the way through.
..with a side of gnocchi in parmesan and sage.
What you want is it nice and fluffy.
What you don't want is something really heavy and dense,
like a lead bullet.
And for dessert, a matcha tea Swiss roll with raspberry sorbet.
Will it look like just a cake on a plate?
We're talking about dessert at 35,000 feet and being glamorous.
A bit of cake? I don't know, Marcus.
How have you managed to condense everything down
onto aeroplane style?
Well, actually, the brief on this was quite helpful,
because I can't do the thing I do and go,
"Here's all the things I can think of,"
cos it had to fit on a tray.
You've got 30 minutes left.
Oh, my gosh.
Jamelia's food throughout this competition
has been full of flavour and sunshine,
whether it be a Jamaican dumpling filled with curried chicken
or even a crayfish boil.
And, actually, now she's discovered a bit of presentation as well.
I say watch this space.
What dishes are getting served on Jamelia Airlines?
So I'm doing a salt fish cappelletti.
Cappelletti, a stuffed pasta.
My cappelletti is going to come with a bisque,
and then also some garlic bread with, like, a...
What's it called?
..confit? SHE CHUCKLES
With what? I've been doing my research.
I'm not just rubbing garlic on the bread.
I'm doing a cornmeal porridge brulee, which is not a thing,
but I think it's going to work.
So, basically, cornmeal porridge is something that Jamaicans eat
breakfast, lunch, and dinner,
and I've turned it into a kind of dessert with a burnt sugar top.
I'm trying to infuse some Jamaican flavours,
but finesse it and make it look like it belongs in first class.
To be known as a finalist on MasterChef
would be the most incredible honour,
and it means I get to come back and do those tasting days,
so I really want it.
Salt fish is the flavour of the Caribbean, salted cod.
I hope that's a lovely moist filling within that lovely stuffed pasta.
That pasta is going to sit in a bisque.
I hope we have that rich flavour that comes from those prawns.
Garlic bread, she said she's confiting the garlic.
That's nice.
Cornmeal porridge flavoured with cinnamon, star anise, coconut?
It could be delicious.
It's quite a risky improvisation, so we'll see.
I hope they like it.
You have just ten minutes, guys. DISTANT SQUEAL
I know.
Please, just ten minutes.
I've got about 15 minutes of plating up to do.
Beautiful.
I am currently freaking out.
Guys, you've just got three minutes left.
Quick, quick, quick.
I am using the whole kitchen today.
I think one will probably be enough, actually.
You are down to your final, final touches.
Stop!
Everybody stop.
That was really down to the wire.
NARRATOR: To earn her place in Finals Week,
actor Amy's first-class tray consists of duck a l'orange
with fondant potatoes, beetroot puree,
torched orange, and an orange sauce,
served with a creamed mushroom and truffle vol-au-vent,
followed by a salted butterscotch whip
and a brandy snap filled with berries.
This is a great-looking meal.
If I was on an aeroplane and I got this in front of me,
I'd be quite excited.
That duck is beautiful.
Crispy, seasoned skin, really lovely, juicy pink flesh,
an orange sauce that's got as much bitterness as it has sweetness.
Well done.
Your mushroom vol-au-vent is great.
Absolutely perfect.
Amp with mushrooms, really, really woody.
The puff pastry - lovely and flaky.
Cooked all the way through and falling apart.
Potatoes - nice and soft.
Beetroot puree - nice and smooth.
Your butterscotch whip is lovely and light.
I love this brandy snap.
The dessert takes me back to my childhood.
I'm so, so impressed with this meal,
I would change airlines if I could eat like this on an aeroplane.
SHE SIGHS I'm so relieved.
I got very hot in that kitchen,
and I smell of duck fat,
so I don't feel great physically,
but mentally, I'm very happy.
Wynne.
Where's Wynne?
LAUGHTER
Welcome aboard Wynne Air.
May I tell you? I've only got one life jacket.
So whichever judge is kindest to me will get the life jacket.
Wynne, tell us what you've presented us.
I've brought you land, sea, and air.
NARRATOR: To represent land,
opera singer Wynne has cooked fillet of Wagyu beef,
served on potato puree with fondant vegetables, enoki mushrooms,
and a red wine jus.
For the sea, an oyster with Vietnamese dressing.
And to represent the air,
a biscuit base panna cotta topped with roasted plums
and a mango jus.
Lovely crisp outside of that piece of steak.
It's been sealed very, very well.
A nice bit of fruitiness from the sauce.
The mushrooms are great.
Your torpedo-shaped vegetables
that have been cooked with stock and butter
are absolutely delightful.
The oyster is fabulous.
Mirin and a little bit of chilli, it's quite sharp,
but you get all that saltiness of that oyster. That's great.
I really, really love this dessert.
Your pastry work is really, really good.
The whole thing is not too sweet.
I'm really impressed.
In the immortal words of Gavin and Stacey,
"That's lush."
It is properly lush.
I love to give a performance.
When food hits the table, it should be all your senses.
It should be good on the eye, good on the taste buds,
and I hope that's what I did.
Musician Max has cooked a Thai green curry
flavoured with lime leaves and ginger,
topped with a jumbo prawn,
with coconut rice
and an Asian salad of mixed vegetables, coriander and cashew nuts
with a garlic and sesame dressing.
For dessert, he's made a vanilla panna cotta with strawberry compote,
lime ice cream, and chocolate soil.
Really enjoying the flavour of the Thai curry.
I'm liking the lime leaf zingy-ness, citrus-ness.
I also like the little hint of chilli running through it as well.
Love the crunch of the vegetables,
but find the texture too thick.
OK.
Max, there's some stuff on here which are really big hitters.
Love the vibrancy of the salad.
You've got all those lovely vegetables,
the cashew nuts running through it.
Carrots and the peppers, good.
Your rice itself,
I like the flavour of the coconut milk,
but some of the rice grains are cooked, some of them aren't.
That panna cotta, I think, is absolutely lovely.
And that strawberry coulis across the top,
it's got the flavour of strawberry jam.
Your ice cream is fantastic. Thank you.
You make great ice cream.
You need to open up an ice cream shop, Max,
cos it's really, really good.
I like the real zing of that lime with the strawberry puree,
I think that's good.
Glad that's over.
I felt like I did pretty good today.
I was pushed for time,
but that's the happiest I've been with something that I've made.
Reality star Luca's first-class tray
is roast guinea fowl stuffed with chicken and mushroom mousse,
honey glazed candied beetroot,
and a Muscat wine sauce,
a side of rosemary parmentier potatoes,
and a limoncello cheesecake,
topped with mango and passion fruit jelly.
Ooh!
You've cooked that guinea fowl really well.
Crispy skin, it's not drying out at all.
Inside there, you've got a moist stuffing of chicken and mushroom
with quite a bit of seasoning.
Nice crack of pepper in there. I like that.
Earthy beetroot, I think, is a great addition.
A little bit of sweetness that actually matches the sweetness
of the dessert wine in your sauce.
I really like your little crispy potatoes,
they've got a little flavour of rosemary to them.
It's well salted. A nice little side dish.
I feel I could eat those by themselves.
Your dessert is very good.
It has just set.
You've got a nice, crunchy, thin, buttery biscuit base.
That's a really good tropical mango jelly on the top of there.
That's a delight.
Thank you.
I'm happy. I'm glad it's done.
There was a lot on show, and it showed what I can do,
but I want to keep proving myself. I want to be here,
and it's the time to take a risk if you're going to.
To secure his place in Finals Week,
comedian Marcus has cooked pork fillet
filled with nduja salami, fennel and hazelnuts,
a roasted cabbage kebab with cabbage puree,
sage and parmesan gnocchi with a parmesan tuile,
and a matcha green tea Swiss roll
with raspberry yuzu filling and a raspberry mint sorbet.
GREGG: Oh.
Ah.
Ooh. Marcus, I'm sorry,
we've got undercooked pork here.
There are bits that are raw.
Your nduja hasn't melted enough.
You wrapped it in ham first before you put it in as a stuffing,
that means that there's no heat going anywhere in or out.
The result of that is I've got pork towards the centre
which is not cooked, and that's a shame.
Apart from the pork, which is impossible to ignore,
everything is lovely.
Love that char on the cabbage, and the cabbage puree surprised me,
because it's got an almost sweet finish.Yeah.
You made potato gnocchi.
They're lovely and light, and they're really small.
Nice palms and tuile as well.
With this Swiss roll,
you get that almost tropical hint of flowery tea flavour,
and then a cream that's not too sweetened
with the sharpness of fruit as well.
Your sorbet is really vibrant and quite sharp,
like a good old-fashioned '70s palate cleanser.
But the concern for me is that
I've got a piece of pork here which is not cooked.
HE SIGHS Devastated, to be honest.
Just dropped the ball.
It's a big mistake, that. It's really big.
Last up is singer Jamelia.
She's serving salt fish cappelletti
with crab, monk's beard,
burnt orange segments, and a prawn bisque...
..garlic bread with confit garlic,
and a cornmeal porridge brulee.
Your cappelletti themselves are made really, really well.
Your pasta's nice and fine.
The salt fish, I really like.
Garlic bread's fantastic. I love it.
Nice and crispy on top, lashings of garlic.
I really like all the flavours in this bowl.
It's big, it's punchy.
There's a whack of chilli in there as well,
but I like the sweet finish because of all those prawns.
Prawns are naturally sweet.
I love the flavour of your porridge.
That fragrance and flavour of coconut milk,
a little bit of cinnamon,
nice bit of star anise going through the back of it -
I think it's really good.
The thing that I care about most is flavour.
Seemed to have went down quite well.
Buzzing about my garlic bread.
Yeah, I just hope it's enough.
I have never eaten like that on an aeroplane,
and I don't expect I ever will.
We've got a decision to make.
We only have five places in Finals Week.
That does mean that one of them's going home.
For me, there was one cook today who was absolutely first class,
and that was Amy.
I thought Amy's food today was absolutely spot on.
It actually looked like something
I would expect in first-class travel in the 1970s.
It was properly brilliant.
Today, what Wynne did was gave us food that he really loves to eat.
All in all, a pretty solid round.
Another person who's really impressed me today is Luca.
His work is quality.
Now, Jamelia interested me in this round.
I've got to say, I was really impressed with the flavours
that were in those dishes.
I'd like to see her go through to Finals Week,
if that's OK with you.
Amy, Wynne, Luca, and Jamelia through to Finals Week.
There's two more to talk about -
Max and Marcus.
Marcus are usually cooks lots and lots of different things.
Today, pared it right back.
And he had a couple of things which I thought were really good.
We had a really lovely light sponge and a really sharp raspberry sorbet.
Nice, light gnocchi.
The issue was we had a piece of pork which should have been delicious,
and that pork wasn't cooked enough.
The pork was raw.
You couldn't eat it.
Max, I liked the flavour of that curry sauce.
It was really, really tasty.
But the rice, some of my bits weren't cooked, some were.
And it was far too thick.
However, the dessert, that lime ice cream,
was absolutely delicious.
I loved the panna cotta.
I liked the strawberry puree.
I thought he did well.
Right now, we've got to make a decision.
Who's going through to Finals Week, and who's going home?
I'm still really hoping that there's some way,
because of what else I cooked,
that I go forward in the competition.
But there's another part of me thinks, if I do...
..I'm not sure that would be quite right.
Everyone in it's so good, so...
..if I go today, like, fair enough.
Because everyone is, like, really talented.
Well done, all six of you.
You are unrecognisable as the nervous cooks
who first walked into our kitchen.
Five of you are going through to Finals Week.
One of you is leaving us.
Marcus, Max...
..it's down to you two.
The celebrity to go through to Finals Week is...
..Max.
Congratulations. Well done, mate.
Marcus, so sorry.
One of those days where it just didn't quite go to plan. Mate!
I'm not surprised, but oh, man, I'm gutted.
I've had such an amazing time.
I feel very proud of what I've done,
and I'm genuinely thrilled for all of them that they've gone on.
So sad not to be with them.
ALL CHEER
Congratulations, you five.
You are through to Finals Week.
Wow, Finals Week. That's mad.
I was halfway out the door, then,
when they put me in the bottom two.
Just feels so good.
I'm just so thrilled to be here, I can't tell you.
And I'll keep my mind going in tangents
like I have all the way along,
and I'll create something.
I'm going to celebrate tonight.
Yeah, and just hug my daughters and just tell them, like,
"Mummy's a finalist."
It feels like the best day ever.
I'm so pleased.
I'm so exhausted, but I'm so happy.
I'm absolutely buzzing. I can't believe it.
I didn't think I'd be here, so who knows if I can win it now?
Got to start believing.
Next time...
Ah!
..it's the Celebrity MasterChef finals.
What could go wrong, eh?
This is burnt!
Disaster number one.
Work faster, work harder.
Yeah, yeah, I'm happy.
At the end of the week,
either Amy, Luca, Max,
Jamelia... Yes!
..or Wynne...
OPERATICALLY:# Yes, Chef! #
..will be crowned this year's champion.
I am blown away.