MasterChef is back...Boom!
..with 45 of the country's most ambitious home cooks.
Agh!
Stressing.
Each week, nine will battle for a coveted place in the quarterfinal.
THEY GASP
Oh, my God! Stress. Stress. Oh!
Can't believe it.
Chronic.
I absolutely love it.
Hey!
Dib dab, that's fab.
Only the strongest will make it to the final challenges
and the culinary adventure of a lifetime...
It's all about the speed now, OK?
It's a piece of art.
Cheers to the fair.
Whoa-oh!
We need to pick up the pace, please.
..as they compete for the title of MasterChef champion 2023.
We want passion, drive, ambition.
We want beautiful food.
Let the culinary battle commence.
It's week three of the MasterChef competition and nine more home cooks
are arriving for their audition.
This competition - in my head, I've already won it.
That's how serious it is for me.
When I applied to MasterChef,
I started to feel the real weight and pressure.
Right now, I'm all in, ready to go.
Oh, I am dead excited to meet John and Gregg.
I mean, look, I can't believe it's happening.
A warm welcome to the MasterChef kitchen.
This could be the start of an incredible adventure.
This is an audition round.
We've asked you to bring in your own ingredients
and cook for us a family favourite.
Once we've tasted every dish, we will choose our top three dishes
and whoever cooked those will grab themselves an apron
and will go into the competition.
The remaining six, you'll have to cook again
for four aprons.
We, however, will not be in the MasterChef kitchen,
wandering around, watching you cook.
We will be next door in the tasting room,
awaiting your fantastic plates of food.
The only way we'll be able to judge you is the dish
that you present to us.
So make sure it's absolutely perfect.
Our floor manager, Ben, will be keeping you to time
and watching the clock.
Good luck. We'll see you soon.
All right.
Ready? Let's see what we've got.
You all right, Linda? Yeah, I'm just so made up to meet them.
I'm hoping that everything will go well and they will love the food
and I get an apron. Can I steal one now?
Is that possible?
Right now, I'd imagine that each and every one of them is excited.
Excited slash terrified.
I keep going, "I'm not super nervous,
"this is fine, I cook all the time."
And then, I'm like, "Oh, my God, I'm on MasterChef."
In this round, we can tell a lot about these cooks
by just that one plate of food.
It feels surreal. I'm really excited to be here.
I'm extremely determined and I'm very competitive too.
The contestants will audition in groups of three and have one hour
and 20 minutes to make their family favourite MasterChef-worthy.
I'm a nurse, so working under pressure is normal
but not time-specific, so we'll see.
First up will be 38-year-old oncology nurse Ngoneh,
who's been in the UK for 12 years
and loves cooking the food of her Gambian heritage.
I want to take John and Gregg
to have a...
..Gambian food experience
on MasterChef, and I hope I will do justice to that.
Agh!
Ngoneh's making for us red mullet, served with benachin with besab.
I have no idea what that is.
Benachin is special rice that is made out of spices
and some tomatoes fried in oil.
You cannot have benachin without besab.
It's a side dish that we make from spinach, okra and some lemon,
Served with caramelised and spiced rainbow carrots and green beans.
So we've got rice and vegetables with a piece of red mullet.
I'm just excited by it.
If you talk about family food, benachin will come in mind
when it comes to Gambian food.
I've got two girls.
So by the end of yesterday, they ask me, "What are you, what are you cooking, Mummy?"
I said, "Benachin." And she said, "I'm not surprised."
So, yeah.
Everything smells really nice. Oh, yeah.
36-year-old mum of three Michelle lives near Belfast
and is a classroom assistant for children with disabilities.
I like to showcase
where I live and the projects
that we have back at home.
Michelle's main for us, pan-fried duck, served with
Irish champ, honey-glazed carrots, crispy kale,
and a cherry and port sauce.
Duck and cherries.
The cooking of a duck breast
requires good timing.
You can't start with a pan that's hot because otherwise
the skin will start to burn
before the heat has gone all the way through the fat.
So I'm going to keep a very, very close eye on that.
I want crispy skin.
Hopefully.
Champ is a very Irish dish of mashed potato with spring onions in it.
We call it dulse back home,
but it's a type of seaweed,
so that gives it the salty flavour, you know, on your potatoes.
I think this is a nice-sounding dish.
I hope Michelle has got the skill to do it.
Cooking has always been there and, you know, in the family,
but my eldest daughter has inspired this dish.
This is her favourite dinner,
so this is why I'm doing it.
Hopefully I don't mess it up.
I'm stressing.
Go on, Michelle. You've got this, love.
Oopsie.
This is the messiest kitchen.
Next up is 50-year-old piano teacher Thuy.
Having moved to the UK from Ho Chi Minh City with her family in 1981,
she now lives in Berkshire.
We're Vietnamese, we love our food,
but my grandmother
is the person that I remember most
being in the kitchen with.
My mother is also fabulous
and so are my aunts.
So I've entered this competition hoping that I can prove to them
that I can cook a little bit.
Thuy is giving us a bun thit which I understand
to be a Vietnamese grilled pork
on a bed of rice noodles
served with prawn, pork and black fungus mushroom spring rolls.
I love a spring roll.
Asian herb salad.
These are from my garden.
That's shiso, and that's Vietnamese coriander.
Lime and chilli dipping sauce.
Absolutely lovely.
I really hope their tolerance to spicy food
is good because we might be in trouble otherwise.
We know what we want from a piece of grilled pork -
slightly crispy on the outside, but not dry at all.
I think that's done.
Lots of process here.
Can she get it all done in an hour and 20 minutes?
I chose this dish because it reminds me so much of home.
My dad, rain or shine,
would actually barbecue the pork.
It tastes amazing.
And my mother would roll the spring rolls and fry them.
I'm debating whether to turn the heat up a tiny bit,
but then I know it's like I turn it up a little bit and it goes wrong.
I only have six.
OK, so maybe I won't.
How's it going, Thuy?
OK, I think. It's just so rushing.
It's amazing how fast time flies in this kitchen.
Oh!
Ngoneh, you've got five minutes to get those plates out, please.
OK, all right, thank you.
We need, er...
Oh!
Ta-da!
SHE LAUGHS
It's a bit stressful.
The rice is cooked and I'm happy with that.
So now it's just for John and Gregg to love it.
Ngoneh? Yes. That's time up.
Let's get the plates out, please. OK, thank you.
Good luck.
Thank you.
Hey.
Oncology nurse Ngoneh's audition dish
is red mullet stuffed with spring onion,
parsley and garlic,
served with Gambian benachin,
or spiced fried rice,
caramelised, spiced rainbow carrots and green beans,
chilli sauce
and a besab chutney
made of okra and spinach.
Your chilli sauce is...
Very spicy.
..wonderfully hot.
Excuse me, I've got chilli hiccups.
Oh!
I like that.
In terms of flavour, you do not do things by half.
The fish is nicely cooked and it is packed full of garlic.
It's strong, but it's not too much.
Your rice is nicely seasoned,
cooked very, very well.
This besab chutney
with the okra running through it is slightly slippery,
tasted of cooked-down spinach,
but it's really vibrant.
I love the way that you season food.
Thank you.
This lady can cook.
SHE CHUCKLES
Oh, my God, they love it.
They love the food.
So mission accomplished.
Yeah.
Michelle? Yeah? You've got three minutes left.
Three minutes, OK.
It's crunch time now.
How are you feeling, Michelle, are you happy?
Yeah, kind of happy, yeah.
Bit stressed.
That's looking pretty good.
Oh, well, that's it.
Hi. Hello.
To win an apron, classroom assistant Michelle
is serving pan-fried duck breast
with a cherry and port sauce.
Irish champ mashed potato with spring onion,
honey-glazed carrots
and crispy kale.
My duck is cooked really, really well.
I like your carrots, they're good, your kale is crispy.
Your sauce doesn't have the body it needs. Yeah.
It's quite thin.
Your champ is superb.
I mean, enough butter in there to sink a battleship.
My duck flesh is cooked nice and pink,
but my skin needs heat going through it.
That's too...too white.
Michelle, thanks very much indeed.
Thank you so much, guys, see yous later. Cheers.
There's some good bits of cookery in here,
most certainly,
but there are a couple of errors.
SHE SIGHS
The dish wasn't just as good as what I can do,
but I gave it my best shot so that's all you can do.
Thuy, you've got a minute and a half. OK.
Let's get those plates ready, please.
Not quite my parents' standard,
but then they have been doing it for years.
Come on, Thuy.
You've got this. Thank you.
Piano teacher Thuy's place in the competition
rests on her dish of Vietnamese grilled pork
with rice noodles,
prawn, pork and black fungus mushroom spring rolls
and a herb salad
served with a carrot, lime and chilli dipping sauce.
So I cut the salad quite chunky,
just in case you might want to wrap it
like the Vietnamese way.
Thuy, your dish is absolutely delightful.
Thank you.
It's getting that leaf and being able to put herbs in it
with some perfectly cooked, soft noodles.
And then that lovely, salty, almost sticky pork
plunged into a dip
that is citrusy and sweet,
I am loving.
Your spring rolls are also lovely,
packed full of vegetables with a crunch.
Just really, really enjoying your food.
I really love this pork that's got the taste
as if it's been cooked over charcoal.
And I really love that.
The pork is lovely and tender.
What you made, I think, is wonderful.
It's great, it's fresh.
Thank you. Bye.
It's really good food.
Ah!
It's amazing.
Oh, my God, they love it,
so I'm really chuffed,
I'm over the moon.
It's made my day.
Back in the kitchen,
the next three competitors are hard at work.
I literally cook for everyone and anyone any chance I get.
I'm begging at the opportunity to cook for someone.
35-year-old graphic designer Miles
has developed an eclectic style of cooking
from his Guyanese father and Slovenian mother.
My dish is based wholly on Slovenian cuisine. It's inspired by
things I used to do when I was younger,
you know, going out into the forest,
we used to forage mushrooms, berries and stuff like that.
Miles is interesting me here.
Butter bean and ricotta dumplings in a mushroom consomme
with pickled shimeji mushrooms and crispy smoked bacon.
I've never seen a butter bean and ricotta dumpling.
Some gruyere cheese just to hold it together.
Then it's going to be ballotined,
cooked, chopped, then fried in butter
to give it a crispy edge. Fat is flavour.
I don't understand this cos butter beans and ricotta together
are both quite wet. I've never had anything like this before.
It's an entirely new recipe that I've made.
So I'm hoping they see the genius behind it.
I mean, I'm calling it genius, it could just be like a plain old dish.
Mushroom consomme.
The consomme has got to have flavour but be crystal clear
so that it's showing off real skill.
Just clarifying the consomme now.
So, just added some egg white.
She's going to catch everything, create a raft,
anything that goes in there. I think the timing's all right.
I just had a bit of a nightmare with the bottom of the pan
split the clingfilm. But hopefully I can remedy that.
Wow. This fish is a big fish.
Also competing for an apron is 59-year-old medical secretary Linda.
This year I got cancer, but I'm recovering from it
and I'm actually 60 next week.
And so my daughter said to me, "Mum, why... Why don't you try for MasterChef?"
And here I am.
SHE LAUGHS
Originally from Liverpool,
she now lives in North Wales with her Moroccan husband.
So I'm cooking harissa chickpeas with pan-fried sea bream,
a courgette and carrot salad.
It's my husband's favourite dish. I make him it all the time.
He's from Morocco and we both love Moroccan food and we both love fish.
So I thought, why not make this today?
Harissa, a really lovely spicey red pepper paste
that comes from North Africa, very, very famous around Morocco.
So that's chickpeas with onions and peppers and harissa paste
and some lemon.
Linda's job here is to cook these sea bream fillets and give us
a crispy skin without that catching. If she catches the skin, it rips,
it really does spoil the look of the fillet of the fish.
But we'll see how she gets on.
30-year-old gaming producer Jozsef
has travelled the world playing Olympic handball
and regularly cooks the food of his Hungarian heritage.
I spent a lot of time
living in different countries and I very often used to
call my parents and my grandparents for recipes and cooking tips
so I can recreate a little piece of home wherever I was at that time.
Jozsef is cooking for us
Hungarian chicken paprikash in a savoury pancake.
So the chicken paprikash is a traditional Hungarian chicken stew
with a lot of paprika. You can use the pressure cooker
to make sure that the chicken is nice and tender.
Then we're going to remove it from the bone, cut it up,
and then we're going to fill it into the crepes.
Served with dill paprika sauce,
a forest berry and red wine reduction.
What I hope is that it will provide quite nice of a contrast
to the savoury flavour of the pancake itself.
With pine-infused curd cheese. Yeah. Wow.
It's the curd cheese and I let it kind of, like, in here,
I think it's been almost a week now, so I haven't tried it yet
so this is going to be very exciting even for me
to see if it worked or not.
No.
But we have plan B, which is we're going to use some pine nuts
and we're going to use it with some normal cheese
so it's still, like, the piney flavour.
Miles.Yep? You've got five minutes left.Cool.
These are all the things that remind me of Slovenia
that I loved growing up and eating.
Just simple things, but done quite well. It is important.
Wow. That's advanced.
Right. OK, Miles, let's get your plates out, please.
All right? Hey.
Graphic designer Miles has made butter bean and ricotta dumplings
in a mushroom consomme
with pickled shimeji mushrooms and crispy smoked bacon.
So are these dumplings, then, your invention? Yeah.
Wow. This is something I've never seen before.
I'm very, very impressed with your cooking.
Really well made consomme. Clear.
Those dumplings, they're like a denser gnocchi.
I think you're clever, and I'm really enjoying this food.
It's modern and it's smart.
I really like the dumplings.
They're strong with gruyere cheese, they're slightly silky.
They've got a little bit of firmness to them.
I think your mushroom consomme is really good.
I've really enjoyed eating it.
Thank you very much indeed, Miles. Thanks, guys. Take it easy.
I like him, John. It's good.
HE EXHALES
They were giving me some wicked, wicked feedback.
Like, I knew it was a banger.
I knew it was a good dish, I'm not going to lie.
Linda, you've got five minutes. OK. Thank you.
Oh. There we go.
I think it's going to be OK.
I hope.
Linda, let's get your plates out, please.
Good luck, Linda. Good luck, Linda.
Hello. Hi, Linda. Hi.
Lovely to meet you both. I'm a big fan.
Medical secretary Linda has made pan-fried
ras el hanout spiced sea bream,
served with harissa chickpeas
and a courgette and carrot ribbon salad.
That fish is cooked really nicely.
You obviously cook a fair bit of fish.
Nice crispy skin. Well done.
The harissa...getting some chilli kick at the end.
Nice cookery, Linda. Thank you. Your chickpeas are soft and well coated
in this wonderful mixture of harissa.
But on the piece of fish, I can't taste any spice.
I do like the dish, though. Thank you.
I'd like to see her cook some more because I think she can cook.
I'm feeling absolutely amazing.
I think that was the best thing that's ever happened to me.
I hope I'm going to get an apron today, but I'm not... I'm not sure.
I think I'm happy how the chicken's been cooked.
Now we just have to make sure that the flavour is fine.
Jozsef, that's one and a half minutes.
We need to get these plates out now, please.Right on. All right.
So now we're filling this crepe with the chicken meat
and the sauce and I roll it up.
And then we can be ready.
So this is the paprikash sauce on the pancakes.
OK, Jozsef, that's time up. Take the dishes out, please.
Hello. Hey.
Video game producer Jozsef has made Hungarian chicken paprikash
served in a savoury pancake,
a chicken paprikash sauce,
pine nut curd cheese
and a forest berry and red wine reduction.
That's a really nicely made pancake.
Inside there is really nicely cooked chicken thigh.
I would like more flavour from this paprika sauce.
It's just not smoky and punchy enough.
The little blobs of your forest fruit,
it's almost a sort of blackcurrant jam flavour,
and that flavour with chicken, I don't think it works.
A pancake is bland on the outside, so therefore the filling
and the sauce should be vibrant with paprika.
Just more flavour. And I'm not a fan of jam and chicken.
Unfortunately, my paprikash sauce didn't had the right kick,
but I will try to take that feedback going forward.
The spotlight is now on the last group of auditionees.
Now.
Hannah! How are you?
Originally from South Africa, 50-year-old hotel supervisor Owen
now lives in Harrogate and enjoys cooking with his family.
I have two children and I can't wait till they get to see me
on MasterChef because they will know I'm a superstar in their eyes.
It would be their best day ever.
Owen. Prawn biryani served with a cucumber and radish raita.
Indian food is my comfort cooking.
A biryani, as we know, is cooked twice.
First time it's all the mixtures are fried. Then it goes into a pot
and then it's put in the oven and cooked again.
So when that second cooking happens,
he's got to make sure those prawns don't dry out.
This will go with the biriyani to go into the oven in the end.
Look at that. The prawn biriyani comes from
days back in South Africa,
growing up, whenever there was a function, biriyani was the thing.
John and Gregg, I really, really hope they will really like this dish
because I liked it.
So far so good.
Everything is going according to what I expect.
It smells so good. We're very jealous.
I would have much preferred to have gone first.
Seeing everyone's dishes and stuff, like, it does make you go,
"Ooh, everyone's quite good."
28-year-old Birmingham-born Hannah is a receptionist in London
who fell in love with cooking during lockdown.
I'm a massive fan of MasterChef.
I actually applied cos my boss
saw me watching it at work once and she was like,
"You should apply to go on this,"
rather than being, like, "What are you doing? Get back to work."
Hannah's cooking for us Granny Margaret's fish pie.
Granny Margaret, or GM as we all call her,
she has made fish pie for, like,
as long as I've been alive, and it's always been the best fish pie.
So I've elevated it with some Japanese flavours
which might not get GM's approval but I like it so I'm making it.
So, she's cooking Asian marinated salmon served with mashed potato
flavoured with miso and spring onions.
A prawn stock and yuzu sauce,
mushy panko peas and pickled radish.
Is this going to not be a pie at all?
Is this going to be a collection of things on a plate?
I'm really regretting calling it pie
because it's just some mash with some fish.
I might have misled them, but hopefully they still like it.
That salmon needs to be cooked just so, so it falls apart.
It can't be dry in any way at all. I feel like I'm forgetting something.
So I really feel like there's something else. Peas!
SHE MOUTHS
I feel like I'm going more slowly than I do at home.
I love cooking. Cooking is like meditation for me.
It comes naturally.
The final amateur to audition is 34-year-old Romanian Mirel,
who is an artist in his spare time but works as a hairdresser.
Hairdressing is very similar to cooking.
When you're colouring hair, you need to follow a recipe
and use a certain amount of colour and it's very creative.
Mirel's doing plant-based, gluten-free smoky chocolate cake
with chocolate ganache with Mandarin and candied walnuts.
Which is gluten free and sugar free.
So it is extremely healthy and six-pack friendly.
That cake is going to have to be really moist regardless of whether
it's plant-based or whether it's gluten-free.
It's looking great, I think another two minutes.
I love this cake. I could actually bake and go to sleep with it.
Cooked it for lots of my friends
and then everybody said it's a winner.
How do you make a chocolate cake smoky?
Smokey ganache is made... It's vegan cream,
vegan chocolate and smoky whisky is the secret.
It's amazing. My favourite.
Oh, I can't believe it.
Good job.
The season is there. Did I put season? Yes!
I'm feeling it.
I feel confident, guys.
THEY CHEER
Owen, that's time up. Let's get your plate to the back room, please.
Go, Owen. Go, Owen.
Have I reached yet? Yeah. You got it. You got it.
Voila! Hello, hello, hello!
Hi, Owen.
Hotel supervisor Owen's dish is prawn biryani
served with a cucumber and radish raita.
Owen, it's a good dish.
Your prawns are cooked perfectly.
There's just the right amount of give it to them.
The rice is nicely cooked. It's slippery with ghee.
A little bit of saffron in there as well.
I'm very much enjoying this.
I think this is quite mild. I'd like some more spice.
Have you toned this down for Gregg and I? I did indeed.
Don't do that.
Thanks very much indeed. Thank you.
I see you really like it. I think it'll be nice to see him
spice things cos he says he's held back on this.
My heart is racing in a way.
If I don't get an apron today
and I have to be cooking again,
I'm going to make sure I'm going to put an extra heat in there.
Make their tongue tingle.
I have burnt it. Literally, I had...
..one thing to cook properly in a pan and I ruined it.
Hopefully...they don't mind... burnt food.
Aw.
Ah! That's two minutes to plate up, please.
That's done.
Hello. Hello.
Receptionist Hannah has made her take
on her Granny Margaret's fish pie -
soy and ginger marinated salmon topped with panko breadcrumbs
served with miso and spring onion mash,
a king prawn,
black sesame seed mushy peas,
pickled radish
and a prawn and yuzu sauce.
Did you mean to scorch your salmon?
No. No.
You have most certainly scorched the top of your salmon.
I can forgive that.
The salmon inside there is really nicely cooked.
Your prawn is cooked nicely.
The mashed potato you've overworked,
taking it from light and fluffy to more gluey.
The yuzu sauce is too thick.
It doesn't taste of yuzu at all.
Your pickled radishes are lovely. My feeling here is this.
If you're going to make granny's fish pie, make a fish pie.
OK. Thanks. Bye.
Poor Hannah, it's not the dish that she set out to do.
There are mistakes on it. This is why nobody goes home at this stage.
Everything was going fine and then the last ten minutes just went
and, like, the fish was just on fire and I didn't know what to do.
So, yeah.
So this is mandarin mint, which is going to add some freshness.
Dun-dun-dun.
Smoky chocolate ganache on top, and adding some texture
to make it look contemporary.
Mirel, 90 seconds. We need to get these plates out.Yes. Coming.
The gold leaf because I love opulent and extravagant.
Mirel, time's up. Let's get these plates out.
Hello.
Hairdresser Mirel's dish
is a gluten-free vegan chocolate and candied walnut cake
flavoured with mint and mandarin,
coated with smoky whisky chocolate ganache
and decorated with edible gold leaf.
Are you vegan? Yes. Are you gluten intolerant?
No, but I like a bit of a challenge.
I think it's a really bold statement. I love the presentation.
I like irregular and asymmetric shapes.
I think it looks quite contemporary.
It's a really light sponge.
I'm getting the deeper, almost bitter flavour of walnuts
and the smokiness of single malt whisky
is just oozing out of this cake.
It's divine.
I love the texture of cake itself. It is still quite moist.
I like the abundance of that chocolate cream
on the outside and the flavour of the coconut oil.
I love the mandarin there.
I think it's very interesting and I like it a lot. Thank you.
I think it tastes fantastic. That's showing a really good palate.
I feel like I'm on the moon. I'm extremely excited about it
and hopefully I'm going to get an apron.
We've got some really good cooks in this heat. Unfortunately,
I've got more good cooks than we've got aprons for.
Miles walked in here with a consomme, crystal clear,
and these amazing dumplings I'd never seen before.
The detail I really loved.
Mirel made us a gluten-free plant-based cake.
It was lovely and moist. It tasted great.
Those two are absolute standouts.
For me, the other two fighting over one apron
are Thuy, with her noodles and the pork,
Ngoneh with her chilli heat and, of course,
that beautifully cooked fish.
However, who gets the apron and who gets to cook again?
Very, very well done.
Some of the cookery today was an absolutely amazing standard,
far beyond what we expected at this stage.
We've only got three aprons, I'm afraid.
The first person getting an apron
and going straight through the competition...
..Miles.
Consomme and dumplings?
Incredible. Well done, you.
That is such a relief.
The second person getting an apron is...
..Mirel. Thank you.
Congratulations. Great flavours inside that cake.
And this is where the decision starts to get really tough.
Ngoneh, Thuy...
..both of you cooked really well.
However, we only have one more apron to give.
The third and final apron...
..Thuy. Oh, my God! Thank you!
WHISPERS: Well done. Come up and get your aprons.
Thank you.
HE WHOOPS
We've got an apron. Yeah!
Check it out. Suits me. It suits you.
Oh, it feels so good. Boom, boom.Well done.
Let's do it again.
THEY LAUGH
Put your disappointment behind you.
Your job right now is to cook, impress, and get yourself
a MasterChef apron.
Welcome to a MasterChef invention test.
You can cook whatever you like. It could be sweet,
it could be savoury, using any of these amazing ingredients
that we've laid in front of you.
And from those, we want you to cook for us one dish.
Do something delicious.
There are six of you,
there are only four aprons available,
which does sadly mean two of you will be leaving.
Up you come. Ten minutes to choose your ingredients.
I'm feeling a bit lost
but I will find myself now in a few minutes.
If I was going to give them any advice, I would say formulate a plan
very, very quickly. Don't try and wing it.
Little bit of a plan, yeah. I've come to make a dessert.
I don't know how well that's going to go but
I'm going to give it me best, if I can find all the ingredients.
Here we have syrups, chocolate.
There's nuts, there's vegetables,
mushrooms, prawns.
There's meat, there's tofu. So they can do whatever they like.
I'm going to stick with what I know
and do something spicy what... lovely that they would like.
You've got your ingredients. We hope you've chosen wisely.
One hour and 15 minutes to impress. Off you go.
I feel like every day is an invention test in my house
because I hate going shopping,
so I'll just use what I've got in the cupboard.
Often it'll be, "I don't know if these two things go together,
"but we'll find out."
Hannah, what are you making?
Tomatoey sauce with, like, a lot of sumac and paprika,
some fried aubergine and cauliflower and yoghurt and dill sauce.
No meat, no fish. Do you cook a lot of vegetarian dishes?
I was a veggie for, like, five years,
so I'm trying to play to my strengths.
In a pot, Hannah has made a tomato spicy mixture.
For me, that cauliflower and aubergine
needs to go into that sauce
as if it's almost like a vegetable curry.
Let's just hope it is spicy.
Nice and crisp.
I would love to stay, get the apron, and get the place in the competition
to make my family proud.
This time, ten years ago, my dad passed away.
Hopefully, he's by my side today.
Forgive me, Michelle, but what is this on your bench?
It's two wee notes my daughter left for me for coming on MasterChef.
Aw! What do they say? "Love you, Mum,"
and, you know, "Show John and Gregg that you really can cook
"and don't be nervous." So... Isn't that lovely? Yeah!
Michelle has made a flatbread dough
out of yoghurt and self-raising flour,
going to top that with prawns and pesto -
but Michelle's version of pesto
made up of pine nuts, red peppers, some basil, some Parmesan cheese.
And the problem is that she's going to put this prawn mixture
on top of this pizza dough. How is that going to look?
Come on! Oh...
Halfway, ladies and gentlemen, halfway to getting an apron, right?
Jozsef is promising us wild mushroom ragu with polenta.
Fantastic.
Wild mushrooms, he's got chanterelles,
beautiful yellow mushrooms.
I just hope he doesn't cook those mushrooms too much.
Can you smell it? Yeah. I'm feeling great.
This is something that I'm very familiar with, this kind of dish.
Polenta, cornmeal, porridge.
Polenta is bland. If he just boils it in water,
we're going to have really bland, grainy bits of polenta.
I'm definitely feeling nervous about this round, but hoping to bring
a little bit more oomph to my cooking.
I definitely won't hold back on the spices.
Where does your passion for cookery come from?
Definitely from my father.
He very often went to the forest with our truffle-hunting dogs
and often brought back, like, a lot of mushrooms and truffles as well.
He essentially ran his own business selling truffles.
You've got a fascinating food heritage.
Has he offered you any advice? He said, if I see any mushrooms,
just go for it. And that's what I'm doing.
After the first round,
yes, a bit disappointed but, OK,
do it again and have fun and make sure you get the apron this time.
What are you making for us? Spicy prawn sauce with pasta.
That's interesting. Who do you cook for at home?
I cook for my husband and my two little girls.
What has your husband said about you coming on this competition?
Well, he's the one that put me on this competition because he thinks
that I'm a fabulous cook,
that everybody else have to know about it.
Ngoneh is making for us a pasta dish.
That sauce has got lots of things going in it.
Fish sauce, which is very salty, soy sauce and a little bit of garlic,
scotch bonnet to give it heat.
It's OK, but it's not spicy enough.
And then there's going to be cheese and cream.
If the cream is cooked too much, it's going to make it too thick.
Little bit more chilli...
Owen, what dish are you going to make for us?
I'm not so sure what this is going to be like.
Kind of a dry fry neck of lamb
with a bit of garlic and ginger in it. Serve it with what?
Serve it with rice.
And the vegetables? The veggies will be a complement.
So I'm hoping it comes together towards the end.
Owen's diced up his lamb neck really, really small.
It's lovely and tender when you cook the whole piece and let it rest.
That could be really tough.
My plan today for the invention test
is to make something sweet to sweeten up Gregg.
You're doing sweet? Yeah. Come on, girl. Yeah.
I want him on my side. Yeah.
Hopefully.
Linda, I'm impressed that you're doing a dessert. Yes.
I'm doing a toffee fondant.
Like a chocolate fondant but with toffee instead? Yes.
I'm thinking to serving it with custard.
How are you going to get the toffee inside the sponge?
I'm going to make the toffee and freeze it and then I'm going to
put it in the middle of the fondant and put the rest on top.
Where did you learn that? I learnt it myself. Get you!
Linda is going to take the toffee, then freeze it like a solid lump
so that when it melts
it should be then become a lovely liquid toffee centre.
It's a really clever idea. It could be wonderful.
Guys, you have 15 minutes left.
How's that bread going? Look good?
Yep, yep. Couple more seconds.
How's it going?
Mm-mm-mm.
Just want to get the last bits done. Try not to burn anything again.
Oh, I had this trouble last time. They didn't set in time.
Plate.
You've got just three minutes.
Ah!
Absolutely to the wire.
Guys, you have 30 seconds.
That is finishing touches, please.
Please be set.
Yes.
Your time is up. Stop. Well done.
SHE EXHALES
You all right?
What a blast.
To secure one of the last four aprons,
oncology nurse Ngoneh has made spicy prawn pasta
in a creamy tomato sauce flavoured with Scotch bonnet chilli.
I think your sauce is too thick, but you have made very good pasta.
And for the second time in two dishes,
I love the flavour of your food.
Your use of chilli, it's lovely.
I like the way you work. You cooked all those prawns first.
You took them out of there,
and then right the last minute you put them back in again
so the prawns weren't hard at all, and they are perfectly cooked.
I'm happy with the plate I produced, so, yeah, it's just...
Depend on how well the others do as well.
SHE LAUGHS
Hotel supervisor Owen has made paprika, cumin and coriander
spiced pan-fried neck of lamb topped with pak choi and tomatoes,
served with turmeric rice,
tomato and onion salsa and buttered potatoes.
Your rice is lovely. It's lovely and free flowing.
Get that flavour of star anise running through it, that aniseed richness, that's good.
Your potatoes are nice and soft with the butter on the outside.
Your lamb, because you have cut it so small, that's dry and tough.
I like this salsa. It is quite hot with the onion.
I do like the flavour on the lamb. I like the spice.
I like the amount of chilli in it. Well done.
Mixed emotions. I'm proud that I managed to get everything on a plate
and we'll see what happens next.
Video game producer Jozsef's dish
is a porcini and chanterelle mushroom vegetable ragu
served with polenta and fresh goat's cheese.
Your polenta's cooked quite nicely.
I like the flavour that you have in your ragu,
but I think you're wasting the chanterelle in there.
They're only a texture. Porcini's big and peppery.
They can't survive against the porcini.
That polenta should be flavoured more.
It's really bland because your ragu,
I love the flavour of the porcini, it's like a beef stew with onions,
but those chanterelles have been lost completely.
The meal didn't turn out quite as well as I had hoped for.
Polenta's something that I haven't quite made in a long, long time
so I was just kind of, like, rolling with it and hoping for the best.
Classroom assistant Michelle has made garlic king prawns
with chorizo topped with a red pepper pine nut and Parmesan pesto,
served on a garlic and parsley flatbread
and a yoghurt and chive dipping sauce on the side.
The prawns themselves are cooked nicely.
Your yoghurt mixture is a nice little sharp bite
that goes quite nicely with the prawns.
You know how to make flatbread.
But this pesto thing, I don't get at all.
And it's really, really, really thick. Almost like a paste.
Yeah.
It could have went better, obviously but...I done my best.
Receptionist Hannah's dish is ras el hanout spiced aubergine
and pan-fried cauliflower
with sumac spiced tomato ragu
accompanied by a yoghurt and dill sauce and flatbread.
You got a nice ras el hanout spice mix across the top of the aubergine.
It's herby around the outside with that oil.
You most certainly got chilli in there and quite a bit of cumin.
I like your flavours.
We need texture.
This flatbread, it isn't cooked. You can taste the flour in it.
Your aubergine's cooked really, really nicely. Lovely and soft.
I'd like more of them. The cauliflower cooked well.
That's great. The work you put in here I appreciate
but those flatbreads aren't cooked enough. Yeah.
Wasn't, like, that many mistakes.
I mean, obviously, like, raw bread, but I made that in three minutes.
So what do they want?
Finally, it's medical secretary Linda who's made a toffee fondant
served with custard.
Oh, look at that.
There's a crust around the outside
and in the centre there is a hollow spot where all the sauces oozed out.
Linda - ace, good on you. Thanks, John.
Freezing the toffee so it will go inside your sponge
so it oozes when it's cooked, how clever is that?
Not only that, that is perfect. Thank you.
Oh, my God, that's, like, the best thing anybody's said to me ever.
Oh, I can't believe it.
Wow.
Not a bad round, but not the most brilliant round we've seen
in the competition so far.
We have one absolutely standout superstar cook
in this kitchen right now and that is Linda with her pudding.
Absolutely lovely. Her toffee fondant.
Linda's got herself an apron.
Ngoneh knows how to flavour food.
I would like to see Ngoneh go further in the competition,
I really would. I absolutely, totally agree with you.
Linda and Ngoneh have got themselves an apron.
We've got a discussion between the other four.
Owen's rice, really nicely done.
He can make a decent salsa.
The issue was the lamb was slightly dry and tough.
It's not perfect, but actually I found quite a bit to admire
on Owen's plate.
Hannah cooked for us pan-fried cauliflower,
which was nice and soft. The problem I had was the ragu.
It was quite mushy.
The only texture I had in the bowl was a flatbread.
And the flatbread wasn't cooked.
Michelle actually knew how to make flatbread and that was decent.
The prawns as well, nicely done.
What spoilt it for me was that pesto.
Far too thick, far too dry.
Jozsef and his mushroom ragu with polenta.
That polenta mixture was bland. Putting chanterelles,
which are a really mild mushroom, with a porcini,
which is a really strong mushroom, is a problem.
All the mistakes that I made,
like, I know I can do better, but it was loads tougher
than I thought it was going to be.
I do hope I do manage to grab an apron.
But I'll just have to just see how things work out.
I'm not really hopeful at the moment but...did my best.
I would love just to show that I can do more.
I haven't really proved myself so if I don't get an apron
it's my own fault. So, yeah.
Thank you very much for all your hard work.
We have made a decision.
There was one absolute standout, fantastic cook
in this kitchen today. And our first apron...
..is going to Linda. Thank you.
That was a good bit of work, that, my friend. Thank you.
The second person getting an apron is
Ngoneh.
Thank you. Your food tastes good. Thank you.
Well done.
The person getting the third apron is...
It's Owen.
HE GASPS
Congratulations. FAINT:I can't believe it.
The person getting the fourth and final MasterChef apron is...
..Michelle.
SHE MOUTHS
Well done. Congratulations. Thank you so much.
Hannah, Jozsef - I'm sorry, you're leaving us.
I'm going to look back on this experience with a lot of fondness.
I had a good time. Like, even if I didn't get an apron,
that still feels pretty good.
MasterChef will have a great place in my heart.
And I think, ultimately, it's just going to be a good story to tell.
Congratulations. Come and get your aprons.
INDISTINCT CHATTER
Never would have imagined it.
Got an apron!
SHE LAUGHS
I just want to make my girls proud and, of course, my dad.
So, yeah. Buzzing.
I'm really overjoyed. Ecstatic. Really.
I want to run round shouting in the street.
SHE LAUGHS
Mission accomplished.
So now I have to believe in myself and do more Gambian cooking.
SHE LAUGHS
Next time, this week's best cooks
return to face two more demanding challenges...
HOARSLY:Ha-ha-uh!
SHE EXHALES
This is totally restaurant-level.
..as they fight for a place in the quarterfinal.
Oh, my God. That's your fault!