Episode 3 MasterChef

It's the first MasterChef quarterfinal.

And this week's best amateurs are back

to face two more daunting tests.

'I'm just absolutely thrilled.'

It takes me one stage further to where I want to be,

which is terrific.

'I'm not scared of them.'

The fact that I'm against three male contestants,

I'm going to push myself harder.

'You jump on that roller coaster and just keep hanging on,'

riding it until it's either your time to come off,

or until it finishes and you lift the trophy.

'This happens once in a lifetime.'

So, you have to take it. Just grab it and run away with it.

MasterChef quarterfinal, we step it up, it starts to get bigger.

Tough day for our four, because at the end of this,

two more are going home.

This is the palate and skills test.

And this has become one of my favourite bits of the competition.

What dish are you making?

Today I'm cooking a jungle curry of guinea fowl

-and a coconut and lime rice.

-What's a jungle curry?

Jungle curry comes from the north of Thailand

and jungle curry doesn't have any coconut milk.

Don't let me stop you. Off you go.

So, skill number one, obviously, can they joint this bird?

That's it.

The difficulty will be, if they cook the breast meat off the bone,

the breast meat will be really dry.

The curry paste is made up of chillies, shallots, garlic,

shrimp paste, dried shrimps,

palm sugar, fresh turmeric and galangal.

They're going to have to have a very grown-up palate to identify these.

Unless they get this paste full of flavour,

then the curry is going to just taste of water.

And already, you can smell the fragrance of it.

Whoa, that is great.

In goes your bird, skin side down, in the oil.

Saltiness from fish sauce.

Sweetness from Chinese wine.

Next, some rice.

And I think rice is a great test of skill,

because so many people get rice wrong.

You can't get rice wrong.

The coconut rice is made with a small amount

of the thickest part of the coconut milk.

So, the rice onto the heat.

Never lift that lid.

All the water is gone.

Disappeared. Evaporated.

-There you go.

-Well done.

The flavours in this curry are immense. Absolutely immense.

As a test of skill and palate,

it's right up there amongst the toughest you've done.

Bring them in.

I've cooked you a dish.

Taste that dish and write down what you think is in it.

Ten minutes.

Off you go.

-HE SIGHS

-I don't do Asian.

It's not me. It's not Mediterranean, is it?

'I knew I'd find this quite a challenge.'

This is what I was worried about, definitely.

There's so much going on in there.

I've never cooked food like that before.

I'll give it me best.

Ladies and gentlemen, one hour, 15 minutes, let's cook.

The ingredients have been separated onto four trays.

The protein tray contains a guinea fowl and a duck.

The others are for the paste, garnishes and rice.

One thing I'm really pleased about, they've all gone for guinea fowl.

Holly is a young cook who you've

identified as having a very good palate.

Now, with that great palate, she should be able to dissect this dish.

Can she be creative?

I think with John and Gregg, I've previously picked up,

I might be lacking in technique with me being only 22.

I just need to prove to them that my age doesn't mean a thing, but

I can be just as good as the other contestants who are older than me.

Holly, what do you think the differences are going to

-be between yours and John's?

-John's meat has got the bone in.

I didn't choose to have the bone in mine, just because I didn't

want to make a massive mess of it when I was butchering.

Only Holly and Dani are making a paste.

15 minutes have gone. You've got a whole hour left.

Dani looks like he's got what it

takes to go a long way on MasterChef.

I like this. You're going from your bowl to John's bowl,

-your bowl to John's bowl...

-I'm not comfortable with Asian at all.

-But I'm getting somewhere. It's eat-able.

-Edible.

-Edible, sorry.

You can tell I lived in Spain, went to Spanish school.

There is other ways of cooking out there, isn't there?

It's not all Mediterranean.

I've got a good palate with the stuff I use.

Have I got a good palate with stuff I've not used?

He's really impressed me. He's smelling, he's tasting.

He's intrigued by it. Really good. That's what you want someone to be.

It's a bit early to start cooking the rice, but not for Greg.

Greg, he comes up with some fantastic dishes.

He also makes silly mistakes. He overcooks things. He burns things.

He has to focus if he wants to recreate your dish. Focus!

I like to think I've got a good palate.

I'll probably go and really mess up if it's a taste test.

Your sauce looks a little thin.

Hindsight, already, I would have done a few different things.

Made a paste first, use that as the base of the sauce.

On that tray, it says "ingredients for paste". It does.

I didn't see that until I'd already started cooking.

-So what have you got left to do now?

-Just literally waiting for the sauce

just to reduce a fraction and then I'm ready to plate up.

-So you're pretty much done.

-I am.

With 35 minutes left, Greg says he's finished.

He's finished with rice which is glubby

and a sauce which he knows is too thin.

If you know something's wrong, why not try and make it right?

You have 35 minutes left.

Robert is a cook with lots of knowledge, John.

He is very flamboyant.

I'm not sure how he's going to react

to having to cook somebody else's food.

I respect the judges enormously and I take on board their comments,

but what I'm trying to do is give the food my personality.

If at the end that means I go down in flames, then I go down in flames.

-Are we happy?

-Ish.

A little bit too sweet, so I'm hoping that's going to

disappear with the balance of other flavours.

Nice smells in the room.

Not necessarily the correct ones, but some nice smells.

Just lost half my sauce.

Oh, no! Don't panic now.

You've got five minutes left.

-It's too salty.

-This sauce is the best.

-Urgh!

That's too salty. It's too salty.

There's not a lot happening over here!

Everyone knows how to cook rice. Have you seen that?

-It's like rice disaster... Disaster rice.

-It's like rice pudding.

I don't know why I'm grinning. I've got to eat it in a minute!

Last 60 seconds.

That's it, I'm afraid. Your time is up.

As far as skill's concerned, we want to see three skills.

If you can joint a piece of poultry,

could you make a paste for a curry, and can you cook rice?

They're the three skills.

Can we start with Holly?

It's quite sticky and very pungent from all those dried shrimps.

The sauce is just coating your meat. Tastes OK.

The rice is too heavy and too thick.

But your curry is very pleasant. Guinea fowl is cooked really nicely.

It wasn't on the bone, I thought it might dry out, it hasn't.

I don't know why you look so scared because that's not bad at all.

I wasn't too bad picking out the flavours, but I hate rice.

I never cook it at home and I never eat it at restaurants.

I just don't like it.

Robert?

I like all the veg you've got in your curry.

I like the heat from the chilli you've got in there.

I like the saltiness. However, your sauce is too sweet.

You should have made a paste, you didn't.

Your rice is overcooked, it's split. It's nothing like my dish.

But I quite like the richness of it.

I screwed up lots of things,

but I ended up with a dish that they quite liked.

In fact, if I'd gone out to a restaurant

and been served what I cooked, I wouldn't have been disappointed.

Dani.

-What the hecky-decky is this? And it's not cooked, is it?

-No.

-Look at it.

-It's al dente complete-o!

-No, no.

Al dente is a word that should never appear with the word "rice".

I like the fiery spiciness on the back of my throat from your curry.

Your meat's cooked well, but the sauce is a little bit too salty.

That guinea fowl is cooked brilliantly. Absolutely brilliantly.

Well done.

I should be able to cook rice by now. But I did OK.

Greg.

You didn't even think about making a paste.

Now I've got salty water, flavoured with a few bits of chilli

and a little bit of sugar.

Your rice is overcooked. I'm disappointed in this,

-I've got to say.

-OK.

With 35 minutes to go, you said you were pretty much done,

but you didn't like it.

Pick yourself up and fight. We will appreciate the effort.

Don't give in.

I can't give up. I want it too much now. I'll just give it my best.

That's all I can do.

Well, that's over. Palate and skills test done.

We're in the quarterfinals of MasterChef,

-we should know how to cook rice!

-I hate rice!

Now, for these four, one more test before we decide who stays

and who goes.

To give them a taste of what lies ahead, we've asked restaurant

critic William Sitwell to come in and taste with us.

Now, William's not the sort of man you want to present shoddy food to.

Tell you what, if they cook rice for the next round, like that,

they're definitely out.

I've been a food critic for about 12-15 years,

but I'd be lying if I said that food was in my genes.

My family were writers and poets, scratching around,

trying to find a good meal.

I think the critic needs to be someone who the audience can

empathise with, who they believe and they trust.

I'm here to serve the people

because there's such a plethora of places out there.

If you haven't got oodles of money, you don't

want to waste an evening or a lunch on a place that's not good enough.

And so if I can try and shine a light on the wonderful

things in food, that's what makes me happy to wake up in the morning.

You have 80 minutes to make one exceptional dish.

Ladies and gentlemen, good luck.

Let's cook.

-What is it you're making?

-Some venison loin.

I'm baking it with truffle oil.

Making a parsnip puree, crispy kale with flaked almonds,

and a pomegranate reduction.

We think you've got a good palate, we think you're a good cook,

but do you have the skill to be able to fight your way through MasterChef?

I'm a fast learner. I think that comes with being quite young.

I've got sort of a fresh head on me.

Yeah, I'm hoping that will get me through.

I've seen Holly cook successfully with daring flavour combinations before.

But venison, parsnip and pomegranate

is a very difficult combination to balance.

I've practised it so many times,

nothing can particularly go wrong today.

Greg, what are you making for us?

To hopefully try and stay in this competition,

I'm doing black and white lobster ravioli

in a pink lobster sauce with white truffle oil.

It sounds lovely to me, Greg.

I let myself down in the last round so if I'm going out,

I'm going out on a bang.

Greg has an opportunity to do something really exciting here.

Because he has two lobsters, some truffle oil and squid ink.

Now if he can't make a great dish out of those,

he doesn't belong on MasterChef.

I've made the lobster sauce twice.

I've made ravioli once.

I've never cooked it all in its entirety.

40 minutes gone. You're halfway.

Right, what are you making for us?

Lamb cutlets with a Rioja and port jus,

celeriac puree and green pepper Padrons.

Mostly all the ingredients I'm using are Spanish.

Why the obsession with all things Spanish?

Because I lived there for 23 years.

Every dish I've done, it's had a part of Spain in it.

It's done me justice. Hopefully it'll do the same in this one.

It's all getting rather technical from you, Robert.

I'm doing a variation of something called a hotchpotch

which comes from a recipe from 1913 that I found in an old recipe book.

Basically, the original recipe was lamb cooked in a mutton stock

with lots of root vegetables and pearl barley.

I mean, it's really more of a restaurant version of that dish.

Where's the flamboyancy in this dish?

It's got vibrancy there

and hopefully a bit of showmanship in the presentation.

Robert seems very, very confident in his own dish.

He's got really interesting techniques

because he's poaching his lamb.

He's vacuum sealing some of his vegetables.

He's got all sorts of techniques going on

and that's really interesting.

All the great chefs have a personality in their cooking.

I want to have a distinctive personality about my food

and hopefully that becomes memorable.

I want it to sing like a choir.

It may end up being a cacophony, we'll find out!

I want to see simple food that just looks and taste good.

I don't like too many things put on a rectangular plate.

Plates need to be round and white.

15 minutes left.

-Is that your first lot of ravioli?

-Yeah.

-And you've only got 15 minutes left?

-Yeah.

Disaster.

Just ten minutes left.

I've had enough.

You have got three minutes.

Time's up, stop.

GREG SIGHS DEEPLY

We are bringing in a guest to help us taste.

Someone who strikes fear in the hearts

of the best chefs in the country.

(Oh, no.)

The food critic, William Sitwell.

-A very serious look on your face, William.

-Well, I'm hungry.

-Good.

Holly has cooked loin of venison,

served on crispy kale with parsnip puree

and a pomegranate reduction.

I think the way that you've decorated it looks quite professional.

But I see a lot of square plates in restaurants

and rectangular plates and it does get to me, but anyway...

I think your use of pomegranate is very original

and I've not seen pomegranate matched with venison.

-And it's quite a pretty idea but the venison is overcooked.

-OK.

That's a shame.

-Even though you've cut it nicely, that, to me, is a bit tragic.

-OK.

I like the crunch on the kale and the iron flavour it gives,

I like the sweetness of your pomegranate sauce and your parsnip puree.

-However, that venison is overcooked, Holly, I'm awfully sorry.

-OK.

The venison is overdone,

but what I'm really pleased about is your ability to get flavours right.

Because you got fresh pomegranate, you squeezed it,

which just brings the palate alive.

I think it's a very, very tasty thing.

'Getting comments from a food critic is pretty scary.'

At least he said some good things and didn't absolutely rip me apart.

Dani is serving lamb cutlets on celeriac puree

and garlic spinach with baby carrots

and Spanish Padron peppers,

asparagus on a red pepper swipe

and a Rioja and port reduction.

I think that's a really, really great plate of food.

You know how to cook your meat.

You've kept the cutlets pink and they are very delicate.

Your gravy is the most extraordinarily intense,

deep, rich creation.

I've never had pimentos de Padron with cutlets.

I think that's really clever.

The only thing I would caution you about is this completely pointless,

reckless smear which smacks of amateurism

and makes me almost want to throw the plate at you,

not just the fact that it's rectangular, which we'll forgive.

I wish one day I could see a round plate of food.

But if I was sitting in a restaurant or a gastropub

and I got fed this, I'd be very happy.

Wow.

I love it for lots of different reasons. Really, really good.

At this stage of the competition, Dani, good job.

For a restaurant critic to say that he would be happy

with my food in a restaurant is a pretty good feeling, innit?

He'd pay 20-odd quid for that and he wouldn't send it back!

Greg has made black and white lobster ravioli

with cream lobster sauce and white truffle oil.

Only the fact that I'm supposed to eat this made me eat that

because appearance-wise,

I wanted to run in the opposite direction quite fast.

And I suppose the tragedy of this is that the flavour

is as terrible as the appearance.

The pasta is too rubbery.

I'm not getting a really powerful feeling of lobster.

The sauce is OK but if I ordered this in a restaurant,

I'd be very disappointed.

It's a disaster.

With 15 minutes to go you went into panic mode

and this is why this dish looks as rough as it does.

However, I'm really sorry, William,

but I don't agree with you on the flavour of your dish.

I get some really nice heady truffle oil, and the sweetness of lobster.

I don't like the texture of it because the pasta's too thick.

What we've got is a dish which you've been overambitious with

and at this stage in the competition, you don't have the skill.

Yup.

'It wasn't the best.'

It was one of the worst dishes I've ever produced.

Finally, it's Robert's hotchpotch.

Poached cannon of lamb on a pearl barley risotto

with seven individually cooked root vegetables,

a Parmesan crisp and a red wine jus.

You've used a round plate.

-I've used a round plate.

-Amazing!

Congratulations.

There are some dishes that are historical and that's great,

but some dishes should be left in history.

I'm not sure that your reinvention is really bringing this dish alive.

The component parts are fine,

but it's too disparate and it just leaves me cold.

I was afraid it was going to be a bit dry and it is a bit dry.

Saying that, there's little things in there which sing to me.

Your pearl barley is nutty and that, with that lamb, is really good.

I can still see the cook that I know you are.

I can't agree with Will completely, put it that way.

I think you've cooked everything on here really, really well.

'I've enjoyed every bit of this.'

I even enjoyed being mauled by the critic.

That's part of what it's all about.

Obviously, I'm disappointed that I got mauled

but you know, he's a food critic, that's what he does.

Thank you for bringing your expertise to the table. It was very insightful.

Take care, William.

Our four must be exhausted.

Two really tough tests, but you know,

it's been an extraordinary heat week and this is it.

This is where it really counts because two of them

are going to go through to the next round.

Greg, already behind, actually didn't recover.

And his was the worst dish in the room.

We didn't like it, Will didn't like it

and I think Greg knows already that his time on MasterChef is over.

It was awful, absolutely awful.

There is somebody in here, Gregg,

-who just goes straight through to the next round.

-Dani.

Yeah, absolutely. He's interesting,

he's exciting, he's making good food.

That lamb dish, I liked it, you liked it.

William actually said it was good enough to be served in a restaurant.

Now that's praise indeed.

If I got through, I don't think I'd be serving pints any more.

Hopefully I'd be serving gourmet food.

This is now between flamboyant Robert and good palate Holly.

What I do like about Holly is her conviction. She sticks to her guns.

That pomegranate, both of us thought, whoa, is that going to work?

And it did work.

Her jungle curry was really quite tasty.

But we all agreed, you, me and William,

that she'd really overcooked her venison.

I really don't want to go home.

I want to prove that I can actually make a perfect dish.

Robert, we know, has got experience. We know he's got knowledge.

His lamb was cooked well. His pearl barley was cooked well. So were all those root vegetables.

He's playing with fire and he gets it wrong sometimes

but when he gets it right, he gets it really right.

It's lap of the gods.

They both have strengths and they both have weaknesses.

Who do we take the risk on?

Two of you will be going through to the next round.

Two of you, unfortunately, will be leaving the competition.

The first person going through

is Dani.

The second person going through...

..is Robert.

'I know I can cook better than that.

'I've let myself down but I'm fine with that. I was a quarterfinalist.'

'I'm not particularly surprised. I know I messed up with my venison.'

I'll definitely look back on MasterChef as a massive experience.

I'm just really, really pleased, really, really chuffed about it.

I've just got to improve what I'm doing,

keep working at what I'm doing and let's see what happens next.

I never thought I was going to get this far.

I'm doing something right, so, you know what, yeah, I can go further.

Bring it on. Yeah, I'll be ready, ready and fighting.

Next week, another 12 hopefuls will fight it out

for a place in the quarterfinals.

That is knocking on the door of delicious.

I think it's a really good dessert, like really good.

-Eurgh!

-You're joking?