Episode 14 MasterChef

It's knockout week on MasterChef.

And the best 14 cooks from the heats are back.

Seven have cooked their take on John and Gregg's special brief.

That, to me, is a beefy triumph.

Jack and Pedro stood out.

Now, the remaining seven get the chance to prove

they can compete with the best.

Let's see if they're as good... Let's see if they can be better.

Welcome.

We've seen the Red Aprons cook and I have to tell you,

their food was very exciting indeed.

Your job, to cook for us one dish inspired by a family

favourite or the food of your childhood.

Three contestants will be leaving the competition.

Ladies and gentlemen, 90 minutes, let's cook.

Jen's dishes look good and they taste good.

She's a quality cook.

I learned to cook because my dad's a good cook

and a lot of my flavours that I like have been influenced by him.

It is really important to me that I do it right

because I definitely don't want to disappoint my father.

So I'm doing a roast dinner.

I've got a really great dad, who has cooked roast dinner for us

every Sunday, as long as I can remember.

Even though my brother and I don't live at home any more,

we still go round every Sunday to eat his dinner.

A roast dinner's a very comfy thing, but how smart can it be?

My dad's roast dinners generally have about nine veg,

Yorkshires, gravy, so I have had to refine it a lot.

I have plated it up a couple of times

and I think it looked really pretty.

She seems like she understands what she needs to do.

Capture all the textures and flavours of a roast dinner

and present it in a more stylish manner.

Natasha, a classic cook.

Whether it be a chocolate brownie with a bit of popcorn

of venison with some celeriac mash, her food is delicious.

She understands what tastes good.

Personally, it's really important that I get this right today.

I've worked really hard to get here, so I really want it to be spot on.

Natasha, you've got lamb with your lamb and some lamb on lamb.

-Are you doing the world of lamb?

-The world lamb, yeah. That's the title

-of the dish.

-Exactly.

My dad's favourite's lamb shanks, my mum's favourite's the rack of lamb.

My dish is fillet of lamb, Jerusalem artichoke puree, pea puree and um...

-Oh, burnt cabbage.

-What's burnt cabbage?

It's half a Savoy cabbage and then you burn the ends

and you just cook it in butter.

I'm surprised by this choice.

Very modern in thought, very modern in style.

There's no potatoes, there's something that she knows,

called a burnt cabbage.

That's the sort of thing that you would normally send back.

25 minutes gone.

So you've got an hour and five minutes.

I see Liz as a very technical cook. She cooks food with real style.

I absolutely need to ace today.

I don't want to be in the lower half of the cut.

What are you making for us, Liz?

I'm doing some fillet beef with a stew-inspired sauce

and some cabbage, pomme puree, carrots.

-I'm also doing a dumpling as well.

-And what's the inspiration

-for this dish?

-My mum wasn't a great cook.

I used to eat tomato sauce sandwiches and biscuits mostly.

Even though you didn't particularly like your mum's food growing up,

have you picked this dish because this is one of the dishes

she did do well?

Yeah, it's one of the three things that she could cook.

If Liz can take a steaming hot bowl of comfort food

and make it look sexy, mate, she's cracked it.

I love Juanita. She's delivered some of the best dishes I've

seen in the competition so far.

She is a great, great contender.

Juanita, what are you making for us?

So, this is a nod to my mum's childhood, as well as my own.

So she grew up in Malta with seven brothers and sisters and during the

summer, they used to go to the beach every day to catch octopus and crab.

When we were growing up and we'd have picnics and go crabbing

ourselves, Mum would pack a very basic picnic of bread,

olive oil and tomato sandwiches,

so I thought it would be quite interesting to try and take

those humble ingredients and try and make them a bit more restauranty.

You've got an idea of how this dish is going to look at the end,

-have you?

-I've drawn a picture, yeah.

We've got compressed tomato with horseradish and crab.

She's making a crispbread from rye, a crab tuile, and then she's

serving the whole lot with olive oil, encased in a capsule.

Is it actually going to result in something we want to eat?

I worry I'm trying to be a bit too wacky,

but it's too late now to change it.

50 minutes have gone, you've got 40 minutes left.

Stuart sprinted in this competition with a calling card that blew

you and I away.

He's got to keep on sprinting cos he's set his own benchmark

and his benchmark is way up there.

Talking to all the other contestants,

there's a lot of interesting sounding dishes I'm up against.

I need to be absolutely perfect with this, or else it's game over.

You're looking pretty happy with yourself, Stuart.

Yeah, I'm happy to be here today.

I'm making a pumpkin bavarois with baked apple puree

and oatmeal biscuit crumb. It's inspired a little bit by my nan.

When I was young, she used to cook me this like custard,

which was so thick, you could carve it.

We also had an apple tree in the garden,

so she used to make amazing apple crumbles.

It's not an apple crumble,

I'm not pretending it's an apple crumble, but it's inspired by the sort of flavours

and textures that I remember from that time in my childhood.

He wants the flavours of apple crumble,

but he also wants the flavours of pumpkin and cinnamon.

Wow! That could be quite exciting.

Billy is a risk taker, he's adventurous.

I think a duck curry pie illustrates the adventure of Billy.

Not sure whether I've improved yet. I still seem to be making

small mistakes.

Still adding a lot on the plate, still rushing around like a madman.

I don't think that's going to change. I think that's just me. I'm always going to be like that.

Whether I'm cooking here or I'm cooking at home.

-Billy, what's your dish?

-I'm doing a take on beef and oysters.

Pan-fried fillet steak with braised cheek in beer and honey.

Oyster beignet. Sea vegetables, samphire, sea purslane.

-What's inspired beef and oysters?

-That was with my nan.

I used to go and stay at her caravan every summer with my brother

and some friends and she was quite thrifty,

so that's where the ox cheek comes in, cos she used to do stews.

That's my doff my cap to her.

Then, oysters because it's something I love, my brother loves,

my dad loves. I'm hoping for a perfect dish.

I haven't given you guys a perfect dish yet.

Pretty nervous right now for Billy

because I'm not sure the world of the sea and the world of the

meadow go together quite as well as he thinks they do.

For me, Chris takes the humble ingredient

and makes it truly delicious.

I've done loads of savoury in the competition.

I've only done one dessert before,

so I thought it's time to show my dessert prowess.

Most of my friends probably think of me as a baker.

-Why this dish, Chris?

-When I was younger,

we had a blackberry hedge going on to the field in our garden,

so we used to make things like apple and blackberry pies.

So what we're doing today, apple and almond blondies with vanilla custard and blackberry sorbet.

-What's a blondie?

-It's kind of like a brownie, in what people would think of with

chocolate, but we're making it with apple puree, chunks of apple.

Confident with this dish. I think this is one of my best ones.

Chris's apple blondie sounds delightful to me.

Also, he's serving a little mini toffee apple as well

and we've got a sorbet going on. Lots of tricky things.

It's whether he can pull them all together into one elegant dessert.

You have five minutes left.

Five minutes.

90 seconds left, that's it. Come on, guys. Please.

That's it! Stop! Well done!

Well done.

Oh, that's pretty, isn't it?

-What's the green stuff.

-Is that pea?

-Oyster emulsion.

-That's amazing.

-Why is it green? What do you put in it?

-Parsley oil.

-That's beautiful.

Very nice.

Billy, up you come, please, sir.

Billy's combined two family favourites.

Cooking fillet steak with an oyster beignet, beer braised beef cheeks,

oyster emulsion, samphire, pickled shallots, and dauphinoise potatoes.

-I think it looks fantastic.

-Cheers, John.

I got immediately the salty flavour of oysters.

Then I cut into your cheek there, which is soft and rich

and it's like meat meets butter.

It's superb.

Cheers, Gregg.

This is a very, very grown-up dish.

It's strong, it's pungent, it's exciting, it's well cooked,

it's well presented. I absolutely love it.

Just absolutely blown away by what they thought.

I'm really, really happy, but yeah,

it all sinks in and pressure's on for the next round, if I get there.

-Well done.

-Better than I imagined.

-That's so amazing.

Jen, let's see your roast dinner, please.

Inspired by her dad's roast dinners,

Jen has cooked a chicken ballotine, with roast potatoes, roast

parsnips, parsnip puree, a cranberry sauce, and a chicken gravy.

You've served the roast potatoes as whole potatoes.

They're lovely things to eat, but they are big and clumpy,

-if you're trying to paint a picture.

-OK.

The roast chicken, the sausage meat, the cranberry,

feels like a Christmas dinner to me. Makes me happy.

-But I'm missing a little flavour. Is that a parsnip puree?

-It is.

It's so mellow, I wasn't even sure whether it was parsnip.

Just intensify the flavours

because you make good food that people want to eat.

I feel OK. I got some really useful feedback.

I know I can do it better, but it wasn't a disaster.

Based on her mum's beef stew, Liz has cooked a fillet of beef,

with pomme puree, dumplings,

baby turnips, roasted carrots,

shallots, cabbage and crispy bacon.

The beef, I just have to give it a couple of chews and it's melted.

Your sauce is good and rich with red wine.

What is the absolute treat on there is that mashed potato.

The rosemary flavour in there is a perfect,

perfect match to all the other flavours.

That's lovely, Liz.

I love the little herby dumpling, your beef was cooked really,

really well.

I like the cabbage. It's a very good dish. Back to your best.

I hope so, yeah.

-Well done.

-Thanks, Liz.

Thank you.

I'm thrilled. Really over the moon with the comments.

Today, I felt like I did myself justice,

so I'm really pleased about that.

Natasha has cooked pan-fried lamb fillet and lamb belly, with

burnt cabbage, Jerusalem artichoke

puree, pea puree, and a lamb sauce.

I'm not sure the pretty flowers work with the big chunk of cabbage.

I think you're stuck between two worlds here.

You want to go pretty and hearty. Not easy.

I want more of everything.

I want more Jerusalem artichoke puree,

I want more of the crackling cos the crackling is delicious.

The thing I want less of is burnt cabbage.

Burnt means one thing - it's burnt.

I love that crispy lamb belly. You can give me that all day long.

That is superbly done. I like the burnt bit on the cabbage.

I think it's going to be John's pet hate of the season.

I feel like I'm eating disparate parts and not one whole because

the one thing that would make it whole, that sauce, isn't big enough.

I am a bit frustrated. I think by trying to make it look

pretty, just put less on it and I shouldn't have.

I just feel a bit pants.

Juanita's dish is inspired by crabbing with her family.

She's cooked roasted glazed tomato, compressed tomato, stuffed with

crab, compressed cucumber,

a tomato mousse topped with crab,

horseradish cream, rye bread crisps, a crab tuile,

encapsulated olive oil, and a black pepper crumb.

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

It's a very daring thing to be doing. Cos it's very modern.

It's delicious.

Really delicious.

Every time you think you've got the dish in your head

and it's all worked out and there's crab and there's tomato and there's

pepper and there's bread, there's something else,

like a bit of sweet, salty cucumber, which tastes like the sea.

For me, it's a delicious, addictive, lovely, lovely thing.

I think you're a genius. I've never had so many different

and concentrated flavours of tomato, with crab as a background

and then pepper, I think is quite extraordinary.

I think you can only eat food like this at some extraordinary

kitchens around the world. I think that is absolutely genius.

-Congratulations.

-Cheers, thank you very much.

-Exceptional.

That is just the most awesome feedback ever.

Yeah, it's still sinking in. I feel a bit dizzy. Amazing.

Chris has cooked an apple

and almond blondie with apple crisp, toffee apple,

poached blackberries, a blackberry sorbet and a vanilla custard.

I really love that sorbet with the blackberries, which is

sharp and sweet, and the blackberry sauce, which is slightly sour.

And your toffee apples and your apple crisps.

What I don't like is I don't like the blondie.

-Right.

-I find it a bit stodgy, a bit sweet, and I find it a bit cakey.

I like the blondie. I was brought up with big, thick, sticky puddings.

I do however though think we've got no elegance

and I think the problem comes from a great big lump of blondie.

-There we are. Thank you very much.

-Thanks, Chris.

-Thank you.

I'm pretty gutted, to be honest. I was reasonably happy with my dish.

I kind of maybe get the point about the elegance,

but it was supposed to be a bit of a comfort dish, so pretty gutted.

Stuart has made his take on his nan's apple crumble and custard.

Spiced pumpkin bavarois, topped with sugar work, baked apple

puree, spiced oat biscuit, and caramelised pumpkin seeds.

That's stunningly good work. That, to me, is an elegant bowl of yum.

It's really, really good! It's got the flavours of Bonfire Night.

I love the oaty biscuit, which is spiced and sweet,

with the sweet caramel around your pumpkins.

Little bits of apple puree, which are soft but still sharp and lovely.

Your bavarois as soft as it likes. And just a hint of pumpkin.

Textures are great, the flavours are good. I like it a lot.

Slight sweetness of pumpkin, still quite earthy.

Oats, sweet apple, cinnamon. I mean, those things work.

They work brilliantly well.

That's you at your best. That's good!

I couldn't be happier, frankly.

Up until a week ago, I'd never made one of these before, so yeah,

happy man. Happy man.

Incredible. Absolutely incredible.

You don't need me to tell you that the

standard of cooking in this room was extraordinary.

As you know, the Red Aprons have cooked already

and they too had a very strong round.

Thank you very much indeed for making our decision really tough.

-Hi, guys.

-Hi.

They are amazing.

I was just absolutely blown away by some of the stuff on there.

Yeah, I think we've got some incredible talent

and we've got some exceptional talent.

Pedro and Jack, straight through from the first seven.

Exciting, well executed, and without fault.

Who goes straight through from this round?

Easy! Juanita,

and Billy.

-Agreed.

-That was easy.

-And Stuart.

They're outstanding. Restaurant quality.

Who's your next favourite?

I'd like to put Annie through to the next round.

You know I love my desserts,

but I've never had a dessert in a book before.

She's a great cook. She's a great cook.

I want to put a marker in the sand for Jacob. He really pushes himself.

He's interesting as a cook.

Oh, Liz! Liz with her deconstructed stew. That tasted good, really good.

We've put eight straight through.

That leaves us six cooks to talk about.

We're going to lose at least three of them.

From the Blues, we have Natasha, Chris, and Jen.

And then from the Red round, we've got Jane, Julie, and Mike.

Jane had a bit of a mare, I have to say.

Trout Scotch egg, the egg white wasn't cooked in the centre.

I'm really sad for her because I believe she's a brilliant cook.

If, by the skin of my teeth, I do get through, then it's a lesson learned.

The thing is with Julie, it's the same story all the way through,

and that's presentation. That pheasant breast was hacked to bits.

At the end of the day, I've done what I've done.

There's nothing I can do to change it now.

I just want to keep on going.

Mike's dessert was OK, however in a room full of good cooks,

I think Mike's effort looks dangerously ordinary.

I think I did enough, personally.

Whether it's enough for John and Gregg to put me through,

we'll have to wait and see.

Natasha with her lamb, there wasn't that much wrong with it,

except that it needed to taste more of Jerusalem artichokes,

more of peas, more of lamb.

What I didn't want more of was burnt cabbage.

I'm disappointed for me because I feel like I can do better.

It's really nerve-racking, waiting for them.

Jen is safe and solid, but she's not reaching yum.

She's not getting to delicious.

I don't think mine was a bad dish, by any means,

but it wasn't sensational and there have been sensational dishes.

Chris made us an apple blondie.

As much as I loved all the blackberry bits,

-I didn't like the blondie.

-I found Chris' dessert a little uninspiring.

I still like the dish, but what will be, will be, I suppose.

Who is falling behind? Who is not going to keep up the pace?

You are incredible cooks.

Stone the crows! Outstanding work!

We believe over the two rounds, there were five exceptional cooks.

Jack.

Pedro.

(Cheers.)

(Thank you.)

Juanita.

Billy.

And Stuart.

Congratulations, you five. Exceptional cooking.

You're going straight through. Well done.

There were three other cooks who really stood out from the crowd.

Those three cooks are

Annie,

Jacob,

and Liz.

Congratulations. Please join the other five.

The three people leaving us...

Chris,

Mike,

and Julie.

I'm sorry, guys. Thank you very much for your hard work.

It's been a memory that will go with me for ever and a day.

And it's made me challenge myself.

I'm gutted to be leaving. I thought I'd maybe done enough. So...

But clearly not.

At least I can go out, hold my head up high

and just say I've been part of this.

Just disheartened that I've got to go.

Great bunch of cooks! An amazing bunch of cooks! Well done!

Well done!

Just thrilled! Absolutely thrilled!

It is very exciting. It's also daunting.

And it's nerve-racking.

11 people left. It's just a great feeling.

Tomorrow night, the contestants are split into two groups

and five of them...

Oh, man!

..get their first taste of a professional kitchen...

It is just out of control!

..before having to impress one of the world's most respected chefs.

I can't fault it. I think it's fabulous.