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.

Delicious. It's dreamy.

Giovanna, Lorna and Imran stood out.

Now the remaining seven get the chance to prove

they can compete with the best.

Let's hope this lot are as good as the first lot.

We've seen the first group cook.

They cooked really well. The standard is very high.

Your chance now to show what you can do and prove

that you are good enough to stay in this competition.

Your job is to cook for us one plate of food inspired by your childhood

or a family favourite,

because at the end of this,

at least two contestants will be leaving the competition.

Ladies and gentlemen, 90 minutes.

Let's cook.

Saliha has demonstrated she can do a huge amount

in a short period of time.

Her food is both inventive and classic.

We like her, John.

I just hope that what I make stands out

and makes my skill as well as my palate shine through.

Fingers crossed!

Saliha, what are you going to make for us?

So I've deboned a poussin, and I'm stuffing it with French bread,

which has been seasoned with lots of lovely herbs and spices,

and I'm serving that with warmed honeyed grapes,

and a Kashmiri almond and plum sauce.

Tell me, why this dish?

I had to pay homage to my very inventive grandma,

who used to cook meat with fruit.

So the combination of meat and fruit is a really big deal in our family.

And I know some people can be a bit 50-50 about it,

but I think it works really well.

I'm looking forward to your food. I've really loved your food so far.

How much are you into this competition by now?

I'm pretty desperate, I have to say.

My husband says that I wake up in the night and I said to him,

"I really, really want to do well in MasterChef,"

and fell back asleep again!

I'm frightened about grapes and poussin.

I'm not at all concerned by the grapes.

I think the grapes may be a lovely accompaniment to it.

As long as she gets the cooking absolutely right,

then her very inventive grandmother will be very proud of her.

When Brodie first walked into the MasterChef kitchen,

he cooked a kidney curry, which divided you and I.

I liked it, you didn't.

However, as the competition's gone on,

I'm really impressed with Brodie.

To still be in the competition, you realise it's a real opportunity.

I want to crack on and try and get to the semifinals.

What's the dish you're cooking, Brodie?

So, I'm cooking roast partridge with a bramble-and-port sauce,

a haggis Scotch egg

and some game chips.

This dish inspired by what, Brodie?

So growing up in the countryside in Scotland,

there were always game birds kicking around the house,

so we always used to eat them.

So food that you've had in and around your home

-since you were little.

-Yeah, exactly.

-Fine.

So you should know these ingredients extremely well.

I certainly hope so!

I'm quite excited about Brodie's.

I think it sounds good.

The big thing is that sauce.

Brambles and port and mushrooms together can be really,

really sweet with that piece of partridge.

If he's got something sharp with that dish, it'll work.

15 minutes have gone.

15 minutes gone.

Sometimes you can spot the star cooks right at the beginning, John,

and so it proved with Alison.

And as she's gone on, we've seen food that makes you and I smile

from Alison.

Practising for this challenge,

I was very aware that I had to sort of push myself.

So, yeah, I'm not ready to go home yet!

Alison, what are you going to cook for us?

It's a dish inspired by open crab sandwiches.

This is something we used to eat a lot down the west of Ireland

growing up. It's probably one of my favourite things to eat

-in the whole world.

-Well, by the looks of it, it's not just going

-to be an open crab sandwich.

-It's not, no.

So I'm going to dress the crab in a home-made mayonnaise,

with some chives. I'm going to use some of the crab then

to make some crab cakes.

I'm going to make a cracker using a soda bread recipe.

I'm going to add some black pudding to that.

And I'm pickling some dulse, some Irish seaweed,

and I'm going to be making a Marie Rose sauce and a pea puree.

And are you going to have this all done by tomorrow lunchtime?

Because it seems really ambitious!

All about west of Ireland, by the sea, in a pub,

open crab sandwiches.

-And where's the pint?

-There's no tap here, so I wouldn't dare

serve you a pint out of a can, so...

I love that.

The skill for Alison, I think, is twofold.

One, getting it all done and, B, making it look beautiful.

Jamie works in wine and, because of that,

you would expect him to have a very good palate, and so it's proven.

John, that is good classic knowledge.

One of the things my mum used to do every week was carrots and parsnips,

sort of all mashed together, and I love parsnips.

I think they're a fantastic ingredient, so I thought,

"Yeah, I really want to try and bring them to life in a dish."

-What are you making?

-I'm doing some roasted breast of guinea fowl with

some braised leg, parsnips three ways -

puree, a roasted parsnip and a crisp.

I have got a prune gel on the plate as well.

I don't think there's anything out of the ordinary with this dish,

in terms of doing something weird or wonderful.

Where do the oranges come in?

The orange is just going to flavour the sauce.

So you've got an orange-and-marsala sauce, prunes and prune gels,

pine nuts and parsnips three ways...

-Um, yeah...

-..and there's nothing unusual about it, Jamie?

Possibly not. I like this dish. I really enjoy it.

Jamie starts off with a classic dish, which sounds really lovely,

but he adds something modern to it.

If he pulls it off, I'll be very, very happy indeed.

Faye just takes a couple of ingredients and makes them sing

and makes them dance on the palate.

I grew up on a dairy farm.

When I was a child, we had roast beef every Sunday.

After foot-and-mouth,

it put an entirely new spin on what we ate,

because it should be appreciated a lot more.

So now it's something that's got to be pretty nice and pretty special.

Faye, what are you cooking for us?

It is sirloin of beef served on a mushroom puree

with some pickled veg, some kale and a nice sauce

and some parsnip croquettes.

What do you mean by "a nice sauce"?

I don't really know because I don't really know terminology of...

-it's a "this" or it's a "that".

-Just try what's in it.

-What it's made with?

-It's got celery, onions, carrots, wine, port,

stock and a little bit of chorizo in there.

Big lump of sirloin. You happy?

-You know me and beef, mate.

-I'm happy.

Thank you.

The issue for me right now from Faye is that piece of beef.

In a water bath? I hope that beef is cooked properly.

I really hope she takes it out the water bath

and puts it in a pan with some heat for quite a bit of time.

30 minutes to go.

Half an hour to go, please.

Fumbi makes food that people want to eat.

John, he's made a good few desserts in this competition so far,

and every single one of them has been delicious.

I'm a simple guy.

I cook something and toss it on the plate.

So presentation's something that I want to improve on.

What are you cooking for us today, Fumbi?

My mum used to make a really lovely steak-and-kidney pie,

so I want to try and do something almost as good as she can.

And did your mum use orange juice and chorizo in her steak pie?

Er, no.

Well, that's my twist on it.

So what I'm actually doing, I'm doing a braised beef cheek,

a bit of a deconstructed pie, so it'll be topped with puff pastry.

And you know how all this is going to look on finished plate, do you?

I have an idea but, as you know, presentation isn't my strongest...

It's got to be presented well.

For me, a pie is a lovely load of meat with gravy,

encased in wonderful pastry.

But instead, he's doing a deconstructed beef pie.

I think that Lyndsay's got a huge amount of drive

and a huge amount of skill.

Her dishes, they can be slightly wild, John,

but I tell you what you won't get from her, and that is anything dull.

She's a very exciting cook.

One thing I've always thought about my cooking is I'm...

quite original so, hopefully, I can do myself justice.

-What are you going to cook for us?

-I'm going to do tiramisu.

It's actually not something I liked as a kid,

so I thought it would be something that would work quite well

with a reworking. It's going to be in a sphere,

so the bottom half is going to be the coffee parfait

and the top half of the sphere is going to be the sponge,

that I'm going to inject with espresso.

And I'm putting some meringue on top to make it sort of look like

an ice cream.

And I'm serving it in a sort of tempered chocolate bowl.

Wow! Lyndsay, it's properly ambitious.

-Good luck.

-Thank you.

Everybody in the room is cooking something that they loved

as a child, apart from Lyndsay, who's actually making a dessert

that she hated as a child.

A dessert which is going to be two half spheres joined together.

If it works, I'm going to be truly impressed.

This isn't helping, a blooming shaky hand, that's for sure.

Last ten minutes.

Oh, it's the wood!

I'm worried they won't like it.

You always have a crisis of confidence, like,

two minutes before you're serving your food.

Losing track of a few things a little bit, but that's OK.

Everything's gone to plan.

Yeah!

Time's up. Stop, please.

-How did it go?

-I don't know.

That's beautiful!

Saliha, could you bring your poussin up here, please?

Based on her grandmother's inventive pairings of meat and fruit,

Saliha has cooked a poussin stuffed with French baguette, coriander,

chilli and garam masala,

served with warmed honey-glazed grapes,

edible foil and a Kashmiri almond-and-plum chutney.

Ooh!

That gets hot, doesn't it?

-Yeah.

-Your poussin is cooked very, very well indeed.

The grape is a welcome juicy, sweet relief

to all the heat that's now building up on my palate.

-It's good.

-On one side of the plate,

I have the flavours of my grandmother's roast chicken.

Then, suddenly, in comes coriander and the heat of chilli,

which is sort of a bit of a surprise.

I'm intrigued by it.

I want to keep on eating it,

because it's not something, as a combination, I'm used to.

I'm happy that John was very positive

and intrigued by everything.

Intrigue is good, I think.

-Well done. Excellent.

-Thanks.

-They liked it.

-Thank you.

Brodie, up you come.

Brodie's dish is inspired by his family's love of game birds.

He's served roast partridge breast

with parsnip, sweet potato and beetroot chips,

a haggis Scotch egg, baby gem lettuce,

pickled brambles and a bramble-and-port sauce.

The stars of the show have to be that Scotch egg,

with the haggis around the outside, and your blackberry sauce.

The flavour of the partridge is fantastic.

I believe your brambles should be pickled more.

They're too sweet, and that is overpowering the rest of the dish.

I like it a lot.

That bramble port sauce is deep,

a little fatty, quite rightly.

I love your haggis Scotch egg,

cos it's lovely and peppery, and your egg yolk is soft and rich.

I think this is a lovely, lovely dish.

It's hard to know, really.

Gregg obviously thought it was really good.

John thought elements were really good.

So I feel ambivalent.

Alison, bring your crab up.

Inspired by beach holidays with her family,

Alison has cooked crab with a Marie Rose sauce,

and crab cakes, served with a soda bread and black pudding cracker,

pickled seaweed, and a cucumber-and-pea gazpacho.

Wahey!

-Love it.

-Oh, good.

Pea puree, crab cake, that's great.

But then amongst it, there's the sour sharpness

of the pickled seaweed, there's the creaminess of the Marie Rose sauce,

which is a bit more grown-up,

and it sort of goes from being very classic into something a little bit

more sophisticated. I really, really like it.

It's perfectly delicious.

I love your soda bread wafer.

You've got a wonderful eye, and you have a very, very good palate,

and that's a very, very successful dish.

I think my family would probably think I'm a bit mad

for turning a crab sandwich into whatever that was.

But I think they'd be impressed with how I sort of turned it

into my own thing.

Jamie, up you come.

Jamie's dish is in celebration of growing up

eating autumnal vegetables.

He's made roasted guinea fowl, served with parsnip three ways -

roasted, crisped and pureed -

with pancetta, toasted seeds, prune gel

and a marsala, orange and prune sauce.

I like it because it's a sweet dish.

Sweet parsnip, your sauce is marsala...that you've squeezed

a little bit of orange juice into it as well.

But you've got salty bits in those lardons.

I like it.

The unfortunate thing is your breast of guinea fowl is dry.

But the actual dish itself, as far as flavours are concerned,

I think is fantastic.

Wasn't perfect, it wasn't an absolute nail on the head,

but I think they liked the flavours.

Faye, piece of beef, please.

Dairy farmer's daughter Faye has cooked beef sirloin

on a bed of kale, and mushroom puree...

..parsnip-and-truffle croquettes,

pickled carrots, horseradish mayonnaise

and gravy.

Your croquettes are as light as a feather.

Your sauce is fruity and it's deep, and I love it.

Your beef is cooked perfectly.

It's delicious, Faye.

Cooked beautifully. For me, a really tasty plate of food.

It's delicious.

You can't ask for more than that.

I'm so pleased, so pleased.

Well done. Excellent.

-Well done!

-Excellent.

It's amazing.

Fumbi, up you come, please.

In homage to his mum's meat pies,

Fumbi has made a deconstructed beef cheek pie with a parsnip puree,

braised red cabbage, kale,

pickled carrots, crispy chorizo,

porcini and chestnut mushrooms, and a beef gravy.

Not quite for me, the scattering of things around the outside.

I'm not sure it works, this, visually.

I like your meaty sauce. I like your creamy, smooth puree.

Like the sweetness of the red cabbage.

I'm just not sure how they all live together on the same plate.

It seems like a mismatch of things to me.

I really like your vegetables.

Love the sour carrots, love the earthiness of your kale.

That's really good. I don't like the pie at all.

It's dry, it's not a pie, and that's a real shame.

I'm a bit disappointed.

I tried to step up the level a bit

and I maybe tried a little bit too hard.

It's all right. It's early days.

Lyndsay, up you come.

Lindsay has made her take on a tiramisu -

a sphere of mascarpone-and-coffee parfait

with a liquid-chocolate centre...

..and sweet sponge cake, infused with a coffee liqueur...

..topped with a soft meringue sitting inside a chocolate nest.

Inside, it's fantastic.

It's a lovely texture, it's a lovely flavour.

It does have the flavour of tiramisu.

It's really nicely made. It's really, really interesting.

It's a really good dessert.

It has that wonderful flavour of coffee and chocolate and cream.

It's delicious, and it's delightful to eat.

I was so worried about that one, because last time I practised it,

every element went wrong.

So I'm so glad that it all came together on the day

and that they really enjoyed it and that they got it as well.

So, yeah, yeah. Got to be happy with that.

-Well done.

-Well done.

-Oh, my God, I really was scared.

I can't believe it.

This first round in Knockout Week has been fantastic,

way beyond expectation, and thank you very much for that.

What we have to do now is make a decision, because of the 14,

at least two of you will be leaving the competition.

Thanks very much, and we'll see you soon.

I know.

-Hi, guys!

-Hey!

-Hiya!

How's everyone? How are you? How was it?

-Yeah, not bad.

-Good.

-Yeah.

Who's your star cook in this round?

I've got to say, I really like Lyndsay.

I think to deliver a tiramisu in such a different way...

I think shows real skill.

Faye, for me, the food tastes great.

She does flavour, and I love her food.

Alison's got to be a shoo-in.

Great plate of food, looked fantastic,

sort of thing you see on a modern menu,

and the sort of thing you want to eat.

I thought Brodie's dish was stunning.

To have that sweet sauce going with that lovely partridge,

I thought it was delicious.

Saliha is really, really intriguing and doesn't make a mistake.

Her food is really good.

I liked Jamie's dish.

I thought his presentation was stunning.

So now we know ten who we're going to put straight through

to the next round.

In the first round, we had Steve, Lorna, Giovanna and Imran.

And in this round, we've got Brodie, Lyndsay, Alison, Jamie,

Saliha and Faye.

That means that we've got four left over.

Fumbi attempted a deconstructed pie.

The meat was dry, and it wasn't a pie in any way, shape nor form.

However, when I put Fumbi's good sauce onto the meat, it tasted good.

I've come much further than I honestly expected I would,

but the further you go, the more you want it.

Leanne had some good flavours,

but one of those cutlets was so undercooked it was inedible.

If you can't eat the food, then you shouldn't be serving it.

I'd be really sad to leave, but I know that there's really good cooks

out there and I feel like I can still hold my head up high

with my previous performance.

Shauna attempted so many things.

There were things on there that were not right at all, like a raw egg.

But I liked her bacon.

We loved her bread.

I just think, if I can get one more chance,

I will push myself to the limit.

Lindsey made us a beef cheek pie.

The truffle sauce was very, very good,

but you and I just found there was far too much salt

in both the pie and the bone marrow. When there's far too much salt

it's inedible. That's a problem.

I hope I get to go through.

I've still got loads more cooking that I want to show John and Gregg.

We've got ourselves four people, and we're going to lose two of them.

Who stays and who goes?

Fantastic start to Knockout Week.

Incredible standard of cooking.

As we said...

..two of you will be leaving the competition.

From the first round, there were four cooks

who we thought were outstanding.

They are...

..Steve...

..Giovanna...

..Imran...

and Lorna.

Could you step over there, guys, please?

From the second round...

the cooks are...

..Saliha...

Oh, yes.

..Faye...

Alison...

..Jamie...

..Brodie...

and Lyndsay.

Guys, congratulations.

Good luck.

That was a bit...

The two people leaving us are...

..Leanne...

..and Lindsey.

Sorry, ladies.

Nobody wants to leave.

But there's no going back, so I've just got to look forward,

and I'm just pleased with achieving what I have done.

I didn't think I was going to get this far, so I'm really proud.

I'm not sure if I'm ever going to cook lamb again.

But apart from that, you know, I'm really pleased.

Congratulations, each and every one of you,

I think a truly remarkable dozen.

-Well done.

-Well done.

That really put me through the wringer a little bit.

I feel really emotional, to be honest.

But I'm really pleased, really pleased.

Well done.

Huge relief. I think I just really want it now,

at least to stay in the competition.

But it's happy tears, very much so.

Couldn't be happier, and I'm just, like, final 12!

Think it's a really good achievement, so I'm delighted.

Relax!

Next time, the contestants are split into two groups, and six of them...

-How long?

-30 seconds, Chef.

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

-Did I say pour from a pan?

-No, you didn't, Chef.

-I didn't.

-I said use a spoon, didn't I?

-Yes.

..before having to impress one of the industry's

most respected chefs.

I've got to take my hat off to you. You've gone for it.