Episode 19 MasterChef

The MasterChef semifinals continue.

Last night, DJ and drummer Lindsay was sent home.

Tonight, the competition steps up a gear,

with the final eight competing in teams of four...

Whoa!

Just trying to get this first lot of fish on.

-Come on, Steve.

-I've got to make this ASAP.

I think there'll be food out,

but it's going to come with a huge slice of panic.

..before one more cook will be sent home.

It's great to get this far, but I don't feel like I'm done yet.

It's getting so close to the final now,

you do start to get a bit of a taste for it

and you want to go further.

I'm nervous every single time I go into that kitchen.

Each time there is more at stake.

It's early morning,

and the contestants are heading out of London to face a challenge

which will push them to their limits...

..to the home of one of Britain's most popular

and successful television dramas.

MONITOR BEEPS

ALARM BEEPS

Charge to 20.

PADS WHINE

-Charged.

-Shock.

REGULAR BEEPING

She's back.

SIRENS WAIL

OK guys, nice and quiet, please.

And...action!

Good morning, and welcome to the operating theatre

here at Holby City.

This much-loved and long-running drama is now in its 19th series

and you, today, are going to prepare and cook lunch

for 120 of the cast and crew.

A big challenge, this.

So we're splitting you into two teams.

Faye, Giovanna, Brodie and Alison, you are one team.

The other team, Saliha, Jamie, Steve and Lorna.

And as you can see, I've decided to scrub up...

..ready for a proper operation

because, at the end of this,

Gregg and I will choose our favourite team.

The losing team are going straight back to the MasterChef kitchen

and they're going to have to fight it out

for their place in the competition.

There are large tents outside.

I suggest you go and find them.

It is a big feat. There's a lot of pressure.

To cook for the cast of Holby City, it's going to be pretty challenging.

I'm quite happy about cooking for large numbers.

I do quite large numbers at home.

I've got a massive family.

Not quite THAT big, obviously.

I will probably just do what I'm told,

a lot like university group work!

I'll make an appearance.

Each team has four hours' cooking time

to produce 60 main courses for the 120 cast and crew.

The blue team must create a dish using three whole halibut.

Halibut, which we can fillet and put into small pieces.

Cos sea vegetables need zero cooking time, as does samphire.

-So that's good.

-We could do a tomato-based sort of shrimp thing.

No, mate. I don't know.

The first idea with the halibut and sea vegetables was better.

The red team's challenge is to create a main from 30 whole ducks.

-I have an idea.

-OK, go on.

Roast the duck with a carrot and honey puree.

-Yeah, yeah.

-Would be nice.

I just think if we do a gratin, we can make a big batch.

It's got an hour in the oven, or whatever.

No, you're right. You're right.

-Yeah, you are right.

-And we can just spoon it.

Both teams will also have to make 15 vegetarian main courses.

I mean, you could do a pasta vegetarian.

I mean, I can do that.

If we make one, don't make lots.

-Yeah.

-Have we got a wheat-y brown flour?

Strong wholemeal bread flour?

I can make aloo paratha.

Could you do 15?

Yes, I could make 15 parathas with my eyes closed, mate.

They'll also need to produce 60 portions of dessert each.

To be honest, the first thing I thought of was

bread-and-butter pudding because you've got brioche.

I'd definitely put the dates in, and custard.

Bob's your uncle.

We could do bread-and-butter pudding with boozy caramelised pears.

The man over there, you go boozy caramelised pears,

and watch his face.

-Something with chocolate.

-Something with chocolate.

And there's loads of vanilla. Oh, we can do some kind of cakey thing.

You bake one big one, yeah? You portion it.

Because that'll be so easy.

-OK.

-That was baked, anyway.

OK, OK. OK.

Do you have an idea of what you're cooking?

We'd like to do duck with a port and blackberry sauce,

and we'd like to confit the legs

and make a little bonbon with the black pudding and chestnuts.

Our vegetarian meal is...?

We're going to do ravioli with a pumpkin veloute

with some sauteed girolles,

and a sort of, like, breadcrumb, pangrattato-style thing.

And our pudding is...?

Bread-and-butter pudding with poached pears

and a butterscotch sauce.

Fabulous, really, really good.

So big, bold, beautiful, deliciously wonderful things.

FAYE LAUGHS

Look forward to it.

We were looking at halibut on a butter bean mash

with some of the sea vegetables.

What's your vegetarian dish?

It's going to be stuffed aloo paratha.

What's a aloo paratha?

It's like a stuffed flatbread with a smoked-aubergine curry,

-kachumber and a green chutney.

-Brilliant. Brilliant.

Dessert is what?

Chocolate-and-hazelnut torte, and amaretti crumb and vanilla custard.

Nice. And how many have you got to make?

-Only 60 of them!

-Jamie, have you been edged out a bit?

Have you actually got a role here?

I see my role is checking that everyone's happy,

helping out with absolutely everyone's dish as we go through.

Do you know what?

I think one of the most important members of the team is the one

-that actually rolls their sleeves up and runs between each person.

-Yes.

These guys have never fed 120 people before.

The fact is, the challenge is enormous.

-Well, I'll work there.

-Yeah.

-You work here.

Right.

Cooked for about 12 people for Christmas dinner.

But 12's a bit different to...120.

I've got confidence in them as individuals.

They have got to mould and gel together really quickly.

It is essential to be on the winning team

because we get immunity in one round

and that is such a big deal at this stage in the competition.

We're just going to make a plan, stick it up on the fridge

so everybody knows exactly what they're doing

and at what time, so if anybody's falling behind or anything,

they can pull other people in to help so it keeps us nicely on track

for everything. Hold that on there for me.

Right, ready?

-OK.

-Yes, let's do it.

-Go, team.

Mum-of-three Faye is leading the red team,

and is taking charge of prepping 50 duck breasts.

I need to get these ducks boned out and ready and scored

and render down the fat so we can pop them in the oven,

and that's probably going to take some time

because there's a hell of a lot to do.

Oh, this is some fatty duck.

These ducks haven't done much walking.

I like to make a few spares.

I think it stems from having a large family,

and everybody's always hungry.

Ten legs, Alison.

Beauty. Thank you, my dear.

OK, I'm going to get these on the pressure cooker.

Marketing consultant Alison is also helping out with the duck main.

So I'm making the duck leg bonbons.

Faye's just given me the legs. I'm going to pressure-cooker them

and the meat's sort of falling off the bone,

I'll pick that off and then I have to make some shallots,

breadcrumbs, black pudding, herbs, etc, etc.

-How is it going down there? How is the pasta going?

-Yes, fine.

Good.

Taking control of the vegetarian dish,

music teacher Giovanna starts to make the pasta dough

for the 45 ravioli.

# Pasta, pasta

# So much pasta... #

SHE GROANS

So I'm trying to use the pasta machine but it's so tough

cos it's so cold, it's not going through very well.

Store designer Brodie

is responsible for the red team's 60 desserts.

I feel like the Eggman.

He starts by spicing the custard for the bread-and-butter pudding.

You don't want to over-spice it, make it too powerful.

Putting star anise in it, that's quite a potent flavour.

Trying to up the quantities but without going too crazy.

-I've times the quantities of the recipe by 12.

-Yeah.

Maybe I would put one vanilla thing

but I don't want to put loads and loads of vanilla.

Maybe, what, six or seven vanilla pods?

-Do you think?

-Yeah. Six. Six or seven.

Because, obviously, the quantities are so vast.

-Maybe eight.

-Yeah.

-It's just so tricky to do.

-It's so hard to know!

All right, is everybody on track?

I'm maybe five minutes behind.

OK. Alison, how are you getting on?

Good. I'm going to take these duck legs out in a minute.

That's all right.

So everything's nice and quiet,

and everyone's just sort of, like, trucking on with their jobs.

But no doubt the chaos will kick off soon enough!

There's going to be no chaos here!

In the blue tent,

team leader Steve has to quickly get to grips with prepping

a 12kg halibut.

To get the chance to do something like this on a fish like that,

is amazing, you know? I'd never be able to do that at home.

It's a bit nerve-racking.

It's not a cheap fish.

Slowly, gently.

Just let the weight of the fish do the work, OK?

-Well done.

-Could be worse!

Helping Steve with the main course is wine merchant Jamie.

There's a lot of pressure to get it right today.

We've got the cast and crew of

one of Britain's most famous television shows.

What are you doing?

They only get an hour for lunch, so we've got to be on time.

His first task is to prep the langoustines.

Bisque's going to sit around the halibut,

just to add a nice rich, luxurious flavour to the dish.

Watch this.

Now burn it.

And stir it.

Now, on the bottom of that pot, it's all stuck and lovely.

That's it, scrape it off. You're getting all the flavour of brandy.

Those bits will make a difference to your sauce. Really scrape it off.

Yeah, that smells great.

Saliha is taking charge of the vegetarian dish

with her knowledge of spicing.

I think that's fantastic.

This is the smoking process,

so you have to burn them till they go completely charred

and all the oil comes out.

Take the burnt bits away and then you scoop the flesh out

and use that in the curry.

Indian dishes can be quite labour intensive,

so although I'm only catering for 15,

there's a hell of a lot of work to do to get to the stage

where everything's ready and prepped and perfect.

Outside, it's four degrees...

Very, very cold.

..and copywriter Lorna is struggling to melt the butter

for her chocolate-and-hazelnut torte mixture.

Do you have a microwave?

Maybe put the whole bowl over the bisque.

Yeah, much better now.

How do you know you've got the mix right?

It's a mixture that's tried and tested.

It's just scaling it all up, I think, that's the challenge.

It's kind of cold out there, and wintry.

-Yeah.

-Does it scream "torte" to you?

It does when you put it with hot salted caramel sauce.

Good answer.

OK, here we go, shooting.

Turnover.

352, take one.

And action.

Jess, how are you feeling?

Alive, so that's a start.

OK.

The Bafta-award-winning Holby City

started as a spin-off from Casualty in 1999,

and is on air 52 weeks a year.

If you think about the hard work

that goes into keeping a big BBC One show

on screen all year round,

there's just a complete army.

There's cameramen, electricians,

technicians, make-up artists.

Key departments are, of course, the prosthetics.

People tune in for the gore! People love the gore!

I'm just kind of piping in fat that covers a lot of the organs.

When you cut open your skin,

there's loads of fat.

People can't just film continuously for too long,

they'll just get burnt out and stale.

And they need to keep going, they need their fuel.

Cut.

Food's very important.

There's now over an hour of cooking time gone.

I've got one, two, three, four, five, six birds left back on here,

but, that being said,

I haven't trimmed these breasts or scored them yet.

Alison's also falling behind schedule

making the duck leg bonbons.

Later than I wanted, but I think we're still OK.

My biggest concern right now is timing.

These guys are just going to have to push on.

Alison has been making bonbons for one-and-a-half hours.

They'd better be good.

The biggest timing consideration with those is shaping them.

Frying them. There's a lot to do.

Giovanna's pasta dough is resting.

Now she has to make the ricotta-and-Cheddar filling.

The bit that's going to be really labour intensive is the rolling out,

so I wanted to get ahead with this.

This is pretty much done. All I have to do is chop herbs

-and put them in.

-What herbs are going in there?

Parsley. And it has nutmeg in it and lemon zest.

So no nice tarragon or anything like that in there?

I think we've got quite a lot going on in the veloute.

And what's going in the veloute?

Chestnuts, pumpkin and apple.

OK.

-And what about you, young Brode?

-The custard's made.

I just need to get the bread in the trays.

It's taken you an hour to get the custard made and line some trays?

-Er...

-You need to shift your butt.

Those bread puddings are not in the oven yet,

and they've got to be turned out,

they've got to be cut, they've got to be portioned,

and he hasn't seen a pear.

This is spiced sugar with cinnamon and nutmeg.

It's just going to go over the bread and then we add the custard,

let it soak in, and then put it in the oven.

You know, at home, you've got all day.

You're not under a time constraint, you know,

you can faff around with it for hours if you want,

but the time constraint is very real,

so we've got to motor on and get it done as quick as we possibly can.

That red team has got to up a pace.

The duck and the preparation of the duck has taken them by surprise.

Over in the blue tent, Steve's team is on target.

I've filleted both fish.

Just starting to skin them now.

Probably should have done that maybe the other way around,

so there's three done, five to go.

It's not bad. Then portion them up, so...

But the real pressure will come just before service,

when he has to cook all the halibut at the same time.

Cooking a piece of fish perfectly is an expert job.

-How do you feel about that?

-It's a daunting task.

If it goes over, it goes woolly and it's not very nice.

And it's a beautiful, beautiful fish.

The responsibility for cooking how many?

-50?

-50.

-GREGG LAUGHS

Just don't, don't, don't, don't.

Mate, I don't know...

Just got to keep an eye on this bisque as it cooks.

How do you make a bisque in a tent in such a short time?

There's enough flavour from the roasted langoustines...

-Good man.

-..to really get some flavour in it.

Impressive! Impressive!

Right, the bisque is looking good.

Sweet. If you've got a minute, maybe get a start on the beans.

And then that's pretty much this whole dish done.

With one chocolate-and-hazelnut torte in the oven,

Lorna now moves on to making her second batch.

I really do need a bigger bowl.

But this is the biggest there is, so we're doing it in batches.

How many trays of these have you got to make?

-Two.

-Just two trays?

Yes, it's a really intense torte so we're doing a small amount of torte.

-How many portions?

-60.

You're not going to get 30 portions out of each tray. No way.

We've got 1,500 square centimetres in each tray,

so we're probably looking at about 40 in one tray if we're going small,

or if we're going big, 20, 25 out of each tray.

So, how many do you think you'll get out of this?

Cos I'm thinking...30.

-Look at the size and work it out that way.

-It's pretty big, isn't it?

It's huge.

While Saliha cooks off her smoked-aubergine curry,

her next task is to peel potatoes

for the spiced filling to go in her paratha breads.

So heavy!

I've just got to make this ASAP.

OK.

That blue team seems really, really impressive right now.

I mean, you look in there.

That is a tidy, quiet, workmanlike kitchen.

I don't want to speak too soon,

but it's getting very close to a professional kitchen in there.

And Steve really looks like he's over every single section.

We've got the main elements all on the go now.

We got some quite accurate timings courtesy of Jamie here.

At the moment, it looks like we're pretty much going to hit those.

Seems a little bit too calm.

-It does, doesn't it?

-Yes.

-I'm thinking that, as well.

Yeah, I always say that if it feels a bit too calm,

-it's probably going to be too calm.

-Yeah, yeah.

MACHINE BEEPS

-How's the liver?

-Fine.

Heart?

Healthy.

Kidneys?

Hm.

Too rare.

MACHINE FLATLINES

Come on, guys.

One hour and 30 minutes of cooking time left.

I thought I'd have these done in the first hour.

That was pretty ridiculous, in hindsight.

Come on, come on, come on.

Faye has finally prepped all the duck.

It took a lot longer than I thought.

But she still needs to sear the breasts

before they're cooked in the oven.

How many duck breasts do you have to fry?

50. At least.

This is going to take ages.

I think we're all a little behind.

Can I ask you, when are you going to cook them?

I'm going to cook them quite towards...

near towards the end. And then I'm going to store them in a tray with

butter and water in it so that they don't keep cooking,

but they also don't lose any moisture or heat.

That's getting the temperature absolutely right - too cold,

they get waterlogged, too hot, they carry on cooking.

Yeah. It is quite a fine balance.

-Good luck, mate, I'm slightly scared for you.

-Thank you.

Oh, I tell you what. I'm a little bit nervous about that red team.

I really am.

Yeah, I think they're looking all right. Yeah.

Quite pleased with that. It's going to blow away...

I'll put one of these guys on...

HE CHUCKLES

With the bread-and-butter pudding cooked,

Brodie still has to peel and poach 36 marsala-spiced pears.

30 and then six extra, just because I love to peel.

It's a never-ending pear story.

-FAYE:

-Oh!

Whoa!

Whoa.

-Alison.

-Yeah?

-I need some help.

I need to get some of these out, like, now.

These are fine. These are fine.

-Yeah?

-Yeah.

-You OK?

You've only got one pan that's gone over.

-You're all right, you're OK.

-Woohoo.

-You're OK.

We're looking OK at the moment. Obviously, things are going

to get a bit more hectic the closer we get to service.

It's nice that it's all quite calm in here at the moment and

everybody seems to be working methodically and well.

There is a stark difference between by-the-seat-of-your-pants

of the red kitchen, and the almost professionalism of the blue kitchen.

Be scared of an Asian lady with a rolling pin.

Saliha's spiced-potato filled paratha breads

are ready for frying off.

But with less than an hour to go,

John's concerned that Jamie's bisque is too thin.

There's no way in the world that sauce is thick enough.

-We're going to put cream through it.

-Won't make any difference.

-Won't?

-OK.

-No.

-Keep it going, then.

How's your chocolate tortes?

-They souffled up quite nicely, didn't they?

-LORNA:

-They have.

Really happy with them.

And this is for 30 people, is it?

32 portions.

For humans or for mice(?)

It will be enough, it will work.

Have faith.

Someone needs to have faith in me.

-SHE SIGHS

-Yeah.

4, 8, 12, 16,

20, 24, 28, 32.

You done good, girl. Don't worry.

Do you know what? I might have been wrong.

Guys.

30 minutes of cooking left until you've got lunch to serve.

On set, the Holby City cast and crew are filming

their last scene of the morning.

Action.

What are you doing here?

I slipped in the shower.

It's very important to stick to your filming schedule.

OK, another rehearsal.

It's literally like clockwork.

Lunch really does need to be on time!

Not to put any pressure on them.

We still have to cook the ravioli and we still have to cook the duck.

-How long do they take?

-Eight minutes.

And then they've all got to be sliced.

Right, Alison.

I'm going to put some duck in now, OK?

Have you put the timer on eight minutes?

No, but I've got it on my watch.

Let's just do timers.

So everyone knows what's happening when.

I'll just put it on five now.

They're in for eight minutes and resting for ten.

I'll put it on for six.

I think we need that, yeah, definitely. All of that.

Right.

Are we putting duck in for eight minutes?

Yep. That's at eight minutes, we'll take it out,

put some clingfilm over it and put it over there for the time being.

-Won't it?

-And then it's resting for ten?

In 15 minutes... is when you need to be serving.

-Yeah.

-In 15 minutes.

-So do you think we should put more duck in?

-How much duck is in?

-Well, just one tray.

-It'll just really mess up the whole service.

I think put them all in now.

50 portions of duck, which is going to take us...

Even if we went super-speed,

it's still going to take us 15 minutes to do half, at least.

Two batches, but not one tray every five minutes.

-Is there one in at the moment?

-Yep.

-OK.

But it's, like, two-and-a-half minutes ahead of...

Then what...? OK.

Red tent are seriously under pressure.

I'm setting a timer, eight minutes, yeah?

Yep.

And then as soon as this one's out, we've got to put that one in.

-Unless we put that in the bottom.

-Oh!

I think there'll be food out,

but it's going to come with a huge slice of panic.

-STEVE:

-Has anyone seen the clingfilm?

Next door, the blue team is on schedule.

Before roasting the halibut,

Steve fries off the langoustine tails in the bisque.

With time to spare,

Jamie has decided to make a toffee milkshake to go with the dessert.

Thought it'd add a bit of fun, a bit of theatre.

-SALIHA:

-I just think it's not a good idea. If you think about

the concept, you would never have a milkshake at the end of a fish meal.

You have a milkshake with a burger and chips.

We need to decide now.

-STEVE:

-Probably not, yeah.

-JAMIE:

-OK, let's not do it.

That's a vegetarian starter. Where's the main?

I know, it does look on the small side.

What are you going to do? Because that's very small.

Yeah.

OK, cut there.

That is lunch. Back on the hour.

The Holby City cast and crew now have a choice

between the red team and the blue team's menus.

Service is about to happen.

And we're about to understand the reality and the pressure

of serving 120 people.

Three minutes, first plate, please.

Mate, me and you're going to have to really go for it now.

-Plating up.

-Yeah, yeah.

I'm just trying to get this first lot of fish on.

Come on, Steve.

It's the moment of truth for Faye's duck breasts.

-Guys, that's really under.

-That is under.

-Too under?

Yeah, yeah.

-Is there another tray of duck in the oven already?

-Yes, yes.

Swap them over, quick, quick.

-In the oven, go. Ready? Go, go.

-BRODIE:

-How long?

Two minutes? Three minutes?

With only minutes to go, Saliha has decided

to make potato croquettes to bulk up her vegetarian dish.

Pace has picked up a little bit, yeah.

Obviously, we were expecting that to happen, so it's all go now.

That's undercooked, not ready. In the oven. Top shelf.

In you go.

Just waiting on a bit of duck.

-FAYE:

-I can't believe that.

I'm so annoyed.

I just don't want to let the team down.

SHE GROANS

Do you want a hug?

Steve, where's your fish?

It's coming out now, just needs another 30 seconds.

Fish is just cooked.

Nice dish, nice-looking dish.

Right, first five are ready to go.

Go, go, go, go, go.

APPLAUSE

Let's go, quick, quick, quick. You're behind.

Perfect.

Quick, quick, quick, quick, quick. Ducks on those next five.

-We're going pretty quickly.

-Keep going, keep going.

Don't slow down.

Another fish coming out now.

-This is good, yeah.

-Done?

-Done.

Service.

The blue team's main course is roasted halibut

topped with a langoustine,

butter bean mash,

sea vegetables

and finished with a langoustine bisque.

I had the halibut.

I found it lovely.

Lovely presentation, very well-balanced dish.

Yeah, I really enjoyed it. Actually, I had double portion.

It was lovely. It was really good.

I thought it was very well cooked, beautifully presented.

The samphire was delightful.

The bisque was great.

I'd happily pay for that all day long. Great.

When I think they did that in a tent and served it to 60 people,

I think that's quite remarkable.

That's, like, decent brasserie standard.

The red team's main course is roasted duck breast,

butternut squash puree,

a duck leg bonbon

and cavolo nero,

served with a duck-and-port sauce.

The flavours are really complementing each other

really, really nicely.

I'm happy with my choice.

It can be a bit risky to have this many portions of duck,

but it was really well cooked and tastes really lovely.

It's absolutely delicious.

Everything's worked really well together.

Loved the bonbon. That was amazing.

Yeah, just really enjoying it. Really nice.

They struggled with that duck, but it tastes great.

Any veggies up yet? Come on, come on, come on, come on.

Keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing, pushing...whoops.

It is mad. But you know what? It's actually really exciting.

Come on, up you go.

This is my second batch. I've got one more batch to go.

For the vegetarian dish,

the red team's made ricotta-and-herb ravioli

served with a pumpkin chestnut veloute,

girolles and pangrattato.

So, I had the ravioli.

Maybe if I had to be supercritical, I would think the ricotta

kind of masked some of the subtler flavours that were in there,

but all in all, it was great. It was good.

The Parmesan crumble on top was delicious.

The truffle, I thought, might be overpowering,

but, no, it was perfect.

The sauce on the mushrooms is absolutely lovely, but the blandness

of the ricotta is taking away from the rest of the dish.

It could do with a boost of something. Mushroom or truffle.

Or even black pepper.

Ready with the first five?

-Smashed it, Saliha.

-Yeah.

-Absolutely smashed it, girl.

This ain't a normal restaurant.

Saliha, well done. I tell you what, I want to be a vegetarian today.

-That looks smashing.

-Thank you, Gregg.

-Guys, one more veg.

-Yep, got it.

The blue team's vegetarian dish is a smoked-aubergine curry,

a spiced-potato paratha,

a green chutney

and a last-minute addition of a spiced-potato croquette.

Well done. Well rescued. Well, well, well rescued.

I had the aubergine, which was very spicy.

It had a nice little kick to it,

with the little potato rosti, with the vegetables inside.

Beautiful. I would like some more, if there's any going,

but it was gorgeous.

The spices were really punchy.

My mouth's slightly still on fire, but in a good way.

-JOHN:

-I loved the potato croquette.

Crispy on the outside, soft on the inside.

But particularly liked the little coriander pickle

with the smoky aubergine and the potato-stuffed bread.

Super, super yum.

All right, listen, listen.

Mains have gone. Well done.

Now it's pud time, OK? You can't relax.

Puds! Pud, pud, pud.

Come on!

So, eight plates at once, guys. Quick, quick, quick, let's go.

Come on, guys. Push, push, push.

Mmm, look at that.

Guys, well done.

That looks good. Really good.

-Thank you.

-Service on the puddings, please.

-Round of applause.

-Yeah.

Everyone loves a dessert, don't they?

The blue team's dessert is chocolate-and-hazelnut torte,

salted-toffee sauce,

Chantilly cream

and finished with an amaretto crumb.

That's really nice.

I'm glad I defected tables.

I had the hazelnut torte.

Loved every mouthful of it.

It was absolutely beautiful, I loved it.

The sauce was particularly nice.

Little bit too much of it, though,

but we have managed to eat it all, so there you go!

I think it's good. It doesn't have a lot of elegance, but it's good.

It may be the most basic-looking, but it's great.

There's chocolate and nuts

and then you've got a toffee sauce across the top.

I mean, what's not to like?

Good job, guys.

Pretty happy with these.

They're set, they're squarish, they're delicious.

Hopefully, the Holby City contingent concur.

Thank you.

The red team's dessert is spiced bread-and-butter pudding

served with marsala-spiced pears.

It's very delicious.

I've eaten it all, so that's always a good sign.

That was lovely.

It's delicious, really, really nice.

A thick wedge, really filling, very sweet and we all said

it's better than our mums' bread-and-butter,

and that's saying something.

I think that's absolutely lovely.

Bread-and-butter pudding is soft and spongy and unctuous,

and that marsala syrup is wonderful,

and the juicy pear gives it a completely different dimension.

Proper fine-dining food, and it's incredible to do it

with a sort of mock-up tent.

Just fantastic. Yeah, delicious.

Delicious. Amazing.

Guys, thank you so much.

-Brilliant.

-Brilliant work.

Lovely lunch, thank you.

-Thank you.

-Thank you so much. Cheers.

Good job, ladies and gentlemen. Very nicely done.

-Come on, my son.

-Group hug.

ALL: Woo!

Yay!

This was by far the biggest challenge our contestants

have had to face. I mean, a massive step up.

I think the dishes are really good,

and I think, for the amount of people

they cooked for, they're outstanding.

Both of these teams should be very, very proud of themselves.

Under Steve's management,

that blue team ran almost like a professional kitchen.

And it's resulted in three really, really good dishes.

On the whole, we seem to have everything under control,

worked methodically and really well together.

Pulled it out of the bag, I think.

I couldn't be happier with how we did.

We couldn't have done any more.

The red team, under the authority of Faye, soldiered along.

The issue was service.

When the first lot of duck came out, then the panic started.

Tired. It's been really... It's been a hard slog.

It's been really, really difficult.

The red team, as a unified unit - I'm not sure about that.

But it did result in three very decent plates.

Which was the better team?

We said at the start of this challenge

that we would decide which team

was the best team, and that team would be safe.

And then the losing team will be going

straight back to the MasterChef kitchen

to fight it out for their place in the competition.

It's been a tough decision.

Our winning team is...

..the blue team.

Yes! Well done.

Well done, well done, well done.

It's amazing. You know, I'm so happy.

Obviously, I was the team leader, but we won as a team,

and that was the main thing.

If it wasn't for our good team effort,

we couldn't have made it today.

I'm literally ecstatic.

I think I've got a smile going from ear to ear right now.

Gutted. Really, really gutted.

Nothing else really to say about it, just really, really disappointed.

Hm.

I think the hardest thing is that

we've been working as a team all day,

and then we get back in the kitchen and we're against each other again.

That's just really hard to get your head around.

I'm really sorry, red team.

Thank you very much indeed.

Welcome back. We understand you may be a bit disappointed,

but you've got to pick yourself up.

From all the leftover ingredients from the Holby City challenge,

we have brought back everything to the MasterChef kitchen.

We want you to cook for us one dish.

It could be sweet, it could be savoury,

it could be whatever you like.

At the end of this, one of you will be going home.

You will have ten minutes to choose your ingredients.

Up you come. Choose wisely.

Cheese.

Cheese is what I'm feeling today.

Eh... I don't know, I keep changing my mind.

I'm just a bit torn at the moment

between trying to do something with the fish

and trying to do something with the meat.

SHE CLICKS HER TONGUE

Ladies and gentlemen, one hour and 15 minutes, one great plate of food.

Let's cook.

It's really disappointing not to be on the winning team,

especially when you've worked so hard.

The chances of going home today are so much higher

than they've ever been before.

Alison, what have you decided to cook?

We've got scraps of fish left over,

so I'm doing a dish that's kind of inspired by

those Danish open sandwiches. I'll use the scraps

and mix them in with the remoulade.

Lots of dill, capers, tarragon, parsley.

Why does your cook's mind chuck up a Danish sandwich?

It's actually the type of food I love eating.

Like, I have a lot of this type of stuff at home.

Love those kind of very acidic, fresh flavours, so...

I don't know, it just came to me.

Got enough energy after your exploits at Holby?

Yep, I've got a second wind now, so hopefully, yeah, I'll be fine.

Alison's culinary brain works very differently

from anybody I've ever met before in my life.

She's looked at the ingredients and she's gone to Danish open sandwich.

Fantastic.

She's making a cracker.

She's taking some fish and cooking it,

serving it in a remoulade sauce made from loads and loads of capers

and lots and lots of herbs.

She's going to make a mayonnaise as well.

And then she's going to serve it with some pickled fennel.

I think it sounds interesting.

It's pickled, it's sharp, it's got some crunch to it,

it's got texture. And it's a clever way of using up leftover fish.

My two invention tests have probably been my two weakest rounds so far,

which is unfortunate.

However, I think I've learnt a lot.

I'm hoping that I can just put everything that I've learnt together

and cook something amazing.

So, how do you pick yourself up?

You have to keep pushing on at this point,

because you can't let the ball drop.

There's three other fantastic cooks in this room

and I've got to cook something incredible,

otherwise I'm going home. I'm doing some pan-fried duck liver,

doing some little duck hearts

and then I've got some shallot-and-red-wine tarte Tatins,

and I'm going to do some caramelised endive.

-So you're not tired of duck just yet?

-Not yet.

Maybe not like the others.

Giovanna's decided to go

a completely different road altogether.

She's gone across from Italy into France.

Sacre bleu!

A shallot tarte Tatin. She's taking little tiny shallots,

cooking them with lots of red wine and she's put them

inside a tart case with pastry across the top.

Should be lovely.

A duck sauce made from the duck necks and some red wine,

and on the side of that, some duck livers.

I just hope the whole thing comes together as a dish.

Ladies and gentlemen, you have had 35 minutes.

Today is a bit of an unknown quantity, really.

There are only four of us, so the chances of a slip-up happening...

it basically means you're going home.

I'm making for you a duck massaman curry.

It's Thai curry, but it's heavily influenced by Arabic spices.

I think it's going to be very good.

It's relatively simple, the methodology,

but hopefully it'll pack some really good flavour.

What are you serving your curry with?

I'm serving it with rice and, depending on how I get on with time,

I would quite like to try and do a flatbread.

Sure. Yeah. Why just get a nice dish done?

Do something else that's really difficult

and you might not get done in time - that's the Brodie way.

Yeah.

Brodie, we all love a curry.

Thanks.

I love the thought of a massaman curry.

Sharp, sweet pineapple in the background, smoky duck as well,

lime leaves floating around.

And hot. I mean, hot, hot, properly hot.

His issue right now is whether the duck is going to be cooked.

Duck leg usually takes a very long time to cook.

Is it going to take on the flavour of the curry?

You have only 20 minutes left, please.

I spent a lot of time last night saying, "Right, come on,

"pull yourself together, get yourself organised about this,

"get your game face on.

"Red lippy on that's going to stay on all day."

All those things to give yourself your own little boost of confidence.

Have you still got an appetite for our competition?

The reason why it means so much,

each step that you get and each little further progression

that you get, it just means more and more

every single time you come in here.

Faye, what are you making?

Right, I'm going to do sort of a millefeuille.

Done some puff pastry with some thyme,

and then I've got Stilton sauce.

It'll be really thick. Some little confit tomatoes to go with it

and an onion jam, because when push comes to shove,

it's got to be a dish that you think, "I want to eat that."

Don't put a plate up there that you don't want to eat yourself.

Aww. Listen, if you want to eat it,

chances are, me and John will as well.

-Good.

-Good luck, mate.

-Thank you. Thanks.

Faye is cooking something really unexpected.

We've got a millefeuille.

We've got pastry in lots and lots of different layers.

Inside, she's got a savoury cream, which is made from blue cheese.

And then she's got little tiny confit tomatoes

that's she's cooked in lots and lots of olive oil

and some of which have been roasted.

She's serving around the outside an onion jam.

I'm not quite sure about this dish.

If it works - fantastic, but we've got ourselves

pastry, blue cheese and tomatoes.

You have just four minutes, please.

60 seconds.

All right, time's up, please. Thank you very much.

Inspired by a Danish open sandwich,

Alison has served leftover halibut scraps

cooked in a remoulade sauce of mayonnaise, capers and herbs,

served on a whole-wheat cracker, pickled fennel,

a salad of cucumber, celery and fennel tops,

and potato shoestring fries.

How your mind works, I have no idea. I love your invention.

Looks odd to me.

I don't like the look of that very much.

However, the crisp bread with the fish on top

and then the sharpness of the pickling liquor on the fennel,

and then the fresh vegetables, I find very, very pleasant indeed.

Gregg didn't like the look of it. I love the look of it.

Gregg liked the taste of it.

I loved the taste of it.

You cooked the fish with real sympathy,

even though it's the scraps.

You made a lovely, lovely sharp sauce, like a tartare sauce,

to bind the whole thing together.

If I close my eyes, I get fish fingers, chips and tartare sauce.

And that's the comforting bit of it.

I think it's great, Alison. I think it's really very, very clever.

Something I've never seen before on MasterChef,

-and I think it's a really good job.

-Thank you.

Massively relieved.

Oh, yeah, I had no idea how that was going to go down.

I think it was a bit of a risk, and they seemed to like it,

so, yeah, really, really happy.

Faye has made a savoury millefeuille -

layers of thyme-infused puff pastry

piped with a Stilton bechamel sauce,

confit tomatoes and an onion jam.

Can't remember seeing a savoury millefeuille.

It is an unusual-looking thing.

What I really like is I like the crispy bits

of pastry cooked beautifully with the thyme running through it

and the strength of that really big, bold blue cheese sauce.

But I feel that there's something too acidic on the plate.

Blue cheese is really acidic. Tomatoes are quite acidic.

I'm not sold on it.

We don't need red onion AND tomato. They both give sweet acidity.

You want one or the other. I think the problem we've got here

is one of appearance and kind of understanding what the plate is.

Mixed bag.

There wasn't anything that went terribly wrong

or anything like that.

So, just have to see!

Giovanna's dish is a shallot-and-red-wine tarte Tatin,

pan-fried duck livers and duck hearts,

caramelised endive, and a duck-and-red-wine sauce.

I love the look of it. I really do.

I think it's a big departure from your style.

It's bold, it's daring, it's interesting, it's got technique.

-(But what's it going to taste like?)

-I don't know.

One of your livers is overcooked.

Apart from that, I think the whole thing is absolutely delicious.

-Thank you.

-You've plonked a great big knob of butter

to finish off that red wine sauce,

and it's made it very, very rich.

Your tarte Tatin has the natural sweetness of the red onions,

and the slight mild bitterness of the chicory

I think is a lovely combination.

I think you've been very brave.

It's a bit of a move away from Grandmother's kitchen.

You could do with a good grind of pepper.

I think you've got to really start to think about seasoning, Giovanna,

because the rest of the dish is fantastic.

I think if I cooked this dish earlier in the competition,

I wouldn't be so worried. But because it's now

and there's only four of us,

the tiny things are a lot more worrying.

It's a lot more worrying than it would be otherwise.

To keep his place in the competition,

Brodie's cooked a roast duck and pineapple massaman curry,

served with potatoes and basmati rice.

It's going to be really hard to eat that duck leg

-full of sauce on top of a pile of potatoes and rice.

-Mm.

Oh, well done, John, that's splendid work.

People at Holby taught me anatomy.

Everything on your plate's cooked really, really well.

Your duck leg, actually, is moist,

even though you've roasted it and then finished it off in the sauce.

I love the pineapple in there because it's sharp and it's sour.

The issue here is, there's not enough sauce.

Your duck is soft, your rice is nicely cooked.

I like the flavour of your sauce.

There's something almost mutton-y about that.

-Fermented shrimp paste.

-Is that what it is?

-Mm-hm.

Maybe you just don't like shrimp paste.

-No, I love shrimp paste.

-Smell it.

-That's it.

That's it.

Mixed reception, Brodie. What do you think?

I'm not sure. Obviously, I'm delighted that you liked it.

I'm sorry, Gregg, that I maybe put too much shrimp paste in it.

Yeah.

It's annoying. You want them both to love it.

But I hope I've done enough to get through.

-GIOVANNA:

-Well done. What will be will be.

What a round.

I have to say, the food was really good.

To pick yourselves up from disappointment isn't easy.

To then have to cook to maintain your place in the competition...

Who did really well? Who disappointed?

I thought Alison's dish looked great and tasted great.

You didn't like the look of it, but you loved the taste of it.

It looked slightly unusual. However, the flavours were great.

The fish was soft and creamy

and alive with herbs, and then the pickled fennel,

I thought, just added an element that set the dish off brilliantly.

Mate, it was a winner.

Giovanna today really took me by surprise.

I didn't expect food so technical.

My only complaint, she had one piece of liver that was overcooked.

Apart from that, I thought it was really good.

Giovanna's style changed today.

Away from Italy and into classic French.

For me, a grind of pepper away from amazing.

But what a dish. Giovanna, straight through?

Conversation now is between Brodie and Faye.

Faye cooked for us a savoury millefeuille.

Both you and I thought it was very, very acidic.

Tomatoes and an onion chutney and that acidic cheese.

What has she made? Has she made me cheese and biscuits?

It didn't look right.

It was a very unusual dish.

Brodie made for us a massaman duck curry.

The flavours were good. They were strong, they were powerful.

I thought he used so much of that shrimp paste.

You said, quite rightly, not enough sauce.

However, Brodie's duck was nicely cooked, the rice was well cooked.

I'm not sure. Brodie's had better rounds.

You've just got to be in the top three.

So I don't care if I'm first, second or third.

As long as I'm not fourth, then, eh...

then I'll be delighted.

Don't want to go because I still

want to carry on with the competition,

but I can't call whether I've done enough.

All four of you, throughout this competition,

have shown what amazing cooks you truly are.

It's one thing to take part in MasterChef.

It's quite another to come as far as you have.

The contestant leaving the competition...

..is Faye.

-Thank you. Thank you very much.

-I'm sorry, hon.

Thank you.

I'm gutted, but to go out against the three guys,

absolutely cool with that.

I am proud, you know?

Not that many people get to this point.

It's just a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

I've had the best time.

Congratulations, you three.

Very well done.

Yeah, that was a tough one. Closer than I would have liked.

I worked really hard today and it paid off.

I can't quite believe I'm here,

I can't believe that I'm in the final seven.

Oh, I'm so happy.

So, so happy and just unbelievably relieved.

-GIOVANNA:

-Well done, guys.

-Tomorrow night...

-Move, move, move.

..the semifinals continue...

I'm on it like a bullet.

..and the competition heats up...

Whoa!

SHE SIGHS

..as one more amateur leaves the competition.

That's a yummy, yummy thing.