Episode 21 MasterChef

It's the last of the MasterChef semifinals.

And, tonight, just one challenge stands between

these six exceptional cooks and their place in finals week.

It would be terrible to go at this stage.

It would be a bit like sort of coming fourth in the Olympics.

You go back to being sort of like a child,

where you just want praise constantly.

Imagine putting that on your Instagram - like, Lorna Robertson,

MasterChef finalist?

We are going to eat really, really well,

and you and I are going to have one tough decision,

because none of these guys want to go home.

One dish separates you from a place in the finals week.

You've already cooked for a restaurant critic.

Today, you are cooking for four.

William Sitwell,

Tracey MacLeod,

Amol Rajan,

and Jay Rayner.

At the end of this,

one of you will be leaving the competition.

It's time to impress, ladies and gentlemen.

One hour, 15 minutes, let's cook.

I want to see understanding of flavour.

That yum, that beautiful sensation you get from the best of food.

Nothing else will do!

They keep saying that we need to have our own style

and be true to ourselves and do what we want to cook.

This is completely me.

If they don't like this, then there's not much else I can do.

-What are you making?

-I'm doing roast pheasant breast.

I've taken the breasts off and popped them into a water bath.

And I'm making, like, a stuffing ball kind of bonbon with the legs,

-and a Madeira sauce.

-At home, when you've practised,

-have you used a water bath?

-No.

I've done my own kind of method for water bathing.

By taking a Ziploc sandwich bag and putting my pheasant breasts in.

Then zipping it up and putting a straw in,

then sucking all the air out.

-And it worked?

-Uh-huh. The things you do for MasterChef!

Lorna's being tactical because she knows how difficult it is

to get the pheasant breast absolutely right.

-Right.

-So she's doing them first in a water bath and then in a pan.

She's got complete control over every single breast individually.

If I look back at all the dishes that I've put out,

on the whole it's been good.

There's been no complete disasters, touch wood.

Hopefully, I can carry on like that, you know?

Steve's going hearty and gutsy.

Pig's cheeks, celeriac, black garlic,

mushrooms, porcini and onion puree.

Alongside that is a sherry sauce.

Those pig's cheeks are beautiful when they're cooked long and slow.

Today, he's hoping to get the same effect from a pressure cooker.

When you cut into that pig's cheek,

you don't want to see little strings of fat.

You want that fat melted into the meat.

That'll be the telling.

-How do you feel about cooking for four critics?

-It's always there

in the back of your head. It's quite a daunting task.

I think I got lucky the last time I cooked for William.

It went really well for me. So, hopefully, I can repeat that again.

But praise from four people all round? Who knows?

I've learnt so much through this process.

And the critique you get from the judges,

it's just so eye-opening,

it really, really makes you think in a way

that you've never thought about previously, about your food.

It has to be said that few people in this competition have celebrated

vegetables and spice like you have.

But on your bench right now, I can't see a vegetable anywhere.

-There's a carrot!

-There's a carrot!

-That's it!

-That's it, yeah.

I'm making rose-scented chicken with jewelled Persian rice

-and a rosy chicken shorba.

-What is a shorba?

-A shorba is

like an aromatic sauce enriched with chicken.

Like a chicken soup.

A thick chicken soup. And it's going to be scented, and delicious,

and buttery, and wholesome, despite it being chicken and rice,

and gravy, essentially.

I've never had anything like it at all.

Saying that, if it's really tasty,

and the critics have never seen anything like it before, either,

that could be in her favour.

The last round, getting through in the top two

has probably done the most in terms of my confidence

in this competition.

It has sort of given me a little bit of a kick, I think.

-What are you cooking for us?

-I'm doing tamarind beef short ribs,

with Jerusalem artichoke puree and Jerusalem artichoke crisps,

roasted fennel, pearl barley and a basil oil.

What are the danger points today, Alison?

Pressure-cooking things in this short timeframe

is a little bit of a risk.

And if ribs aren't really soft and falling apart, like,

they're just not going to be nice.

I'm not quite sure whether Brodie is being risky here

or playing it safe, but, either way,

he's got nowhere to hide

cos he's doing a venison Wellington, which,

of course, is a piece of venison which has got duxelles

round the outside and then it's encased in pastry

and he's going to serve that with pumpkin and celeriac gratin.

And the worry, of course, with a Wellington is that the meat's

cooking inside the pastry.

You can't see if it's cooked properly until you cut it.

By that point, it'll be too late.

How long's your venison Wellington got to stay in the oven?

I am going to check it after 25 minutes

but...the issue is that you've got to get it cold

before it goes in the oven which I've been using the blast chiller

for, which, obviously, I haven't practised for.

-So fingers crossed.

-Crying out loud, Brodie.

I tell you what, mate, you cook in a risky manner.

-Why?

-This was sort of the first thing that jumped out at me.

And I think once one has something in one's head,

it's quite difficult to shift it.

I think I'm just cooking with my head a bit more

and picking up techniques and applying them

to things that I've never done before.

But, you know, we're fighting for a place in the finals week,

so you don't want to leave anything out there.

You have to be clever, you have to be inventive.

You can't just put up your bog-standard meal.

I think standards will be through the roof today.

-What's your dish?

-I'm doing a take on a lemon meringue pie.

It's got a rosemary biscuit base,

a scoop of lemon and orange ice cream in the middle,

and the meringue is piped round the outside, and I am serving it

with caramelised rosemary, some confit orange and lemon curd.

Your single dessert is going to stand out from the crowd, isn't it?

Yeah. You know, if it's good, then it's the best dessert!

Well, it's the best dessert, anyway, isn't it?

Giovanna's dessert is very, very technical and it relies upon

one thing and that is the ice cream setting.

If that ice cream's not set,

we've got ourselves an orange puddle on a biscuit

with meringue on top.

Right now, we've got six very nervous contestants.

They know what's at stake.

It's one hell of a fight.

What I hope we get are plates of food that represent good taste,

technique and imagination.

The people who've got through

to this stage of the competition have really

demonstrated that they don't just have an amateur enthusiasm.

They have serious skills.

And it's crunch time now.

We don't want to be a grumpy bunch.

We want to eat something wonderful.

We want to be the happy critics on MasterChef.

I want to see a magic touch, maybe a surprising use of an ingredient.

I'm looking for that little extra something

that shows a true MasterChef champion.

-Ten minutes, yes?

-Yes.

Right.

Lorna is cooking roast pheasant with a pheasant bonbon.

The challenge with pheasant is for it not to be dry.

-Yeah, good?

-Yes.

I do like the look of that.

What will ground the whole thing is this Madeira sauce.

It's got to have a real depth of flavour.

Bonbons, quince, carrots, sauce.

On paper, I'm excited by this.

Phew, OK!

Looking good.

Happy.

-Good.

-Thank you.

-Off you go.

-Good afternoon.

-Hello.

-Hi.

Today I've cooked for you pheasant breast and I've taken the legs

to make a bonbon served on a Jerusalem artichoke puree,

Swiss chard,

wine-poached quince,

some buttered carrots, and a Madeira sauce.

Hope you enjoy it. Thank you very much.

There's a good waft coming off this.

The meat is tender and moist.

I'd say it was cooked absolutely to perfection.

The carrot, it looks fantastic and has got just enough bite.

It's not been overcooked. It's got a solidity to it.

And even those quince. Getting them poached to the right texture

is very, very difficult, but Lorna's nailed it.

The bonbon is the thing that really just zings off the plate.

It's absolutely brilliant.

She hasn't put a foot wrong.

On any of the elements.

Which is, you know, easier said than done.

I believe she's slightly overcooked those breasts.

However, incredible amount of work gone into this dish

and accomplished in a very, very short space of time.

I got all the plates out how I wanted them to look.

Yeah, I'm happy.

SHE SIGHS WITH RELIEF

An hour and a quarter or however long they've got is not

long enough to be able to coax all that kind of delicious softness

out of a piece of pig's cheek. So that's going to be a challenge.

And the other thing is just to make sure that the wild mushrooms and

roasted onions don't overwhelm the pig's cheek and that, actually,

they work in combination with it.

-What's that?

-It's a bit of crumbled pancetta.

-Is that the onion puree?

-It is, yeah.

What have you got after this? Little bit of sauce?

A little bit of sauce in a jug, and we're done. And the salt.

Come on, mate.

Ready to go?

-Hi.

-Hi.

So, I've cooked you pig's cheeks with a celeriac mash,

some wild mushrooms, roasted onions and black garlic

and porcini mushroom ketchup, and a sherry

and porcini and chicken stock jus.

Thank you.

Steve's cooked this in a pressure cooker

and the pork cheeks are too dry.

-They're too hard.

-Actually, I thought, texturally,

they were OK as regards something that needs long cooking.

The failure was that he failed to glaze them. They need to be glazed

in something deep and thick and reduced and sticky.

Actually, there's a lot I liked about this plate.

The trouble was, it was all in the garnish.

That mushroom, onion, little dabs of black garlic sauce,

it's a really nice combination of flavours but what it is is sort of

overwhelming what should be the star ingredient which is the pig's cheek.

Pig cheeks are beautifully tender.

The celeriac puree's lovely and smooth.

That sauce is too thin.

It needs to be a lot thicker.

I like the bits of ketchup and the little bits of bacon crumb

and mushrooms around the outside. I'd like more of that.

At home, it's easy to do, you know?

When you're in there under pressure it's easy for those little things to

slip your mind but then this is part of doing this, isn't it?

A well-cooked rose scented chicken will transport you

to the riad of some beautiful part of Fez, the wonderful smell.

There's a really fine balancing act to be done there.

-You have just three minutes to get this up.

-OK.

-Happy with the chicken?

-Yeah, it's cooked through.

I'm going to confess something, guys. I've never had

a shorba before. I'm not entirely sure what it is.

Maybe it's a sort of gravy

that's going to bring the whole thing together.

Last things to go on? There we are, the rose petals.

-Done.

-Well done.

I have made you some jewelled Persian rice

with some rose scented chicken,

a rose and raisin chutney and an aromatic chicken shorba on the side.

It's like a thick chicken sauce.

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

Do we have to say clever things about this?

-Cos I just want to make noises.

-Mmm!

I love the... Almost like a barbecue note that's coming off the patty.

Just a hint of rose.

It's there. But it's not dominant.

That shorba's fantastic. It's got yellow lentils,

it's got shredded chicken and it's got some real heat and that,

against the fruitiness and the fragrance of the pilau,

is a wonderful, wonderful combination.

This is one of the loveliest things I've ever eaten on this show.

It's just mouthful after mouthful of just pure joy.

The shorba is like a chicken flavoured curry sauce.

Which is tasty enough.

The rice is lovely, with lots and lots of bits in it.

I don't know if it's just me,

but I can't taste the roses in that chicken.

Theoretically, it was a good dish.

I was working solidly in the time period that I had.

It was really intense.

When I cook short ribs, I allow four to six hours.

It's a tough call to cook this cut of meat in an hour and a quarter.

-Are you happy with those ribs?

-Could have had a bit more time

tidying them up a bit, but they should taste good.

It's also important that the artichoke puree and crisp,

that the textures do work.

It's quite cheffy, doing that.

So I just hope she's not overstretching herself.

-Ready?

-Yeah.

Go get 'em, girl.

Today, I've cooked for you tamarind short ribs with roasted fennel,

Jerusalem artichoke puree, Jerusalem artichoke crisps, pearl barley,

-and a basil oil. Thank you.

-ALL:

-Thank you.

I would love to know what they're saying right now.

I kind of just want to, like, stick my head in that door

and earwig on the entire situation. It's killing me.

This meat hasn't been cooked for long enough.

The other thing I'm really disappointed by

is the lack of tamarind flavour.

I would have liked lashings of tamarind.

I would have liked a really strong flavour, and it's not there.

I really like that pearl barley with the toasted hazelnut.

And I love the puree of Jerusalem artichoke.

It's a lovely, nutty, smooth thing.

This is a brilliant dish...

in about three hours' time. It's as simple as that.

The beef itself is slightly tough.

But the vegetables with the pearl barley?

Lovely. With the sauce, great.

So venison Wellington, pumpkin and celeriac gratin,

buttered spinach and a Perigourdine sauce,

which will be, presumably, some kind of truffle sauce.

That sounds like a very, very nice dish, I must say.

I've put a bit too much cream in, I think.

Hopefully it'll still be salvageable.

That gratin looks a little wet, is that all right?

Hopefully it'll set, once it cools a bit.

A lot rests on this venison.

Is it going to be cooked to perfection?

Will the pastry be crisp, and not soggy?

-You OK with that, Brodie?

-Yeah, I'm really pleased with that.

Spinach and sauce, spinach and sauce.

-Sauce in jug.

-Just the sauce, just the sauce in jug.

Off you go.

I have served for you a venison Wellington,

with a celeriac and pumpkin gratin,

buttered spinach and a Perigourdine sauce.

Thank you.

His Wellington would be brilliant,

if it had had about another four minutes in a really hot oven.

The pastry could be a tiny bit crisper.

I'm not mad about that gratin, I think it's slightly watery.

The disappointment for me is the lack of truffle.

The Perigourdine sauce promised much.

It just tastes to me like it's butter - delicious butter,

but not truffle.

The problem we've got here is we've got soggy pastry.

Soggy pastry around a Wellington.

Don't care much for that gratin.

I could do with a big crack of pepper in there.

I'm pretty relieved to have got it done, just about.

Yeah, that's probably the toughest it's been in the kitchen.

Giovanna's the only one who has chosen to give us a dessert.

Quite cryptic, but that combination of flavours sounds,

potentially, very, very good.

Deep breath.

Yeah! Brilliant!

Yeah, you got it. You got it, you got it, you got it!

Yeah!

Go, girl!

Good afternoon.

You have a lemon meringue tart,

with lemon and orange ice cream in the middle,

on a rosemary sable biscuit, with confit orange,

lemon curd and candied rosemary.

Thank you.

Mmm!

Any mouthful of any of those combinations

works absolutely beautifully.

It's simple, it's technically accomplished.

The rosemary sits beautifully with those citrus flavours.

The pastry's perfect, too. I think this is a stunning dessert.

There's nothing left of it. You know, spot-on, lovely.

That's ace.

Isn't it? Really nicely done, very nicely made, very tasty indeed.

Giovanna's done well.

I really pushed myself today.

Cos you have to. You don't want to go home, saying,

"Should have done more, could have done more."

You don't want to go home saying that.

We said it was going to be a big day, and a big day it was,

and now you and I have to decide which five go through

to finals week.

Our dish of the day?

-Easy - Giovanna.

-Absolutely. Totally agree with you.

It was a great, great dish.

As for the other five, I think all five of them have made mistakes.

I found Lorna's pheasant breast to be a little overcooked.

I did, however, like everything else on her plate,

and in fairness to Lorna, the critics woofed it down.

Brodie's plate had a few mistakes.

The pastry around the outside of the Wellington, I thought,

was a bit flabby and undercooked.

The contentious point had to be that gratin.

It was way too wet,

and that wet cream sauce was going into the truffle

and distracting from the rest of the dish.

I liked the accompaniments that Steve had.

I thought the pig's cheeks were cooked really, really well.

But that sauce just had to be reduced a little bit more,

and it would have been really intense,

and it would have made the dish.

Whereas Saliha, the rice I loved,

I thought that was really, really delicious.

The little chicken patties didn't taste of rose,

and we were promised rose. Our critics, however, loved it.

Absolutely loved it.

Alison's really disappointed here.

You know, we know the beef wasn't cooked well enough,

not to her standards, anyway.

The rest of the stuff on the plate was clever, inventive and tasty.

Critics completely agreed, John.

We are at the unenviable position

where we have to tell one of these cooks

their MasterChef competition is over.

I don't know. I don't know if I've done enough today.

I think it might be the end of the road for me.

It's only just hit me.

I'm kind of realising the massiveness of this situation,

right now.

If I do go through today, then I'll be over the moon.

Like, I honestly can't even contemplate that right now.

I want to carry on, I want to be able to cook more dishes,

and go even further. You know, to get into finals week,

it's an amazing thing, isn't it?

I've worked so hard, and I don't want to go home,

but if that's what happens, then, you know,

I've got to respect that decision.

Today was always going to be a big day.

Six, down to five, heading for finals week.

The person leaving us is...

..Brodie.

It's annoying, so close to the final.

There's no doubt that I'm a much better cook

than I was when I started.

I've learned a lot, and I'm sure that, given time,

I'll reflect back and realise that I did all right.

You five are in finals week.

Oh, my God!

It is so exciting, like, it's the happiest I've been for a long time.

I'm sure it was a close call, but oh, I'm just so relieved.

It's been a long day, long week, you know, very draining.

It takes its toll on you, but I'm happy, trust me.

It's the best experience of my entire life,

and my family are so proud of me, and that makes it all worthwhile.

We went from 64 people to five, and I'm still here.

Who knew?

Next week, it's the MasterChef finals...

-..and the push to become champion...

-Right now, go, go.

..is on.

Got to put that food onto those trays.

At the end of the week...

I think, for an amateur cook, it's extraordinary.

..one will be crowned...

I am stunned.

..MasterChef champion...

It's divine.

..2017.