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Three of Scotland's most talented chefs are locked in battle...

-Let's see what you're made of.

-Let the battle commence.

..for the chance to cook at a once-in-a-lifetime Olympic feast.

Yesterday, Alan Murchison snatched victory in the fish course.

You being comfortable is not on my game plan.

Today, it's the main course

and Mark Greenaway is determined to come back stronger.

Is this the two points that'll overstep me?

To be honest, I'm hoping it'll be an extra three.

But as tensions reach boiling point...

I think Alan's starting to buckle a little bit.

The young pretender snapping at your heels.

..is perfectionist Alan

taking things too far in his quest for gold?

I've had macaroni made to fit my mould.

You've had macaroni made to fit?

Potentially going just a little bit over the top on this one.

In this year of the 2012 Olympic Games,

our chefs are stretching themselves body and soul...

-Agh!

-..taking inspiration from our world-class athletes...

You've got one chance. Make the most of it and grab it with both hands.

..in their bid to strike culinary gold worthy of our sporting legends.

Goodbye, Mr Nice Guy! Come on!

Judging them this week is a formidable champion

of the competition, whose expectations are sky high.

It's Jeremy Lee.

By day three, I'm hoping they're going to be really in their stride

and they'll really pull it out of the hat.

With only four points between them, no-one can rest on their laurels.

The main courses is definitely exciting.

I think it's a showcase of what a chef can do, you know.

We're only halfway through and everything can go horribly wrong.

One slip from any of youse guys and I can quickly catch up.

-Let's what you're made of today.

-Yeah.

-Let the battle commence.

The current leader of the pack is Alan Murchison.

He's a two-time former competitor, Michelin-starred chef

and competitive runner obsessed with getting to the banquet,

and he's won both courses so far this week.

I really want to nail this today. I want to be cooking at the Olympics.

What are you going to do today to take us to the Olympic ideal?

What is your gold-star dish?

I'm doing barbecued veal with spinach and watercress.

I'm going for a dish that's concentrating on flavour.

There'll be some new techniques in there,

some elements that will surprise you and elevate it.

I'd be very disappointed if there wasn't.

A beautiful cut of veal that I've got.

-Is this British veal?

-It is British veal, indeed.

And then, I'm looking to combine that with some real super foods.

-I got some complex carbohydrate in the macaroni...

-Yeah.

-I've got spinach, watercress, parsley.

-Sweetbreads?

-Sweetbreads.

-Trying to use it all.

-Magnificent. How will you cook your veal?

I'm using a mixture of the newest technique

for cooking protein - sous-vide -

which we all know gives you fantastic consistency. However...

it lacks flavour, let's be frank.

The barbecuing of it is going to give me immense flavour.

I shall be intrigued to see what you do.

Will Alan be able to pull off

a flavour combination of macaroni cheese,

spinach and barbecued veal for a world-class feast?

He's done grandstand food before and, this time,

he's taking it quite the other way.

Much more sort of family-style barbecue foods.

Very potent flavours. I'm a bit concerned that veal

doesn't always get handled in the best manner.

There could be an issue with tenderness.

Chasing Alan's lead is Colin Buchan, a newcomer to the kitchen.

His strategy is to serve underused ingredients in unexpected ways

and it's got him to second place.

But he has pole position in his sights.

I want to beat Alan Murchison, of course I do.

This is probably, hopefully, my strongest dish.

-The main course?

-The main course, yes.

I'm going to be doing a poached loin of blackface lamb,

-lamb's tongues, sweetbreads croustillant.

-Croustillant.

-That's the little pastry?

-Yes, the little pastry

and little shoestring potato, goes nice and crispy.

-Lots of offal, very nice to see.

-Lovely flavour, you know.

-You've got sweetbreads as well, haven't you?

-Speaks for itself.

What's its USP? What gives it dazzle?

The horsepower of this dish

will be the quality of the lamb that I have sourced,

you know, I'm going to let the food do the talking.

You are a very product- and ingredient-driven man. Do you reckon

-that'll be enough to take you over the winning line?

-I hope so.

-I came on to this competition to win.

-He keeps building the Eiffel Tower.

-You building something equally...?

-I'm going to knock it down today.

So Colin wants to deliver a knockout punch with underused cuts of meat.

Lamb's tongue and a croustillant of sweetbreads.

Will he pull it off?

He's introduced offal on quite a large scale

and that's quite bold, that's not seem very often.

It might be too ambitious a dish.

There's a lot going on here, but let's see.

Last into the fray is molecular chef Mark Greenaway,

another newcomer to the kitchen.

His strategy to do modern twists on classic flavour combinations

hasn't bowled Jeremy over yet, leaving him in third place.

I am disappointed. I'm no different to any chef in there.

So it's going to be a tough day, it's going to be very tough.

-Day three, how are you feeling?

-Good, feeling good.

-The main course?

-Certainly is.

-A dazzling dish.

-Hopefully.

-Is this the big firework display? Is this the gold medal?

This is a great dish. I've got 48-day matured Aberdeen Angus beef.

-That's beautiful, isn't it?

-It's wonderful meat.

Slightly tougher than, say, fillet.

So, to combat that, I'm going to sous-vide it.

Sear it off and then put some butter, some thyme, some garlic,

-some scurvy grass.

-Scurvy grass?!

-Yes, very horseradish-y...

-Lovely.

-..which, with beef, goes very well.

-Completely.

-We've got a bone marrow jus

and we're serving it with a potato and beef shin terrine.

-So...

-OK.

-And some roasted chervil root.

Ah, yes, all the herb roots.

So, Mark, this is a banquet for the Olympics.

-They want something extra, extra special.

-I think the way that I'm combining everything together,

as a main course, I think that's what's really going to be special.

We're mixing just the old, the new, bringing it bang up to date.

So Mark's aiming to reinvent the classic roast beef dinner,

elevating a rump of beef and serving it with a potato pie.

Will he make it a banquet-worthy contender?

He needs to pull something really quite spectacular out of the hat.

I really hope it's not going to be tough when I try it,

because rump can be notoriously difficult,

because there's at least 15 different muscle groups in there.

The starter gun's been fired and it's clear from the outset

each chef is striving for the gold medal today.

Think Jeremy will like this dish?

Jeremy likes perfect execution, so if I can execute this perfectly,

I'm happy, Jeremy's happy, you boys aren't.

Michelin-starred chef Alan Murchison

is blending parsley for a high-tech jelly to go with his veal.

While, across the way, classical chef Colin Buchan

is frying sweetbreads for his croustillant

and it's caught Jeremy's eye.

Do you cook the sweetbreads before the tongues?

I'll put the tongues on as well, straight after this,

cos I want this marinating to get that lovely flavour on there.

Colin's dish, I noticed him frying some sweetbreads very early on.

I was slightly puzzled by that.

I think sweetbreads tend to get cooked to order

very, very crispy, because that's the great delight in sweetbread.

So I'm intrigued to see what that's about.

Colin now starts to prepare the lamb's tongue by boiling it.

How do you feel that would go down for a banquet for 100 Olympians?

Do you think they'll want a bit of tongue?

I think so, you know, tongue in cheek, everybody likes a bit of tongue in cheek.

-Do you think it's quite risky?

-It's not risky, it's not a lot of fat.

You know, it's very lean. It's a lovely piece of meat.

I have a slight concern about tongue.

100 people, tongue? Instead of simple, it needs to be special.

It seems all the chefs are taking risks today.

Molecular chef, Mark, has chosen to cook

a famously tough joint, a rump of beef.

He's searing it first before water-bathing it.

I'm using a cut of beef that not everybody uses.

You know, you would think Olympians, you would think

fillet of beef, let's spoil them, I'm not doing that.

The rump is, in my opinion, it's the best-flavoured steak.

However, it is a little bit more tougher,

so, to combat that, I'm slow-cooking it.

-Your beef, you're going sous-vide, aren't you?

-Yeah.

If you've chosen rump, are you happy about the texture it will achieve

-by the time you serve it?

-Very.

-Isn't the argument against sous-vide

-that you don't get the crispness of the fat?

-I mean,

I sear it before I sous-vide it, then sear it after I sous-vide it as well.

A lot of people just do it either before or after.

Mark's cut of beef has a lot of sinew - a difficult one to do.

Whether he pulls it off or not is another question.

But I wish him good luck with that.

Award-winning chef Alan Murchison is also going to water-bath his rose veal,

but unlike Mark, he's putting the meat in raw.

He's now cooking pasta

for a macaroni cheese to complement the veal.

I'll be serving my main course in an untraditional way,

it's not got a sauce or a roasting jus as such,

it's got a very, very light cheese sauce.

That's quite an unusual thing to do,

it could be seen to be a little bit risky.

Jeremy's spotted Alan's dish might not be

as simple as he first made out.

Macaroni cheese?

Whether it's groundbreaking, we will see. But what I've done,

I've had macaroni made to fit my mould.

Each mould, I get three along, five across.

You had macaroni made to fit?

30 pieces of macaroni is an ample amount

of complex carbohydrate to have in a meal.

To get precise about macaroni is setting a few alarm bells off.

I can't help feeling and worrying

that there's so much going on in each of his dishes that

he's potentially going just a little over the top on this one.

Let's see what the list is doing.

Your tablets here,

like Moses with his 10 Commandments.

My 10 Commandments - I must concentrate, I must focus, I must win.

The impression I'm getting, it's old age, Jeremy.

Or you could say it's experience, Colin, and what I'm trying to do...

The young pretender snapping at your heels!

I will not take my eye off focus today. I can't afford a mistake.

This is a chef hell-bent on winning.

Alan's competed twice before in Great British Menu,

but failed to cook at the banquet.

So, before the competition,

he tried to find out where he might be going wrong.

Alan's travelling just a few miles from his restaurant

to Reading Rowing Club, where he's arranged to meet

one of the all-time great British Olympians.

Today, I'm really, really excited.

I've got the pleasure of rowing with Sir Matthew Pinsent.

Who better to teach me how to win competitions than big Matthew?

Alan wants to discover the tactics that enabled Sir Matthew Pinsent

to win gold medals in four consecutive Olympic Games.

Can he learn to apply the same winning frame of mind?

So what are you looking for today?

I've been in the competition before, but I don't think I really excelled,

so, hopefully today, I can get a few tips

and go from a competitor to a winner.

While rowing and cooking might seem poles apart,

Sir Matthew Pinsent wants to use his favourite sport

to show Alan where he might be going wrong.

Presumably, you're cooking in a big kitchen with everyone around you.

-Yes.

-All the madness going on around you.

We'd be saying, "Right, blinkers on," because it's really tempting

to start looking and thinking, "Are we are ahead of them?

"Oh, no! They're a bit faster than us."

And it's like, "No, no, no, blinkers on,

-"head down and, if we execute our plan, I'm confident the boat will cross the line first."

-Yeah.

You'll be fine. You'll be fine.

Time to take to the water for some Olympic tips.

-It's not a fluid motion for me at the moment, but...

-It'll get there.

Don't be too hard on yourself.

Part of the reason why people don't improve as quick as they should

is they're too hard on themselves. Give yourself a break.

It's not whether you make a mistake,

it's how you recover that determines whether you'll win.

You can never get to perfection.

He strikes me as quite high-strung, he kind of just wants to go at it.

Some of those qualities are good in a rowing boat, some will hold you back.

Sir Matthew knows better than most that a winning strategy

involves not obsessing about tiny mistakes. But would Alan get it?

-Wey-hey! Sorry.

-It's OK.

-Sorry, I've lost the rhythm there.

I could see me getting really quite obsessive about this.

It's a really smooth, long, relaxed...

Good, you've got it going nice,

now we're just going to feel that we're going to relax with it.

Be confident with it. Good.

That's better. I'm buzzing with that. It's brilliant!

Lesson over, Alan wants Sir Matthew's feedback

on his main course contender for the Olympic banquet.

He's been poaching rose veal and it's time to barbecue the joint.

So this is going to be roast meat,

we're going to have the freshness of the parsley and the watercress.

So what does Sir Matthew think of Alan's twist on the barbecue?

That's barbecue heaven! That, for me,

-is definitely a new experience, a new frontier for me.

-Brilliant.

Really inspiring, what a fantastic bloke.

I've learnt loads from him today.

If you make a mistake, it's not the mistake, it's how you recover. It's been a really amazing day.

But back in the kitchen, things aren't going to plan.

LIQUID SIZZLES Oh, you...

ALAN LAUGHS NERVOUSLY

MARK: Fire!

That stinks!

Personally, I think Alan's starting to buckle a little bit,

he's spilt his sauce, over boiling. To me, that's a bit under pressure.

I've heard that Jeremy doesn't actually like scorched cream.

Is that not what his dessert is?

-I thought you were...

-You're not going to take that sitting down?

Enjoy your moment in the sun, boys. MARK LAUGHS

I'm just trying to ignore them if I possibly can.

Matthew has given me the best advice.

You'll have mistakes, it's how you deal with them

in the heat of competition and a pan of cream boiling over -

what difference does that make to anybody? None.

The countdown to the tasting is looming

and the tension's mounting for all the chefs.

Mark is testing his beef-and-potato pie,

while cooking chervil root for his reinvention

of the classic roast beef dinner.

Alan is preparing his veal sweetbreads in breadcrumbs

and Colin is now juggling a lot of elements.

He's braising his lamb's tongues and making a gravy.

The heat is on, guys, who's feeling the pressure?

You wouldn't be human if you didn't feel pressure. If you want it, you're going to feel pressure.

Colin still has to finish the fiddly process

of wrapping sweetbreads in pastry for the crispy spring rolls.

Making a nice little spring roll, then I get the shoestring pastry,

wrap it round it, deep-fry it and get it nice and crispy.

There's so many elements in my dish, if I take my eye off the ball, problems can happen.

-How are you doing?

-I'm the quiet one today, Jeremy.

-Very, very much so.

-Concentrating, concentrating.

-This is a big one for you?

This is one I want to win today, Jeremy.

There is a great deal of pressure on Colin today, a lot going on here,

and so, the more you have on the plate, the more on the menu,

the more room for error there is.

Across the way, Alan's taken his unbraised joint of rose veal

out of the water bath.

-Pale and interesting.

-Pale and dull and flavourless at the moment.

However, secret weapon there -

-flavour, flavour, flavour, that's what it's about.

-Ah, the BBQ.

Alan's now banking on the charcoal

of his specially-installed barbecue to caramelise the veal.

-So what temperature's that?

-That, at the moment, is just above 250,

but I can restrict the airflow and get it where I want.

'If I can get that flavour right,'

it'll elevate a dish from being good to being truly great,

but it'll come down to the quality of the meat on the final delivery.

I think Alan's dishes have got a lot of strong flavours in there.

Veal's very light and you've just got to be really careful with that.

There's a lot of risk involved there, a lot of risk.

Molecular chef Mark has taken his crustless beef-and-potato pie

out of the fridge, where it's been setting.

I think the biggest risk I've got today is my terrine.

I mean, it's old classic flavours that everybody will recognise.

Trying to elevate it is the hard part.

Mark's not the only one to have concerns.

The dissembled pie dish could be quite fraught for him.

For this brief, he needs to pull something really quite spectacular out of the hat.

You're taking a risk with this terrine. Is it how you wanted it?

It's set properly.

Is this the two points that's going to overstep me, is it?

To be honest, I'm hoping it'll be an extra three.

One of us has to go home. I just don't want it to be me.

Colin's determined not to go home on Thursday, either.

It's time to showcase his main course contender.

He wilts some spring greens

and coats portions of saddleback of lamb

in mustard and a pine nut crust,

serves his tongue - which has been braised -

with the deep-fried spring rolls containing the sweetbreads,

a spoonful of onion puree

and, finally, the lamb gravy is poured into silver teapots.

-So, Jeremy...

-Colin, you've had an intense morning.

-I think I've lost a stone.

-Have your endeavours paid off?

-I'm happy with the dish.

It's me on a plate. Loads of textures, flavours, very spring,

-very eye-catching.

-Olympic dish? What do you think, Mark?

It looks like a great plate of food. He's sourced his ingredients well.

Has Colin delivered on his concept

of using underused cuts like sweetbreads and tongue

and turned them into an awe-inspiring banquet dish?

-Talk me through this dish.

-Started off with poached blackface lamb.

With this crust on top.

A little bit of mustard on there and then some roasted pine nuts.

Then we've got the little lamb sweetbread croustillant,

just basically some sweetbreads and lovely little potato shoestring.

Just keeps all that beautiful flavour intact, nice and crispy.

Then we've got the lovely braised lamb's tongue and it all marriages together.

-I like the tongue, it's obviously a tongue.

-Yeah.

The actual sweetbreads, I can eat all that quite happily.

I love the different textures, so it hits the senses, cos obviously,

you've got the lamb loin there.

You've got the tongue, which has a very earthy texture to it,

and then you've got the crispiness of the sweetbread.

Tongue, the sweetbreads, the loin. Very fine Scottish produce.

-That's your stand-out contribution to this?

-It's a showcase dish.

I've got to put Scotland on a plate.

-Any techniques you've not seen?

-The spring roll wrapped in potato.

That's a very, very good plate of food. Technically faultless.

You've worked very hard on this.

Has this come out as you expected and wanted it to?

I think I'm very happy with it, Jeremy.

I wouldn't serve it to you if I wasn't 100% convinced. Good food takes time.

Looking at the brief,

is this actually what the Olympians are going to be motivated by?

It's a great plate of food. I don't know if it's groundbreaking.

A main course dish for an Olympic feast.

Is this the dish that goes through?

I would love it to be the dish, Jeremy.

I strongly believe that this dish deserves to be there.

So, another tough chat with Jeremy Lee.

Just delivered my lamb dish. To me, stunning dish. Who knows?

There's been so many surprises in the last couple of days.

Alan's up next. He serves squares of his parsley and watercress jelly,

together with precise portions of macaroni cheese

sitting on a bed of spinach, then finishes barbecuing his veal.

That's what I'm looking for there, guys.

See, I want it pink and the carbon, so I want both at the same time.

He garnishes the jelly with a light cheese foam and some parsley cress.

As a final flourish, Alan serves the breaded sweetbreads in a cone.

There we go, sir. What do you eat when you're watching sport?

You eat popcorn, so I've done you a little veal popcorn

and you carry your own Olympic torch away with you.

-And this green...?

-Parsley.

-Parsley round, yeah.

Parsley cress, parsley puree and the veal cooked through beautifully.

Has Alan managed to elevate barbecued veal

and macaroni cheese into an outstanding Olympic dinner?

There's almost a feeling of playful retro about this.

'70s, bistro, trattoria-type dishes.

Is that something you were trying to achieve with this?

Cos that's quite potent, and that's quite potent.

I'm looking to have an element of freshness.

You've got the richness of the cheese and you've also got

the somewhat comforting element of the spinach and watercress.

-The spinach overpowers the macaroni cheese, doesn't it?

-Yeah.

-It's not very strong.

-It's cooked very rare, this.

-I think that's what I was looking for.

It might be too restaurant pink.

It's quite fatty, you know, quite sinewy. Some people don't like that.

-It's not been cooked for long or slow enough...

-Yeah.

..so the fat's just not broken down.

Something notable by its absence on the plate is any gravy or sauce.

Hundred of these going out, sauce skinning up, spring day,

it'll get cold, all of this will retain its heat. It was a deliberate strategy.

-I do feel like I need a sauce.

-What was the thing he squirted on?

Was it a sauce, a foam? Where is it? It's as if it just disappeared.

-It's his weakest dish so far.

-I agree.

I mean, it's phenomenal how much care and thought you put into this.

Is this the dish that will take you climbing up, take your gold medal?

For me, looking at the details means I can deliver excellence every time.

Another good effort, I think. Jeremy seemed to like the dish.

Looking at the veal, the comment was it was quite pink.

Veal should he served pink, in my view.

However, if I'm cooking for the final banquet,

perhaps it needs to be taken that bit further.

You've come back a bit quiet there.

If Mark's going to plate up in time,

he needs to get ready for a sprint finish.

He sieves the bone marrow, which goes into the beef jus,

then serves a portion of the crustless beef-and-potato pie,

with a dash of the shallot puree.

D'you want me to wipe the edge of the plate?

You seem to have a smear up the side of it.

Then Mark sears the rump of beef for the second time,

adds the roasted shallots, chervil root and a garnish of fresh truffle,

and finally serves the steaks of rump beef.

And there we have it.

-Mark, how are you feeling?

-Happy. Happy with it.

And is this the gold-medal dish that's going

to carry you through and up to the top of the podium

-and have that ribbon round your neck?

-Hopefully, this is the one.

-What do you think, Alan?

-I might have something round his neck.

THEY LAUGH I'd order this on a menu.

Has Mark pulled off his modern take on roast beef dinner

and made it into an Olympic dish fit to fly the flag for Britain?

How has your beef cooked? How has it behaved as you wanted it?

It's came out, it's got the flavour that I was looking for, it's tender.

You could say that was fillet steak. It's that tender.

It's quite tough.

Let's have a go of your chervil root.

I might have to get a bit of truffle.

-Where's the greens?

-Chervil root.

-That tastes like parsnip.

-Yeah.

A very wintry dish, I think, bone marrow.

Are you quite happy with how the terrine's come out?

It was something I was worried about. With all the stages

the terrine had to go through, at any one stage, it could have not worked.

So, no, I'm really happy with it.

Can you taste the meat in it?

-It's getting a bit lost.

-Yeah, it's getting lost in that lot of potato.

-That needs crisping up.

-Yeah, the potato terrine.

I can tell, just looking at that, mega crispy, it gives you the crunch.

The brief of the competition this year is for groundbreaking food,

groundbreaking flavours and textures.

-Do you think this dish fulfils that brief?

-I think it does.

I've got scurvy grass, chervil root, your beef, your terrine.

I think all the flavours there work.

So I've just given Jeremy my main course.

I'm really happy with the dish. There was a few elements

that could have gone wrong that hopefully didn't.

Hopefully, I've done enough to carry me through.

With the dishes delivered and tasted,

the chefs can do no more but nervously await Jeremy's verdict.

Quite intense in there now.

I don't really want to be behind going into dessert.

'I wouldn't say I'm not worried,'

because you can drop a lot of points very, very easily.

Main course.

Colin...

your fillet of lamb with croustillant and sweetbread,

I thought, flawless cooking.

I loved the gravy, I just thought that was natty and clever,

brought the whole thing together. I loved the way it worked with sweetbreads.

The seasoning could be more interesting, I think,

and still looking for that lightning to strike

that this is something absolutely radical.

Alan...

you rose veal, spinach, watercress.

Quite restrained, I thought. An almost retro dish.

I loved the attention to detail,

but I would've liked more blistering on the charcoal on the meat,

which might've cooked it a bit more,

which would've given the dish more balance

and I thought it slightly did away with the jelly

and with the foam on top, which kind of vanished.

It was a lot of cheese.

And, Mark...

your rump of beef with potato and beef shin terrine.

Lovely ingredients, well chosen.

Cheeky, nice, charming use of chervil root.

And the potato terrine was great. I would've liked more crust on it,

-I have to say...

-OK.

-..cos I think, texture wise,

because the beef sous-vide, again, still wants a bit more crust.

And then, the bone marrow jus just kind of slightly lost.

I'd have liked a little less jus and a bit more marrow in it.

So...

..Colin, for your lamb...

-eight out of ten. Well done.

-Thank you.

Alan, for your veal...

..I'm going to give you seven.

And for Mark, your beef...

..seven.

Thank you.

-MARK: Congratulations.

-Thanks, guys.

-Well done.

-Cheers.

-Fair scores, I believe.

-Yeah.

So Colin's trumped Alan with a score of eight,

but with the competition so tight, it's all still to play for

as the chefs go into tomorrow's final course.

I would've liked one more, but I didn't get it.

I just managed to get the title, which was great. I'm on a high.

There's only four points between all three chefs.

One mistake, it's over for any single one of us.

Tomorrow, it's the last chance to impress with the dessert course

and Alan is trying to unnerve his opposition...

Is beetroot cake supposed to come out red?

..but he may have spoken too soon.

-These are the worst ones I've done.

-Really, ever?

-Ever. Ever!

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