Episode 11 MasterChef: The Professionals

48 chefs from across the UK

are putting their reputations on the line

in a bid to become Professional MasterChef Champion.

Tonight, six more hopefuls compete to impress judge Gregg Wallace,

renowned chef Monica Galetti, and two Michelin-starred Marcus Wareing.

A lot of my chef friends that I talk to don't really

cook the same way I do.

I'm definitely hoping that the judges will get it.

I know how to handle my nerves...

..sometimes!

I'd say I'm competitive

at pretty much all things.

I just want to get in there now and show them what I can do.

This is a massive opportunity.

I can't wait to see what they're going to produce.

They're going to have to come in here and show us something special.

20-minute test. We've got six chefs waiting to come in here.

This is your challenge.

What are you going to get them to do?

I would like our chefs to prepare and cook this rose veal sweetbread.

And serve it with a garnish and a sauce of their choosing.

There are two types of sweetbread, there's in the stomach,

and then there's in the throat. This is the throat sweetbread.

Well, you've given them a lovely larder of ingredients there.

Baby carrots, turnips, fennel, baby leeks, lots of lovely herbs.

It's the mustards there

and the goat's curd and the pickled walnuts that excite me.

But they're going to have to be used sparingly if they use

them, because they're big flavours!

The sweetbreads are quite versatile once you know what to do with them.

And I think as long as they understand flavours

that work with offal, you can make it match.

-Are you hungry?

-Mate, I'm always hungry!

Please, show me how it's done, Marcus.

The key is to remove the membrane.

If they don't remove the sinew,

it just tightens up and the whole thing will start to curl up and will

be very difficult to cook.

It's basic technique, isn't it, to remove sinew, to cut off trimmings?

It is basic technique.

Looking at veal kidney or calves' liver as well, you know,

you've always got that covered with some kind of membrane that you need

to remove.

Little bit of flour, salt, pepper.

I've got vegetable oil in the pan.

I really want to get this to quite a high heat.

If it's under, it's not going to be good.

I don't want it soft and jelly-like in the middle.

-No.

-I want it cooked all the way through.

I'll put in all these little trimmings.

So I want to get the colour on the sweetbread before it goes into the

oven. I'm going to put some knobs of butter in there,

wrap it up in some butter paper

and then just allow it to cook gently in the oven.

The focus is all on that sweetbread and it's all on that pan.

Your eyes haven't left that.

No. And it's not going to until it's in the oven.

Wow.

Do you like a slice of sweetbread with your butter, Monica?!

-I do, actually!

-What you want to do is to encourage the foam to start

coming up just like that.

-Yeah.

-Into the butter paper.

-Look at that!

-Turn it over, and then into the oven.

And for probably about five, six minutes.

Now I can focus on my garnish and my sauce.

-You really enjoyed yourself then, didn't you!

-I did!

So my garnish for the sweetbread is going to be baby leeks,

pickled walnuts, curd.

And for the sauce, I'm going to use veal jus reduced...

..with some sliced shallots, garlic,

and just a little bit of thyme leaf going through it.

I'm going to put a splash of sherry vinegar into the sauce.

So the sweetbread's

had enough time in the oven.

Just by touch,

I know that's ready.

-Just springy.

-Springy?

-Springy.

-If our chefs have worked with sweetbread,

they'd know it has to be taken to this colour.

Sort of my colour, lovely and golden.

Not like you and Marcus!

Pasty white!

I think we're pretty much ready to go.

Sweetbread on the plate.

-Yeah, go on!

-The goat's curd.

Lovely.

That's it.

Rose veal sweetbread, charred baby leeks,

curd, and the sherry vinegar sauce.

It is just buttery soft, melt-in-the-mouth beauty, isn't it?

It is just such a luxurious thing to eat.

It does need care, it really, really does.

So that's what I'm going to be looking for from my chefs,

is just a little bit of TLC.

If they can cook sweetbreads properly,

I'm in for the best day on MasterChef I've ever had.

-Get them in! Get them in.

-Let's get them in!

The first to face the skills test is 24-year-old Callum...

..who's currently a junior sous-chef at a hotel restaurant in Harrogate.

Ever since school, I know I've wanted to be a chef.

For my 12th birthday, I got an ice cream machine.

For my 13th birthday, I got a pasta machine.

I mean, I've always been interested...

..how will they do stuff?

I can't see myself doing another job, ever.

I'm looking forward to the challenge.

And I've got to make the most of it.

It is exciting.

Callum, welcome to MasterChef.

This is a 20-minute skills test.

-OK.

-And this particular one was set by Marcus.

What I'd like you to do is cook a sweetbread dish.

-Uh-huh.

-With a garnish and a sauce of your choice.

-Right, OK.

-Use any of the ingredients on the table to your left.

-Have you cooked sweetbread before?

-Yeah.

-Prepped it before?

-A long time ago, but, yeah, I've prepped it before.

20 minutes. Off you go.

Tell me, what is it you're doing now?

Just taking the sinew off the sweetbread.

The bits I want to saute off.

Coat it in some flour, some spices over there that I might use,

and just then some butter, nice and brown.

-That's the sauce, is it?

-Yes,

so I'm going to reduce the veal and chicken stock down.

And just do a sherry sauce.

You've had five minutes, Callum.

So, tell me where we are, you've got your stock reducing.

Yeah, stock's reducing.

Braised peas that I'm going to do with these lardons.

Callum, you're halfway.

-Right, OK.

-You've got ten minutes left.

What made you enter MasterChef?

I said last year that I wouldn't do any competitions with the birth

of my son. And this year,

my ability as a chef has developed a lot in the last year,

so I thought I'd test myself a little bit further.

-How old's your little boy?

-He was one two weeks ago.

-Callum.

-Yeah.

-You've got just five minutes.

You've got just two minutes, Callum, so let's get it on a plate, please.

-Finished?

-Yeah.

Bang on time.

Callum's fried sweetbreads are served with braised peas, lardons,

pickled walnuts, and a sherry sauce.

You've got a really good approach to the kitchen, Callum.

Your garnish choice, your peas and your bacon,

is a nice addition to the dish.

Your sauce making is something to be questioned, though.

-Right, OK.

-Reduced stock with reduced wine,

it's just a little bit lazy.

You need a sauce that's got some shallots running through it,

you've got garlic, you've got lots of herbs.

Clearly they were still raw when you took them out of the pan,

you could tell when you touched them.

You know, they're very soft when you start,

you need these to cook, to firm up.

I like your choice of ingredients.

The pickled walnuts give a lovely sharpness to it,

really, really nice.

But the sweetbreads themselves are undercooked.

You've got, you know, elements there that you did very well.

You've made a sort of pea ragout, you've put the sauce back through,

a little bit of stock, so you've really worked hard on the peas.

But that attention to those peas,

if you just transfer that over to your sweetbread,

you'd have had a really good dish here!

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

-Off you go.

-Why are they not cooked?

-Cos he was looking at his peas!

Should've maybe took my time a little bit more and just calmed down a bit.

For a first go, you can't accept that.

Next is 33-year-old head chef Chris, who works as a fine dining hotel

restaurant in Edinburgh.

I've been a chef now for 17 years.

And I kind of got into it by accident.

They were organising work experience through school and I was actually

off ill the day everyone got to pick theirs.

So when I got back to school,

it was either a kitchen assistant or a shop assistant.

And I didn't fancy stacking shelves for a week.

Check on, guys.

I'm a good all-rounder, you know, being a head chef,

we need to be kind of prepared for anything and be ready to step into

any section.

But, obviously, the skill test, it's a completely different ball game.

So, I'll wait and see.

-Welcome, Chris.

-Thank you.

Sweetbread dish, garnish of your choosing, with a sauce.

20 minutes, Chris. Off you go.

Can I ask you, Chris...

-Yes?

-What's that water for?

I'm just going to

blanch the sweetbreads before I cook them in the pan with some butter

and make them nice and crispy.

-And what's the garnish?

-I'm doing a jus with some peas,

some of the snaps here and I'm still working on the rest!

No problem.

So, no sweetbreads on the menu in your restaurant?

No, I'm afraid not, no.

How are you going to make this sauce, Chris?

I'm going to reduce a little bit of Madeira.

Add the veal jus here.

And I'll finish it off with a bit of the sherry vinegar.

So why MasterChef, Chris?

I think it would be a really good opportunity to kind of showcase what

I can do and to get some feedback from yourselves.

Oh, you're going to get that all right!

Chris, you're halfway, ten minutes left.

OK, thank you.

So, Chris, we've got the sweetbreads in the pan,

we've got the sauce reducing and you've got some blanched peas.

Yeah, now we're going to use a little bit of the curd.

I think that's it, really.

Are you getting a mind block?

A little bit, yeah.

-How are they looking?

-Good.

Getting there, I think.

Five minutes left, so, got to think about bringing it together, yeah?

Yes.

Yeah, come on! OK, that's it.

Are you done, Chef?

Yes.

Chris has served his sweetbreads with goat's curd,

peas and a sherry jus.

-How did you find it?

-It is possibly the scariest thing I've ever done!

You seasoned it, you put the flour on and you cooked them very, very well.

You had herbs in there, you had garlic, you had oil, you had butter,

so really good attention to the cookery, I like that.

You've got a really nice colour to the dish.

The sweetbreads are lovely. Really lovely.

I mean, they've got just the right amount of give as well and all that

butter on it as well has just made them richer.

The sauce making is not the best but the sweetness of it and the little

bit of the vinegar makes sense.

Great first round, I think.

-Thank you.

-I'm really pleased with that dish.

I think it is a dish that you would get in a really good restaurant.

It is very good for a skills test.

See you soon. Off you go.

-Thank you.

-Well done.

They were definitely really good comments.

I wasn't sure what to expect,

so I think it will give me a little bit more confidence and hopefully

help me settle down a little bit,

because I was a little bit erratic in there.

Next up is Finnish-born Sarah,

a 28-year-old head chef working in Cardiff.

Dad really wanted me to study science and go to university.

Instead, I stayed in the restaurant industry.

The food that I cook here, it changes quite a lot.

It depends on what kind of customers we have, really.

From buffets to canapes or

three, four-course meals.

Competitions are a really good way

of learning and challenging yourself.

I like to be nervous, I like to be excited.

I have to have something that I am excited about all the time going on

in my life.

Do you know what that is?

Sweetbreads?

Yes. Have you prepped a sweetbread before and cooked one?

Once. Once.

You have 20 minutes.

-20 minutes.

-Off you go.

-Thank you.

So, what's your plan, Sarah?

I'm going to coat it with flour then I'm going to fry it in a quite heavy

oil and do, like, a creamy pancetta sauce.

What got you into being a chef?

Just an accident, really.

I was applying for a job as a waitress and they accidentally put

me in the kitchen.

-You could have got out!

-Yeah, I loved it, though.

-I loved it.

-Did you then go and get any training in college?

No, I didn't go to cooking school.

Right.

You are halfway.

-Thank you.

-You've got ten minutes left.

How do you know when your sweetbreads are cooked?

I'm just trying to feel it.

-What are you feeling for?

-I don't want it to be really hard,

but I don't want it to be really... bouncy, either.

It's quite salty.

-Too salty?

-I like food to be a bit too salty for normal people.

And do your customers want it really salty?

They haven't complained so far, so...

You like it to be really salty for them, did you say?

Oh, yeah, my cooking is very salty.

Chef, you have five minutes left.

Thank you.

-There you go.

-Are you done?

-Yes.

To go with her sweetbreads, Sarah has made pickled radishes.

And a lemon cream pancetta sauce.

You've not trimmed the sweetbread

and you've not taken any of the sinew of it at all.

And your cooking... you can see there's black.

The sauce-making, I felt that you weren't too sure,

add a bit of cream, put it back, add a bit more cream, put it back,

add a bit more cream and it just went on and on and on.

Wow!

I don't understand a chef who says to me that they enjoy sending out

salty food to their customers.

I really...

Because I can't eat that.

What I really don't like at all is this sauce.

So much cream, with so much salty bacon,

it's far too strong for a sweetbread,

but also it's got acidity of lemon.

I could take it on a cake, cream and lemon,

I can't take it in a savoury dish here.

And I feel, with this dish, that you were just sort of winging it along,

the bacon doesn't work with the sweetbreads

and the sweetbreads are burnt.

It's your dish next and it's your chance to come out and shine with

your food and your recipe, so...

..just let's hope it's a little bit better than this one.

-It will.

-See you in the next round.

Thank you.

Um...

I was surprisingly bad.

Shame on me.

I wasn't after that kind of start at all.

But what can I do?

Next up is Tom, a 29-year-old junior sous-chef

working in a three-rosette country house restaurant in the Cotswolds.

Took a Saturday job helping out in the kitchen and then it kind of all

lead from there, really. Did an apprenticeship,

worked my way through various kitchens,

moved to Spain for a year and then

finally ended up here in the Cotswolds.

I've entered other competitions in the past and I've done well in them

but ultimately not well enough, and so I want to use this competition

to win and to prove myself, really.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous.

I mean, at the end of the day, this is a national platform and you don't

want to make a fool of yourself in front of your peers.

Cooked sweetbread before, Tom?

-I have, yeah.

-You know how they work?

-Yeah.

-Good, good, good.

-I hope so.

-Right, well you've got 20 minutes to cook a sweetbread dish,

with a garnish and sauce of your choice.

Off you go.

What's the plan, Tom?

The plan is to quickly blanch it, remove the membrane,

and then I'm going to pan-fry it.

So, you're dropping that into boiling water for what?

To remove the membrane there.

Calm down a little bit, Tom.

Yeah...

What sort of garnish are you thinking of, Tom?

Turnips, and a few of the peas,

and a bit of watercress on top.

Tom, five minutes have gone.

Are you feeling a bit better now you've started cooking?

Er...no!

Tom, you are halfway. You've got ten minutes left.

Yeah.

You've got to cook those sweetbreads, cook the veg, finish your sauce.

-Tom.

-Yeah.

What do you think it takes to cook perfect sweetbread?

You want a nice, crisp exterior.

Nicely cooked in the middle.

-All right, are you going to start plating?

-Yeah, oui.

You've got a couple of minutes.

-Are you done?

-Yeah.

-Dish finished, you've stopped shaking?

Yeah, just about.

Well done.

Tom has served his sweetbreads with turnips, peas, leeks,

and a mustard and sherry sauce.

Mmm...

The sweetbreads,

I like that you blanched it to remove the membrane on the outside.

But there's a sinew that runs deep into it which you need to trim,

unless you sort of gently remove it, which you've left there as well.

The cooking of it, you were very careful with it,

but it's not cooked properly.

It's not cooked all the way through.

The sauce is all right.

Love your sauce, love the flavour you've got in there as well,

that mustard just gives it a little bit of heat and a little bit of

sharpness. But you've got to get those nerves under control.

Tom, if this dish was cooked well, it would be fantastic.

I love the combinations of the peas and the vegetables that you brought

to the dish, and the mustard sauce is a delight.

You've got the makings of a really good dish.

So get your nerves together, get yourself together,

and just cook the way you cook at work.

-We'll see you in the next round, Tom.

-OK, thanks.

-Thanks, Tom.

I think that's the most nervous I've ever been in my life.

I don't think I'll ever be more nervous than that.

It's ridiculous!

Originally from Mumbai,

Soham works as a sous-chef at a three-rosette restaurant in London.

My duties as a sous-chef,

which is covering six parts of the operations in the hotel.

I like to do classic food, but I'm very much open to the new trends.

MasterChef, it is going to be very intense.

That's what I want,

that's what I want to see, how I'm going to react myself.

Whatever test comes to me, I'll try to do my best.

Sweetbread dish, garnish and sauce of your choice.

Off you go.

When was the last time you prepped a sweetbread?

In my previous places, and it's in the menu as well.

-How long ago?

-Just, like, one month.

Good.

It's a 20-minute challenge, you've prepped your sweetbreads,

I've got to tell you you only have 19-and-a-half minutes left.

-Yes, Chef.

-You prepped that in about a minute!

Yes, needs to be quick.

You do have 20 minutes, you know.

Soham, tell me what it is you're doing,

and then what it is you've got left to do.

I'm going to make pan-fried sweetbreads

with a garnish of the bacon,

a bit of a jus, and a bit of summer vegetables with it.

You look very comfortable. Are you feeling OK?

You are making me comfortable.

Oh! Gregg gets that all the time.

-You are halfway, you've got ten minutes left.

-Yes.

You've still got seven minutes left. You're doing very well.

The fastest chef in the competition.

I try.

-Dish complete?

-Yes.

-All finished?

-Yes.

-Are you happy?

-Yes.

Soham has served pan-fried sweetbread

with lardon, peas, turnips,

and a red wine and veal jus.

I think your working methods are absolutely fantastic to watch.

My only criticism would be your speed,

because you attacked the sweetbread with so much energy, it's almost...

..you're butchering it, in a sense.

I love the way you cooked first the sweetbreads in the pan,

and then used the same pan to cook the bacon lardons,

so you've got the flavours of the bacon

running through the same butter.

Your sauce is lovely, the flavours are lovely.

Your vegetables are cooked nicely, they've got a really good texture.

Sweetbreads are under.

And you had the makings of a sensational dish there.

But your rushing around let you down.

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

It's just a schoolboy error of cooking raw sweetbreads,

so I think I can do much better, yeah.

Let's see how it goes.

Last up is 28-year-old Matt...

..who works as a private chef in the Lake District.

I'm cooking for people who live in a house full time,

so I basically bring the restaurant to them.

I haven't got anyone to fall back on,

I haven't got a pastry chef to make pastry,

I haven't got someone to do the sauce.

So, yeah, I can only rely on myself.

I'm treating this exactly the same way as how I'm training for my

marathon at the weekend. You just need to put in the hours.

I was in BBC Young Chef Of The Year at the age of 20.

I came second in the end.

Hopefully this time, eight years on, I've got a lot more experience.

Hopefully I can do one better.

I just want to tell you something. You are the last skills test of

-this competition.

-Hopefully it won't be the worst.

-That would be nice.

-Right, sweetbread dish, 20 minutes.

Matt, off you go.

Have you always been a private chef, Matt?

No, not always. I started off in a Michelin background.

Right.

Then I went to do a ski season, basically.

From there, I got offered a job in the south of France

and I was like, "OK, I'll take this on, do that."

It kind of snowballed.

It snowballed after the ski season?

Yeah!

You've had five minutes, Chef.

Thank you.

What's the plan for your dish?

Cook these turnips, blanch some peas,

and then I'm going to make a dressing with pickled walnuts.

Right, you're halfway, you've had ten minutes.

What got you into being a chef in the first place?

I was working in a hotel as a waiter,

and I just found that I was at the pass all the time,

asking questions about the food and stuff.

And I found that I was just really into cooking.

Tell us about your sauce that you're making.

I've just started off just sweating off onions and garlic,

a little bit of thyme, and then some white wine,

two different types of mustard, just for a bit of piquancy,

just to cut through.

You have got just five minutes left.

-OK.

-OK?

Just five minutes.

-Can you do it in two-and-a-half minutes?

-Yeah.

One minute left, come on, Matt!

Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on.

-All done?

-All done.

Matt's sweetbreads have been served with turnip tops, peas, radish,

pickled walnuts, and a mustard and veal jus.

I thought, Matt, your approach to the kitchen was very professional.

I feel like you did have a plan,

but you have to be very careful with your timing,

because you left the sweetbread right to the very end there.

Yeah.

Love your sauce, really do.

Love that sharpness with the pickled walnuts, and a little bit of heat,

"piquancy" I think you called it, of the mustard.

Yeah, I think that's really nice.

You were really slow getting these sweetbreads in.

-Yeah.

-We need another minute.

I like the flavours that are coming through,

I like the mustard that is in there.

But I think you spent a lot of time tasting your sauce,

but forgot about the sweetbread.

You can't take all that time to make something, and to taste, taste,

taste, and then sort of throw it on the plate in the last 30 seconds.

It just defeats the purpose, doesn't it?

There's a lot of flavour in this dish,

but I love the crunch of the vegetable tops

that you've put with it.

The shallots going through the sauce.

I think that's probably one of the most creative skills tests

-I've seen today.

-Thank you very much.

The only let down is just the sweetbread,

it's not cooked well enough.

-Off you go, Chef.

-Thank you.

It could have gone better, but it could have gone a lot, lot worse.

The sweetbreads in the end just...

If I'd nailed them, it would have been, like, awesome.

Listen, that was good.

-Very good.

-The only thing that let quite a few of them down was the

actual finishing of the sweetbread.

There's quite a few undercooked, but I think that was just a timing issue.

One or two need to slow down a little bit, and a couple I think,

you know, they've got something to prove in the next round.

But I think at least three or four of these chefs showed that they've got some skills.

It's going to be a good round, this signature dish.

Chefs, welcome back.

For those of you who started well in the skills round, keep it going.

A few of you have got a little bit of work to do.

Good luck.

Signature dish,

you've chosen this dish to cook and show off what you can do.

I just hope they're good enough to get you through to the next round.

At the end of this, three of you will be leaving the competition.

One hour and 15 minutes.

All to play for.

Off you go.

I'm just hoping that they appreciate my style.

I'm trying to incorporate a health element into my cooking,

so rather than having, like, cod cheeks with fish cream sauce,

I'm trying to offer an alternative and for them to think like, yeah,

that could work in the future.

You've got a bright green fish, Chef.

Yes, so I'm doing cod cheeks three ways.

This one is with some spirulina,

which is like a really healthy seaweed.

Have you smelt this, Marcus?

I've never... Put your nose in there, Chef.

-It's unbelievable.

-It's like sea and truffle.

Yeah. And then served with kale, variations of turnip, sea truffle,

and then kombucha.

-What's kombucha?

-It's a drink, it's a fermented tea.

Lots of people drink it instead of alcohol nowadays,

and I drink it every day.

-Does it get you drunk?

-If you ferment it correctly, yes.

It's quite different.

Do you feel better?

I think I'd rather have a pint of beer, to be honest!

There you go.

Matt's dish is quite a complicated dish.

There's a lot going on here.

He's got three cod cheeks to go on the plate,

one of which he's pan-fried,

the second one he's blowtorched,

and the third one he's got like a seaweed powder that he's put on top

of the fish itself.

It's quite unusual and it's very, very interesting.

The question is, will it taste nice?

Cooking your own food for the judges is a brilliant opportunity for me.

It is a pressure in the moment, but, yeah, I'm going to do my best.

I'm trying to make sure that this is going to be good.

Soham, have you stopped running around at 1,000 miles an hour?

-Just trying to get it done.

-You've got a lot on your bench.

-Yeah, just a little bit.

-What is the dish?

The dish is a lamb rack with some braised neck,

I'm adding in some kiwi.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Did you just say

"neck of lamb with kiwi"?

Yeah. The kiwi helps to tenderise it a bit faster.

Seriously? Kiwi tenderises lamb?

If you soak them for one hour, then you can easily get the flaky lamb.

I have to say, though, Soham, that's a lot of work there.

You do work quickly, I'll give you that.

-Thank you so much.

-Thank you.

I love lamb. As long as it's all cooked properly, the neck,

I want it tender, I want it falling apart.

Rack of lamb, pink, it's got to be seared nicely on the outside and rested.

There's a lot of different things here.

Artichokes, turnips, he's got girolle mushrooms, he's got lettuce.

They do work, and they should work,

but I think the question is always going to be,

is it all going to come together? Because there's so much going on.

You've got an hour left.

The skills test wasn't good at all.

Not at all.

I need to make sure now that they can see that I do have the basic

skills, even though I haven't been in school.

The timing is...

The timing is everything.

Chef, what's the dish that's going to set the competition on fire and

get you through to the next round?

I'm making duck and cherries with onions.

I'm using the duck in three different ways.

What's the three different ways that you're cooking the duck?

Pulled duck, which is going to go with the caramelised onions,

and then I have the duck breast which is in a sous-vide,

and then I used the duck liver on the sauce.

Fine, fine, fine.

Can you turn it around?

I sure will try my best.

You're still in the running.

-Yeah, I know.

-You're still in the competition,

you've got a huge opportunity to take it back.

A lot of it has got to do when you've got a great attitude in the kitchen it shows in your cooking.

Definitely. I agree.

I really like the sounds of Sarah's dish.

I love duck, I love cherries, I love the garnish.

I hope she's making equally a great sauce to go with it.

Sarah needs to get her seasoning right.

She needs to pull back on the salt and realise that she's not cooking

for herself today, she's cooking for us, and it's got to be right.

Chefs, you're halfway.

Callum is using a lamb loin, peas that he's taken out of the pod,

done with very, very small dices of potato,

and he's making this buttermilk sauce.

Interesting sauce, I've never had it with lamb before.

Where is your food idea coming from?

Love of lamb, and Yorkshire produce as well from where I'm from.

This dish has gone through a series of stages.

At one point, it had goat's cheese with it,

and just refining it and refining it to get where I'm happy with it.

How determined are you to nail yourself a place in the next round?

Very. After this morning, very.

I've had a long, hard word with myself.

I need now, yeah. I want to get through, I want to get through,

so I'm determined that this goes right.

-Do your best, Callum.

-Will do.

I'm very confident with this dish.

I've practised it a lot.

I know what I'm doing. I've got a list of things, ticking off as I go,

so hopefully it'll all go smoothly.

Chefs, you have 25 minutes left.

Really excited about cooking my own food.

I've practised the dish a few times, and I'm quite happy with it.

It looks quite impressive.

So I just need to try and keep my nerves intact,

and hopefully they'll see what I can really do.

-You all right, Chris?

-Yes, thank you.

So, tell us about your dish now.

I'm doing a sous-vide halibut with a seaweed butter,

oyster mayonnaise with some dill, with an oyster shell,

two types of cucumber, one charred and one fresh,

and I'm also doing a chicken skin crumb with pine nut and lemon to go

-on top of the fish.

-So this is your style of cooking we're going to get?

Yeah, it's quite light, and quite refreshing.

You had a very good skills test.

-Yes.

-What do you feel you have to do now?

Just continue on from that.

I had a couple of basic errors,

so I'm looking to get rid of them and show that I can do some

good cooking.

The crispy chicken skin is a lovely addition to a fish dish.

It just brings a lovely meaty flavour,

and works very well with fish.

The key to this is getting the balance right,

and the cooking of the halibut has to be spot-on.

Guys, you've got just ten minutes, please.

Only ten minutes.

I'm cooking a loin of lamb.

You know, you get a lot of lamb dishes and they have the same

garnish, so it's like, wanted to mix it up a bit.

I'm just hoping the whole dish wows them, really.

That's all I can aim for and nothing less.

I'm cooking lamb with turnips, pecan nuts and verjus and white grapes.

Lamb, grapes and pecan nuts.

Where has this come from, Tom?

I had a dish in my head and worked on it,

and then added a few things to it, and then it came from there, really.

Where do the pecan nuts come in your lamb dish?

Well, I've basically just roasted them and I've smashed them up,

they give a different texture and a slightly different flavour.

OK. You seem so calm and controlled.

I don't feel it, I'm not going to lie to you.

Lamb loin, pecan nuts, grapes, turnips.

Got to be very careful that the balance is right.

Sweet things with lamb, for me personally, don't work.

Chefs, you've got just five minutes.

You guys have got one minute.

That's it, time's up, stop.

-How'd you get on, buddy?

-Yeah, good.

-How was it?

-Stressful.

First up is Chris.

He's made seaweed butter-poached halibut,

topped with crispy chicken skin and pine nut crumb...

..served with Jersey Royals, compressed and roasted cucumber...

..oyster and dill mayonnaise...

..and a buttermilk and lemon dressing.

I really do think you've got a fabulously cooked piece of fish there.

It's stunning. I love the flavours of the oyster in the dish,

the little chicken skin on the top as well.

I think the dish is absolutely delicious.

-Thank you.

-The only criticism is that there are certain things and

-this plate that need seasoning.

-Yes.

So much to admire on that plate, Chris, the textures and flavours.

I'm a big fan of halibut, and it's cooked really, really well.

The idea of the crispy chicken skin across the top with herbs,

-really like that.

-The crumb is nice, the buttermilk is wonderful,

the potatoes, the cucumber with the charred outside.

But I was looking for where that salt was that was going to balance

this dish out. That's the only thing that's missing,

and that can be fixed.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

No, thank you.

Very frustrating getting something like seasoning wrong, especially,

you know, I'm a head chef.

I go on to everybody else in the kitchen every day about that,

how important that is.

But really happy with the rest of the comments from the judges.

Callum has cooked loin of lamb on a bed of braised peas, diced potatoes,

and anchovies...

..served with a lovage oil and buttermilk sauce.

Whoa! That's a statement, Callum.

That's a serious statement.

I think the lamb is nicely cooked.

It's nice and pink.

The garnish underneath is quite interesting,

there's a lot of textures coming through it, and it sort of,

kind of, works.

The buttermilk, when it's all mingled together with what you have

here, it's kind of confusing.

There are pros and cons, I'd definitely give you that.

The lamb's well cooked, you've got a lovely pink colour to it.

I just think that the buttermilk doesn't work with this dish.

It doesn't, for me, complement it.

I don't like the dish as a whole, but I really enjoy elements of it.

This ragout underneath is really sharp.

The sauce itself is sharp.

So the lamb has only become a texture.

Callum, I think you've got some great ideas.

I think, unfortunately, this one is a work in progress.

It's gone through so many stages, that dish,

developing it and getting it to a certain stage.

But, yeah, they didn't like it,

so just got to take it on the chin and see what's next.

But it's not looking good.

Soham's dish is roasted lamb rack...

..onion stuffed with braised lamb neck and sweetbreads...

..courgette puree,

charred baby gem lettuce,

artichokes, girolles, turnips...

..and a lamb sauce.

Soham, you definitely know how to dress a plate of food.

But, the glaring problem that I have is the lamb.

Look at that. That is just pure raw lamb meat.

The artichoke has completely oxidised.

It's lost its colour, it's gone brown.

The lettuce as well just looks like it's losing a bit of love.

The sauce is nice, you've got a lovely flavour going through there.

The dish has great ideas, you've got great ingredients.

You have just not executed them very well.

Nothing's been seasoned nicely.

It's almost like you went at it again 100mph and forgot to

taste everything, and it doesn't taste as good as it looks.

I like your sauce, that's got depth and a slight acidity.

I love the lamb neck.

That's soft, and I could have some more of that.

The lamb,

I can't eat it.

You know, you're an experienced chef,

these seem like silly mistakes to me.

Mistakes I don't think you would probably make

in your own kitchen.

That was intense, yeah.

The comments were positive and negative as well.

A bit of errors in the lamb,

it's a big thing. So, yeah.

Tom has served a loin of lamb with salt-baked turnips...

..pickled turnips,

sheep's yoghurt,

roasted pecans...

..white grapes in a maple verjus...

..and a lamb sauce.

The cooking of the lamb is just there, it's just medium.

The grapes are all right because there's only two of them,

so it's not as fruity as I thought it would be.

I just find the nuts really odd, a nutty lamb dish.

There's a lot of it too, the pecans on there.

You've got a lovely lamb sauce,

you've got a lovely little bit of acidity going through it.

The lamb needs a bit more flavour in it, more butter, garlic, thyme,

rosemary. Add flavour, add flavour, add flavour, because it needs it.

I really like this.

The lamb's cooked perfectly for me.

I like your sauce with that little sharp grape finish,

I really like that.

Nuts? Yeah, I can't see what the nuts are bringing to it.

However, I like your flavours, I like your textures.

I'm happy that Gregg liked it, that was good.

I mean, I thought...

I was quite happy, I thought everything was all right.

I was reasonably pleased.

Sarah is serving pan-fried duck breast...

..pulled duck leg,

a cherry salsa,

confit pearl onions,

onion rings...

..and a duck liver sauce.

I love the sweet cherries through the duck.

Your duck leg is soft, and I love those little sharp onions.

I think you've proved a point here, this is a nicely cooked dish,

and it tastes great.

-Thank you.

-The duck is nice and pink for me.

I did get a little bit of that sauce, and I liked what I got.

There was a bit of sweetness in it, but there wasn't enough to really

distinguish what the sauce was about.

Which is a shame, because the third most important element of the dish

was in that sauce, and that was the liver.

I like what I have,

I just feel like you could have done so much more to it.

You've got great duck cookery on the breast,

but then the leg is just a little bit on the boring side.

I can't taste any sauce on this plate, it isn't on the plate.

I think there's so much you could have done with the ingredients that

you had on the table.

I feel like something's missing.

I wanted to show that simple is good,

but I do agree with them that I should have had a little bit more

into it, like, through those ingredients that I already have.

Last up is Matt,

who has made cod cheeks three ways.

Blowtorched, pan-fried,

and marinated in sea truffle and spirulina seaweed powder...

..served with smoked kale,

kale crisps,

compressed turnips,

garlic and kombucha vinegar gel, and a beurre noisette foam...

..garnished with kale cress and apple marigold.

Each of those cheeks is just buttery soft and really well seasoned,

and I've got little, sweet, sharp notes coming up all over the place.

That tastes as exciting and elegant as it looks, and it looks amazing.

Matt, you've got a certain style already on its way here.

You're getting sharpness and pickles here,

then there's a bit of sweetness coming through.

Do I like it? Yes, I do.

Thank you very much.

That is absolutely superb.

The cod cheeks are beautiful and light,

the best one is the one with the seaweed and the truffle on top.

And the star of this is just the freshness of the garnishes.

There's crispiness, there's little bitter elements of the turnip,

and then there's the zing of the apple.

That's the best signature dish I have ever eaten in MasterChef.

Signature dish.

It was incredible. That's, like, the sort of stuff you dream of.

That couldn't have gone any better for, yeah, the first round.

Seriously insane feedback,

it was so good.

We've only got three places in the next round.

Who do you want to go through?

One of them is obvious.

Matt wowed me today.

This chef has got a unique style.

It's exciting.

Those three cod cheeks, with, like, that sea truffle,

where has he come from?

I don't want to tempt fate,

but I think we've discovered a very talented young chef here.

Matt today was absolutely outstanding.

I have to say, Chris did a great dish.

It looked lovely and everything was balanced on that plate.

It was just a pinch of seasoning away

from getting it absolutely perfect.

Somebody had a tough day in here today, really did, and that was Sarah.

Duck and cherries was OK, I mean it's a tried and tested formula.

But it wasn't special enough to save her skin, was it?

I was so looking forward to that sauce with the offal,

-and it wasn't really there.

-I just felt she could have brought so much

more to her cooking,

and she is not up to the standard that we've got in this room today.

Three chefs left and, funnily enough, three lamb dishes.

Callum, Tom and Soham.

Callum intrigues me, because he cooked his lamb really well.

I loved it. The vivid green sauce, like, really,

it was like an electric green ring illuminating a night sky.

It was like, wow!

And then we had this really quite unusual ragout of potatoes,

peas and anchovies underneath.

It was, like, an odd ragout with lamb, and it didn't make sense.

The potatoes with peas was really nice, and I liked the lamb cookery.

The buttermilk sauce was just greasy on my palate,

it didn't work with the lamb.

Soham, I don't know what to make of him now.

-Why?

-Well, he had one of the best skills tests,

and then he made us a beautifully presented lamb dish,

some good ideas, and he undercooked the lamb.

I had really high hopes for Soham, I really did.

Can he pull it back? Can he be like the chef that we saw in the skills

round? That's the question.

Tom was incredibly nervous in the skills test,

the most nervous of all the chefs.

This round, he was completely different.

I did like Tom's lamb cookery, and I also liked his sauce.

He just had the right amount of verjus in there.

Now, my issue was there were just so many pecan nuts,

and I don't think you need pecan nuts with a lamb dish.

Yeah, I really want to stay in,

prove them wrong and show them that I can do it.

If I was to go home today, I'd be absolutely gutted.

I've come here to progress and go far.

I'd like to stay a lot, because

I think I can do much better.

Which one of them do you think may have what it takes?

In my head, I know exactly which chef. He's been on the fence,

but I know exactly which one.

We can only take our strongest chefs through to the next round.

We've made our decision.

The first chef leaving the competition is...

-..Sarah.

-Thank you.

-Thank you, Sarah.

-Good luck, guys.

Thank you.

Even though I'm sad to go home, I do have, like,

positive feelings from today.

The second chef leaving the competition is...

..Soham.

It's a great experience, it's a pleasure to cook for the judges as well.

So, overall, it's all good.

And the final chef leaving us is...

..Callum.

Thank you, boys, good luck.

Absolutely gutted.

Not a lot of other things to say.

Yeah.

Just highs and lows all day today.

Well done, mate.

Congratulations, you are quarterfinalists, you three.

- Dude, you're in! - Skin of my teeth!

Absolutely delighted to get through to the next round, really is.

I mean, I thought I was going home, so it's a bonus.

And anywhere from now is even better.

To get the feedback that I did,

I'll certainly go into the next round feeling a lot happier.

I've set the bar very high,

now all I can try and do is just keep cooking the same level.

Just push on.

I could barely stand.

Tomorrow night, it's the last of the quarterfinals,

and this week's best chefs return to prove they have what it takes.

You've really hit the nail on the head with this challenge.

Those who deliver will earn the right to cook for the critics.

If this is what happens when sheep dung gets involved in cooking,

I want more of it.