MasterChef UK, Series 14, Episode 13. The Blue Group. BBC. 25 Mar 2018. John Torode & Gregg Wallace

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It's knockout week on MasterChef.
Over four weeks of heats,
56 home cooks have fought for their place in the competition.
Go, go, go, go, go!
Ooh! Careful, careful.
Oh, whoa, whoa. Cook!
Yeah, there's rare and then there's quacking.
Now only the best 16 remain.
Getting through each round has given me a little bit more confidence.
I'm thinking, "Maybe I CAN do this."
It's just consuming every bit of me right now.
I didn't think I was at all competitive.
I really want to win this!
I've kind of never felt this way before
about anything that I'm doing, so the pressure is incredible.
What you've done in the past doesn't matter now. It's what you do today.
Knockout week is about holding your nerve and learning fast.
One mistake here and you're gone.
I've got to say, I think we're in for a treat.
I've got goose bumps already.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the first time
that we can honestly say
that we have the winner of MasterChef in the room.
We have split you into two groups - blue aprons and red aprons.
Blues, you're cooking first,
followed by the Reds.
Once all of you have cooked, then Gregg and I will decide
who will be going through to the next round.
Four of you will be leaving the competition.
Blue aprons, stay where you are.
Red aprons, thank you very much. Off you go.
I would have definitely liked to cook first.
Yeah, I agree. More nerves.
"Good luck to them." THEY LAUGH
We want a dish inspired by a personal or a family favourite.
You have 90 minutes to show us the ambition,
the style, the passion.
Off you go.
Young George has been surprising through this competition.
He started off quite classic and then we've seen new
and very interesting bits and pieces coming into it.
My dad's an amazing cook.
He's been a chef in the past, so, yeah, he really knows his stuff.
He tells me I'm getting there,
so trying to do my best to represent.
What is your dish, George? Rabbit stifado, a Greek stew.
It's got red wine, lots of onions, some cinnamon, some bay.
It's a dish that my old man cooked for me when I was very young
and that's probably the first memory I have
of being, like, really, really inquisitive about food.
Have you told Dad you're doing one of his favourite dishes?
Yeah, which means the pressure's on.
Let's hope we like it as much as your dad does.
Yeah, good. Thanks, guys.
Classic Greek stew, a stifado,
should be cooked for a long time - three, maybe four hours -
and George has only got 90 minutes to do it in.
I love rabbit, but it dries out really quick,
and that bothers me a lot.
I'm also bothered on how you make a stew into something smart
and still keep the essence of the stew.
David, our pilot, he plays it safe in his job,
but he's definitely not playing it safe in the MasterChef kitchen.
That's for sure.
Some of his ideas are banging on the door of the wild side.
I think my palate makes me slightly different from everyone else.
I don't have a great sense of smell.
Taste is very important to what I do.
I like strong, bold, deep flavours.
What's your dish, David? Spiced pineapple tarte tatin
with caramelised bananas and a coconut lime sorbet.
Tarte tatin is our favourite dessert,
and I've been cooking it ever since I met my wife.
And then, when we went on honeymoon to Thailand,
we were just blown away by how good the tropical fruit was.
This seems quite safe and sound for you.
I thought you might say that!
Crispy pastry top from a tarte tatin with pineapple and star anise -
absolutely fine with.
But then crispy pastry on caramelised bananas?
That's going to give us a soggy bottom.
Chris, our dentist, seems to be completely submerged
in the love of classic French technique and dishes.
Absolutely fine, by my book.
Give him a brief to be inventive and he does become inventive.
When I first got the brief, I was saying to my wife Nancy,
"What do you think I should be...?
In the back of my mind, I was thinking,
"That pheasant dish I first cooked."
And she said, "What about the pheasant dish?"
I said, "Well, there we go. Done deal".
What are you making? Pheasant cooked in prosciutto
with a butternut squash puree and a pommes Anna.
This is the first meal I ever cooked for my wife.
I had to cook it on the two little rings
of the plugged-in electric thing,
so it's nothing like as elegant as it'll be today.
Where was it that you first cooked for your wife?
It was a little flat over the top of my dental practice at the time.
Oh, the romance! Absolutely.
The smell of ether rising through the floor.
THEY LAUGH
We want that pheasant beautifully pink,
and he's got to make sure that that pommes Anna is cooked soft
all the way through.
Then we've got cream and beetroot and squash.
I don't know if it's all necessary.
Mary cooks food that she feeds her family.
It could be a bit tidier,
but she has the essence and soul of a cook.
I want to show that I can actually present food,
because it has been my weak point.
It is a fairly simple dish and that is a bit of a fear
because there's nowhere to hide with it.
Today, what are you going to do for us?
Calves' liver and onions.
This was my Auntie Ann's favourite dish.
I lost her on January the 1st, 2014,
and she always used to want me to cook calves' liver for her.
And she absolutely loved it.
In what way is it different, this calves' liver,
to the one that Auntie Ann had?
Well, she used to like hers with mashed potatoes.
I'm doing it with polenta because, when I was in Italy with my husband,
I tried it and I liked it even more.
Liver - cooked so it's just pink.
Polenta. Cabbage - lovely and soft and buttery.
But where on that dish is there room
for a shallot puree and a red wine sauce?
You are halfway. 45 minutes gone.
Zaleha loves presentation.
She also loves a little bit of spice.
Zaleha cooks the food that she grew up with.
What's she going to cook for us today?
I am making Malaysian brunch.
When I met my husband, when I took him home to meet my parents,
that was the dish that my mum made for him.
He nearly died because it was really spicy!
But he still married me, so...
I'm going to make coconut rice, which is nasi lemak,
with prawn sambals, chicken rendang,
crispy anchovies, peanuts, cucumber, and omelette.
What's the importance to you about nasi lemak?
It's my childhood favourite.
I used to save my pocket money to buy nasi lemak on Friday,
and they had this special stall outside our school
that sells the best nasi lemak for 20 cents.
It's very special.
Both my children, my girls mentioned that.
"Yes, Mummy, it has to be nasi lemak."
Nasi lemak, classically,
is just the rice served with the sambal and deep-fried anchovies.
The rice has to be cooked with not too much coconut.
Otherwise, it's too sweet.
And the sambal has to be ferociously hot.
Rendang in itself is like a main course.
Zaleha's got to make sure that chicken is really,
really soft and falling apart.
I like Sweta.
She does beautiful, spicy food, John,
and she understands presentation.
The heart of all her food? There's bags of flavour.
I've travelled widely throughout Asia,
so all the tiny little influences
from all those places that I've visited
will be there on my dish today.
What are you making for us, Sweta?
I'm making an ethnic pork dish from northeast India called dohneiiong,
rice wrapped in nori, pak choi,
pickled quail eggs and pumpkin puree.
This dish, you sound like you've got influences from China...
Yes. ..Nepal... Yes. ..India. Yes.
All those bits together? Yes!
How come? I've travelled widely. I love pork.
It used to be an absolute favourite,
so I've just tried to bring them all together, and why not?
I have to take a bit of a risk now. I can't go safe.
Sweta is making an Indian pork dish with purple rice wrapped in seaweed,
little dumplings, and we've got a pumpkin puree underneath.
It may all work.
At the moment, I've got no point of reference,
and I'm really interested to see how she plates this up!
Alex's family is from Portugal and we've seen that in her food so far.
Those salt cod fritters were fantastic,
and her pork and clams, we loved.
I'd like more of the same, please.
MasterChef has given my confidence a bit of a boost cos, as a kid,
I didn't really have a lot of self-confidence,
and I would definitely have shied away from anything like this.
There's a lot at stake, though.
Just got to pull more stuff out of the bag.
What is your dish? It's called bacalhau no forno.
It's baked cod with onions, black olives,
and some parsley and potatoes, so all the flavours kind of combine.
It's actually, ironically, a dish that I hated as a kid.
We grew up in a Portuguese household and we just wanted to eat, like,
fish and chips like our friends, and then we would come home
and my mum would say that it was bacalhau no forno,
and we would just go...
Now, as an adult, it's something that's really comforting to me
and it's my favourite Portuguese dish
and it just reminds me of home.
Bacalhau - salt cod - is all over Portugal.
Not a lot of ingredients,
but bags and bags of flavour if it's done right.
30 minutes left. Just half an hour, please!
Simon is as comfortable with traditional cooking techniques
as he is with modern gadgets.
He's more than happy to make a pie.
He's really at home with a smoking machine.
I try and push myself a lot to ensure the dish has
as many layers and elements as possible.
I feel confident about today's dish.
They're tried and tested traditional flavours,
but taken in a very, very different style.
What are you making, Simon? So, I'm doing my take on a Peking duck.
Duck breast, a pie with five-spice pastry
and the leg meat, spring onion puree and a jus.
What is it that's personal to you about Peking duck?
When we were kids, we didn't really go out for dinner much,
but if we did, we'd go for a Chinese.
I would always want the Peking duck.
I've now taken that and it's now my sort of close family favourite now.
We have it on Christmas Eve every year.
So, I've taken that absolute love and tried to take it away
from just your local Chinese restaurant
and into a fine-dining style.
Peking duck is a Chinese takeaway favourite.
Putting those flavours inside a pie,
I can almost taste it, but not quite.
I'm intrigued.
Guys, you've got ten minutes. You have ten minutes.
You have got one minute left.
Your time is up, ladies and gentlemen. Well done.
HE EXHALES
Gosh, that looks gorgeous. How beautiful is that presentation?
Very, very nice.
George, up you come, and bring your rabbit.
Inspired by his dad's favourite classic Greek stew,
George has made rabbit stifado - rabbit cooked in shallots,
cinnamon, bay and red wine,
served with pan-seared rabbit loin wrapped in prosciutto,
potato fondant, baby gem, onion puree,
and an onion and red wine sauce.
I think it looks great, George. Thank you.
Smells pretty good, as well.
I think your rabbit is cooked brilliantly.
One bit is completely falling off the bone.
The other one is moist, wrapped in that lovely, salty ham.
You've got a nice fondant potato.
The sauce itself is very, very rich,
and lots and lots of thyme running through the whole plate.
It's good. Really good.
Yeah, I'm feeling pretty good now. I think I've done it justice.
It did taste like my dad's stew, so I reckon he'd be proud, yeah.
Cheers. Well done. That was fantastic.
Stay-at-home dad Simon has cooked a Peking duck pie
with five-spice pastry, pan-fried duck breast,
spring onion puree, crispy cavolo nero,
and a duck jus flavoured with rice wine and soy.
You have crispy skin on your duck.
Your duck is pink all the way through.
Lovely, buttery pastry with that beautiful,
soft duck meat just oozing out of it.
But flavours are far too challenging for me.
Cream, soy sauce, pastry,
and the issue is the flavours are a clash.
Oh, bit dejected.
Maybe I should have played it safer. Who knows?
In celebration of her Portuguese upbringing,
Alex has cooked bacalhau no forno -
baked salt cod served with a black olive crumb,
potato fondants,
caramelised onions, onion crisps, puree and a parsley powder.
I am absolutely in love with your dish.
I think it is superb.
I mean, that bacalhau is really salty.
That's the point - it's salt cod.
But with it, you've got really sweet onions,
which is lovely with that saltiness,
and I'm picking up bitterness from those olives.
It's definitely not for the faint-hearted, that's for sure,
because you've got on there really big, bold
and very, very powerful flavours. It's really good. Thank you. Thanks.
Feeling really, really emotional, but in a good way.
Very pleased, yeah. I'm just not really a smiler.
Sorry, I'm going to cry. I don't know what's wrong with me!
PhD student Sweta has made an Asian fusion dish
of East Indian pork belly with black sesame paste
served with beetroot-coloured rice wrapped in Japanese seaweed,
Chinese pork dumplings
with a coriander, chilli and ginger chutney,
pickled quails eggs, fried lotus roots,
pak choi and a pumpkin puree.
There are things on there that draw my eye,
that I really like the look of, like the dumplings.
And there are some things that look quite shocking,
like pink rice and pink eggs.
Love those dumplings. They are light.
And I love your dip, heavy in ginger.
Like the black bean flavour on your pork belly.
However, your fat isn't cooked down. It's still too chewy.
Your pumpkin puree's odd.
It's not smooth. It feels a little bit like tapioca.
It's a bit hit and miss for me.
Yeah, I think what you've done here
is you've done so many different things,
you've forgotten about the detail.
The lotus root crisps are really thick.
Your rice is a little bit crunchy.
Your pak choi, some of it's cooked, some of it's not cooked.
The way in which the pork's been cut -
some of it's really thick, some of it's really thin.
So, the detail here is the issue.
I knew that I was taking a risk by making those things.
A little bit deflated that the whole thing wasn't a hit.
Mary has made calves' liver with crispy onions and sage,
polenta, Savoy cabbage and bacon,
shallot puree, honeyed onions,
beetroot and a port and red wine sauce.
I really like the polenta.
It almost feels like mashed potato, you've whipped it up so smooth.
There's one bit of liver on here that isn't cooked and it's inedible.
The cabbage, to me, is undercooked. Yeah.
And I don't see a reason for having beetroot
and a puree on it, as well. OK.
Got a bit of a mixed bag here, Mary.
OK. Some of your liver is cooked really, really nicely,
and some of it is undercooked.
Sweet honey and onions, I really understand,
but with liver and polenta? No, thank you. OK.
I'm frustrated with myself that I made those silly mistakes
cos it could have cost me my place, but...
You know, what can I do now? Nothing. I've done it.
Dentist Chris has made pheasant breast
wrapped in prosciutto
in a creamy walnut, cabbage, lardon and caramelised apple sauce,
served with pommes Anna -
layered potatoes baked in butter and thyme -
butternut squash puree and a beetroot reduction.
Your pheasant, with the ham around it, is lovely.
Your pommes Anna, I think, is wonderful.
That is crunchy on the outside
and it's certainly buttery soft in the middle.
Look, I think you've got some great skills.
The pheasant's fabulous. Your pommes Anna's great.
As for the sauce itself, it's very, very rich,
and then you add to that the sweet butternut squash puree
and it becomes way too sweet for me.
Slightly disappointed.
I think I could do it better, but I'm here to get better.
You can listen to the feedback. I'll get better.
Zaleha has cooked nasi lemak, a Malaysian coconut rice,
served with spiced prawn sambal,
crispy anchovies, omelette,
fried peanuts and a chicken rendang curry.
Like the sambal with the sweet prawns
cos the sambal itself is sweet.
Love the idea of salty flavour
coming from those crispy fried anchovies.
That is intense.
I like your rendang flavour. That's like a coconut sweetness.
However, the chicken skin isn't crispy.
It can't be eaten, but all the sauce is on the skin I can't eat.
Oh, OK. I think the chicken rendang on the side is a mistake. OK.
It hasn't had enough time to cook down
and become lovely and soft and fall apart. Instead,
the chicken itself is just tough and it's not really flavoursome.
OK.
I have worked a lot - really worked hard - today,
and I thought they would like it, and I feel a bit like, "Mm, meh."
Pilot David has made a spiced tropical pineapple tarte tatin
served on caramelised rum banana puree
with a coconut and lime sorbet,
mango, coconut shavings and crystallised pistachios.
Lovely colours, nice presentation.
For you, pretty conservative.
Doesn't seem to be an octopus tentacle sticking out of it or...
The real star for me is that pineapple in the pastry.
The pineapple is so juicy!
Your coconut lime sorbet is a perfect palate cleanser.
That's a really nice, light, sweet, beautifully flavoured dish.
I really like the bananas and the rum that's sitting underneath.
That is a really clever idea with some really good flavours.
Great promise, David. Really good.
Desserts are not really my thing,
but I couldn't have got much better feedback,
so I've got to be happy with that. That was great.
That's brilliant. Thank you.
Great day. Really interesting food. Really exciting food.
A couple of ups and downs, but on the whole, impressive.
We can't judge you until we've seen the others cook,
but thank you very much for your efforts.
I think there was plenty of endeavour,
lots of ambition and creativity.
There's a couple of dishes here I thought were just fantastic.
Alex's salt cod with the very sweet onions,
I thought, was just delicious.
Full of flavour. There's nothing shy about it at all.
A great, great dish.
George is great. I loved that rabbit.
The rabbit meat on the bone was just fantastic.
And as for the fondant? Lovely.
David really impressed me today.
I thought that dessert was light, sweet and delicious.
That's three people we are confident goes through to the next round.
Chris cooked a fantastic pheasant.
He made a perfect - and I mean perfect - pommes Anna.
Look, the classic bits? Great.
The two sauces and the puree? No, thank you. I was going for it.
I mean, MasterChef is about taking those risks,
so I'm just disappointed it wasn't as well received
as I would have liked it to have been.
I questioned Simon as to why he'd want to take a recipe
that's been cooked for over 600 years
and completely turn it on its head.
That sauce, although nice with the duck breast,
did not work at all with the pie.
I knew the dish was potentially a bit love it or hate it.
Probably have to prepare for the worst and see if I get lucky.
Sweta's dish was highly unusual. I really liked the dumplings,
really liked the dipping sauce and that's pretty much where it ended.
For me, there were so many things that were rushed,
and the detail wasn't there.
Yeah, I'll be really, really sad if I go out now
because the real competition has just begun
and I'd like to go as far as I can.
Zaleha, for me, made a great nasi lemak - that coconut rice -
the sambal with the chilli and the prawns.
What disappointed me was that the chicken skin wasn't cooked
and the flavour of the rendang sauce was on the skin.
I have done my best and we've got another group coming, so...please!
Mary took one of her favourite things, which is liver and onions,
and then poshed it up a little bit,
and I don't think she needed to posh it up.
There were problems with presentation
and there was no room in there for a shallot puree and a beetroot,
and one of the bits of liver wasn't cooked.
Sometimes, you have to have a rocky day to shake you up.
Maybe that was mine and, next time, it'll be better.
There's more than a couple here that are actually in danger right now,
but we can't make that decision, of course,
until we've seen the other eight cook.
Tomorrow night, the second eight cook off...
..before John and Gregg decide who stays...
Beautiful flavour. I cannot praise you enough.
..and who goes.
The four cooks leaving the competition are...
Subtitles by Red Bee Media
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MasterChef UK, Series 14, Episode 13. The Blue Group. BBC. 25 Mar 2018. John Torode & Gregg Wallace

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