Original subtitles

It's the MasterChef quarterfinal,

and this week's six best cooks are back.

Staying in the competition means everything to me.

I've got a taste of the MasterChef kitchen now,

and I just want more.

The competition is getting pretty serious now.

It'd be really special to go one step further.

It's becoming quite addictive.

I want to get back in that kitchen,

and I want to cook again and again and again.

I don't just want to be a passenger.

I want to make sure that everything I put out is my best.

Pressure is on now. Don't give up yet.

Keep pushing and see how far you can go.

I never thought I was an adrenaline junkie.

I'm terrified of heights,

but apparently I love the rush of cooking.

Tonight, they face just one challenge -

to cook an exceptional dish from a brief

set by renowned restaurant critic Jay Rayner.

I love quarterfinal days. It's here that we start

to see who's really got star potential.

This is huge. The pressure is enormous.

Welcome to a MasterChef quarterfinal.

Congratulations. It is a big day,

and we have invited a big name in here

to taste your food and help us judge.

If you weren't nervous before,

I've got a feeling you are going to be in a moment.

Can I introduce you, please,

to restaurant critic extraordinaire Jay Rayner?

Hello, sir. Hello. Good to see you.

I have asked you to make a wrap.

Here's the thing -

not only do you obviously have to make the filling,

you have to make the wrapping, whatever it is, from scratch.

At the end of this,

three of you will be going through to knockout week.

Three of you will be going home.

You have 90 minutes, ladies and gentlemen. Let's cook.

I can't believe I'm cooking for Jay Rayner.

That's just been amazing.

It's a lot of pressure. It's a lot to do,

a lot of processes to get done.

JAY: I've chosen this brief cos there are lots of ways to go with it.

It could be a burrito, it could be a summer roll from Vietnam,

it could be a spring roll from China,

or you can have soft tortillas.

Standards are going to be very high,

so it feels like you've got to really bring your A-game.

When you're making a wrap, both parts are absolutely vital,

filling and exterior.

What I'd really like to see is someone take what could be seen

as quite a banal challenge - make a wrap -

and turn it into something that rocks me back on my feet.

Munopa grew up in Zimbabwe,

then lived in China and now lives in the UK,

and we're seeing food taking influences

from all those places around the world.

Boom!

What's she going to do for a wrap? I have no idea,

but I'm expecting something that shows a huge amount of skill.

Of all the dishes I've made so far,

this is the one that I really had to work hard for,

really had to push my creativity.

I want the plates to show how much I care.

What are you making?

Prawn and pork spring rolls with a chicken liver pate,

pickled salad and garlic and lemongrass mayonnaise.

The flavours are based on a banh mi,

so the pate had to make an appearance.

So it's a Vietnamese... Yes, spring roll. ..inspired spring roll.

Yeah. OK. And how many days do you think this will take you to make?

You've got 90 minutes. Hopefully the 90 minutes,

but it is going to be a stretch for time.

Have you ever cooked for anybody of Jay's stature?

No. So, today is, you know, scary.

No, I'm a pussycat,

as long as the food's nice.

A banh mi is a French baguette with pate through the middle of it

and then meat or fish,

all put together in a sandwich.

Now, she is actually going to make us a spring roll.

Making spring roll skins is a huge challenge.

You have to get them very, very thin.

Otherwise, it's just a big lump of pastry in your mouth.

I had spring rolls at all my birthday parties when I was younger,

so it was kind of the first sort of wrapped food that came to mind.

I will say that I am somewhat worried

about that chicken liver pate.

I understand chicken liver pate does turn up in banh mi,

but I don't associate it with spring rolls.

Dan is a self-confessed family cook. His ambition is great.

That's good cookery.

THEY CHEER

Technically, I'm very impressed with this.

We're getting there.

Fingers crossed here that he makes wraps for the family.

I've been just in complete confusion about this brief,

wondering what I can do to actually make it exciting,

and that's where I've been sort of pulling my hair out.

So, Dan, what are you making for us today?

Thai-inspired satay paneer flour tortilla wrap,

with a kimchi salad and also a hot chilli sauce,

which has got a base of chickpeas as well. OK.

Kimchi, Korean. Paneer, Indian. Tortilla, Mexican.

When I was travelling to Thailand, I went through Malaysia.

I went through Singapore as well.

So, I want to bring those south-east flavours together.

Dan is the biggest head-scratcher.

He seems to be wandering the world like a teenage backpacker

with an all-access flight pass.

A good flour tortilla should be soft,

but the gluten should have been worked to such a point

that there's a bit of pull to it as well.

It's easy to make a very mediocre tortilla.

It's hard to make a good one.

30 minutes gone. Half an hour gone.

Harry, our fishmonger, has shown himself

to be full of style and create great-tasting food.

I mean, we've seen lobster cookery from him.

I'm really impressed with what you've done.

Steak cookery...

And a kebab! I'd eat the whole lot.

I mean, he is nothing if not versatile and clever.

So, I've recently got back from a holiday to Greece

with my girlfriend and there was souvlaki and gyros on every corner.

It was just fantastic with any filling you put in it.

So, I just wanted to put my spin on that.

So, Harry, what are you making for us today? Swordfish souvlaki,

so, we've got marinated skewers of swordfish,

which I'm going to do on the barbecue later,

served with tzatziki in a pitta-style wrap

with some triple-cooked chips.

So, as a younger man, I did a lot of travelling across Greece

and I too loved souvlaki and gyros on street corners.

So, I don't want to, you know, put the pressure on,

but you're basically taking me back to my youth,

if you get it right. Right, OK. No pressure.

Harry's doing a swordfish souvlaki.

Normally, they're pork or lamb or they're chicken

but, no, he's doing fish.

I'm going to be cooking on the barbecue today,

so that's always an added challenge.

Swordfish can be a little bit tricky because, if you overcook it,

it goes sort of fibrous and weird and tough.

But Harry is a fishmonger, so he'd better know what he's doing.

Yeah, high risk, high reward, making a barbecue, I must admit.

Souvlaki bread is not very, very thin.

In fact, it's quite spongy.

He's using yeast in his bread, so it puffs up a little bit,

and he's going to pan-fry that.

Yeah, not bad. They're a bit thicker than what I normally do,

but could be good, could be bad.

I think this sounds fantastic.

If he can get the true flavours of Greek street food,

with a piece of swordfish inside a flatbread,

I think it's a fantastic idea.

Gabi loves classic French technique

and she has aspirations for fine dining.

I can't argue with how well everything is cooked.

The thing is,

there's little mistakes that happen along the way.

The sauce, cos it's so thin,

it's not coating anything

and it hasn't got that richness of flavour.

But I love her ambition.

I'm not taking the fine-dining approach with this dish.

I think for this challenge I'm just going hearty.

It's quite hard to do a taco fine-dining, isn't it?

Hello, Gabi. Hi, Jay. What are you cooking for us today?

A beefsteak taco and a fish taco.

It's a bit of a homage to my partner.

He doesn't eat beef, but it's my favourite protein.

I don't really eat fish, but it's his favourite.

So, it's a bit of a yin and yang on the plate.

How do you feel about making the tortillas?

I'm nervous about the tortillas

because there's nowhere to hide, is there?

Gabi's going for it.

She's making soft tacos out of masa,

cornflour, which needs warm water to make the dough.

It needs to be put then in a press,

and then they're pan-fried without any oil,

so they're nice and toasted.

The beef taco, she's pan-frying her beef.

I would like a little bit of seasoning on the outside of it.

We've got some grilled corn in there,

avocado and mozzarella whipped together.

Gabi's fish tacos are deep-fried.

We want a proper, crunchy, golden batter.

We've got a mango salsa and pickled jalapeno caviar,

so she's taking pickled jalapenos and turning them into little balls,

so they're nice and sharp.

I'm hoping that Gabi has tried to do this a few times at home

within the 90 minutes that she's got,

because that's an awful lot of work in the given time.

GREGG: Guys, you are halfway, please.

There's nothing shy about Darren. There's nothing shy about his food.

It's big, it's bold, it's gutsy.

It's tasty. I eat it.

Now, what he's got to do is just give it a bit of finesse.

I'm not going to lie. I'm massively nervous about cooking for a critic

because, you know, they're a critic for a reason.

That being said, I'm excited because I'm really happy

with the flavours that I'm producing today.

Darren, what are you cooking for us today?

Jerk chicken on a flatbread

with mango sauce, with some plantain fries.

Jerk chicken? It's a flavour that I really love.

If I go to a festival or something like that,

if I see a pop-up with jerk chicken or whatever,

I'm going straight to it. I live in Brixton,

in south London. I love my jerk. Brilliant.

Jerk chicken is a perfect combination of spice and heat.

It can't just all be heat.

It has to be long, lingering flavour,

but it should also have a bit of crunch to it.

Jerk chicken is a fantastic thing,

but it needs to be cooked over flame

and we've got it coming in a frying pan.

I'm concerned that it's going to go dry

and we're not going to get

that lovely smokiness that comes with jerk chicken.

Henry has had as good a start

in MasterChef as it is possible to have.

I like the originality. Good job. It seems quite simple in appearance

but actually demands a huge amount of skill.

He should be proud of himself. He's done a really good job, yeah.

Tasty.

Is a wrap Henry's style?

I think he's a little bit more refined than that,

but we're about to find out.

Doing OK so far in the competition,

I thought, would give me more confidence, but it hasn't.

So, if anything, I actually feel more nervous as I go on.

I'm making you two different types of tacos.

I'm making you a lamb birria taco and a fish taco.

GREGG: What is a lamb birria?

Basically, slow-cooked lamb in lots of dried chillies and lamb stock.

You then shred the meat,

and then you dip the quesataco back into the broth.

So, it's going to be pretty, like, mmm.

Is that a technical term? That is a technical term, yeah.

You can use that one if you want, yeah.

Henry's making us two different types of taco.

He's making us a fish taco, which has got a corn tortilla -

masa flour.

If there's not enough water in that masa, they become very dry

and they can crack.

Then he's going to do a flour tortilla

which has got lamb in it.

Now, the lamb he's got in a pressure cooker,

so the lamb should then just fall off the bone.

Lamb coming off the bone all right? Yeah.

Coming off really well. Soft enough?

Yeah, soft, yeah. It's looking good.

The dipping sauce that he's talking about,

that's really, really classic Mexican.

Fingers crossed he knows what he's doing.

Yeah, I definitely think I'm pushing myself,

going for two different types of tacos

and two different types of wraps.

So, there's a lot going on.

Last five minutes.

I've just got to make my wraps.

Just trying to create a bit of space

so I've got somewhere clean to wrap them.

It got stuck and I don't know how to get it off.

That's ruined.

It's fine, it's fine. I've got one more fillet.

I'm really on a crunch for time.

Gabi, are you done frying? Yes.

Some of you are taking this right up to the wire.

You're scaring me.

Second batch is working, yeah. All going to plan now.

Final 60 seconds.

That's it! And stop. We're out.

I don't think I've ever done that much running in the kitchen

in my entire life - or ever, really.

Munopa, please.

Inspired by Vietnamese banh mi,

19-year-old Munopa has made spring rolls

filled with pork mince, prawns, vegetables and vermicelli noodles,

served on a lettuce leaf with chicken liver pate,

with garlic mayo and a Thai dipping sauce.

It's an enormous portion, and I speak as a man of appetite.

You have made spring rolls from scratch and that is very,

very hard to do. They've crisped

up nicely in the deep-fat fryer.

You've got the chicken liver pate,

which is very nicely made in a sort of creamy, rustic way.

I think it's delicious.

We have got the flavours and textures of banh mi.

Smoky barbecue pork flavour with the saltiness of the prawns.

I think it's a very clever invention.

I'm really impressed with what you've done.

The whole thing, I think, works perfectly together.

Thank you.

That liver pate around the outside is making them really rich.

I love the crunch of all the vegetables inside as well.

I think they're great.

Yeah, hearing that I'd nailed the brief was amazing.

I feel a lot better than I have in previous challenges,

so that's good.

Fishmonger Harry has made swordfish souvlaki -

barbecued swordfish marinated in Greek yoghurt,

oregano and paprika in a traditional

Greek flatbread, with pickled red onion,

cabbage and jalapeno slaw,

triple-cooked chips and a tzatziki dip.

Your swordfish,

you've got that lovely smokiness that's come from the barbecue.

Pickled cabbage and pickled onions in there,

giving a little bit of sharpness.

And then that freshness coming from your yoghurt dip.

And I think you've got the flavours bang-on here.

Thank you. I think that's really, really good.

The addition of the swordfish, I was nervous about. It works

because the swordfish is such a meaty fish. Good chips.

A little bit of dusting

of paprika making it smoky and a little bit spicy.

I think that tastes great.

The bread, that slightly spongy, quilted texture.

It soaks up the juices perfectly. I'm a greedy swine,

and I could eat one of these and then wonder

whether anybody would notice if I had another.

Hearing Jay Rayner say what he said, there is no better feeling.

Whatever happens, that is the icing on the cake for me.

It just felt amazing.

Gabi, are you ready? Because we are.

Business development consultant Gabi has served surf-and-turf corn tacos,

beef fillet with pickled cabbage slaw,

charred corn, avocado and mozzarella cream,

and a chimichurri sauce,

and cod in a beer batter with mango salsa

and jalapeno caviar with sriracha and sour cream mayonnaise.

Some very daring combos. Let's get in here.

The fish taco is the one that I really enjoy.

It's soft and it's moist. The beef, I'm afraid,

is a bit thudding and dry.

But the tacos themselves,

they've been done really, really well.

The beef one... The beef doesn't have very much flavour at all.

I think about beef tacos being quite strong and, you know,

moreish and quite moist. And it doesn't have that.

Those pearls... Once you bite into them,

it's lovely. You get a little bit of sharp vinegar

and then you get the heat of pepper.

I think I'm with the guys here in

the beef one, I think, is slightly lost.

The fish one I'm really, really enjoying.

There were positives, which I will try to hold on to.

There were some areas for improvement,

but I already knew them, so mixed emotions.

Just shouldn't have done the beef. OK?

Shouldn't have done the beef.

Henry, it's your turn, please.

Retail business manager Henry

has served a lamb birria taco,

a fried flour tortilla filled with braised lamb shank,

chipotle cheese, and a birria broth dip.

And a fish taco,

vodka and beer-battered cod on a corn tortilla,

mayo with chilli and coriander,

a salsa verde with a side of pickled chilli and red onion.

I'll get the bad news in first,

which is that your corn tortilla is crumbling.

But the crisping of the fish? Delightful.

Your lamb is very good indeed.

The pickled onions with chilli are absolutely banging.

I would have liked the braising liquor to have been

a little bit more reduced.

But you've done a lot of work, and in the main I think it's pulled off.

Thank you.

The lamb ones are great.

You've got that smokiness from the dried chillies in there.

You've got sweetness as well from tomatoes.

The fish... Some of your fish has started to flay a bit.

The looks of it, you've put a little

bit too much aeration through your batter.

I'm a little bit upset, not with you, with them,

cos I'm the only one down here who absolutely loves it.

I love that lamb inside that wrap.

I'm absolutely loving the crispy light flakes of cod.

I do love it.

Feeling mixed. I divided the judges a little bit.

It's a strange thing to digest,

one of them loving it and the other ones thinking it was pretty good,

but having some room for improvement.

Plasterer Darren has made

a flatbread filled with jerk chicken and mango salsa,

with plantain chips and a mango and chilli dip.

Yes, I get flavours of allspice

and thyme and Scotch bonnet heat, but it's not jerk chicken.

It lacks the crunch, the crisp, the char.

So I get the idea,

but I don't think it's really worked, I'm afraid.

The actual flatbread - made nicely.

But this jerk chicken needs to be way more powerful than this.

It needs more..."urgh!", oomph and wow, and it's not quite wow.

These plantain chips are great. You've kept

that chicken thigh really moist and perfectly cooked inside there.

I think the addition of the mango inside there is wrong

because it's making it too wet and too fruity.

Yeah, I think I took a risk going for such a well-known flavouring

like jerk.

There were some positives.

Just today, I think I could have done a little bit more.

Come on, Dan.

Education welfare officer Dan...

Hi.

..has served a tortilla wrap filled

with fried paneer marinated in soy and ginger, kimchi salad,

satay sauce, a chickpea chilli sauce

and, on the side, a fish sauce and chilli dip.

The wrap itself is very well made. It's thin and it's soft.

A really professional job, that.

My issue is twofold.

One is there's really quite a lot of just thudding heat there.

And the other one is that paneer is just a bit spongy.

So you're lacking texture and it's a bit crumbly and dry.

However, the fish sauce, which is delicious,

sort of wets it all.

Dan, there's too much going on, my friend. I mean, there really is.

When you can get some of that satay and the crunch of your kimchi salad,

it's lovely, but everything is being overwhelmed

by this chickpea chilli.

Looks fantastic, Dan,

but it's underwhelming when you eat it.

It was difficult, that round,

and I don't think I showed my best.

Flavours didn't balance, so a little bit disappointed in myself.

They've all put a lot of work into these

and when you set a brief like this, that's what you want to see.

I'll leave you to do the really hard work,

which is to decide who stays and who goes.

GREGG: Yeah, that's the tough bit. Thank you.

Take care. Take care. See you later.

Mate, I tell you what, that was a challenging brief.

There was some crackers, though. Absolute firecrackers.

For me, there's two in,

there's two out, and there's two to talk about.

Oh.

Munopa - a banh mi-inspired spring roll wrap.

Very clever idea. Absolutely delicious.

Yeah. Munopa thought outside the box.

And she's got herself a place in knockout week.

Harry - swordfish seasoned really well.

The flavours of Greece. I thought that was really, very,

very good indeed. Harry's bread was just beautiful.

Harry's got himself a place in the knockout week.

There are a couple of people here

who I'm sad to say their competition is over.

Dan's dish, although well made, was so muddled.

That mushy chilli chickpea was

all that you could taste inside his wrap.

The paneer idea was a good one.

He just tried to put too many different

flavours into one thing and they became completely confused.

Darren decided to do jerk chicken in a wrap.

The wrap was nicely made, but the main issue was the jerk chicken.

It wasn't jerk chicken enough.

I just had a big problem with mango running through it.

That leaves us with a conversation now about Gabi and Henry.

I liked Henry's lamb. He cooked it really well.

I thought the fish one was lovely.

In fairness, I liked it more than you and Jay did.

The lamb one, I thought, was great.

But the fish one, the taco itself didn't hold up, it fell apart.

Gabi's piece of fillet beef - very little flavour to it.

But her actual taco shells were fantastic.

The fish one I liked because the fish one had contrast,

and I liked the sharpness

and the pepperiness that came with that one.

I don't think the beef one worked.

Huge amount of ambition from both of them.

We've got a decision to make.

Who's joining Munopa and Harry in knockout week?

Getting a place in knockout week would just be phenomenal.

I just don't think I've done enough.

I don't think I'll be there, which sucks.

HENRY: Can't work out how it's going to go.

I think in a minute I'll start to get very nervous again.

We can only take three of you through to knockout week.

That does mean, sadly, that three of you are going home.

There are two of you today that impressed all three judges.

Munopa...

..Harry, congratulations, you two.

Very, very well done.

For two of you, I think fair to say,

it didn't quite go to plan.

Dan...

..Darren, sorry, you're leaving us.

We have one more place in knockout week.

Our third contestant going through to knockout week is...

..Henry.

Gabi, mate, the tightest of margins. Well done.

Have a great day. Thank you.

I'm a little bit disappointed to be going home.

Nobody wants to go home.

You want to progress in this competition.

But at the end of the day, I'm a quarterfinalist.

And, yeah, super chuffed about that.

The MasterChef experience has been amazing.

I met some fantastic people.

But, you know, I've been there.

I've done it. It's been great.

I'm a bit disheartened, but this experience has been phenomenal.

I have no regrets coming on.

I'm just a bit gutted it's come to an end.

Congratulations, you three. You are through to knockout week.

Feeling great. Feeling relieved. A bit of surprise.

Just really happy to have got through.

Every time they call out your name, that you're staying,

it makes you want more. You want to share what you've got.

So I'm really happy.

Ah, it's just the best feeling.

Honestly, it's why I applied to the competition.

It's just everything I wanted. So, yeah, cloud nine.

Next time... Let's go, let's go, let's go.

..five more home cooks...

No, don't fall off!

..fight for the right to wear a MasterChef apron...

I'm impressed by how well this is made.

..before battling it out for a place in the quarterfinal.

This is an absolute flavour bomb.

This is tremendous cooking.

SHE GASPS

SMASHING, GASPS