Original subtitles

It's the MasterChef quarterfinal,

and this week's six best cooks are back.

It's crazy to think

"Sam, quarterfinalist".

It has a nice tone to it!

I've put a lot of effort in.

I want to stay this much.

The emotional roller-coaster,

I thought it'd be easier, but it doesn't stop.

The further I go into the competition,

the more it means to me.

Can't get away with making

what you make for your mates

on a Friday night. It's got to be such a high standard now.

I'm very determined.

When I signed up, I signed up to be a MasterChef champion.

Tonight, they face just one challenge -

to cook exceptional food from

a brief set by celebrated restaurant critic Grace Dent.

It's a huge day and a load at stake for our six.

I'm smiling, but it is serious pressure for our quarterfinalists.

Welcome to your MasterChef quarterfinal.

You've got a brief.

That brief was set by a very special guest

who is going to help us decide who goes through to Knockout Week.

It gives me real delight

to introduce you to restaurant critic,

food writer, podcaster...

Ladies and gentlemen, the one and only Grace Dent.

Hello!

Welcome, Grace.

So, today I'm asking you to create a fabulous picnic.

I want two savoury items, one sweet item.

Time is going to be tight,

but I want you to surprise me and make me delighted.

There are just three places in knockout week.

That does mean at the end of this, three will be going home.

Ladies and gentlemen, 90 minutes.

Picnic time. Let's cook!

Grace Dent... I'm buzzing. I've watched her quite a lot,

and she's super glamorous, which I love.

I love a picnic. I feel excited and incredibly nervous.

I think that some of the happiest times in my childhood

were my mother opening the boot of her Austin Princess

in the Lake District and getting out large plastic boxes of sandwiches

and fairy cakes and sausage rolls.

It was always raining, but always fun.

Go on!

I want somebody to put bells on a pork pie.

I want somebody to blow my mind with sandwiches.

And I want someone to give me

something I've just never eaten before.

This is going to be the greatest picnic in the world!

Trevor is a cook, for me, who is easy to love.

He likes fine technique.

He likes robust flavours.

This is for me what taking basic to brilliance is all about.

Good on you.

What sort of picnic are we going to get from Trevor?

When I first heard the brief,

I was a little bit shocked.

We like picnics, but normally we just buy the food,

so it's just the cheat's picnic!

HE LAUGHS

I've got the Scotch eggs in my pockets!

Trevor, hello. What are you cooking for me today?

Chicken satay with a satay peanut sauce,

a black pudding Scotch egg, and I'm cooking Bakewell puddings.

What's the difference between Bakewell pudding and Bakewell tart?

A Bakewell tart normally comes with a shortcrust pastry,

but I'm using puff pastry because it's a little bit lighter.

What do these three items mean? Why are you making them?

The first holiday I went on with my wife in the Peak District,

and we had a picnic,

and we actually bought the puddings from Bakewell itself,

so this is a homage to our first holiday together.

I love Bakewell flavours.

A combo of almonds and black cherry jam.

It has to be sticky and sweet and nutty and satisfying.

Trevor's doing us a chicken satay. Small pieces of chicken,

nice colour around every single piece and a smokiness to it.

A little bit of spice here.

Crispy Scotch egg.

I love this idea! It's romantic, it's wonderful.

Gabriel was brought up with Greek food,

but so far we've seen a Mexican taco...

I think your dish is too small,

but I think your flavours are absolutely fantastic.

..American cheesecake and two Italian dishes!

This is a really voluptuous plate of food.

Today I knew straight away that I was going to do Greek food.

We used to picnic loads when we were younger.

A big part of my childhood,

and Greek food in itself is very picky,

so it's perfect for a picnic.

Oof! This is going to be a fishy one.

Gabriel's doing us taramasalata.

It should be rich with the flavour of that cod roe,

usually with a little bit of lemon juice to give it

some sharpness, but it also should be very smooth.

My grandfather used to have Greek restaurants in London,

so the taramasalata is his recipe.

And then I'm going to be making a spanakopita,

which is filo pastry,

and that's got spinach and feta inside.

Spanakopita.

The filo pastry has to be crispy on the outside,

but when we bite into it,

the cheesy creaminess of that feta cheese

with the richness of spinach should fill us with joy.

It shouldn't be dry and it shouldn't be soggy.

And then I'm going to be doing for dessert thaktila,

which translates to "fingers".

So it's going to be deep-fried pastry

filled with cinnamon, almonds and sugar.

That is my grandmother's recipe.

She made 1,500 of these

for my mother's wedding 40 years ago.

So if I can't do nine for you today, I'll be disappointing her.

Gabriel is making items that really mean something to him.

There was a sense of pride.

There was a sense of emotion. Really looking forward to it.

You've had 35 minutes, everybody. 35 minutes gone.

Hazel has worked really, really hard to get here.

That's one of the best cooked racks of lamb I've seen in this kitchen

for a long, long time.

There probably just needs to be

a little bit more confidence from Hazel,

and she could be something pretty special.

I grew up going to the seaside a lot in Devon with my family,

and we would always have picnics, pack sandwiches, pack flasks.

The sandwiches were always a bit dodgy,

but we still had a great time!

So I'm trying to replicate

a classic, which is a ham and cheese baguette,

a cup of tea and a bit of cake.

I'm trying to elevate it for you,

so I'm doing a ham and cheese palmier

and a tomato consomme with a warm cream mixer as your cup of tea,

and then a yuzu and vanilla Battenberg for your cake.

This is about the ordinary, everyday, but with surprises.

Battenberg cake. Two coloured sponges.

The white one is going to be yuzu, citrus fruit from Japan.

Then the pink one's going to be vanilla.

She's then going to make ham and cheese palmiers.

She's making her own rough puff pastry,

and inside that we've got cheese, ham and salted beef,

rolled up, sliced quite thinly.

A huge amount of technique going on here.

I go for so many fancy meals in restaurants where the chefs are

taking you on flights of imagination,

and Hazel's doing that.

The tea is actually consomme,

and the sandwich isn't a sandwich, and the Battenberg cake,

boo! It's not really Battenberg cake. Love it!

Sam grew up in northern Thailand,

and his love of Thai food has shone through so far.

That pork is nothing short of majestic, Sam. Oh!

Wow, that's spicy.

It's perfect.

Can he turn that into a picnic?

Because if he can, he's a clever cook indeed.

I have a lot more to show.

Today I'm making, like, a Thai

mixed with a British and with some Vietnamese,

Chinese as well, so

a lot of practising and a lot of research.

Today I'm doing a sausage roll, but Thai version,

so I put a lot of spice, like a curry paste into my sausage meat.

And for my second savoury,

I'm doing mackerel summer roll

with my own version take of spicy peanut dips.

And my sweet item is a bao bun

with a Thai flavoured custard inside the buns.

You're making lots of delicate things

where the wrappings and you know, the bready, the bun things,

they all have to be really bang-on. That's a lot of pressure.

I want to go further in the competition,

so just pushing my boundary and see how far I can go.

Who doesn't love a sausage roll?

It's got heat, it's got spice,

it's got meatiness. Wonderful.

Sam's second savoury is a Vietnamese summer roll.

A rice paper skin. On top of that, he's going to lay lettuce,

mackerel and then roll the whole thing up.

It should be opaque.

We should be able to see all the lovely bits inside.

Sam's sweet item is just irresistible.

He's making me a custard bao bun.

Now, I hope that he's making me several.

I think I could eat a dozen in one sitting.

And I will prove this.

You have just 30 minutes, everybody. 30 minutes.

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

Nick, we know, has plenty of ambition.

He loves ingredients and to play with them.

I quite like the popcorn in the soup.

It's a texture like a crouton.

I'm loving that cider sauce. It's reduced and sticky.

I like this.

The picnic thing,

it's something I really love.

Whether it was as a kid going or taking my boys,

it kind of epitomises. what I love about food.

It's the kind of the friends,

the family and the sharing element of it.

We know you're a family man. Yeah. Do you take the kids for picnics?

All the time, whether it's at the woods or the beach.

We love a picnic.

The boys' favourite thing to eat is picky bits.

Three items. What are they?

A cheese and tomato sandwich.

I'm doing a Scotch egg with a watercress mayonnaise,

and then rhubarb and custard tart for dessert.

Alarm bells did go off

when Nick told me he was bringing me a sandwich,

a Scotch egg and some kind of tart.

But that sandwich is actually very complex.

I'm actually going to make a savoury meal for you

in the shape of an old-school sandwich.

And I'm going to do a cheese custard with a tomato chutney.

We need really lovely crispy pastry. That custard can't be too runny,

but it needs to have the flavour of tomatoes as well.

He's making us a Scotch egg,

but this is a quail's egg Scotch egg.

It's going to be very fancy.

And we've got rhubarb and custard jam tarts.

That pastry needs to be cooked all the way through,

the jam nice and thick, and the custard thick enough

to hold across the top of those tarts.

There's some great flavours here, but a huge amount of work.

OK. Alors...

Fay has burst into this competition like a hurricane.

I think this is quite extraordinary.

An upbringing in Tunisia

and ten years spent studying and working in China.

Bringing the two together.

This girl can cook! I absolutely love that.

John, it's really exciting.

I don't think I've had a picnic in the UK yet,

so this is going to be my first British picnic.

But I was thinking about what we do back home,

and I tried to get inspired by a lot of, like, happy memories in the sun.

So my first item is going to be brik a la japonaise.

So it's a Tunisian... basically spring roll,

but I'm going to stuff it with a Japanese tuna tartare

and serve it with a side of egg yolk.

And my second item is a savoury doughnut

that I'm going to take and stuff with prawns

and some pickled cucumbers.

Wow. Yeah, that feels like a real flavour punch.

And the sweet thing?

A raspberry muffin with flavours of home.

So we used to grow thyme and rosemary.

Never has anybody ever put thyme on a raspberry for me...

Really? ..in all my years. It's one of my favourite combinations.

No flavours are ever off the table, but raspberry and thyme,

it's not a standard one.

So...fascinating.

There's a really interesting mix here

of techniques and flavours going on.

A Japanese flavoured tuna with soy sauce, wasabi, some sesame,

inside this little deep-fried tube of pastry so it's nice and crispy,

and also flavours of prawn cocktail inside a doughnut.

The dough needs to be cooked all the way through.

Fay's items are the most random factors of the day.

It's either going to be wonderful...

SHE EXHALES

Deep breath, deep breath.

..or puzzling.

You have just ten minutes, everybody.

Just ten minutes left.

Oh, gosh!

I'm so far behind. I don't think I'm going to get

anything at the moment, to be honest.

Come on!

I'm happy with it. I'm pleased.

It's going well so far.

Aargh!

Oh, get out!

On the plate, on the plate.

You have three minutes, everybody.

Have you got anything plated at all yet?

No, I'm just about to start that now.

I'm plating it like a Tunisian fast food, you know?

How long have we got, please?

You have got 30 seconds. Last touches, please.

And stop! Time's up. Well done.

It's not what I wanted.

Nick, if you would, please.

First to serve his picnic spread is personal carer Nick,

who's made quail's egg Scotch eggs,

cheese and tomato mille-feuille,

pastry and cheese custard layers topped with tomato chutney

and rhubarb and custard jam tarts.

Are we supposed to have mayonnaise with our Scotch eggs?

Yeah, we were supposed to have mayonnaise, but I ran out of time.

The sandwich...

Not a lot of finesse in the pastry and the way that it's put out,

but that chutney is good,

and it's a great cheese custard.

I know that you're upset...

..but there are good things here, and I want you to remember that.

Thank you.

Love your Scotch egg.

Peppery sausage meat, lovely soft egg in the middle.

Your rhubarb and custard tart tastes good and looks shocking.

Sorry, Nick! Because you've literally just kind of

chucked it in as fast as you can

because we were going to ring the bell on you. Yeah.

Everything's there, but look at it.

Yeah.

Tough day at the office, Nick. Yep, just a bit.

It didn't quite go to plan, but it's tasty. Thank you.

Feeling really rubbish at the moment, actually.

I feel really disappointed.

I just know I could do so much better.

Just gutted that it looked how it did.

It's quite embarrassing, really.

Project manager Trevor's picnic items are

chicken satay with spicy peanut sauce,

black pudding Scotch eggs with English mustard mayonnaise

and cherry Bakewell puddings.

How many people are coming to the picnic, Trevor? Just three.

Three of me!

GREGG CHUCKLES

Mate, what a feast! Mmm. It's technically really,

really good, but it's, like, proper and hearty.

Your Scotch egg - that yolk is sticky,

and you've got the peppery black pudding around it.

and you've got a nice crust.

Love the mustard mayo. That is really singing to me.

The satays - lovely bit of marinade,

but you blowtorch them so they go slightly charred.

That little detail makes me so impressed.

The sauce - a nice bit of zing going through the back.

Trevor, I love it. Thank you.

The Bakewell pudding, it's so soft and delicious and jammy.

Exactly the right amount of almondy paste for me.

Sometimes people are stingy, but you don't know the word stingy!

This is outstanding.

I'm feeling really emotional at the moment,

and I never thought I'd be this emotional.

But, yes, I'm happy!

I didn't think I'd be crying.

Yeah! Crying on national TV!

THEY LAUGH

Personal trainer Gabriel's Greek Cypriot-inspired picnic

is his grandfather's taramasalata with flatbreads, spanakopita,

filo pastry parcels filled with spinach and feta,

and thaktila - pastry fingers filled with almonds,

cinnamon and sugar in a rose water syrup.

For me, the star of the show is the taramasalata.

It's pungent, it's silky and it's smooth, and I love it.

I can see this is memories of your family on a plate.

Thank you. Your spanakopita - crispy filo on the outside.

They are a little bit greasy,

and I believe that filling could be a little bit more ample.

Mm-hm.

Love the flavour of these fingers!

You've got crunchy nuts. You've got a lot of cinnamon.

But I think this pastry needs more cooking.

They need to crisp up a bit.

I'd still eat them, I think. Yes.

There was a lot on that picnic table

that meant a lot to me.

I think there's a couple of things I maybe could have done better,

but all in all, I'm happy.

Full-time mum Hazel's twist on a traditional picnic and cup of tea

is cheese, prosciutto and bresaola salted beef palmier pastries

and yuzu and vanilla Battenberg cake

accompanied by tomato consomme with a tomato cream.

The palmiers are crispy.

I love the saltiness that's coming from that salted beef,

as well as the Gruyere cheese and a little bit of Parmesan.

I think they're really well made. And you made your own puff pastry.

That's amazing in the time you had.

I love a Battenberg cake. The yuzu is citrus,

and you've definitely got citrus in the yellow sponge,

you've got vanilla in the pink one. I think that's a cracking job.

When I was a little girl, whenever I had tomato soup,

my godmother used to always put milk in it at the end

to make it feel posher. Yeah! And that's what I feel.

Good, I'm glad! Seriously, it's really took me back!

That is delicious. You've brought the spirit of a picnic,

but then you've also brought the spirit of MasterChef.

Thank you.

Having Grace Dent taste my food

and liking it was a bit of a game-changer.

Like, I just feel even more amped up now.

For her Tunisian-influenced picnic,

management consultant Fay is serving

savoury doughnuts filled with prawns,

a prawn head and sumac paste and pickled cucumbers,

brik a la japonaise -

Tunisian pastry rolls filled with tuna, wasabi tartare -

with confit egg yolk,

and rosemary muffins filled with a thyme and raspberry cream.

I love the look of this, and being a practical man,

I'm wondering how I'm going to get the confit egg yolk to a picnic.

In a little jar.

The savoury doughnut texture, I think, is really good.

The filling of the prawns is great.

The actual paste that's in there is really strong.

Prawn heads, the sumac. It seems to be overpowering everything,

including your pickled cucumber.

It is like you've got a fish paste in there.

That's lovely! It's strong. I really like it.

I think the whole lot's great.

We've got little crispy spring roll affair

with the most lovely slippery chunks of tuna,

and I'll dip it in the egg yolk with soy

and it makes the whole thing rich and creamy.

The little muffin - never in a million years

have I tasted anything like that,

the way the herbs go with the raspberry.

Glossy, sweet, moreish.

This very clearly tastes of your home.

I feel really proud. I came here to, like,

share my food and my passion and I feel like I've done it.

Finally, vocational trainer Sam's picnic is made up of

Thai spiced sausage rolls with sweet chilli dipping sauce,

Vietnamese summer rolls filled with pan-fried mackerel,

lettuce and carrots with a spicy peanut dip,

and bao buns filled with Thai tea-flavoured custard.

The sausage roll is just lovely.

Lemongrass, galangal, lots of spice, good amount of chilli in there.

Both these sauces, which I think are vibrant and fresh and exciting,

go really nice with it.

Your little clear roll here with the mackerel and you've got the dip.

I find mackerel and peanut an unusual combination,

but once you get through the nuttiness,

there is some proper chilli in there! It's ferocious.

Your bao - that custard is thick,

but it's almost got, like, a lemon tea flavour.

Sweet lemon tea. That, I like.

It's a picnic, it's the end of the day, and I'm saying,

is there any of those bao buns left? Pass me the box!

HE LAUGHS

They're just edible clouds.

You know, this is a lot of work. You did yourself proud.

Thank you.

It's great to hear the feedback from Grace,

because she's obviously one of my favourite critics.

So I'm really happy to hear that.

Grace, thank you so much. It's an absolute joy.

So much emotion in here today and stories of their life.

There's some cracking cooks out there.

You know what the best bit about that is?

I don't have to make the decision!

Thank you, Grace. Bye!

SHE LAUGHS

What I love today was,

I've got, really, the heart of a British countryside picnic

with flavours and influences from all over the world.

But we only have three places in knockout week.

That does mean that three of them are going home.

Well done, everyone.

Trevor absolutely nailed it.

Yeah. And he's showing proper heart, and hearty.

Trevor's got himself a place in knockout week.

I loved Hazel's picnic. It tasted delicious

and there was skill. I think she's got real class.

Hazel's got the right to go through to knockout week.

Nick had what we call a shocker.

He only had two minutes to go and there was nothing on plates.

I think his flavours tasted nice,

but the presentation was non-existent.

Nick's competition is done.

I find Fay's style almost addictive.

Love the brik with the tuna. A muffin with rosemary in it?!

That muffin blew my mind.

For me, the doughnut with the prawns had inside it a sauce

which was so strong, I couldn't get on with it.

It was just so powerful. But that divides the crowd.

Gabriel cooked us Greek food.

Taramasalata was very, very good indeed.

But there were mistakes. Little greasy on the spanakopita,

and also those little fingers - that pastry needed more cooking.

Sam gave us a Thai-flavoured sausage roll.

The flavours were really, really good,

and his bao bun - absolutely delicious.

The issue I did have with the summer roll is

mackerel and peanut sauce.

I did struggle a little bit with that.

If my competition is over,

I won't regret any single minute of it, because I'm already proud.

If I don't go through,

I think I've not gone through more on the quality of the other chefs,

and they're all fantastic.

So if that's the reason I don't go through, I'm happy.

It would be the saddest thing in the world for it to stop now,

but it's a competition, and, like,

you never know what's going to happen. So we'll see.

Well done, all six of you.

Congratulations on an absolutely fantastic quarterfinal.

We said at the start of this

that three of you will go through to knockout week.

We can only ever take the best cooks with us.

There are two people today who were just truly impressive.

Trevor...

..Hazel...

Congratulations. You two are through to knockout week.

Well done.

Sadly, it doesn't always go to plan.

Nick, you're leaving us.

Thank you, Nick. Thanks so much. Thank you. There's nothing wrong

with your cooking a wristwatch wouldn't put right! I know.

Sometimes our decision has to be down to the finest detail.

Gabriel...

Sadly, you're leaving us.

Thank you very much.

I'm obviously a little bit upset,

but the people that I went out to were just that much better than me.

I'll take a couple of days off cooking,

a couple of takeaways,

and then I'll be straight back in the kitchen on Monday.

Um, I'm obviously feeling disappointed,

but actually, on reflection, like... didn't deserve to go through today.

Now I can go back to not cooking with a timer any more!

Sam,

Fay...

This is where the decision becomes really tough.

Our decision is...

..you are BOTH going through to knockout week.

THEY LAUGH

THEY LAUGH AND CELEBRATE

Well done, well done!

We were over the moon. It's just unbelievable.

It's just like a dream come true, really is.

I feel amazing about being through to knockout week.

It's definitely worth a celebratory wine tonight!

Yeah, not too much, because I've got to go back to work tomorrow!

Absolutely elated. I'll go home and, you know,

give my little girl a big cuddle and just hopefully

not wipe the smile off my face for the rest of the evening.

The competition mean a lot to me, but I don't believe my food before.

But I'm now starting to believe with my food more.

So watch out, guys!

HE LAUGHS

Next time...

I'm simply stressing!

..six more contestants...

Yum, yum, yum!

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

Listen, I thought all this was a good idea,

but now I'm not so sure!

That is a cracker of a job.

..before battling for a place...

We need to start to move.

..in the quarterfinal.

I am very, very happy with this dish.

God, I'm in heaven!

Yay!