It's the semifinals of MasterChef: The Professionals
and only the eight best chefs remain.
Now they're being split into two groups
to compete outside the MasterChef kitchen for the first time...
I got a lot today. I'm really behind.
I'm just going to have to pull my finger out.
..before returning to fight for a place in finals week.
Right now, the whole competition has taken over my life.
Place in finals week would mean a lack of sleep,
but also it would be incredible.
You've got to stand out.
This is time to bring out all the stops and really go for it.
Everyone in the competition now they are really good chefs.
Being in the final eight, it's something huge in my life.
TOM: This is no time to play it safe.
The competition is without doubt on a knife's edge.
The fight is well and truly on.
In recent years, pop-up restaurants have revolutionised
the way people eat,
allowing inventive chefs and food entrepreneurs to make their name
in dynamic dining locations
at a fraction of the cost of opening a traditional restaurant.
Tonight, Ryan,
Dan, Matt
and Charith will be opening the MasterChef professionals pop-up
at a warehouse-style microbrewery
in the heart of industrial East London.
MATT: I've never done a pop-up before.
I'm looking forward to a new challenge.
It's a chance to have a little bit fun, I think.
CHARITH: Feeling really great because this is something new
for me. Really excited to do some Sri Lankan pop-up here.
Limited space, equipment. You know, it's going to be a bit of
a challenge. The pressure's on.
Pop-up is a different type of dining experience.
We still want the quality, we still want the ideas,
but it's got to taste good.
It's going to push our chefs to be able to deliver their food
in this type of environment.
I'm excited.
Chefs, welcome to our MasterChef pop-up restaurant.
In recent years, the pop-up scene has been exploding.
No time more than now, people are just so excited to be able to get
out and enjoy great food.
What a fabulous opportunity for you four to showcase
what you can do here.
You've got to cook one dish to impress 14 guests
that we've invited who are the leaders in the pop-up industry.
You will have two hours and 30 minutes to prepare and cook,
30 minutes to finish and serve your dish.
This is your chance to shine. Don't let it pass you by.
Chefs, let's go.
Working on makeshift pass tables
and with limited equipment and no ovens,
the semifinalists have two and a half hours to prep their dish
for today's menu.
Cooking in a pop-up kitchen means you need to be very organised.
The menu can't be too complicated,
yet still needs to wow and taste amazing.
I want to see something new from our chefs.
I want to see something exciting.
I want to see our chefs push themselves to do something
a little bit different.
26-year-old sous-chef Ryan works in a French brasserie and is creating
a dish around lamb faggots with a lamb and mushroom chasseur sauce.
So I normally cook classical French.
I've had to adapt a little bit.
A pop-up restaurant isn't quite so suited to that sort of style,
but the dish I'm making today is all about flavour,
using some classical elements.
I've got quite a bit to crack on with.
Chasseur sauce takes a while to make, to get the, you know, all the flavour
at the right consistency.
The sauce makes the dish come together.
So I need to make sure that sauce is really nice.
You'll want the faggots to ooze the flavour of the sauce,
the chasseur sauce, which is a base of mushrooms, tomatoes and tarragon.
Working with these faggots should be a match made in heaven.
Ryan is making sable potatoes,
which is diced potatoes that have been deep-fried
and then rolled into crispy breadcrumbs.
That sounds delightful.
Why this dish?
I think this dish sort of still represents me,
and I feel that I'm portraying it in a pop-up sort of venue style.
What's it going to be? A little dish?
Two faggots, potato spooned over the top, sauce ladled over the top.
Done. Love it. That's proper street food, that is.
Ryan's got the chasseur sauce base under way,
it's cooking away pretty fast in that kitchen.
I would hope that he doesn't rush this.
You can't make a sauce well when you rush.
You've got to go through the stages of reduction to get a good flavour.
This is not fun.
Birmingham-based private chef Dan is already under pressure
with his complex Asian-inspired dish.
Oh, man, I'm really struggling for space at the moment,
trying to figure it out, how I'm going to do this.
Definitely a challenge, I'd say that. I've got the mixer on.
It's everything shaking, moving stuff about.
I'm just expecting something to go over at any minute.
You're done. I'm turning this off now. It's stressing me out.
Dan, what are you doing?
I'm going to make a yoghurt flatbread. On top of that,
I'm going to do som tam, which is a green papaya salad
from northern Thailand, Laos.
On top of that, I'm doing larb, which is a meat salad, pork mince,
lots of oyster sauce, fish sauce, Thai basil through there.
A nice mango yoghurt on top to cool it and you pick it up
and you eat it like a taco.
You're going towards street food, messy kind of eating with this one.
This sounds exciting.
Your station is probably somewhere I would stop along the way
in a street food market to try this dish.
As I lived throughout Asia,
I spent a lot of time in Singapore,
and the big thing for me was their hawker centres.
Everyone meets there to eat and I really like that environment,
and that's where I'm trying to go with like low-cost ingredients,
but big flavours.
With ten different components, Dan needs to work quickly.
First, making a start on the tom yum broth, a hot and sour Thai soup.
Fragrances like lots of lemongrass, galangal, fish sauce.
I've got some bird's eye chilli in there. I'm going to see how hot that is.
I might add a bit more in just for a bit kick, but is a hot day,
so maybe, probably not the wisest idea.
Dan has quite a unique style.
He loves bringing in Asian flavours into his cookery, and I think
this is a perfect opportunity for Dan to show off.
Looking at this menu,
it sounds delicious, but it really does sound like a lot of work here for Dan.
Sous-chef Matt has devised a dish around the classic flavours
of beef and oyster.
Get's hot quick, doesn't it, this?
And is busy preparing four and a half kilos of short rib
for his version of a Mexican burrito.
Just getting some colour on to this guy, then I'm going
to chop him up and I'm going to start pressure-cooking him.
Never barbecued an oyster before.
They're going to be blended into a sauce with a bit of smoked butter,
some fermented barley.
So it's going to be quite umami, quite rich.
I'm just going to let them cook in their own juices, so they open.
It's easier than opening them by hand as well hopefully.
The most important thing about Matt's beef is the meat needs
to be cooked to perfection.
To get them into the pressure cooker as soon as possible
is really important.
I want this to be a super tender.
I think any slow-cooked piece of meat needs to be melt-in-the-mouth
or else it's just going to be quite unpleasant.
That's probably going to take about an hour and then after that,
I'll just pick it apart, mix all the meat through the sauce.
Matt, how are you doing? Yeah, I'm finding it good.
It's a new experience, obviously doing the pop-ups.
It's well out of my comfort zone. We're in East London.
It's not quite a forest that you...I know you love being in. Foraging.
Oh, yeah, definitely. Yeah.
For me, this is just a time to play and see
what I can come up with.
Burrito is sort of classic pop-up food.
But I'm going to do mine a little bit differently.
Inside it, you've got some beef fat rice. So long grain rice
that I'm going to cook and then fold some beet fat through
from the short rib and then a gherkin and spring onion salsa.
You've got some refried black beans.
I'm cooking down with four spice and black garlic,
and I really wanted to use this guy.
This is magnolia petals.
So these are just the flowers from a magnolia tree.
And basically they've got a flavour of ginger.
So I really want to sort of bring that element in.
I like the sound of it. I can't wait to taste it. Thank you.
Huge amount of flavours going on here.
I want to taste of charring on the barbecue from the beef.
I really want to taste the magnolia flavour.
And then the oysters in this dish too.
I think these are really important flavours that are standout
ingredients and I want to taste all of them.
Right, chefs, 45 minutes have gone.
London-based senior sous-chef Charith moved to the UK 11 years ago
and is cooking the taste of home,
based around Sri Lankan street food known as short eats.
Short eats means like a small snacks.
So you can eat like any time.
If you feel hungry, you grab one and you eat.
Same like a sausage roll and Scotch egg here.
There's two elements to his menu.
First of all, you've got the mutton roll.
Going to be beautiful, braised mutton, nice and soft and juicy,
and that's going to be wrapped in a spring roll wrapper
and then deep-fried till it's nice and crispy.
Charith's other dish is a fish patty, almost like a little pasty.
On the side he's got curry leaf and green chilli mayo,
pickled chilli slaw and a mutton sauce.
I can't tell you how excited I am to try this.
What has inspired your dishes today?
So this is actually the memory from my school time.
So we used to go out with my friends, grab some snacks
from different shops.
We used to try those snacks together, and I think that's kind
of the memory I'm just trying to bring it to here today.
Charith's got the mutton. He needs to braise it,
so it's just falling apart.
I can imagine it would not be good if the mutton
is tough and chewy.
When you have so much spices, then you're cooking the mutton
very slow temperature, it soak all the spices and the flavours into the meat.
Charith's menu is going to be full of flavour.
There's no two ways about that.
Hope he can deliver it because his food is perfect
for this pop-up challenge.
Chefs, you have 1 hour left.
Ryan, how are you doing? Just had to come in here and get a few jobs on.
I'm pretty stretched for time at the moment,
but I just want to make sure I've got these done
because without these, I...
..a flatbread dish is pretty disappointing.
This is so long.
Dan, you look very stressed in there. The heat is on.
My flatbreads are going to take a while, but I've got that going.
I'm working them now. This is just the most time-consuming.
What else have you got?
My larb, I'm going to cook.
And all the elements for my papaya salad, apart from the papaya,
still need to be done. OK, so you've got a lot left to do, then?
Yes, Chef.
Once that pizza oven is on full, it is scorching hot.
You've got to get your flatbreads in.
You've got to stay with them. Can't leave them.
You've got to turn them over as well.
So you can't do any other jobs.
It's a very tricky position to be in
when you've got so much work to do.
Across the kitchen, Ryan now has the lengthy task of prepping
and building his 30-spiced lamb faggots.
Going in with a bit more spices, it's just not quite enough.
Ryan is using some lovely, offal in his lamb faggots,
and I like the fact that he's cutting up the kidneys instead
of just mincing it through, so you're going to taste
more of it and have more texture through the actual faggots.
People have made some awful faggots in their time,
and they've got a bit of a bad name.
If you put a bit of love into it and a bit of attention
to detail, you can make something really nice.
Going to do two a portion. I've just got it in caul fat,
which is pig's stomach lining,
classically used for these sort of things.
I'm just going to have to pull my finger out.
It's going to take me a little while.
Matt is well under way with his oyster and fermented barley sauce.
I just need to thicken that a little bit.
A little bit smoked butter goes into that.
Nice and sticky, nice and rich,
and then that's just going to dress the beef.
While the beef short rib continues to cook, he turns his attention
to the other pressure cooker.
In this one, this is the black beans, black garlic
and some of the four spice.
That'll do.
Refry time.
To accompany his burrito, Matt is serving a ransom caper yoghurt.
So they're just the seeds from wild garlic.
They're just like little capers.
Little garlicky capers are popping your mouth.
I think it needs to be quiet, sort of prickly and fresh and zingy
because everything actually in the burrito is really rich.
As well as his mutton dish, Charith's Sri Lankan short eats
includes a spiced fish patty.
This is a kind of Sri Lankan mackerel.
So it's already in a tin and it's cooked.
So it's got a nice flavour there.
The mackerel is mixed with onions, ginger, potato, green chilli
and pandan leaves.
Once cooled, it needs to be completely encased
in perfect shortcrust pastry.
The pasty is a lot of work.
You've got to make the pastry, you've got to let it rest.
You've got to make the filling.
You've got to roll them out, cut them, get the right shape.
They've all got to have uniformity and then you've got
to deep fry them.
So I got 20 spring rolls to make and I got 20 fish patties to make.
And I think probably I should have sticked with one short eats.
Right, chefs, you've got 30 minutes to prep time left,
and I have just also noticed that your guests are starting to arrive.
Pressure's on.
The 14 guests at today's event are some of the UK's most successful
chefs and pop-up entrepreneurs.
My dad is from Iraq, and I grew up eating so many amazing dishes.
I just didn't see them out there in the food scene,
and I just took it upon myself to do something about that.
And I left my job in the city
and just started doing pop-ups and supper clubs.
The pop-ups were integral part of my success and it gave me
confidence and it allowed me to grow.
So the pop-up journey was vital to Juma being here today.
In early 2020, I set up a series of pop-ups.
And what we wanted to do
was to make fine dining more accessible to everybody.
So popping up in a location like Brixton just felt
like a perfect fit.
We're only a 26-seater restaurant and the kitchen's pretty small.
We've had to be very careful about the dishes that we put
on the menu because we're so limited on space and equipment here,
but everything that we put into play, it has to be 100%.
I'm not sure I would have my own restaurant if it wasn't for pop-ups.
We used to convert all sorts of crazy places into kitchens
like the garage with no water and no equipment.
Makes you very adaptable as a chef.
You kind of have to think on your feet a bit.
I think to stand out, you have to cook food that you love
to eat and hope that other people like to eat that too.
Seen the first lot of the guests arrive.
Close to judgment time.
I think you just got to wow people.
I would say, go singular, pick your one thing
and absolutely nail it and make people go,
"I can't get that anywhere else. I'm going to come back to you."
When you're doing a pop-up, the space is so small,
you can't bring everything you want to bring, so you have to adapt
and be able to just, you know, just work with what you have.
With service fast approaching,
all four chefs are in a race against the clock to complete
their prep.
So I'm just starting to cook my faggots.
I think it would relieve a bit of stress, free up a bit more time.
You just don't want them to sit there for too long,
just so that they're going to just evaporate all the moisture
inside and they'll just be dry.
Dan is a little bit stressed at the moment.
This is without doubt taking him out of his comfort zone.
I've got a lot to do. I'm running behind.
I'm concerned I'm not going to get done right now.
With only his flatbreads and tom yum broth done,
he still needs to barbecue his shallot garnish...
..and cook off his pork.
Dan needs to get the pork mince cooked down to get all the flavour
out of it and then get all the other flavours that he wants
to add into it. He's got to get it tasting good.
He's got to have time to make the larb tasty.
All this basil is going to go through at the end.
That's really going to bring it to life as well.
Charith's Sri Lankan spiced mutton is cooked, but he still needs
to portion it into 20 perfect spring rolls.
Charith, you still got quite a lot to do by the looks of things.
Yes, Chef, quite a lot.
You've got two different bites.
Are you going to get them both made? I'm trying my best. Yes.
I'm going to push myself a little bit.
Three of the chefs, without doubt, look like they are up against
the clock and they have got a lot of work left to do.
But Matt, on the other hand, is looking fantastic.
He looks organised and knows exactly what he's doing.
He seems like a chef who's very much in control at the moment.
After nearly two hours in the pressure cooker,
it's vital that Matt's beef short rib is tender and falling apart.
That's the thing with using pressure cookers,
you don't know what's going on until you open it up.
So...
..moment of truth.
Party time. Let's go. Perfect.
Yes.
It's good that, innit?
Oyster sauce.
Matt, are you enjoying this?
I was a bit nervous waiting on the pressure cooker. But as soon
as I opened that second pressure cooker, it was like, right,
I can...I can relax. Well, not relax, but you know.
That last half an hour is quite crucial.
You need to be rolling and forming your burritos.
And then, of course, the last few minutes sealing them off.
Exactly. You're not going to be so cool then, are you?
Once the adrenaline is running, yeah, I'll be all right.
Chef's time is up for prep.
The guests have arrived. They are hungry.
I hope you've broken the back of it and you are ready to move
into service kitchen.
Ryan is first up to the pass and will now have 30 minutes to cook
and serve his faggot dish.
How are we looking? A couple of minutes and they'll be there, should be ready to go.
Lamb faggots, it's got offal and other stuff in it.
I feel like maybe some people may be put off.
If I overcook these, they're just going to be a bit chewy and a bit
grainy, a bit dry, even though I've got the sauce.
And you don't want that well-done cooked kidney,
but you don't want raw kidney either.
So hopefully there's a bit of balance.
I have no idea what sable potatoes are,
but little crispy potatoes, I mean, that works on everything.
They just come out the fryer, have they? Yes, Chef.
You going to roll them in crumbs? Yeah.
So sable in French means sand.
Sand potatoes, basically.
Sauce is good? Yes. Sauce is good.
Just added, though, the garnish to it.
Chasseur sauce is one of my favourites.
So I've got big expectations.
And I hope it's got the depth of flavour I'm looking for.
Right, Ryan, let's go. Fast food.
Yes, Chef. Ryan style.
Service, please.
Happy food, happy customers. They look good, Ryan.
It looks good and smells good.
Are you happy with how the dishes are going out, Ryan?
It's what you wanted? Yeah, it's what I wanted.
Yeah, I'm happy with it. Service!
Thank you.
It seems like a simple dish. It's meat, potatoes and sauce.
You can't really go wrong with that. Excited to try it.
Last few plates. Oui, chef.
Service, please.
I personally think it's a great dish, and it's something
that I would enjoy eating.
I think the faggots came out lovely. And the sauce as well.
Had its spicy moments.
But, yeah. Yeah, no, it was a good challenge. Good challenge.
I think it's delicious.
It's not dry at all. It's quite moist and quite meaty.
It's what you want in a faggot.
Really tasty. Absolutely wolfed it down.
Really enjoyed the spicing in it.
Chasseur sauce - the punch of lamb flavour
is exactly what I was hoping for.
And the potatoes soaking up that sauce - it's really, really nice.
Overall, the dish was a little bit lacking the wow factor.
Nonetheless, it was a nice piece of cooking.
It's an enjoyable plate of food.
The potatoes are nice and crispy. And I think the faggots as well,
they are nicely made, but they could be a lot more unctuous.
They need to be sticky and glazed.
More sauce running through them.
The sauce has got a nice body to it, but I want to taste the tarragon
and it's just shy of it. It's nice.
I want it outstanding.
Dan's Thai-inspired dish is up next.
He has ten different elements to plate and still needs
to finish his papaya som tam salad.
Yoghurt, flatbread, larb,
som tam, mango, yoghurt, pickled and crispy shallots,
served with a tom yum broth with grilled shallots,
oyster mushrooms and coriander oil.
I mean, instantly, that just sounds like a lot of work.
Thai street food, it looks quite simple, but there is loads
of elements, big flavours in it, so I've put myself under a lot
of pressure to do it. But I think if I get it right, the outcome
will be worth it.
The flatbreads look good!
How's the pork larb tasting? I'm really happy with it.
It's got a bit of heat. It's got the sweetness.
It's got the saltiness I want.
So, what's that going on now?
This is my mango yoghurt.
In my experience, at least, there's not a load of dairy
going on with Thai food,
so I guess the yoghurt stands out to me as something
that might just skew things.
And you're good to go. You're good to go.
Hopefully, the som tam will be very punchy,
sort of very fragrant, sort of Asiany flavours
that will just cut through that larb, which is a little bit fatty.
So, hopefully the balance will be really nice in this dish.
And that's coriander oil going in there? Yes, Chef.
Looks great, Dan. Thank you, Chef.
Service!
Oh, no. Dan, what's wrong?
Larb, the key part is peanuts.
Run down. They're just about to serve.
Go, run! Leg it! Run!
Nearly had a breakdown just then.
So, there's a lot going on in this dish, and I think it's exciting.
It's all exciting stuff.
Come on, Dan. They are now waiting.
Yes, Chef.
Peanuts.
Service!
Dan, that's it, let's go. Final push, come on.
Yes, Chef.
Service!
It was difficult, it was challenging, but, you know,
as a chef in a kitchen, that kind of rush, it gives
you the adrenaline. So, I really like the buzz.
I think I'm about to pass out, but I really like the buzz.
Do you know what I love about this dish?
Everything on this menu, I can taste every element.
My mouth is humming right now.
That was delicious. I was worried it was going to be too much
on one plate and a bit messy and chaotic.
But, actually, it really all worked together.
Really enjoyed the flatbread. Thought it was nice and crispy.
Yeah, the larb was pretty special. I've never tried that before.
It's something that I would definitely try again.
Really enjoyed that.
Absolutely loved that broth.
That was the standout point of this dish for me.
It's an umami wallop.
It's a really nice balance of sweet, salty, not too spicy.
So, yeah, I enjoyed it.
Dan's best dish so far.
That's absolutely sensational.
Great texture. Great flavour.
I love the fact he made every element of this dish.
And just to finish it off, you've got this fantastic broth.
Great job, Dan. Well done. This is delicious.
No problems finishing this.
Do you think we could get a second one?
Next in the spotlight is Matt's beef and oyster burrito.
Love to see a burrito on a street food menu.
With the beef rib, I'm hoping it's really nice and soft and tender.
In a burrito, it should just really be melt-in-the-mouth.
The oyster sauce, that's been mixed through the short rib.
Oyster sauce is delicious and goes really well
on most things. And smoke it,
as long as it's not smoked too much, then it's just a great condiment.
What's the cheese you use?
So, it's Tunworth. It's basically... It's a camembert in style.
I wanted to incorporate a cheese that I think is going to work
really well with the oyster.
This is the last batch.
I've got to sear them on the plancha
and then I'm going to cut them in half.
That's the wild garlic yoghurt.
Moment of truth.
That's it, yep.
Are you happy?
Yeah. I hope it tastes the way I want it to.
I'd like to eat one.
Service, please.
Almost there. Almost there.
Service, please.
Oh. Wahey!
I think I'd like to do a pop-up again. It was a lot of fun.
When I'm cooking, I'm normally pretty happy.
So, yeah, I just hope everyone's enjoying it.
To look at, I didn't think this dish kind of looked great,
but actually when you stick it in your mouth,
it's absolutely fantastic.
Really smoky. Really fresh, really tasty.
Yeah, it's super yummy, actually.
It's a bit heavy, but it's super umami.
I think everything is cooked very well.
The rice is fully cooked. The beef is nice and moist.
But I think, overall, it's a very safe dish for a pop-up.
It seemed a little bit rich, and I feel like with Mexican food,
you really need like that acidity to cut through all the rich flavours.
So, with a slightly different salsa and a squeeze of lime,
it could have been a really delicious dish.
There are some great things here. The beef short rib is cooked nicely.
It's melt-in-your-mouth,
it's flaking away. But it's not hitting you,
that wonderful barbecue searing that he did.
It's well-wrapped. Got a little bit of colour on there.
We've got the nice sauce on the side.
But I'm not getting magnolia petals or the flavour of ginger.
I'm not getting oysters. And that is such a shame.
NARRATOR: Finally, it's Charith with his Sri Lankan short eats.
His pastry-wrapped mackerel patties and spiced mutton spring rolls
all need to be deep-fried at the last minute.
Ooh, under pressure, Charith.
Are we getting there? Almost.
Well, you've still got the smile on. I hope you get it all done.
Thanks, Chef.
This dish is popping.
Sri Lankan short eats box, mutton roll and fish patty,
served with a curry leaf and green chilli mayo, pickled chilli slaw,
and a mutton sauce.
Obviously, with mutton, you've got to cook it low and slow.
You've really got to spend a bit of time with it to get the best
out of the meat.
I'm just frying my spring rolls. Because of the pressure, I think,
I didn't get the shape right, because I had a lot to do,
so I was a bit rushing.
But, you know, I could do much more better.
As soon as I saw this menu, I said, "This was the dish for me."
The fish patty I can't wait for. I'm really interested to see
how he does the actual pastry. I mean, it can be quite
heavy and doughy.
But this one, I really would love to see just flaky pastry
around the fish.
Charith, you're the last one to go. Are you all set?
Yes, Chef, I'm all set. Let's go.
Let's start serving.
The pickled chilli slaw sounds interesting,
and I think that will cut through the richness of the mutton.
That looks great. Thanks, Chef.
Service, please!
Are you enjoying this?
Yes, Chef, always.
It looks like it. Good on you.
Visually, very appealing. Very colourful.
Everything you want from a street food dish. You want a dish
that basically if you're walking past, you see someone eating it,
you're like, "What is that? I want to eat it."
Service, please.
I think it looks really interesting.
Can't wait to try it.
Service, please!
Nailed it. I'm looking forward to trying this. Well done.
Thank you, Chef. Thank you.
Today was really fun. Hard work, but at the end of the day,
I'm really happy.
Everything came out well, but I think the first two and a half
hour was really tough.
They are all like big names on the pop-ups, but probably
they will take me as a challenge as well in the future.
The pastry on the fish was amazing. It was really crumbly
and melt-in-the-mouth, and really good.
The mutton roll, I thought, was outstanding. Really enjoyed
the spicing, crunchy coating and the little mutton sauce to go
with that. It really added something to the dish.
It was a little bit on the spicy side.
I love spice, but the slaw needs to be toned down a bit.
As a feeling of something that's a collection of Sri Lankan snacks,
I think it's fantastic. Super spicy. Super zesty.
That's somebody who really cares and really knows what they're doing.
It's banging.
You taste every element of the love that he's put into this.
You can taste the fish, you can taste the mutton,
you can taste the spices,
and the beautiful pastry is so short, it's incredible.
The mutton roll, that's so crispy.
And then the filling on the inside, so tasty.
And then you dip that into the chilli mayo and it's rich,
and it just packs flavour everywhere you go.
Very good.
After a gruelling day in the kitchen,
the MasterChef Pop-Up is over.
We've seen a different side to our chefs today.
Some great flavours, some really good ideas.
This has been a fabulous day.
It was just great to get them out of the MasterChef kitchen and push
them in a different direction.
I think our guests are well. We ate well.
Very different to what I'm used to. To do something like this,
you don't get the opportunity every day.
So, yeah, it's been great.
Today was a different environment.
It was definitely hard work.
I'm absolutely exhausted from it, but I really did enjoy it.
There was a few moments where, you know, the time just flies away,
where it was a little bit hairy.
But I relished that challenge.
A little bit tired now, but overall I'm happy with my performance.
Every day's going to be tougher and tougher,
so you have to prepare for that.
I think our chefs all rose to the challenge. If they can bring
that confidence back, ooh, it makes for a serious cook-off.
We are going to have a battle on our hands.
Welcome back, chefs.
Well done with your efforts at the pop-up restaurant.
You did brilliantly well and the feedback
from the guests was fantastic.
You're all now cooking for a place in finals week.
We want to see fireworks in this kitchen today.
Give it everything.
1 hour 45 minutes to create absolute brilliance on a plate.
At the end of this, three of you will be going through.
One of you will be leaving us.
Chefs, over to you.
It's a massive day.
You're only as good as your last dish that you cooked,
so I've still got to pull it out of the bag today.
The pressure never goes away.
Everything you do needs to be exactly right,
and I'm just trying to make sure that I show the judges the other
skills that I've got that I haven't been able to show yet.
But, you know, it's easier said than done.
Ryan, back into our MasterChef kitchen, cooking for a place
in our finals week. What are you doing?
So, I'm making a stuffed saddle of lamb.
I'm going to make like a mincemeat farce,
and get some apricots through that, some spices.
And what's going on with that? So, I'm doing imam bayildi.
Imam bayildi is an aubergine dish.
Lots and lots of olive oil, some spices and often some dried fruit.
Yeah, I'm bringing that sort of classical French stuffed saddle
with some spice flavours.
The spices that I'm putting through the dish work really well with lamb.
It's a big day. Why lamb?
Stuffed saddle of lamb, it's something that's very classical.
You know, it requires a lot of skill, and that's exactly what
I want to show today. I've got to execute it perfectly.
Otherwise, it's sort of ruined. Good luck.
Ryan's dish is all about the classics.
A lovely stuffed saddle of lamb.
As Ryan said himself, there's nowhere to hide.
You've got to do it very, very well.
You have to take the fillets out, you have to trim all of the fat
and the skin completely down.
So, he rolls it with the apricot farce,
so a lovely minced meat with the dried apricot running through it.
The meat in the centre has still got to be pink.
It still needs to be rested. And you certainly don't want
it to bleed.
I like that Ryan is using Middle Eastern flavours with his lamb,
which I think works beautifully well.
I really hope Ryan pulls it off and he gets every part
of this dish right.
My mum, she was a great cook.
She always used to make like my favourite curries.
I got like quite VIP treatment at home, so I thought I'd bring
those memories and give my best shot.
Charith, how are you feeling?
Yeah, the last round was really great, and I really enjoyed
going outside from the MasterChef kitchen.
So, you've come back in here on a high. Yeah.
What are you making today?
So, you're going to get two different curries.
One vegetable and one seafood.
I'm going to do like a Negombo-style prawn curry.
Negombo is a town in Sri Lanka famous for fish farming.
They do like a different style of prawn curry, so I wanted to bring
that into the MasterChef kitchen. And I'm doing the prawn curry
with the moringa leaves. In Sri Lanka,
most of the shellfish curries we use moringa leaves. Mm.
It's like lemon and then it's got a heat, a peppery heat to it.
So, I'm using that. Then I'm going to do like a snake beans
and jackfruit seed curry.
When my mum, she always made the vegetarian curry,
she add a couple of jackfruit seeds, because we had a couple of jackfruit
trees in the garden,
so we have jackfruit for like lunch, brunch...
Charith is cooking two different types of curries. A prawn curry
and a vegetable curry. You want the flavour and the spices
of the curry sauce to work beautifully well with the prawns,
and, of course, the vegetable curry is all going to be about
texture and seasoning.
We've also got a quinoa coconut flatbread and a sambol butter,
sort of like a sweet and sour style marmalade.
Delicious.
I'm really curious about the snake bean and jackfruit seed curry.
I've not had jackfruit seed in a curry before.
I can see that could be great.
Chefs, 30 minutes gone.
Huge amount of pressure, but I think you need to embrace
it and try to enjoy it as best as you can.
The inspiration for this dish is just different places
I've worked all around the world. So, a lot of Japanese flavours.
It's all just different elements put together, but I think
they work really well.
This is meant to be quite a light dish, almost like a salad.
Dan, this is a tough competition.
Are you learning anything about yourself?
I can push myself a lot further than I thought I originally could.
But before I come through those doors, like I'm pretty much
a wreck every time. What are you cooking for us today?
I'm doing langoustines in duck fat, on top of avocado,
which have been crushed into almost like a guacamole,
ikura, so salmon roe, served with pickled shallots,
raw ebi shrimps around the outside, and croutons on top.
And a dashi and spring onion butter sauce to finish.
Why this dish?
I always look for balance in flavours - balance and texture.
Everything on the plate has to have a purpose.
And I've played around with something similar to this dish
and it went down really well, so I thought I'd just push it
a bit further and see what I can do with it.
Dan's dish is all about technique, different combinations.
It's the type of dish that you read on a menu, but you're curious
as to how it's going to come out.
I'm really looking forward to trying the langoustine
that he's going to be cooking in a little bit of duck fat.
The duck fat will bring a lovely meatiness to the sweetness
of the langoustine.
Dan has got runner beans, which he's stripping
down and he's forming into like a case,
which he's going to serve as crushed avocado.
Huge risk because I'm not sure if these runner beans will hold
into a cup. I've tried it out before and it's worked sometimes,
and sometimes it hasn't worked for me.
There's a lot at stake here.
This will hopefully not cost him a place in our finals week
if it goes wrong.
He's also got a dashi stock, which I think
is going to have so much flavour of the seaside, which will bring
this dish together.
30 minutes left. Big day. Half an hour left.
Matt, you're cooking for a place in finals week and you decide
to cook a dessert, by the looks of it?
Well, it is a dessert, but it's inspired by a curry.
Obviously, I'm from the West Midlands and we love
a curry back there. I'm using a curry plant,
which is a perennial herb. A lot of people have got it
in their gardens at home. When you rub it, it smells like curry.
So, I'm doing a queen of puddings,
but I'm going to do it inside a tart.
Queen of puddings is a classic dessert.
It's a layer of like a baked custard, but it's got breadcrumbs
in there to thicken it up. And then it's got a layer of jam,
and it's finished off with meringue.
But instead of breadcrumbs, I'm using a hogweed naan bread,
just to tie in with the curry theme.
On top of that, you've got some curried apricots,
fig leaf meringue. Around the outside,
you're going to have an apricot salsa, dressed with sea arrowgrass,
which is this guy here.
It grows by the coast and this actually tastes like coriander.
They also call it coriander grass.
And then to finish it off, you can't have a curry without rice, can you?
So, I've got a toasted rice ice cream.
We're looking here at each other with curious thoughts,
and that's because it sounds really interesting.
I like to sort of think outside the box.
And, I mean, I'm having fun with this dish. I suppose we have sweet
things in curries. No reason why we shouldn't have some savoury things
in a pudding. And it's going to be an interesting taste.
Fingers crossed, Chef.
Queen of puddings is a classic.
Shall we do the old meringue test, shall we?
Matt's making a dessert that's anything but a classic.
It's different. It's intriguing, it's risky.
And I cannot wait to try it.
My family loves a curry.
We normally have a curry every week.
We've even had curry for Christmas sometimes.
You know, we like it that much.
But I think I can pull it off.
I don't think I've had a curry dessert, so I'm curious
about the balance of this.
He's using a curry leaf that's been dried,
so he can control the amount of curry flavour that he puts into it.
The question is - will it work in a dessert?
Will it work with the sweetness of the meringue?
Chefs, please, you have just ten minutes.
Ten minutes, please.
Mm. It needs a little bit more. A little bit on the underdone side?
Just a little bit, yeah. It's not far off.
I've got enough time to just continue to cook
it a little bit longer.
That didn't work, did it?
My prawns is ready.
I'm a little bit running behind on this naan bread.
Did that work? Just about, yeah. After a few failed attempts,
they did come through. So, I'm relieved at that.
Three minutes. Three minutes, that's what you've got.
Ryan, how's it going?
I think it's good now. Happy with it.
That's the little things coming together now, but I'm pretty happy
with how it's looking. My tarts are about to come out.
60 seconds. Last touches.
Quick, quick, quick, quick, quick!
Time's up! Stop, stop.
NARRATOR: First up is Ryan.
For a place in finals week, he has served
a saddle of lamb, wrapped in spinach and glazed in honey and cinnamon,
stuffed with a spiced apricot and mincemeat farce...
..and a cumin and yoghurt mousse, served with a lamb jus gras...
..and a potato rosti,
topped with an aubergine, tomato and red pepper imam bayildi.
Wow. I just think that is so elegant and so smart.
The stuffed lamb saddle, I liked your attention to detail. You took
a lot of care and it's paid off, cos it looks fantastic.
Beautifully cooked as well.
The lamb sauce is delicious.
The potato rosti is crispy and crunchy, and beautifully cooked.
The plate is minimalistic.
It's sharp, it's clean, and it's very, very tasty.
Thank you.
I can't help but admire the skill it took to stuff the lamb saddle
like this and to serve it beautifully pink.
You've got the flavour of the apricot running through that.
The imam bayildi, though I love the flavours of the aubergine,
the peppers and then the cumin, for me, it needs a bit of seasoning
through it. But I really like it.
Thank you.
I think the use of cinnamon on the lamb fat is just delightful.
Cumin across the yoghurt, I think, is lovely.
Smokiness and sweetness.
I think this is really, really clever.
I'm feeling quite good.
There's so many things that could go wrong with that, and I'm really glad
that that came out exactly how I wanted.
Private chef Dan has made langoustines cooked in duck fat,
with green beans, crushed avocado, ikura salmon roe,
ebi shrimp and pickled shallots...
..duck fat croutons, and a lime curd,
served with a dashi vinegar and spring onion butter sauce...
..and a coriander oil.
The langoustine is beautifully cooked. Duck fat flavour,
it sweetens it up. You've not lost the flavour of the langoustine
which is a really good plus.
I like the little raw shrimp.
The curd is delicious.
It brings sharpness to the plate and it's smooth and creamy.
The dish is fantastic. It hits the right notes,
it's flavoursome,
and it's fine dining, for me, at its very best.
Well done. Thank you, Chef.
You get the bite of onion in those pickled onions.
You get an explosion of salt in those little fish eggs.
I like the textures.
I like the real smooth creaminess of the sauce.
I like the extra thick creaminess of the avocado,
but I like the crunch of your little croutons.
It's a dainty dish, but it packs a flavour punch.
I'm really pleased for you that your runner bean casing worked.
You took a gamble with that.
I think your dish, it's really got the balance of the beautiful,
delicate langoustine with really punchy sauce,
with the dashi that you've put through it.
I could have a bowl full of that sauce.
Thank you, Chef.
I wasn't sure how this dish would go down. Different to the other
styles I've done in the competition, but, yeah. Wow.
Overwhelmed. I... Yeah.
Speechless.
Senior sous-chef Charith has cooked prawn curry with moringa leaves,
and a snake bean and jackfruit seed curry,
with a quinoa and coconut flatbread,
and a spiced caramelised onion, tamarind and mascarpone
seeni sambol butter.
The moringa leaves that you have in this prawn curry,
it's got a peppery heat to it.
Yet, though, it's slightly hot, you can still taste the prawns.
This butter, you've blended caramelised onions and spices
with butter mascarpone. That is fantastic,
just all over this flatbread, and I wasn't expecting
the sweetness through it.
I've never had these jackfruit seeds before, and they are a cross
between a macadamia nut and a chestnut.
There's a sweetness to them and they're really quite soft.
But the flavour of the bean curry doesn't in any way live up
to the flavour of the prawn curry.
And I find my prawns a little overcooked.
The curry sauce that are wrapped around the prawns,
absolutely delicious.
And I like the sauce around the beans and the jackfruit,
but I find the snake bean incredibly soft
and overcooked on mine.
The flatbread needs a little bit more cooking.
There's a little bit of doughiness and rawness to it.
And if you're going to give me a sauce, especially a good curry
sauce like this, I want to soak it up with some rice.
These two sauces are not working together because I don't
have any rice.
But I do like your flavours. Thanks, Chef.
I understand what Marcus said.
Probably I should put some rice on the side.
If I go to the restaurant, I'd probably order some rice as well,
but I thought maybe I'm going to go with the flatbread,
do something different.
It's like each round, I always try to push myself.
Last up is Matt, who has used foraged herbs
to make a curry-flavoured queen of puddings, encased in a tart...
..with a hogweed naan bread baked custard,
topped with a curry leaf apricot jam
and piped fig leaf meringue...
..served with an apricot and sea arrowgrass salsa,
and a toasted rice ice cream.
There's always a risk with a dish like this. As a chef,
when I look at food and I taste food,
I always look at it as, "What would I do?
"How would I add to it? How could I make it better?"
And the answer to all of my own questions is I wouldn't change
a single thing on this.
It's an absolute piece of work.
It's daring and it's exciting at the same time.
The pastry is beautifully cooked.
The custard has got a lovely texture.
I can taste the little bread running through it. You can taste the naan
flavour there. The jam is delicious.
You've got the right amount of curry going through the jam.
The meringue on top,
you've got a lovely hint of green from the fig leaf,
that really does work.
It's brilliant, Matt. It's delicious.
Your toasted rice ice cream isn't sweetened hardly at all.
A little bit of sweetness and a real toasty oaty flavour afterwards,
so your savoury is never too savoury and your sweet is never too sweet.
I think that's really, really clever.
You've given us a dessert based on a curry, and I won't lie,
all three of us were standing there, with our eyebrow in the air,
like, "What did Matt find out there?"
But I think you are a genius at what you do, and that's
because we've seen many a chef foraging and bringing us things
that we haven't tried before,
and you've found the way to make us understand them.
And that's what I'm tasting.
It's really, really clever and yummy.
Marcus is someone that I looked up to when I was a very young chef,
and to take such a risk on a dish and then get feedback
like that, it's just... Yeah, I couldn't have asked for better.
It means I'm doing the right things.
I thought our four chefs came back into this kitchen full of energy,
and a brilliant cook-off is what we just saw.
The chef that hits the mark over both rounds has to be Dan.
Great pop-up round,
and a fantastic dish today with the langoustine
and the little baby shrimps. What a dish.
Delightful, light yet balanced, delicious.
So, Dan goes through to the finals?
Dan deserves to be in our finals week.
Matt thinks differently.
He puts together dishes that I've never seen before.
And he also uses ingredients that I haven't seen before.
I mean, he's exciting.
The curry dessert was just an outstanding piece of work.
We've seen chefs go out foraging before, but Matt has just taken
the idea to a whole new level for me.
And is a chef that I certainly would like to see cook again.
I really, really like Charith's flavours. I do.
It's impossible not to. But my prawns were slightly overcooked,
and the other curry I thought was slightly disappointing.
It didn't match up to the splendour of the prawn curry.
His dish today was just lacking a few little things for me.
I just felt it needed some rice.
But we really enjoyed his pop-up dish and he really wowed our guests.
I have to say, Ryan's lamb is not an easy thing to do.
There's a real risk in getting that dish right, and I thought
the centre point of the dish was skill.
Really impressive.
Possibly the best-looking plate of food I've seen from Ryan
so far in the competition.
Ryan's pop-up dish, the faggots were a little bit on the dry side.
They weren't sticky and gooey, but overall it was a good dish.
It's the sharp end of the competition now.
We're going to have to make some really tough decisions.
Everyone's on their A-game, you know. These are all good chefs,
so it's going to be tough, it's going to be close.
To go home today, you know, I'd be a bit gutted,
but I gave it my best shot
so I can be proud of myself.
Actually, when I enter the kitchen, every day
I think, "This is my last day."
I always try to do my best in the competition,
but I did a couple of errors, so we'll see.
That was a fantastic cook-off.
Well done.
All four of you were working at the highest level today
and that was really, really good to see.
We have made a decision.
We can only take three of you through.
And the chef that is leaving us...
..is Charith.
Charith, I've got to say, it's been so clear
to see your strength, your knowledge in the flavours of Sri Lanka.
I can't wait to see what you go on to do in the future.
I wish you the best of luck.
Thank you, guys. Good luck, guys.
Thank you. Thank you, Charith. Thank you, Chef.
I think I performed like really well last couple of rounds,
and this round I didn't perform that well, so it's cost me.
But the competition is a really good experience for me as a person
and even as a chef as well.
Probably in future, I can put all the experience together
in something great.
Congratulations! Well done, you three. Sterling work.
You three are going through to finals week.
Yes!
I'm feeling great, you know? I'm super proud of myself
for getting this far.
I'm looking forward to the next challenge.
Today was fantastic.
I took a big risk and it paid off, so, yeah, I couldn't be happier.
Finals week, man. To be in this competition, against this level
of chefs, and to still be standing for finals week...
Yeah, absolutely incredible. I can't believe it.
And I'm trying to take it in and enjoy it.
Couldn't ask for much more today.
Next time...
The second group of semifinalists
face their pop-up challenge...
Are you doing the bhajis a la minute? Yes.
Liam, you're scaring me!
Uh, no. Not quite cooked.
..before returning to the MasterChef kitchen to fight for their place
in finals week.
That ravioli is stunning.
I think it's delicious, and I'm going to finish it,
if you don't mind.