What’s it like to be a Masterchef contestant?

The hit BBC1 show is hosted by judges John Torode and Gregg Wallace.

The hit BBC1 show is hosted by judges John Torode and Gregg Wallace.

Published Mar 9, 2015

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London – There’s a bit in every episode of Masterchef where Gregg Wallace loosens his belt, flashes a gap-toothed grin and gleefully tells a kitchen full of flapping contestants that ‘cooking doesn’t get any tougher than this’.

After just 30 minutes of chopping, peeling, mixing and flambee-ing my way around that very kitchen, I can see exactly what Gregg means.

My spotless workstation has become a post-apocalyptic culinary bomb site, strewn with flour, pear peelings, pastry offcuts and a strange, creamy goo which spills on the stove and starts turning into acrid smoke.

On the hob, a pan that should be filled with caramelised sugar instead contains a pool of melted butter, plus a few lumpy blobs of something brown.

Stage left, an ice-cream maker that ought to be whirring efficiently is screaming like a tortured cat. The sink resembles a scrapyard, piled high with bowls, pans, chopping boards and filthy utensils.

Time is running out. A tart that should already be in the oven is barely half made.

‘You have 30 minutes left!’ Gregg bellows. ‘Thirty minutes!’ The rolling pin has gone missing. I’m starting to panic.

Then Gregg’s co-host, the plain-speaking, Michelin-spangled superchef John Torode, wanders over, looks at the stove and raises an arch eyebrow.

‘Tell me,’ says Torode. ‘What exactly are you making for us today?’

This is a nerve-racking scenario repeated endlessly on Masterchef, the extraordinarily successful TV cookery contest which again begins its annual search for Britain’s most talented amateur chef.

The appeal of the programme, now in its 11th year, rests around a straightforward premise: that normal people, with no training, must attempt to cook posh food in a very short amount of time.

A few triumph. Most fail. Their fates are decided at a waist-high circular table in the centre of the vast Masterchef studio, which is known to insiders as ‘Condiment Island’.

It is here that Gregg, a cheery rent-a-Cockney once likened to a ‘boiled ham in a pair of spectacles’, waxes lyrical about puds. And where John, the Simon Cowell of the duo, will poke and prod at undercooked meat and overcooked veg.

The way things are going, my trip to ‘Condiment Island’ could get very ugly indeed.

Now there’s nothing particularly clever about Masterchef. In fact, it’s the essence of simplicity. But that simplicity is part of what makes it, year after year, Britain’s top cooking competition.

Launched in its current form in 2005, the show has become almost unbelievably popular. Recent series have been watched by some 30 million people – that’s almost half the country.

Over the course of the next seven weeks, 40 contenders, chosen from about 4,000 applicants, will serve up souffles, ballotines and confits. They will use smoke, foam and exotic spices. Potatoes will be sauteed, vegetables chopped with laser precision. Sauce will be drizzled and puree smeared.

At the end, one winner will be crowned Masterchef. Most finalists in recent years have quit their jobs to become full-time chefs; some achieve such fame and fortune as Thomasina Miers, the winner in 2005, who is now a successful food writer, TV host and owner of the Mexican restaurant chain Wahaca.

Like all true fans of the show – I’ve barely missed an episode – I’ve often wondered if my cooking might cut the Masterchef mustard.

From the comfort of my sofa, I have arrogantly passed judgment on the shortcomings of soon-to-be-ex contenders, and guffawed over the show’s more spectacular calamities. A couple of years ago, for example, one contestant took the ludicrous decision to serve a whole roast quail on a chocolate cake. It evidently tasted as bad as it sounded. How I laughed!

In ones episode, one contestant runs so spectacularly out of time that she presents the judges with a gleaming white plate occupied by a single smear of pureed pea and a few sliced radishes.

Presuming that I couldn’t do much worse than that, last week I agreed to have my culinary skills evaluated by the formidable duo.

The mission was to complete a ‘Calling Card Challenge’ – something all new contestants face.

I would have an hour to prepare a dish which is ‘something you love, and reflects you as a cook’. It should, the instructions said, be ‘a dish that shows your strength, your skills, your creativity and technique’.Sadly, that presented one big problem: I boast very little proper skill, creativity or technique.

Indeed, as my wife will wearily confirm, the dish that most ‘reflects me’ is bangers and mash, with a ‘special’ onion gravy that I slave over for several hours.

Becoming desperate, I sought expert help and phoned an old friend called Andrew Kojima. A professional private chef and cookery teacher, ‘Koj’ was a Masterchef finalist in 2012.

He offered two pieces of advice. First, cook a pudding, because Gregg loves pudding. Second, ‘treat the show like an exam’. In other words, practice heavily in advance.

I duly decided to cook a spiced pear tarte tatin, a vaguely interesting dessert which I occasionally execute passably for dinner parties. Koj emailed a recipe for an ‘idiot-proof’ creme fraiche sorbet to go with it. I decided to serve it on a slate, with the sorbet in two ramekins, because that’s the sort of thing successful contestants do.

Practice doesn’t prepare you for the sheer terror of the Masterchef kitchen, though.

Part of the problem is the venue. Sited in a former grain mill in a bleak corner of East London, it is far larger and emptier than you’d expect (those trendy brick walls, incidentally, are polystyrene). You feel like a goldfish in a swimming pool-sized bowl, with two hungry sharks for company.

The other big problem - and there’s no easy way to say this - is John and Gregg.

In person, they are friendly, funny and far warmer than I expect. Gregg cracks jokes about his topsy-turvy love life (in his 11 years on Masterchef he has ploughed through three wives, some sourced via Twitter), commenting, when I ask, that he and John ‘very rarely’ socialise off-screen, ‘although he’s been to a few of my weddings’.

John talks passionately about the forthcoming series. The high points apparently, include several dishes served with deep-fried skin.

The low points include a scallop souffle ‘which was right up there with one of the very worst things I’ve eaten’.

Gregg reflects on the pitfalls of his fame, including fans who send him endless pictures of their dinner, via Twitter – ‘They want to know what I think of it. Well, I don’t know. I can’t taste it, can I?’ – and workmen who shout ‘Masterchef!’ at him in the street.

‘I don’t know how to answer it,’ he says wearily. ‘I’ve tried shouting the names of TV programmes back at them, like “Top Gear!”or “Coronation Street!” but it doesn’t work. Maybe I should shout “Plumber!” or “Accountant!” instead.’

Yet for all the bonhomie, it’s impossible to cook in the presence of this pair without feeling scarily distracted.

At home, cooking can be leisurely. Here, under constant scrutiny, it’s impossible to relax. Easy tasks such as chopping a knob of ginger, caramelising sugar and cooking pears became bizarrely difficult. You are always aware of being judged.

After an hour I’m exhausted and, beneath my Masterchef apron, very sweaty. I carefully remove the tatin from the oven and turn it out. It looks passable. The sorbet has set.

I scoop it into ramekins, clean up a few globs of grease and carry the dish to Condiment Island. It’s the moment of truth. At first glance, Gregg says it ‘looks and smells delicious’. John likes the pears ‘which are really nice and soft’, and the topping, but thinks the sorbet tastes slightly of mouthwash.

Just as I’m starting to feel smug, though, a big problem emerges: deep inside the tarte, the pastry hasn’t cooked through. John calls this ‘an issue’. Gregg nudges it with a fork and waves it under my nose. ‘Smell that. It smells slightly of cheese. And that is the smell of undercooked pastry.’

My Masterchef journey, like those of so many others, ends in failure.

I go home with renewed respect for the show’s contestants. Cooking really doesn’t get any tougher.

Moment of truth: Guy Adams, right, watches as John and Gregg sample his creation

Daily Mail

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