MasterChef: a compelling return for the reassuringly familiar cookery contest - review
Purple cauliflower puree that resembled alien ectoplasm. Copious use of words like “jus”, “velouté”, “quenelle” and “tuille”. It-ingredients such as samphire, kale, tahini, bok choy, goat’s curd and sage dust (good luck finding those in your local shop). Food being described as “oven-roasted” and “pan-fried”, as if you’d roast or fry it it anywhere else.
It could only mean the return of TV’s shoutiest cookery contest. As judge John Torode bellowed: “Sharpen your knives because MasterChef (BBC One) is back.”
Frighteningly, this is the 14th series of the search for Britain’s best amateur cook – or the 25th, if you include the Loyd Grossman-fronted incarnation. Deliberate, cogitate and digest that for a moment.
This opening episode saw the first seven hopefuls get whittled down to three ahead of Friday’s quarter-final. They began by devising a dish using ingredients from “the MasterChef market” - basically a glorified larder with fewer tins of cling peaches and jars of pickled onions.
Bermondsey geezer Terry was sent home for combining risotto with tempura vegetables (a recipe for sogginess), while gap-toothed Fiona committed the culinary crimes of leaving the inedible skin on her roasted cod and overdoing the fennel. “That hulking lump of fennel will follow me to my dying day,” she sighed, which seemed melodramatic.
Norwich musician Ashley joined them on the kitchen reject pile after his Venetian fish stew was dry and chalky. “We wanted a concerto but we got a ditty,” said judge Gregg Wallace, who I somehow doubt is an expert in three-movement compositions.
Reigning champion Saliha Mahmood-Ahmed returned, along with former finalists Steve Kielty and Giovanna Ryan, to rate the remaining quartet on the basis of a two-course meal.
The clear standout was baby-faced Oxford wine retailer James, whose food was deemed “almost restaurant standard”, even at this early stage. He did, however, have a curious fixation with a certain colour: purple cauliflower, purple carrots and beetroot all featured highly. Perhaps it was a subliminal savoury tribute to the late singer Prince, aka “His Royal Purpleness”. Mauve mania aside, James already looks a potential winner.
He was joined in the quarter-final by York dental nurse Jess, whose flavours were as brave as her blue hair braids, and Llanelli fitness instructor Louise, who coped admirably with endless innuendoes about her robust meatballs. “You’ve got massive balls there, Louise,” leered Wallace. “The biggest I’ve seen in years.”
Nervy sales rep Rachel just missed out, failing to show sufficient skill. “That’s the most stressful bowl of mince I’ve seen in a long time,” tutted Torode as she panicked about her “North African lamb dish”.
It might be a new series but this was business as usual for the foodie franchise, with no format tweaks. Well, if it ain’t broke and all that. Clocks counted down. The soundtrack swelled. Tension mounted. Narrator India Fisher whispered atmospherically. Torode demanded “a grade plade-a-food”. Wallace gobbled down puddings like a delighted Humpty Dumpty.
MasterChef is now such a slickly compelling, reassuringly familiar format that you casually catch the first few minutes, then find yourself still rooted to the sofa an hour later, feeling distinctly peckish. Unfortunately, your pan-fried goat's curd and sage-dusted samphire supper won't cook itself.