MasterChef: The Professionals eliminates two contestants

MasterChef: The Professionals spoilers follow.

MasterChef: The Professionals returned for another episode on Thursday (November 3) on BBC One and after an intense two rounds, two contestants were eliminated, while the others moved on to the next round.

Assessed by brand new judge Anna Haugh and seasoned judges Gregg Wallace and Marcus Wareing, the four competitors first went through a Skills Test designed by the chefs where the first two (Brendan and Jonny) had to butterfly sardines and serve them with a tomato paste and olive tapenade. This was Marcus’ task for them.

The other two contestants, Beatriz and Owen, were put to task by Anna, who tested their butchery skills by making them cook kidneys.

Beatriz, MasterChef The Professionals

While none of the candidates gave perfect presentations, they still managed to mostly impress the judges. Brendan struggled a lot with time, while Beatriz lost her footing with the way she cooked the kidneys, but the real test was the Signature Menu round, where they all had 90 minutes to cook a main course and dessert of their choosing.

While every chef pandered to their skills and tried to go above and beyond to prove themselves, two of them, Brendan and Beatriz, ended up getting eliminated in the end.

Beatriz, who hails from Brazil and is a self-taught cook, decided to take it back to her roots by making a pork chop, cassava and an apple glaze, with the cassava featuring as the main star, with ingredients that Gregg admitted to never having heard of before.

For dessert, she went with a coconut cake and a guava cream. But the flavours turned out to be a bit all over the place for the judges as they felt the sauce didn’t really do justice to the dish overall and tasted very strongly of alcohol. And while her guava cream was excellent, the cake was not up to par.

Brendan, MasterChef The Professionals

Brendan, who is a corporate chef from Peckham, London, took on the very ambitious task of making a chicken and chip-inspired dish with confit potato, chicken breast cooked on the crown and some confit chicken wings with a tomato sauce. For dessert, he went with a tonka bean parfait with strawberry jelly and a strawberry mint sorbet.

Time was not his ally, and he knew that going in, but it went from bad to worse when he had to redo his parfait. In the end, his chicken wasn’t ready and he went over time as he tried to finish plating everything. The dish he had in mind was not the one he ended up presenting, which resulted in his elimination.

The other two contestants, Jonny and Owen, successfully managed to impress the judges with their dishes and therefore were cleared to go through to the next round.

MasterChef: The Professionals airs on BBC One.