Celebrity MasterChef set to be a knock out

All Saints member and solo musician Melanie Blatt, TV presenter and musician Gareth Malone, former world boxing champion Chris Eubank, actor Cliff Parisi and reality star MoJo take part in the culinary contest’s second heat, joining the best of Danny Jones, Faye Winter, Kae Kurd, Nancy Dell’Olio and Paul Chuckle from the first heat, shown last week.

The opening challenge putting today’s line-up under the cosh is Under The Cloche – in which each celeb has a silver serving cloche in front of them, beneath which is an ingredient.

Each has a different ingredient and, along with items from the MasterChef kitchen’s larder, they must create one dish from scratch that showcases their ingredient to its fullest potential.

Of course, it’s not the potential of the ingredient that the judges care about, it’s the potential of the celebrities – who amongst them can really get the most out of their ingredients?

Taste, presentation, flavour and texture – all of these things and more come into play when John Torode and Gregg Wallace dip their forks into the resulting dishes.

Next up is The Street Food Challenge. The would-be chefs are presented this time with a street-food dish that is popular throughout Canada.

First they must taste it, and then try to identify the ingredients it’s made from.

Once done they have to recreate it themselves, using their instincts and initiative, meaning some of the stars are more successful than others…

In the final test of culinary creativity, the celebs are asked to prepare their signature Dinner Party Dish – something they would cook to impress if someone important was coming round to eat.

While they’d normally have all day to prepare for a dinner party, though, Torode and Wallace give them an hour.

And this is the real test, as at the end of it one of them will be rolling up their apron and heading home.

Ex-boxer Eubank was confident after filming, telling the Radio Times recently: “You will see on the show where I cook one simple dish, it knocked even me off my feet.

“The proof is in the eating and I can remember Gregg saying, ‘I can’t work you out, but this is really good’.

“This was very simple food that I’m told most people don’t like, until obviously they taste mine.

“When I cook, it’s like I’m on a date. I dim the lights, I put on Nat King Cole. Let me tell you, any woman would die to be in that kitchen.”

When asked if he had any worries before going in to compete against his fellow celebrities in the kitchen, he replied: “I was most concerned about not severing one of my fingers when cutting vegetables. Losing the finger wouldn’t bother me too much. What would bother me is how frightening it would be to the audience.”

That’s very thoughtful of you, Chris – your public appreciate you keeping all of your digits attached.