It puts home cooks through their paces in the ultimate TV test of culinary prowess.
And MasterChef returns for its 19th series tonight to put a new batch of budding chefs through their paces.
Over eight weeks, judges John Torode and Gregg Wallace will taste dishes made by the 45 hopefuls, who include a circus performer, a tree surgeon, an NHS Worker, a coffee shop owner, an engineer, a supermarket manager and a delivery driver.
Here the pals give a taste of what it’s like to work on the show.
What advice would you give someone walking into the MasterChef studio for the first time?
Gregg: Don’t pretend. Cook what you know and stay with what you know.
John: Don’t drink too much coffee before you come through and eat something before you get there.
The dish you dread when someone tells you what they are cooking?
Gregg: Anything in a water bath.
John: Kidneys. You [Gregg] love them, I hate them.
Your favourite MasterChef dish ever?
Gregg: Steven Wallace’s Pear Belles Helene.
John: I can’t say. So many of them I have loved.
The ingredient you couldn’t live without?
Gregg: Potato
John: Butter
Favourite part of working with each other?
John: He [Gregg] is very funny. His jokes are awful, but he’s very funny.
Gregg: I trust him. I’m never nervous when he’s (John) there. I just trust him, it’s comforting.
Best thing about being in the studio?
John: It’s like home. It’s comforting. You never know what you’re going to get. It could be good, it could be unusual but it’s always going to be pretty good.
Gregg: The camaraderie after 20 years of working with the same people.
Worst thing about being in the studio?
John: It can be really cold, it can also be really hot. First-world problems I know, but I’m not very good with temperature. I’m getting old!
Gregg: You can’t have air conditioning on because the sound team complain.
Do you get nervous at the start of each series?
Gregg: No.
John: Yes, I think most days I go in a bit nervous. But nervousness is a good thing.
What’s your favourite place you have ever been with MasterChef?
Gregg: Without a doubt, India.
John: India was amazing, I loved India or Mexico City. Or wait I really liked the Arctic circle. We went through customs in Norway with 20 hot dogs which we bought for the crew and they made us put them through the X-Ray machine.
Name your favourite challenge...
Gregg: I really like the ones we do at the start of amateurs, but it has to be the street food challenges where it’s all about quality grub.
John: I love the critics’ briefs – they are brilliant. They really change the way people think about it, they’re just great.
If you could add a new challenge to MasterChef what would it be?
Gregg: A low-calorie one.
John: Interesting, oh what would it be? I know, Cook for your Mum.
Pick your dream desert island dish
John: I’m in Thailand somewhere. Someone is cooking a nice bit of BBQ fish with a nice hot salad like a som tam, some grilled chicken as well. A nice cold glass of rosé with huge amounts of ice in it.
Gregg: I’ll have a plate of oysters, roast lamb and mint sauce and I’ll have one of my wife’s coffee panna cottas.
Describe this new series in three words
Gregg: Thrilling, emotional, incredible.
John: Very bloody exciting.
The series starts tonight at 8pm and continues tomorrow at 9pm.
