MasterChef 2014 is now in its fifth week and the first six cooks of the week entered the MasterChef Kitchen to showcase their cooking skills.

Watching their every move in this the last week of the heats, are judges John Torode and Greg Wallace, who are looking to identify the cooks that are good enough to make the quarter-finals at the end of the week.

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Today’s cooks are:

Sheelagh, 52, GP
Tim, 29, Purchase Ledger Clerk
Megan, 21, Student
Samir, 30, Finalcial Advisor
Edd, 35, Fund Analyst
Jenny, 27, Fashion PR.

For their first challenge, the cooks must serve up their calling card, a practiced dish that represents who they are as a cook. The time limit for this task is just one hour and their goal is to dazzle the judges with one plate of food that showed just what they can do.

They then faced the infamous invention test, choosing between two sealed boxes of ingredients – one sweet and one savoury. Chef John Torode also takes on this challenge himself, showing the viewers at home just what is possible with the few ingredients. He makes herb crusted pollock from the savoury box.

The sweet box today contains: rhubarb, pomegranate, puff pastry, an orange, semolina, a lime, flaked almonds and popping candy.
The savoury box contains: pollock, sausages, capers, fennel, turmeric, cherry tomatoes, baby spinach, couscous, parmesan cheese and quail’s eggs.

The cooks had just one hour to prepare a dish good enough to keep them in the competition before two are sent home.

The four remaining cooks faced one more challenge to obtain a place in the quarter-final. They had to cook an impressive menu for the 2007 MasterChef champion, Steven Wallis, joins MasterChef finalists Sara Danesin and Alex Rushmer.

After an exhausting few days in the kitchen cooking their hearts out, the verdict was in. The judges revealed that three of the four cooks who made it to the final round of the heat, would be going through to the quarter-finals. They are Megan, Tim and Edd; sadly for Sheelagh, it was an early return to the GP surgery.