There was a moment in Friday’s night’s Masterchef quarter final when it looked like Morgan Cole solicitor Larkin Cen and ex-Greenwoods solicitor Rukimi Iyer would both march triumphantly into the BBC show’s semi-final. Cen’s paella had just wowed the judges, and Iyer’s partridge-based dish was being feted for its “extraordinary flavours”…
But Iyer had made a fatal error which would dash the mouth-watering prospect of an all-solicitor final.
“The main bit of your plate, which is that bird, is not cooked. I’d send that bird back if you served it to me,” said show judge Gregg Wallace, devastatingly.
And out Iyer went, rueing her mistake. “I’m really disappointed with myself,” whimpered the former Greenwoods Solicitors trainee who has since quit law to study at Edinburgh New Town Cookery School.
Still, lawyer fans of the show can console themselves with the knowledge that in Bristol-based Cen the legal profession has a potential Masterchef champion.
Of Cen’s dish, Wallace gushed: “I don’t like clever for no reason, but I fall in love with clever that delivers beautiful, flavoured food.”
To which the relieved insurance, employment and pensions specialist commented: “It was a really, really big risk for me to do that dish today. It was not something I practiced before. But hopefully that risk has paid off for me today.”
The Masterchef semi-final, starring Cen, begins on Wednesday at 8pm on BBC1.
The full quarter final can be viewed here.