Five things we learnt from week one of MasterChef: The Professionals 2016

Episode two’s technical challenge seemed to confuse not only Gregg (not hard) but a lot of viewers, too, as Monica claimed you can get a T-bone steak from a plaice. Rather than presenting some sort of genetically modified cow-fish mutant being, there was relief all round when we realised it was just a way of portioning the plaice into bone-in steaks, completely beef-free. If you’re wondering how to fillet a flat fish in the more conventional way, take a look at our video guide.

The wild garlic velouté challenge Marcus and Monica (and Gregg, we suppose) set in episode two stumped pretty much everyone, which goes to show knowing your French classics is pretty vital if you’re in a professional cooking competition. Essentially a stock thickened with roux (although these days it can refer to almost any sauce thickened with butter or cream), it’s one of the five ‘mother sauces’ that form the basis of classical French cooking – something that a lot of the chefs need to read up on.

In general, episode two was a bit of a disaster all round, as something as simple as a sauce vierge – an uncooked dressing of tomatoes, oil, herbs and citrus juice – resulted in mass panic amongst the contestants. The few who did get it right struggled with the plaice, once again showing that it’s no use being all bells and whistles if you haven’t mastered the basics. Maybe they should’ve taken a look at Steven Doherty’s Salmon with sauce vierge before applying to the show.

This is something most of us could probably guess, but it’s always nice to have confirmation. Despite James’ obvious technical skill, his borderline insane decision to serve a lemon cake with a stalk of asparagus baked into it (alongside another caramelised stalk and some blobs of asparagus gel) was just plain weird rather than avant-garde. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t go down well, prompting some great facial expressions from Monica and withering put downs from the critics. While some vegetables work beautifully in cake (see: carrot, courgette, beetroot), asparagus is perhaps just a little too vegetal for pudding.