Masterchef 2010

Starter: Spiced lobster with baby fennel, celeriac puree, saffron beurre noisette & fennel chilli mayonnaise

Main: Roasted loin of venison with spiced confit chestnuts, carrots, curly kale, venison jus and chilli chocolate oil

Dessert: Masala tea ice cream with spiced Sauternes poached pear and chocolate truffle with pistachio

The early stages of the competition followed a similar format for all the competitors. They first had to produce one dish from a selection of ingredients. The selection was wide enough each time to give them the option of cooking starters, main courses or desserts.

Then they would be placed in the kitchen of a top London restaurant, working under the direction of the head chef, they had to cope with the pressure of many orders for their assigned dish, at speed, in an exhausting hot and busy environment. Some crumbled under this pressure, just not able to keep everything going, remember how many orders they had and cook or finish them to order in an acceptable time to the standard demanded. Only the best would survive .

The third test, on the same day as the restaurant challenge was to produce a two course meal, of their own design for the presenters in the Masterchef studio kitchen. There were some very brave attempts at putting together unusual ingredients and flavours and some succeeded. Others simply did not work and the competitors went home.

In the quarter and semi-finals, competitors had to identify unusual ingredients, and go through further studio and restaurant challenges.

At each stage, the standard demanded of them in the studio kitchens increased, better presentation, more careful flavour balancing and food cooked to perfection.

The restaurant challenges required more complicated dishes where each process had to be spot on and the presentation absolutely picture perfect and to the pattern shown by the head chef.

Never before this year, have there been so many challenges in the last rounds, nor have they cooked for such demanding audiences or in such difficult conditions, including the Tower of London, a fort in the Indian desert and a Maharajah's garden

Now the competition had been narrowed to just three competitors. Dhruv Baker a former sales executive from London, Alex Rushmer a freelance food writer from Cambridgeshire and Tim Kinnaird, formerly a paediatrician from Norfolk.

All of them have aspirations to open their own restaurants, two of the three gave up their jobs to compete in Masterchef and I have no doubt whatever that they are all capable of producing food that is good enough to run a food business, or to work in any Michelin-starred restaurant, anywhere in Europe.

The locations were truly awe-inspiring, cooking in the Tower of London where food had to be transported from one side of the site to another, through winter cold outside areas, and still arrive hot and looking and tasting perfect.

Another challenge took place on top of an ancient fort in Jodhpur, India in searing heat, cooking an Indian breakfast to recipes they had barely seen before starting to cook. Their audience was a discerning group of the city's top business people, some of whom had precise dietary requirements to meet with their religious beliefs. The competitors also had a mass catering challenge, producing a lunch for a top school in Jodhpur, using the pupils' favourite recipes.

The most spectacular and exacting was to prepare dinner for the Maharajah of Jodhpur, starting the cooking in the palace kitchens and finishing in a marquee in the garden, after a 15 minute walk. There were casualties. Frozen and chilled desserts were the biggest challenge here and compromises had to be made when some ingredients did not come out as planned.

No competitor would be ruled out till the very end. They returned to London, to cook a three course meal, one course each for renowned chef Alain Ducasse to his personal recipes and also to take over a top London restaurant for a busy Friday evening, design the menu and produce it to the high standards its regular customers expected.

A difficult invention test in the studio followed. This time the ingredients were more diverse and unusual, but requiring the a lot of skill to choose successful combinations and prepare a single perfect dish in the time allowed.

Then, they were off on more travels. Each finalist was sent to a different Michelin starred restaurant, one in Italy, one in France and one in the Netherlands. Once again they needed to be able to learn and absorb quickly how a complex dish was cooked and presented, then re-create it under pressure during a busy lunchtime service.

Dhruv had to put together the most beautiful multi-layered artistic creations featuring seafood and baby vegetables at the Librije in Zwolle, Netherlands. Alex had to make a sorbet of aubergine, cooled not in a freezer, but in the bowl using liquid nitrogen for Italian restaurant Calandre. Tim had to maintain the high standards of a French restaurant with a 180 year record of fine food the Auberge de l'Ill

The very last stage of the final saw them back in the Masterchef kitchen, producing a three course meal to their own recipes and ideas.

I was almost holding my breath for them at this very last stage. We were reminded that these were not catering college trained chefs, but ordinary working people who cooked at home because they loved to, but who had higher aspirations for their cooking skills and had worked incredibly had to get to the finals. Even at this stage, mistakes could be and were made. An over ambitious flavour combination didn't find favour with the judges. Meal elements were under- or over-cooked.

By the time the judges had tasted every one of the dishes, and I had heard their comments, I was pretty sure who was going to be announced the winner and I was as elated as he was to hear the result.

Dhruv, if you ever get to read this, I would love to eat a meal cooked by you. I fully intend to buy the book of the series and will try out some of the dishes - your ideas about matching and marrying flavours are just so interesting.

For the time being at least there is some video from the shows on BBC Iplayer. This may not be available outside the UK.

You can also see some of the recipes from the show, and even apply to be on the next series.

BBC Masterchef website

More links -

Finalist Alex Rushmer's food blog

Dr Tim Kinnaird misses out on MasterChef 2010 title

Heat is on for Alex Rushmer from Cambridge