The first masterclass dish was pork and fennel sausages with baked beans. The sausage mixture included diced pork fat and “well streaked” pork meat, garlic, dried spices, toasted fennel seeds and salt.

Gary had Julie mix it together with her hands, incorporating diced pork mixture with the meat she had minced using the sausage making machine. Gary told Julie to mix it until the mixture was sticky enough that it was hard to get off her fingers. The mixture was fed into rinsed sausage casings using the sausage making machine.

Gary started cooking the sausages over a low heat so they wouldn’t burst while George demonstrated how to make his baked beans. He added black and white beans, which he had soaked overnight and strained, to a hot pan with olive oil. Onion, diced carrot and celery, thyme, stock and a tin of tomatoes were also added.

George said it’s important not to season the beans at the beginning of the cooking process because it will make the skins tough – salt should only be added at the end. George put a lid on the beans and cooked them for an hour and a half to two hours or until the beans were tender.

Slices of bread which had been rubbed with olive oil and garlic and grilled were served with the cooked sausages and beans. George had also added a splash of vinegar, crumbled fetta, fresh mint and flat-leaf parsley to the beans before serving.

The next masterclass dish was roasted salmon and artichokes with red wine sauce. Gary showed Justine how to fillet a whole salmon and remove the pin bones. Justine sandwiched the fillets together and tied them with string to be roasted.

Gary used salmon bones for the sauce, caramelising them with garlic, eshallots and thyme. He added a splash of red wine vinegar, port and a glug of red wine to the pan and simmered the sauce.

George peeled Jerusalem artichokes, putting them in lemon water. He cooked the artichokes in duck fat with shallots, garlic, salt and olive oil for 8-10 minutes. He also crisped up pancetta in the oven, laying strips on greaseproof paper on an oven tray with another tray on top.

Gary added a touch of stock to the sauce and strained it through muslin. To finish it off, he swirled a few knobs of butter through it. The roasted salmon was served with the sauce, artichokes, roasted chicken wings and pancetta.

The dessert dish was chocolate cigars with sabayon. George made the sabayon in a thermo mix using egg yolks, caster sugar, nutmeg, orange juice, vanilla extract and rum.

For the chocolate cigars, toasted peanuts which had been pounded with a mortar and pestle were combined with pistachios, melted dark chocolate and a little honey. George had Lucas prepare filo pastry with clarified butter, saying the pastry needs to be worked with at room temperature so it won’t crack.

The chocolate mixture was neatly rolled up in three layers of filo pastry, brushed with more clarified butter and baked crease down in the oven for eight minutes. George dusted the cigars with icing sugar to serve and placed them on a martini glass of sabayon.

Stay tuned as the last week of MasterChef kicks off!