Great British Menu ™
Baker:
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A Study in Scarlet
Mark's dish is championing one of Scotland's most famous authors.
Mark: "So the dish is called "A Study In Scarlet" and it's inspired by Arthur Conan Doyle and particularly his creation of the world's foremost consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes.
Mark: "I'm doing a book essentially made of beetroot, and then we're going to layer it up with lots of different flavours. I've got a beetroot miso and chili puree, some homemade vegan beetroot cheese, hopefully brought together by a beetroot and apple gel."
Notes taken during cooking
For Mark's edible book, he creates beetroot sheets that will form some of the pages.
Mark: "My biggest concern is about texture."
Mark's making more book pages, this time using sheets of potato.
Mark: "I just want a really thin crisp, so I'm just using this sandwich toaster."
Aktar Islam: "You mentioned you're making your own vegan cheese?"
Mark: "Yeah. So you get the texture that comes with a soft, crumbly vegan cheese. Like a blitzed feta."
Aktar Islam tastes the cheese and talks to the camera: "Mark's vegan cheese. I mean, he told me that it's going to taste like whipped feta. I tried it and guess what? It was whipped feta."
Plating
Mark fills a pipe with edible ash made with beetroot powder, and a smoked blackberry sauce is decanted. The "book" is assembled by layering beetroot sheets with sunflower seed puree, vegan beetroot cheese, a toasted potato layer, and beetroot puree.
It's topped with a final toasted potato page before being wrapped in a beetroot jelly cover.
Aktar Islam: "Beetroot jelly. Have you regulated the sweetness?"
Mark: "There's a blend of sugar and vinegar in there, but not so much acidity that it would just be a pickle, essentially."
Aktar Islam: "Potato. Is that the texture that you wanted?"
Mark: "They do tend to go soft quite quickly. It is a bit of a race against time."
Peers, tasting behind the scenes
"All the texture is one now. It became like a cake texture."
Back in the judging room
Aktar Islam: "The vegan whipped feta. Is that giving you cream cheese vibes?"
Mark: "Yeah, it is kind of where I wanted it to be."
Peers, tasting behind the scenes
"I think it adds a nice flavor."
Final Judging
Aktar Islam: "Mark, for your dish, 'A Study in Scarlet'. The entire presentation looked great. Serious attention to detail. The jelly, it's always tricky because you want something that holds but then also dissolves on the palate, and I think you did that very well. I really enjoyed the vegan cheese, and I like the acidity that you got from it, so, yeah, that was very pleasant. And then moving on to the potato sheets, you put a lot of effort into making them lovely and crisp, but after they were put into the book, they became quite soggy and quite leathery. I did love the idea behind the dish, but I think there's still a bit of work to put in."
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