MasterChef: The Professionals 2016

Gary Maclean is the MasterChef: The Professionals 2016 winner.

Gary, Senior Chef Lecturer at City of Glasgow College, is the tenth winner to be awarded the prestigious title, and becomes part of MasterChef: The Professionals history, along with outstanding past champions: Derek Johnstone; Steve Groves; Claire Lara; Ash Mair, joint winners Keri Moss and Anton Piotrowski; Steven Edwards; Jamie Scott and last year’s winner, Mark Stinchcombe.

Taking on 47 other professional chefs in the pursuit of gastronomic glory, Gary battled through seven weeks of fierce competition and extra-ordinary cooking in the culinary challenges. He was judged the winner by two Michelin-starred chef Marcus Wareing, renowned chef Monica Galetti and MasterChef’s seasoned judge, Gregg Wallace.

MasterChef: The Professionals 2016 finalists

The gruelling final week saw Gary up against exceptionally tough competition in fellow finalists Elly Wentworth, 24, and Matt Healy, 33. Gary fought to prove his passion, grit, imagination and technical ability beyond that of his competitors throughout increasingly demanding tasks, which pushed all their culinary skills to their upmost limits.

The challenges included: designing and preparing a Michelin-standard dish for 28 Michelin-starred heavyweights of modern gastronomy from around the world. He also travelled to Oslo, Norway, to cook at Maaemo, one of the world’s most exciting and innovative restaurants, to learn from the ground-breaking young star of Nordic gastronomy, three Michelin-starred chef Esben Holmboe Bang.

The ultimate, final task was to create an exceptional three-course meal for judges Marcus Wareing, Monica Galetti and Gregg Wallace, in three hours. Gary’s winning menu started with white wine-steamed Razor Clams served with a garnish of asparagus, Jerusalem artichoke discs and crispy ham, on bed of a diced fennel, courgette, and carrot in a white wine sauce, finished with a lemon gel.

>>> Jerusalem artichoke recipes

The main was Smoked and Roasted Loin of Highland Roe Deer accompanied by celeriac three ways – crisped, puréed and diced – roasted Scottish whisky-washed carrots, crispy kale, gooseberry chutney and nasturtium leaves, finished with Arran mustard sauce. Dessert was a Chocolate Pistachio Ganache on a sablé Breton biscuit, with raspberry gel, topped with a pistachio croquant wafer, garnished with fresh raspberries, mint and dehydrated raspberries, served with a vanilla ice cream.

>>> Chocolate recipes