The judges will taste the dishes, and then select one winner who will gain an advantage in the next test. Mystery Box: Cooks are all given a box with the same ingredients and must use only those ingredients to create a dish within a fixed amount of time.The judges then select the winner of MasterChef. This cycle continues until only two chefs remain. The events typically are: Mystery Box Challenge, Team Challenge, Elimination Test and Pressure Test. Subsequently, the formal competition begins typically following a 2-event cycle that takes place over a 90-minute episode, with a chef eliminated after the second event. There was then a final last-chance cook-off to select the last participant. In the third season, the semi-finalists competed in duels of two or three people, where they had to cook a dish with a specific topic the winner received an apron. A second type of challenge is to have the chefs invent a new dish around a staple ingredient or a theme, with the judges advancing or eliminating players based on the taste of their dishes. Judges can advance a chef to the next round or eliminate them at any time during the challenge by taking their apron. One type of challenge has the chefs performing a routine task such as dicing onions, during which the judges will observe their technique. Two rounds are then used to trim the number of chefs to 18. The 3 judges taste the dish, and vote 'yes' or 'no' to keeping the chef in the competition 2 'yes' votes are required for the chef to move on and receive a MasterChef apron, while those that fail to do so leave the competition. The contestants were given a limited amount of time to prep their dish, and then given five minutes before the three judges to complete the cooking and assembly of the dish, during which the judges ask about their background. After the preliminary round, the competitors had an opportunity to prepare a signature dish for the trio of judges.

Amateur chefs were initially selected through auditions, selecting a total of two hundred competitors to the start of the televised competition.

Masterchef the professionals episode 21