Age: 41
From: Birmingham
Occupation: IT Teacher
Cooking Style: "I enjoy cooking Bengali dishes and like to experiment with other cultural dishes for my family. I love to batch cook meals. I am so busy with work and looking after my family, so as long as there is a home cooked meal at the end of the day then everyone is happy."
Why MasterChef?: "I've thought about applying for MasterChef for over 10 years, after my father died in 2011. It baffled me growing up, why my father cooked Indian dishes at his restaurant and not our Bengali dishes, which are totally different in terms of flavours and use a range of fruits and vegetables unique to Bangladesh.
"I want to showcase a different type of South Asian food and the variety of Bengali dishes out there. I also wanted to challenge myself and show what my father enjoyed eating at home, that he could not cook at his restaurant. I felt like he'll be with me throughout this surreal and once in a lifetime experience and I'm doing this as a sort of tribute to him."
Ambition: "I believe cooking is a life skill that everyone should know. I would love to teach people how to cook from scratch using fresh, seasonal and local ingredients. I hope to write my own cookbook showcasing British Bengali dishes and I have many ideas about cross regional and fusion cooking which I have been experimenting with at home kitchen."
MasterChef begins Monday, April 1 at 6.30pm on BBC One and iPlayer.
Neil Wilkes
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