SHE is used to cooking her Mauritian-inspired one-pot dishes for friends and family at home.

But tonight a woman from Southampton will don the famous white apron as she battles to become this year’s MasterChef champion.

Shelina Permalloo, 29, will go head-to-head with fellow competitors Andrew Kojima and Tom Rennolds to be crowned the eighth winner of the popular BBC One show.

Over the past seven weeks the former Regents Park pupil has used her culinary skills to wow judges Greg Wallace and John Torode and fend off 22 other challengers.

She said: “I’m so proud to have made it to the final three. Obviously you enter a competition to win it but I’m just so happy to be here. I never thought I would make it this far.

“I remember the first time I stepped into the MasterChef kitchen so clearly. I could actually hear my heart beating – I thought I was going to have a heart attack.

“I usually cook to relax. I put some music on, have a glass of wine and enjoy myself. But this was totally different.”

But over the weeks she has overcome her nerves to produce some of the most mouth-watering dishes in the competition.

Shelina, who now lives in Tooting with her husband, said: “My best tasting dish to date was the spiced soft-shell crab with lemon and lime compote. It didn’t look great on the plate but the flavours were spot on.”

Shelina, a former diversity manager, started cooking at a young age under the watchful eye of her mother Sheila, who still lives in Shirley.

She said: “I’ve been cooking for as long as I remember, probably on my own since 11 or 12, but helped mum from the age of three.

“My mother taught me to cook by intuition – never by using scales – always by sight and taste, so I developed a strong palate from a young age.

“A Mauritian born in the UK, my upbringing was centred on my family sitting down and having food together every evening, no matter what.”

To see if Shelina can clinch the title tune in to MasterChef: The Final, tonight, 9pm, BBC One.