After months of sneaking off to film MasterChef and not being able to tell anyone, finalist Paul Bogle said getting recognised on the streets of Wimbledon is very strange.

Inviting friends round to his Salisbury Road home and serving them up the same dish time and time again may have looked odd to guests, but he was practising his technique on the sly.

And his perseverance has paid off.

Wimbledon Times:

It was his Sarawak Laksa Noodles, with painstakingly handmade rice noodles, which made him stand out in the early rounds of the prestigious cooking competition judged by Gregg Wallace and John Torode and although he did not make it to the final three, he gave it a good go.

From Monday: Being a fussy eater inspired love of cooking which took local man all the way to MasterChef final

The final where Simon Wood was crowned MasterChef 2015 was aired on Friday. 

The show pushed the contestants to the limits of their cooking abilities, and 45 year-old Mr Bogle said it was a steep and incredibly busy learning curve.

Unfortunately he fell at the final hurdle, presenting an under-cooked piece of salmon to a two Michelin starred chef who appeared alongside the judges.

But that wasn’t the only disaster.

He said everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong on a day when they were cooking for a Winston Churchill memorial event in Cambridge.

"I would have loved to be in the final.

"I would have planned my cooking time better that day in Cambridge and cooked my fish more," he said.

A highlight of the series was working in Sweden, where the team went to the "incredibly welcoming and efficient" kitchens of Gastrologik, to the "frenetic" Ekstedt where they were cooking over an open fire using an ancient technique.

"The pace at Ekstedt was completely different to Gastrologik.

"Chef Niklas is an adrenaline junkie, he loves snowboarding and outdoor sports and that attitude is brought to the kitchen.

"We were going at a mile a minute – you just get carried along."

The amateur chefs had to get to grips with cooking over an open fire in the kitchen using techniques that were new to them, including cooking cod wrapped in hay and whipping it out with heat proof gloves before it burnt.

"It was only scary because it was new, not because it was fire," Mr Bogle added, laughing.

He said he wanted to re-create the unique flavour of the cod at home, and has been thinking about how to do it on a barbecue in the back garden.

His friends and family have been very supportive, and his partner, who was kept in the dark throughout the filming process, could not bear to watch as the show unfolded.

"He got incredibly stressed watching it and especially in the final episode.

"I was upset to be going – if it’s someone that knows you, they feel for you."

Following his success, Mr Bogle, currently a head policy and research manager at the National Federation of Builders, is weighing up his options.

He said he is putting together his recipe ideas and would love to write a cookbook, although he has not yet been approached by publishers.