“Cook-Off! Men Cook with Love” Competition – These Men Can Really Cook!

Kitchen is a place not only for women, men are also great chefs. Last Saturday, “Cook-Off! Men Cook with Love” competition was held at Tampines Community Plaza. Organized by People’s Association, this men-only competition marks the start of 50.TASTE – a food celebration project to commemorate Singapore’s Jubilee Year. About 200 men participated and showed off their culinary skills.

Minister of Education, Mr Heng Swee Keat, who is also an MP for Tampines GRC, officially launched the competition. He went around the different teams to show his support and even helped some of them with the cooking!

A man who knows how to cook is really charming. These males participants really know their way around the kitchen as they complete one main dish (either prawn or chicken) within 60 minutes, revolving around the theme of “Our Secret Recipe”.

These are some of the delicious food prepared by the contestants. From preparation to serving, the participants come in pairs and cook together to prepare their winning dishes.

Look at their presentation, many of them are really talented chefs!

The judges for the competition.

Some PA trainers are also there to prepare mouth-watering dishes such as lobster paste, mee sua kueh and Teochew style glutinous rice kueh.

Mediacorp artiste, Bryan Wong, was the host for the competition. He has also done a cooking demonstration on stage, sharing tips on how he cooks sambal eggs and how his mother is his pillar of support.

The winning dish in the first round was chicken rending with mango salsa, served with Japanese rice croquette in peanut satay sauce. It was prepared by Muhammad Aslam AB Hadi, based on his grandmother’s recipe. His son was his assistant for that day.

“Cook-Off! Men Cook with Love” competition was a great success and it’s heartwarming to see how food connects friends and family together. With just a simple ingredient (prawn or chicken), these chefs are able to whip up such a wide range of dishes with different taste profile. It’s truly amazing!

If you are interested to learn how to cook (male or female all welcome), the 50.TASTE programme has more than 250 cooking classes where you can learn from famous chefs or PA trainer on how to cook hawker favourites like Chilli Crab or forgotten food like wormwood leaf cakes.