Cooking up a storm with the three dukes

Come Dec 12, three of Mediacorp’s “dukes” — namely Desmond Tan, Romeo Tan and Zhang Zhen Huan — will be going head-to-head in an all-out cooking competition.

The cook-off, which will be streamed live on The Celebrity Agency’s Facebook page, will see the three guys preparing two dishes — one appetiser and one main course.

Ahead of the competition, the trio headed down to Shu Jiang Grilled Fish at Resorts World Sentosa for a quick practice session to hone their cooking chops.

Right off the bat, it seems that Desmond Tan already has a bit of a lead over his fellow competitors. Speaking before the cooking session, he shared that he was “more confident in his cooking”, and rated his skills a full 10 out of 10, laughing that one needs to be “confident, at the very least”.

He said that the last dish he cooked was herbal chicken, with the help of pre-packaged herbs and spices.

Meanwhile, Romeo Tan jested that if instant noodles were included, he’d rate his cooking skills a 11 out of 10. All jokes aside, he revealed that while he loves to eat, he still doesn’t really know how to cook, giving himself a modest 6.5 out of 10.

He laughingly revealed that when he last appeared on the variety show, 3-Plus-1, he tried his hand at a cherry-tomato pasta dish that ended up looking more like Chinese Hokkien mee than Italian food.

Zhang said while he used to cook, he rarely does so nowadays due to his schedule.

“Furthermore, Singapore has so much good food, so I definitely eat out more often,” he laughed, choosing to give himself a mere 5 out of 10 for his culinary skills.

Zhang, who was recently hospitalised due to stomach issues, jokingly introduced himself as “someone who loves to eat so much he was hospitalised for it”. The Sichuan-born actor, who recently went back to his hometown, had to be on a drip in the hospital after his gastric acted up.

Regardless, the actors were up for the challenge, and listened attentively during the training session.

The trio were first walked through the process of cooking the appetiser, with the chef giving a live demonstration as he explained the steps needed to cook the dish.

Then, they settled down to start preparing their own versions of the dish, carefully slicing and trimming the ingredients before stir-frying and carefully plating the finished product.

Though Romeo Tan and Zhang had self-deprecatingly described themselves as “bad cooks” during the interview, the fruit of their efforts showed that it was definitely going to be a close fight among the three.

In the words of Zhang, who seemed slightly more confident after the cooking session: “We still have around three weeks to practice (the dishes). We can (definitely) improve after learning today.” TOH ZI YI/TOGGLE

The Celebrity Cook-Off will be streamed live on The Celebrity Agency’s Facebook page on Dec 12 and 19 at 8pm.