What to watch: Korean cooking show serves up feast of fun
Korean TV show Chef & My Fridge is good ‘couch potato’ weekend fodder and it might inspire you to get creative with those leftover ingredients lurking in the fridge.
Top international chefs go head-to-head to create dishes in just 15 minutes using ingredients from celebrity guests’ fridges in Chef & My Fridge.
In each episode, two celebrities decide on a theme for the dish they desire and then choose a winner. While less high-stakes than Netflix hit Culinary Class Wars, it's competitive with a tight 15-minute slot for the cook.
Spice is added to the show with wildcards, such as getting help for a minute or stopping an opponent at the worst possible time.
You also get a sneak peek into the stars’ fridge - most of those invited are known foodies.
You don’t have to know the guests (although several are well known like BTS, EXO, Vincenzo’s Song Joong-Ki, Physical 100 and MMA fighter Choo Sung-hoon) nor the chefs (some from Netflix’s popular Culinary Class Wars) to enjoy the humour. Many guests don’t mince their words.
The show is peppered with information about dishes from around the world. For instance, how do you fancy grilled watermelon steak topped with pork and tomato? A creation by Vienna-based chef Sohyi Kim (formerly a MasterChef Korea judge).
Or fusion kimchi-gnocchi by Italian chef Fabrizio Ferrari, who triggered squirms of horror as he blended truffle chips to make the dough and poured noodle broth for the roux (“Are you not planning to go back to Italy?” they joked).
Chef & My Fridge might not inspire your own cooking (what Kiwi has a packet of truffle chips just lying around?) but it may get you thinking about using what you have before dashing out to the shops.
BTS member J-Hope appeared on an episode of Chef & My Fridge.
Netflix / JTBC
Where can I watch it… This is a revival of the Korean broadcast JTBC show called Please Take Care of My Refrigerator. Netflix’s deal with the broadcaster means it’s available for viewers around the world on the streaming platform.
Don’t watch this if… it is late at night, when you’ll get sudden cravings. It might leave you a bit wistful over whether you could whip up something as good as these chefs with your leftover can of tomatoes in 15 minutes.
What else to watch if you like this…
Culinary Class Wars - Another competitive Korean cooking show, but with higher intensity. One episode has contestants come up with recipes using convenience store foods only. Streaming on Netflix.
Street Food: Asia - Netflix has created various iterations of this show (America and Latin America) which explores the cuisine you can find in simple stores on streets around the world. The Asia episodes tour from from India to Seoul and Vietnam.
Jaefriends - If you're into Korean content, idol stars and cooking, you can catch more of all that on this YouTube talk show hosted by Kim Jae-joong (formerly of idol group TVXQ), who also appears as a guest on Chef & My Fridge. They've just wrapped up season four.
