Last week, I had a really eventful weekend. Actually, all my weekends have been pretty crazy so far. And incidentally I’m still recovering from this one too. But before I digress all the way to China, let’s talk about the most recent Cooking Competition I had the opportunity to participate in: Philips Ultimate Cook Off Challenge.

When I got the invitation to do the competition, I didn’t hesitate for long before agreeing. To be honest if you can manage to get me on the phone I’ll almost say yes to anything. (Now don’t go trying it now……) The idea was to get a bunch of bloggers (us) to pair up with the finalists and cook something with a mystery ingredient. Sounds stressful and fun at the same time right?

The Cook Off was held at Aeon Big Subang Jaya (so far) and we were required to be there at 8:45am (so early!). Naturally, being the Rockstar I am, I rocked up with barely any sleep. Everyone looked pretty excited and somewhat nervous even. We get to draw our numbers for the team, and I was damn lucky to be paired up with Dr Sidney Kan. Our mystery ingredient was fish (except Salmon), so off we went surveying what Aeon Big has to offer.

Oh by the way, the catch is that we will have to cook our dish with the amazing Philips Airfryer. And the Top 3 winners get to walk away with the Airfryer too! Needless to say, we were aiming for the Top 3 spot of course.

So we decided to use Flounder as our main ingredients and the genius mind of Sidney came up with a pretty sophisticated recipe. You’ll get to see it in a while. We were split into 2 cooking sessions (2nd for us), and it was fun watching the first session do their things. But before that, some encouraging words from Chef Marina Mustafa, followed by a demonstration by Chef Zam.

He showed us how to make Pandan Chicken and Baked Apples (what the pastry was for), and I must say I was impressed with how juicy and succulent the Chicken turned out.

So all teams were given RM50 worth of voucher to purchase our ingredients (not much, is it?) and we only have 15 minutes to shop and about 45 minutes to cook our dish. Your Truly have forgotten her brain before heading out the door and was wearing high heeled boots! Imagine running around the supermarket with that. It was a sight, I’m sure.

One hour passed by pretty quick, and here are some of the dishes from the first session.

And then it was our turn to cook!

I was assigned to do the induction top cooking. Here I was making a mushroom mixed (with onion, garlic, thyme leaves) to be stuffed in our fish. And I also deep-fried some ginger. The Airfryer was used to “steam” our fish roulade, which was wrapped in foil. We also grilled some vegetables with the Airfryer. So here I shall present our dish: Fish Roulade with Grilled Vegetables.

All credit of plating goes to Sidney. Isn’t it pretty? We were really pleased with how it tasted too, especially that combination mushrooms, thyme with the delicate fish. The nacho crumbs provided a textural contrast. The vegetables were tossed in thyme infused butter/oil for that extra aroma. The judges loved the dish too, to our delight.

And not long after, it was time to announce the winners! We nervously waited for all consolation winners to be announced, and then we knew we were in the Top 3! I was going to be contented with any place then because I knew we’ll both be taking home an Airfryer but thanks to Sidney, we actually got 1st place! Oh my!

We each got to take home the Philips Digital Airfryer with a Grill Pan (the box on top) and a Philips Pressure Cooker (which I already have and love). I will be writing a detailed review on the magical Airfryer soon! It’s been a joy to work in kitchen with my new gadgets.

Thank you Philips Malaysia for the fantastic opportunity and of course thank you Sidney for leading us to victory!

For more information about Philips products and upcoming promotions/events, head over to their facebook page.