Sony cooks up competition

Interestingly, this will not be a simple recipe based show like the channel's earlier attempt, Cooking it Up with Tarla Dalal, but a competition between professional chefs and the ladies of the house.

Food is an important part of everyone's life. However, it is also an equally important part of general entertainment channel's programming line up these days. Starting from brief cookery episodes on Surabhi (DD) to Zee TV's Khana Khazana which launched Sanjeev Kapoor and he became a celebrity chef, the TV space has had a lot of shows revolving around producing gastronomic delights, apart from dedicated food channels like Zee Khana Khazana, Food First and Food Food.

Competition is creeping into this space, too. With MasterChef India (Star Plus) entering the space in 2010, a plethora of cookery talent hunt shows followed suit, including Kitchen Champion with celebrity chef Gauti (Colors), Cook It Up with Tarla Dalal (Sony), Zaike Ka Safar (Zee TV), Mirch Masala (Star Plus) and Shipra Khanna Cookery Show (Star Plus), amongst others.

In a renewed attempt at the segment, Sony has launched Sanjeev Kapoor ke Kitchen Khiladi, its first cookery-based competition show, on September 16. Scheduled at 8 pm, Monday to Friday, the show will compete against Balika Vadhu (Colors), Mahadev (Life OK) and Meri Bhabhi (Star Plus) on the GEC genre. The new show has replaced the horror fiction series, Anamika.

Sanjeev Kapoor ke Kitchen Khiladi will bring professional chefs to compete with ordinary families for the dishes which are prepared in households regularly, including cuisines like Punjabi, Gujarati, Rajasthani, Chinese, Fusion and Continental, among others.

Both, the chef and the families will cook and present the same dishes to Kapoor (chief judge) for the final verdict. The show will also telecast interesting recipes as a part of the 'Dish of the Day' in each episode. The families along with the chefs will battle it out for the coveted title of the show, 'Swaad ke Sartaaj'.

This culinary battle will feature families from all over the country, while the renowned chefs who will be pitted against the families are Harpal Singh Sokhi, Ajay Chopra, Mexican food specialist Vikas Seth, India's youngest TV chef and Limca record holder Saransh Goila and Continental food specialist Rahul Kulkarni.

Sneha Rajani, senior EVP and business head, Sony Entertainment Television, says, "As we launch 'Sanjeev Kapoor ke Kitchen Khiladi', we will introduce cooking with a new dramatic twist. The concept of the show is very fresh and we have the Badshah of cooking in India, Sanjeev Kapoor as the host and judge of the show."