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United’s Dutchman to showcase cooking skills

United’s Dutchman to showcase cooking skills

GOLD Coast United’s Dutch defender Bas van den Brink will swap his soccer boots for a chef’s hat at the Gold Coast Show this Saturday (28 August) when he competes in the Celebrity Chef Cook Off.

The Netherlands native will be battling it out in the kitchen against other Gold Coast athletes, including competitors from the Blaze and Titans, to see which budding chef will be crowned as the creator of the finest Spaghetti Bolognese.

Permitted to add any extra special ingredients to a generic recipe, Bas will be relying on his creativity and knowledge of Dutch dining to out-cook and out-class his competition. 

“Spaghetti Bolognese is a meal loved throughout the world, but everyone has their own way of cooking it and their own interpretation,” van den Brink said. 

“There are different recipes between nationalities and even between families, but of course I’m out to show that the Dutch way of cooking it is the best!”

Teammate Zenon Caravella, who hails from Italian heritage, will be on hand should Bas overheat in the pressure cooker environment and the combination could be a winning one.

“It’s a traditional Italian recipe so having Zenon by my side will definitely be an advantage; or at least it should be!” he joked.

“He’ll be there to support me if I’m heading for a kitchen catastrophe!”

The big defender remained tight-lipped about the special seasonings in his delicious Dutch recipe, but perhaps experience in the competitive cooking arena might prove to be a sweetener for the judges.

Earlier in the year when SBS television ran their own version of ‘Masterchef’ for Hyundai A-League players around the country, van den Brink was the first to step up to the hotplate and rustle up his tasty morsels.

While still in the running for TV chef fame, the Dutchman now turns his attention to seeing off the rest of Gold Coast sport’s fine dining aficionados in the cook off which starts at 12 noon in the Food Fantastic Pavilion.