FOOD TVMatt Tebbutt

12:00 AM - Friday 14 May 2010

Matt Tebbutt takes on Jean Christophe Novelli in a new fast-paced food challenge...

Lashings of butter, sugar, salt, cream – TV chefs aren’t exactly renowned for scrimping on ingredients that taste great but pile on the pounds. So spare a thought for chefs Matt Tebbutt and Jean Christophe Novelli, who face the unenviable task this week of teaching rival families to make healthy, tasty meals.

"It’s quite a challenge," admits Matt, who goes head-to-head with Jean Christophe in Five’s new cookery contest, Family Food Fight. "I taught one family to make a lemon lime cheesecake and battled to make it healthy – but we managed it. Food doesn’t have to be loaded up with cream and salt to be tasty. No, really – it doesn’t!"

In the six-part series, the two chefs coach rival families who rarely cook, to create a quick, nutritious meal in a specially redesigned London restaurant. And here’s the rub – having just learned the basics, the families then face the pressure of an actual restaurant service, with 40 hungry diners waiting to rate their dishes and win one of them a year’s supply of groceries.

"Some of the families live on takeaways and haven’t cooked for four before, never mind 40!" says Matt. "It’s stressful, but most rise to the challenge brilliantly.

"It’s a great show. We’re dealing with normal parents who get home from work late and don’t have the knowledge or time to create healthy meals for the family.

"We want to show them how to cook very simply and very quickly. Cooking doesn’t have to be fancy. And their reactions have been amazing. Most are shocked by how easy it is to use a marinade to make meat tasty."

So which mentor has inspired the most winning dishes?

"You’ll have to watch," grins Matt, who regularly presents UKTV’s Market Kitchen and cites this Monmouthshire Pudding as his not-altogether-saintly, but favourite, dessert.

"Jean Christophe is a great sparring partner and very competitive. I didn’t think I was until this series started, but now I’m desperate for all my families to win!"