Chefs' ingredients for simmering TV

Two new cookery shows start on television tonight, with Celebrity Masterchef on BBC1 and Marco Pierre White in a new show on ITV1. Women's Editor Maria Cusine wonders who will be cooking up a storm.

What's cooking? Well, there is plenty on the menu for food fans on tonight's TV.

We have one of the nation's most notorious chefs versus the cookery duo who love to shout at each other.

Yes, some of the big cheeses of the kitchen world return to our screens tonight in a bid to tantalise our taste buds.

Top chef and restaurateur John Torode, and food writer and ingredients expert Gregg Wallace are back for Celebrity Masterchef on BBC1, then on ITV1 Marco Pierre White is on a mission to rediscover all that is great about British food.

And each show has its own appeal of course.

Masterchef has legions of fans up and down the country, who tune in not just to see the tasty dishes being whipped up, but who love the way the top-notch presenters John and Gregg shout at each other and taste the cooking. The show is edgy, fast-paced primetime entertainment.

John, the dry Aussie, has cooked really rather well on other shows like Saturday Kitchen and loves his Thai and Asian-infused flavours, while Gregg, a salt-of-the-earth geezer, knows all about his vegetables.

If they are not constantly telling us "cooking doesn't get tougher than this," the duo keep viewers mesmerised with their perfected tasting techniques. They make a great cooking couple. For this year's celebrity series, the duo say they have turned up the heat in the kitchen with challenges that are tougher than ever.

A mixed bag of stars - including Black Country athlete Denise Lewis - will battle for the title won by the actress Nadia Sawalha last year.

Contestants also include Debra Stephenson, reality show regular Linda Robson, Joe McGann, Clare Grogan, former Allo Allo star Vicki Michelle, DJ Spoony, presenters Andi Peters and Andrew Castle, and even ex-newscaster Michael Buerk.

John Torode says no allowances whatsoever are made for celebrity status - "We work them really hard."

Of course, Celebrity Masterchef is not about somebody bagging themselves a career as a chef, it is about them being good enough to impress John and Gregg.

While viewers can watch the show on BBC1 from 8pm to 9pm, they can then switch over to ITV to see Marco Pierre in action from 9pm.

And here's someone who really does like to shout. The man who is known as much for his quick temper as for his skills in the kitchen, travels around the country looking for the best British produce and ingredients.

In his hunt for the finest, Marco, who has been dubbed the enfant terrible of the UK restaurant scene as well as the Godfather of modern cooking, visits picturesque locations across Britain and meets some colourful characters along the way.

Award-winning Marco Pierre White started out life in a small town near Leeds. His father, grandfather and brothers were all chefs.

He left school at 16 and started work as a kitchen apprentice at the Hotel St George in Harrogate. On his first day he was ordered to blanch, peel and deseed five boxes of tomatoes. But he survived the initiation process and quickly worked his way up to a job at the two-Michelin starred Box Tree in Ilkley, Yorkshire, where he fuelled his obsession with food and began to form his own philosophies.

He moved to London and found a job at Le Gavroche, run by Albert Roux where he began his classical training as a commis chef. This job came to a hasty end after Marco flaunted the "Roux robot" rule of not answering back to your superiors.

In 1986 - aged just 24 - he became a shareholder and head chef at upmarket burger bar Harveys, transforming it into a classy restaurant.

He built up a reputation for ruthlessness if his staff complained of being too hot. But his tough attitude paid off - he was awarded his third Michelin star at the age of 33.

Unsurpisingly, the press dubbed him "London's rudest chef". Since then, he's opened Canteen in Chelsea Harbour with Michael Caine, Quo Vadis in Soho with Damien Hirst and Frankie's in Knightsbridge with Frankie Dettori. He's since gone on to open more than 30 restaurants, in a portfolio that's reputedly worth £50m. With a flamboyant personality - he has reduced Gordon Ramsay to tears - and a passion for food, he is referred to as the saviour of British cuisine. When he made his first outing into the reality cookery TV world on Hell's Kitchen, he surprised many with his lack of bad language. He came across as serious but quirky.

Let's hope we see more of the quirky chef in action from tonight.