KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 8 — Thirteen years. That’s how long it has been since Poh Ling Yeow was last in her birth country Malaysia.
The MasterChef Australia judge and global ambassador for Australian Almonds was here to cook for a dinner event celebrating Malaysia and Australia’s 70 years of diplomatic and trade relations on August 28, where guests dined on dishes using Australian Almonds like Ajo Bianco with Tuna Crudo, Chicken Almond Korma and Strawberry Balsamic Mascarpone and Almonds.
She is also filming a new television programme showing her homecoming and releasing her latest cookbook titled CRUNCH Recipes for Every Day with Australian Almonds that will include 23 recipes showcasing the versatility of the nuts across different cuisines, whether to thicken your laksa or an Indian curry, a pasta sauce that requires no cooking and of course, desserts.
One of Poh’s favourite desserts is made by blending the roasted almonds into butter, folding it into pastry cream and using it to fill a mille-feuille with its delicate, flaky puff pastry.
She’s even swapped peanuts for almonds to fill kuih angku.
Even though it’s been a long time since Poh visited, she straightaway fit in with the locals.
“Right away you speak with the local accent and lingo, you just fall back into it straight away even though I left when I was nine years old.
“Technically I have lived more years away in Australia than how long I have lived here but it’s still my beginning.
“I feel like I was a seed that started here but I got thrown into another soil so the heart of it is still here but it’s taken on all of the environment of the new land in a way,” she says.
Poh’s family from her father’s side who once lived in Ampang had uprooted and made a new life in Australia and as her maternal grandparents had passed away, there’s no close family for her to return to here.
As a child of two cultures, Poh found herself drawn to art, which led to a degree in design that saw her take up freelance work as an illustrator, graphic designer and makeup artist.
Her artwork, painted on canvas with acrylic as she cannot stand the smell of oil paints, was first exhibited in 2002,
Poh drifted into the culinary arts, first appearing in 2005 on cooking show Beat the Chef but people only started to notice her in 2009 when she participated in the first season of MasterChef Australia cooking competition, cooking her way to the finale where she lost to Julie Goodwin.
Throughout the competition she would cook dishes showcasing her heritage, awakening people to unfamiliar dishes like abacus seeds that was her gateway to a spot in the top 20, whittled down from a whopping 7,000 applicants.
“I really loved showing people Malaysian food, new techniques, interesting ingredients and in the first season, no one knew what a century egg was.
“I nearly killed George Calombaris (one of the judges) when he first smelt belacan,” she laughs.
Avid viewers of the cooking competition would have watched Poh make kuih on television, happily in her own zone folding banana leaves methodically to create parcels for her favourite kuih koci or even kuih angku.
Kuih is a family thing for Poh, as her mother loved it and her paternal grandmother was part Melaka Nyonya.
She would often give homemade kuih to friends and even famous pastry chefs who loved it, and champion kuih making on social media, in the hopes that youngsters will be inspired to keep the tradition going before it gets lost with time.
In 2019, Poh was picked to be a mentor for the competitors and a year later, she returned as a contestant for Back to Win, a spin-off of MasterChef Australia that saw contestants from previous seasons return to win the coveted title but she only made it to the sixth spot.
This wasn’t the end though.
Four years later, she joined season 16 of MasterChef Australia as a judge together with Sofia Levin, Jean-Christophe Novelli and Andy Allen.
“It’s such an interesting journey as I didn’t win the first time, I didn’t win the second time and I was so depressed about it and suddenly I was a judge.
“I never do it the normal way and it feels like it took me a weird maze to get there, which is always the story,” she says.
She still misses the adrenaline of the competition with all the gruelling challenges thrown to participants weekly, as it gave her a stage to perform amidst the chaos that was strangely celebrated in the competition.
“I still dream about going into the competition as it’s such an amazing feeling to go into a challenge, feeling such an intense fear and to be able to come out of it and produce something creative.
“You know I would get frustrated with myself but I used to find I could think through the chaos as that was the way I think anyway and it was easy to perform in that electrifying environment,” she says.
Her role as a judge isn’t a bed of roses as on the other side of the fence, reaching a majority vote for a decision takes time with four differing viewpoints, especially when it’s an elimination challenge, which ends with someone being sent home.
“It’s much harder to be a judge than a contestant because it’s a different kind of pressure knowing that you could affect someone’s life and the outcome and also we don’t agree all the time because it’s subjective.
“Everyone has different priorities and we try to be really fair so we hash it out sometimes and argue it out, as it’s still subjective like someone might value how something looks more and I may value something that I taste no matter what.
“Even if it looks like a disaster, I would prefer to eat something that looks like a disaster but tastes delicious but some people will say I won’t even start eating it as it looks so bad,” she explains.
Poh will return as a judge in season 18 of MasterChef Australia which starts filming later in November as the new season will hit the screens probably mid-next year.
As a judge, Poh would like to see more home cooking on the show, as it becomes too unrelatable to viewers if they are unable to replicate those dishes at home
“We want to see authenticity from the contestants, growth and for them to go outside of their comfort zone.”
On days she is not filming or travelling for work, she’s happy to chill at home, appreciating her garden and catching up with family and friends.
In her free time, she would paint, using a character she calls “The Girl” who in essence is her, who grows with time from a child to an adult woman, as it depicts her own growing confidence.
Poh paints “The Girl” in different environments to depict her solace or even looking lost in a Chinese landscape as that’s how she also feels about her culture which she has lost so much of.
“I paint to create beauty and when people look at the girl, they feel some of themselves in her,” she says.
She is now preparing for an upcoming online art exhibition.
On Sundays, she runs Jamface, her Farmers Market stall in Adelaide and to prepare, she will be holed up for about 18 hours the day before, baking her signature mille-feuille, cakes, pies and pastries.
Baking has always been special for her as it’s what she started doing when she was around nine to 10 years old.
“I was a baker first because my mum didn’t want me to stand next to the fire as she was too scared that I’d touch it.”
During school holidays, as her parents had to work, Poh would bake all day on her own to keep herself occupied, using a Women’s Weekly cookbook that “is very reliable as they triple test everything”.
“I used to make sponges, melting moments, lots of biscuits and for Christmas, I would just bake every day and give to my relatives beautiful presents”.
For Poh, she hopes to find time to return one day to explore Malaysia on her own as her childhood memories are still vivid in her mind, like her first encounters with assam laksa.
“I just love it and it’s such a good example of Malaysian food as I love the sour and salty with pineapple, laksa leaf (daun kesom) and torch ginger buds (bunga kantan).”
“I have lots of memories of eating it with my mum as it was her favourite and every time we went to a shopping centre, she would give me a little bowl to try.
“I remember when I managed to finish a whole bowl, I felt so grown up like I had made it even though I was suffering like crazy from the spiciness,” she says.
CRUNCH Recipes for Every Day with Poh Ling Yeow & Australian Almonds will be available globally once it is released for those who register on the Australian Almonds website.
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