Meet Poh Ling Yeow, an artist now TV personality chef. The runner up of the first ever Australian Masterchef in 2009 is now hosting her very own “Poh’s Kitchen” now airing on TLC every Monday; a cooking show in discovering her Malaysian roots and family ties through cooking. Born in Malaysia and raise in the abundance of produce in South Australia, Poh appreciates cooking as to nurture and share the love of it. With her very down-to- earth personality, Poh shares her personal touches in timeless classics with renowned Chefs like Neil Perry, David Thompson and Emmanuel Mollois in her kitchen.

Whiteboard Journal was invited for a lunch with Poh Ling Yeow. The lunch took place at Loft Kitchen, Grand Hyatt Singapore where Poh whipped up simple Italian style gnocchi and also few Asian style dishes. Whiteboard Journal gets an exclusive interview with Poh where she shares everything about her Masterchef experience, her cookbook, her TV show and childhood comfort food.

1. As the finalists of the first season of Australia’s Masterchef, how that has changed your life?

Dramatically and it feels very surreal! I went with an open mind and I’ve gotten everything I wanted out of it.

2. What first made you decide to join the Masterchef Australia?

Few years before Masterchef, I started to get more obsessed about food and I felt the need to channel the energy through things like opening my own restaurants or a publishing deal. My friend actually put me through it and then I sign up for it

3. In Masterchef, you were judged by great Australian Chefs like Curtis Stone, Adriano Zumbo and Matt Moran. What have you valued most from this experience?
Actually I’m quite a strong-headed person. I don’t really take all of their advices –more like fifty-fifty, but I do learned a lot of basics from them, not to endanger myself in the competition, be organize and simple practices in real professional kitchen.

4. Tell us a little bit more about “Poh’s Kitchen”, how would it differ from any other cooking show?

I don’t really try so hard to make it different, all I can do is just be myself –I hope that’s different enough. I approach through my audience with both my Asian cultures and Australian heritage too. I’m also just an ordinary home cook not a professional ones, in which I try to connect the professional guest chefs to my audience. I also educate and show people about their food; where they come from, how they were grown. Those things you can find in “Poh’s Kitchen”

5. With the Asian root and heritage that you dare to bring up –even in Masterchef, what would you like to express to your audience?

It’s about learning the basic and have fun with it. With the basic then you can start to experiment with the dishes. It is also about celebrating the joy of food and exchanging culture through food that is really fascinating.

6. With a strong Arts background, do you think this has any influenced in your career as a Chef?

Definitely, Ingredients to me are like a palette –it’s my medium. It is the thing that I love about both of them; they do endless repertoire and gives you the empowering feelings that affects people too.

7. What is your best childhood comfort food?

I grew up with my Ah Ku (Grandfather’s sister), she cooked a lot of amazing Buddhist vegetarian food. So those mock meats and mushrooms are my definition of comfort.

8. As an Adelaidean, how would you attract people to come and visit the South Australia?

We’ve got amazing wine country in South Australia with gorgeous little restaurants that cooks with seasonal ingredients with good seafood too. So if you like wine and a little bit of seafood, you should totally come down to South Australia

9. What can we expect in your cookbook as it makes its way to Asia?

The book is designed for adventurous cooks to gain more skills and different food cultures too, so it has many recipes from different backgrounds like Malaysians, Italians and desserts too. It’s about having fun cooking with them, so I wrote the recipes in a way that it wouldn’t intimidate my readers. Some of the recipes from the show can be found in the book too.

Special Thanks to Ying from MSL Singapore and Roshni from Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific.

Poh’s Kitchen
Every Monday, 6PM WIB
On TLC
Channel 248 Indovision
Channel 22 Astro Nusantara
Channel 72 First Media
Channel 117 Telkom Vision