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Foodie talks with 'My Kitchen Rules' contestants
Eva Lean (left) and Debra Châng - Courtesy of DIVAIn the sixth installment of Australiaâs âMy Kitchen Rulesâ (MKR), Asian foods take center stage in the cooking competition as Debra Châng and Eva Lean present their creations
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Eva Lean (left) and Debra Ch'ng - Courtesy of DIVA
In the sixth installment of Australia's 'My Kitchen Rules' (MKR), Asian foods take center stage in the cooking competition as Debra Ch'ng and Eva Lean present their creations.
With a strong Asian background, the self-proclaimed 'Spice Girls' said that promoting Asian food and its culture further was one of their missions in joining the show, apart from channeling their passion.
'We both love Asian food and we both have quite strong heritage and culture from India, Singapore and Malaysia,' Lean, 32, said during a phone interview recently.
'And we want to represent the cultures through the foods,' Ch'ng added over the phone.
Lean and Ch'ng are marketing colleagues at an energy company who bonded over food, deliberating about where they would like to go for lunch every day. They always chose Asian.
Ch'ng said that Asian cuisine was a favorite in Australia due to its distinctive tastes.
'The flavor is kind of different from Western food. Everyone in Australia mostly loves to eat Singaporean or Malaysian Chinese food, and some of them look for Thai and Vietnamese.
'People here just love to try Southeast Asian food,' she said.
In the culinary battle, the Perth-based duo presented nasi lemak (rice cooked with coconut milk), cauliflower curry and pandan crème brûlée.
'But we also cook other food besides Asian, because we cook everything that we think we both like,' Ch'ng said.
'And we could say that cooking Asian food is the hardest, because it has a lot of flavor and ingredients, especially curry,' she added.
A total of 18 teams take part in the sixth season of 'My Kitchen Rules', which airs on Diva every Monday to Wednesday at 8:25 p.m., with six judges: Manu Feildel, Pete Evans, Colin Fassnidge, Guy Grossi, Karen Martini and Liz Egan.
'I think Jane and Emma [contestants from Victoria], and Carol and Adam [from New South Wales], are our greatest contenders as they are always doing great in the show,' the 26-year-old Ch'ng said.
Although Lean and Ch'ng were sitting side by side together every day in the office, they admitted that they never cooked together in the kitchen before the contest.
But their chemistry as workmates helped them get through the hurdles they faced while cooking together.
'We never cooked together, but what we do as a team is communicate with each other to understand what we do, to find the harmony and complement each other in the kitchen,' Ch'ng said.
'I think we feed off each other's vibe very easily. There's never a dull moment. There's always laughs, always joking around,' she added.
But the pair did not let their fun times interfere with their seriousness in bringing the crown home.
Armed with their families' recipes, they played around with the spices and ingredients to later develop their own recipes in every challenge in the battle.
The duo, who learned about cooking from their parents, said their participation in the show had made them closer, that they even thought of a career change in the future.
Setting up a food truck business and restaurant are on their wish list.
'This competition is a good way for us to put our position in the future, whether being a chef or selling food on the street,' Ch'ng said.
But before getting to their big plans, they will begin their culinary journey by publishing a book in the near future.
'The book will be about family recipes, for example like popiah [fresh spring roll], curry and rice that can become inspiration for others,' Ch'ng said.
'Through the book, we want to share what we love about cooking and food with other food lovers.'
