A recipe for success
> MasterChef Asia is set to showcase the best from home cooks in Asia starting on Sept 3
RESTAURANTEUR Susur Lee, Michelin chef Bruno Ménard and culinary TV personality Audra Morrice were in Kuala Lumpur recently as part of the promotional tour for the upcoming MasterChef Asia.
The three are the judges for this inaugural season of the reality cooking competition to find the best home cooks – this time, in Asia.
At a press conference held in Kuala Lumpur recently, Morrice described her experience as a judge on the show as being “surreal” because her previous experience on the show was as a contestant.
“It was also quite exhilarating,” she added.
Morrice, after her stint as a finalist in the MasterChef Australia, now owns a successful catering business as well as hosts pop-up restaurant events and conducts Southeast Asian cooking classes.
She also has her own cooking show in Australia called Tasty Conversations.
The Singapore-born chef added: “I think the three of us [judges] had a big responsibility mentoring and inspiring the contestants.”
Lee owns four highly-rated restaurants in Toronto which have won numerous culinary award. He is also a well-known face on TV having taken part in Top Chef Masters (Season 2) and Iron Chef as well as a judge on Chopped Canada.
Lee said: “Coming to Asia to judge this show is an experience for me as it allows me to share my skills with the contestants.”
Menard, who helped L’Osier gain three Michelin stars which led to this Tokyo-based restaurant being voted one of the top French restaurants outside of France, said he and his fellow judges complemented each other as they all hailed from different culinary backgrounds.
“I just love this idea of touching millions of people’s hearts. It brings another dimension to my career. I just love it!”
A+E Networks Asia senior vice president of programming and production Michele Schofield said that MasterChef is the world’s most successful cooking television show, but it has never been done in a Pan-regional Asian format before.
Calling MasterChef Asia her company’s biggest production to date, Schofield said they travelled all over Asia to find contestants for the series.
She added that a special set was built in Singapore and the contestants also got to take part in competitions held in various iconic spots around Singapore.
As a surprise, they even managed to shoot at Hong Kong Disneyland.
Schofield said they focused the format more on MasterChef Australia and concentrated on the heart, the camaraderie that are naturally displayed among the contestants.
Among the 15 contestants on the show, three – Jasbir Kaur, Marcus Low and Sophia Zulkifli – are Malaysians. The rest hail from China, India, Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.
At the press conference, the three Malaysian home cooks proved their mettle in a half-hour Mystery Box challenge.
Schofield was pleasantly surprised that many of these contestants were better at western rather than Asian cuisine.
“I thought we were going to have this wonderful array of all different Asian cuisines but some of these cooks had taught themselves classic French techniques.”
MasterChef Asia premieres on Lifetime (Astro channel 709) on Sept 3 at 9pm.