Guess what? There’s a Mumbai girl in the top 15 of Masterchef Asia and she's cooking up a storm

Thirty-nine year old Priya Barve was vacationing in Bali when the call for the Masterchef Asia auditions came in. If it was a year back, she wouldn’t even have thought of applying, but ‘the holiday mood’ became her co-conspirator and there she was- applying for a spot in the Masterchef Asia kitchen.

Barve, who’s been living in Singapore for the past five years picked up the love for cooking while watching her Mahgarshtrian mother and grandmother cook delicious traditional dishes, but she seriously pursued it after marriage.

Before moving to Singapore, Barve lived in Hong Kong with her husband, a Bengali and a fellow cooking enthusiast and it was then that she found herself inclined towards various other styles of Asian cooking.

“I picked up Japanese cuisine while in Hong Kong, which is a culinary paradise. Now, I try to mix Thai and Vietnamese influences in my food,” she said in an interview with Hindustan Times. However, she also plans to include lots of Indian influences while showcasing her style of cooking on the show.

According to her, when the realization dawned on her that she will be the only one representing India on the show, she felt excited and nervous at the same time.

Apart from Barve, Masterchef Asia will see participants from Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Vietnam and will feature cooking challenges similar to Masterchef’s other variants and is judged by Hong Kong-born Susur Lee, three-Michelin-starred Bruno Ménard and Audra Morrice, a MasterChef Australia finalist, who will be assisted Indian chef Gaggan Anand and Singaporean pastry chef Janice Wong.

Image credit: Hindustan Times