National culinary hero, Diana Chan returned for a triumphant homecoming to Malaysia for the first time winning the title of MasterChef Australia Season 9. It was an epic moment, making our country proud.

Photo Credit: Lifetime Asia

Sharing her triumphant win, Diana returned home to meet her fans in Kuala Lumpur at her homecoming celebration recently. The South Court of Mid Valley, Megamall was filled with a sea of people from all different age groups, waiting in anticipation for Diana to take the stage.

Diana started her demo with a Malaysian inspired pesto prawns with pasta. She has such a warm and friendly personality, constantly engaging with the crowd. She was inspired by the classic Italian pesto where you would use basil leaves, pine nuts and olive oil and reinvented it into an Asian pesto.

These are the ingredients that were in her pesto.

- Thai basil leaves

- Coriander Root

- Spring onions

- Garlic

- Green Chilies

- Roasted Peanuts

- Soy Sauce

- Fish Sauce

- Lime juice

- Extra virgin olive oil.

This was blitzed into a blender, with a handful of Asian ingredients which were the hero of the dish.

The prawns was then sautéed on another pan and finally she mixed the three components together, and garnished it with flat leaf parsley to finish the dish off.

Next she moved on to showcase an Italian dessert, Lemon Ricotta Doughnuts with salted caramel which she made from scratch on the spot.

This is a fairly simple recipe which was a crowd pleaser and all the kids wanted to have a taste of this hot doughnut rolled in cinnamon with a hint of salted caramel drizzled on top.

The 29 year old accountant now based in Melbourne, Australia was originally from Sitiawan, Perak raised in Johor Bahru by her mom. Most of Diana's inspiration comes from her mom's heritage of Peranakan culture and food.

The Masterchef competition was certainly a roller coaster journey for Diana, managing conflict and constant problem solving which kept her on her toes. She plans to open an authentic Malaysian restaurant in Melbourne in the future and pop up restaurants in Australia and Malaysia imbetween her new hectic schedule of appearances and photo shoots. The journey has only begun and we will definitely be seeing more of Diana Chan in the future taking the culinary world by storm.

If you missed out on MasterChef Australia Season 9, catch up on the series from Oct 14- 4 Nov 2017, Saturdays on Lifetime (Astro Ch 709)

#masterchefaustralia #lifetimeasia #winnerofmasterchef #cookingdemo #kualalumpur #myculinaryheroes