When we think about the biggest names in Australia's food industry to have come out of MasterChef Australia, Poh Ling Yeow is at the top of the list.
The 48-year-old artist and chef won our hearts back in 2009 when she finished as runner-up on the show's first season behind Julie Goodwin, before going on to star in the MasterChef Australia: Back To Win all-stars edition last year.
Now Yeow is set to front a new cooking show, stepping into a hosting role on Channel Nine's Snackmasters.
The reality TV show hitting screens in 2022 is based on the popular British version, where acclaimed chefs will go head-to-head to replicate famous Aussie snacks – think Twisties, Drumsticks, Whoppers and Cadbury Favourites (you're welcome).
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Each week the famous cooks will focus on a selected snack in their own kitchens, before entering the 'Snack Arena' where their creations will be judged by the very factory workers who make the original snack on a daily basis.
The final prize for the chef whose recipe is closest to the original is a Snack trophy, but in my opinion, we're the true winners getting our foodie fix and snack-spiration.
Yeow will co-host alongside well-known Aussie chef, Scott Pickett, while Gogglebox fan favourite Yvie Jones will also star and take viewers behind the scenes on some of the delicious action.
"Prior to working on this I’d never thought about how a Twistie is made," Pickett told The Sydney Morning Herald. "It’s not chefs deconstructing it and doing a restaurant version; they’ve got to replicate it as closely as possible, and they can’t Google it. It’s hard."
It's an exciting career move for Yeow who has popped up as a guest judge on MasterChef over the years, and had her own cooking shows, Poh's Kitchen on ABC from 2010 to 2012 and Poh & Co on SBS in 2015.
And it's equally a treat for us as we can't have enough feel-good, nostalgic foodie shows on our screens while we navigate the COVID-19 pandemic and coming out of lockdown.
While we haven't been given an air date just yet, there's a chance Snackmasters will go up against the 2022 season of MasterChef in the ratings. Until then, we've got Celebrity MasterChef Australia to look forward to later this year, and a huge snacks shopping list that I know I'll certainly be stocking up on.
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