Which Celebrity MasterChef Contestant Has An Advantage? Poh Ling Yeow Gives Us A Hint

Celebrity MasterChef is well underway and there's one contestant who has an edge over the others according to series queen Poh Ling Yeow.

Yeow, who famously came second on the first-ever season of MasterChef Australia in 2009 and then fifth on MasterChef Australia: Back To Win in 2020, has always been a fan favourite thanks to her heartfelt cooking that incorporates her Malaysian Chinese heritage.

The Adam and Poh’s Malaysia in Australia star believes bringing culture and food together can do wonders in the cooking competition, and therefore Sri Lankan-born comedian Dilruk Jayasinha is the one to watch this season.

"I'm rooting for Dilruk," Yeow told Refinery29 Australia. "I do feel like Dil is going to go well because I think anyone that comes from a cultural background always has an immediate little bit of an advantage because you’ve got a point of difference right away.

"Knowing how to use spice is awesome, and usually if they’ve lived there for a little while, their knowledge base in terms of other cuisines is usually a little bit broader."

Jayasinha, who moved to Australia from Sri Lanka to study university over a decade ago, was initially apprehensive about his cooking ability when he entered the Celebrity MasterChef kitchen but actually proved Yeow's theory right very early on.

He managed to score the first immunity pin of the season by drawing on South-East Asian flavours with beef rendang served with coconut rice and onion chilli sambal.

"The challenge is about cooking a dish that you’re famous for," he said during the immunity challenge episode.

"I only started learning how to cook last year when the pandemic kicked off, so... really, all I can think about is a Sri Lankan dish called kiribath, which is a coconut milk rice, and it’s a traditional dish. That’ll do there," he added.

“I have also decided to make an onion sambal, called lunu miris. Also, I need to make something else. So you’d think, go with a Sri Lankan curry. Unfortunately, I don’t know any Sri Lankan curries. I only know a beef rendang curry from Indonesia or Malaysia. And so I’m gonna go for it."

Jayasinha is one of nine famous faces remaining on Celebrity MasterChef after radio host and former Big Brother star Chrissie Swan was the first to be eliminated.

The other contestants serving up their best culinary skills to impress judges Melissa Leong, Jock Zonrillo and Andy Allen are Rebecca Gibney and Matt LeNevez, singer Dami Im, fashion designer Collette Dinnigan, gold medal Olympian Ian Thorpe, footballer Archie Thompson, AFL champ Nick Riewoldt and British kitchen royalty, Tilly Ramsay who is the daughter of acclaimed chef, Gordon Ramsay.