After surviving his fiercest critic, Adam Liaw returns with a new TV show
Adam Liaw must have been nervous when the Internet's fiercest food critic took aim at his Yangzhou fried rice.
YouTuber and TikToker Uncle Roger shot to fame after his lambasting of a "disgusting" BBC recipe for egg fried rice clocked 32 million views. He's sparked beef with Gordon Ramsay, roasted Nigella Lawson's lack of chopstick skills and excoriated Jamie Oliver for the sin of using tomato paste in Thai red curry.
But Liaw got away lightly. He only copped heat from Roger for throwing in the green onion too early, having slightly clumpy rice and sporting a man bun. The pair later collaborated and Liaw got the stamp of approval for his fried rice in person.
"It's a lot of fun filming with Uncle Roger," said Liaw, whose attention has recently been dedicated to less frenetic content. The second season of TV series Good Food Kitchen, which Liaw hosts alongside Fred's former head chef Danielle Alvarez and cookbook author Julia Busuttil Nishimura, launches on Tuesday.
The show takes viewers behind the scenes of Good Food as the hosts and a raft of chefs from hatted restaurants "at the top of their game" create, style and photograph their best meals.
"It's not 'chef-fy' stuff," Liaw said of the food featured on the show. "It's not boring. It's not unattainable. It's recipes that are achievable, a little bit exciting, but really practical as well."
Good Food Kitchen has recipes that are achievable, a little bit exciting, but really practical as well."
Recipes include a blender-blitzed Basque cheesecake from Katrina Meynink (pictured below), blue-eyed cod with jalapeno and vermouth butter from Bloodwood's Claire Van Vuuren, a vegan spring vegetable tart with olive oil pastry from Nishimura and chickpea pancakes invented by Jill Dupleix (picture hummus fried up and served with a dollop of yoghurt and harissa).
"There's a really fresh celeriac, salmon and dill lettuce cup," said Liaw. "The whole crew when we made that were like, 'we're making this all summer'."
Liaw said the standard for home cooking had leapt after lockdowns acquainted even reluctant home cooks with their kitchens.
"It was an interesting time to be a recipe writer post-lockdown," Liaw said. "People love good food. They've also done a lot of cooking, so they weren't suffering fools. It's gone from being a hobby to a really practical skill. People are wanting to elevate their food."
Liaw said that people looking to impress guests and thrive in the kitchen were ditching elaborate recipes in favour of simple food done well. (Liaw recently advocated for home cooks to embrace "bland" meals and leaf-only salads, and branded marinades as "overrated".)
"I think people genuinely have a pretty high skill level when it comes to cooking and they appreciate simplicity more than they did.
"If you talk to great chefs, and you look at what the chefs are cooking in Good Food Kitchen, they're not doing recipes that nobody else could do," Liaw said. "They're just using their skill to make really simple recipes, and that translates so well to good home cooking."
Good Food Kitchen airs on 9Now on Tuesday October 11.
Find recipes from the show at goodfood.com.au.