Pals reign supreme as queens of kitchen
This kitchen definitely rules.
From a Mexican fiesta to balsamic strawberries, pistachio gelato to Malaysian laksa, Oriele Anderson and Inge Brits are blanching, frying, baking and boiling their way to a very tasty success.
The 23 and 26-year-old flatmates found their love for cooking in a little country kitchen last July, and have since managed to serve stunning three-course meals to as many as 17 guests at a time.
The pair say they are training to get into the My Kitchen Rules big league, but for now, they want to practise on their friends.
“We started cooking dinners together and we wanted to make really tasty, different foods but found we always had way too much food left over and it was becoming expensive,” Inge said.
“Basically, we love food and love trying cuisines from different countries and thought this would be a fun way to try different foods and share it with our friends.
“It started just between the two of us but as we progressed, more and more friends have dined so we have sort of set ourselves the challenge of cooking for lots of guests.”
So far their international cuisine nights have explored Japanese, Mexican, Italian, Thai, Moroccan, South African, Indian, Malaysian and Turkish eats and on Monday, they stuck with the theme and cooked up some traditional Aussie tucker. As a rule, the kitchen whizzes make everything from scratch and aim to use the most authentic ingredients as possible.
That means all of the sauces, breads, curry pastes — even the marshmallow on the pavlova have been made with love, and a lot of patience.
“We make everything as authentically as possible so nothing comes from a jar and that is where we get our enjoyment — making these sauces from scratch and getting the perfect taste, ” Oriele said.
“We want to learn about the foods people eat in different countries and really learn about their cultures through food — and it’s even more exciting when we know nothing about that cuisine.
“Planning what we will cook is the most exciting part and if it works out really well, it’s a bonus.”
The ladies said the preparation and cooking process was “pretty exhausting” and usually took up to 12 hours before the event.
It has not been smooth sailing all the way, with the ladies remembering one night when guests had already arrived, and they had only cooked the rice —“a definite learning curve”.
“Though the food preparation and cooking is a lot of fun, we are pretty exhausted by the time we serve everything up on the plate, but it’s usually at that point we know we can just sit back and enjoy the meal,” they said.
“It’s a good feeling when people enjoy our food because it does involve a lot of work to get it on the plate, but we love what we do and will continue hosting international cuisine nights once a month.
“Our goal is to apply for My Kitchen Rules hopefully soon too, but we want to make sure we know all of our basics without using a recipe.”