“The food scene is great. Now, if anyone has been to Glasgow, you’ll know that it’s a city that’s all about being down to earth and it’s fun, and the food is very reflective of that. It took us a bit longer to get our first Michelin star, but what it doesn’t have in Michelin stars it has in characters, it has in food, it has all these kind of amazing local neighbourhood places, and it’s not too expensive.”
Is there a Glaswegian delicacy?
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“There actually is. You know how everyone always stereotypes us for having deep fried food? So it’s called the pizza crunch. It’s a deep fried half battered pizza. It’s not for the faint-hearted. Half a pizza, in batter, in the deep fat fryer, in your body, and you feel disgusting after it. You feel great whilst you’re eating it. But yes, that is our delicacy.”
Living in Scotland, Julie enjoys cooking with locally sourced ingredients, not least at her own restaurant.
“Our fish is delicious. So I love pairing my Malaysian flavours with Scottish fish. We’re so lucky with the produce that we have here in this country. So I love using those spices to kind of work in hand with things like mackerel. Mackerel is in abundance in Scotland.
“I’ve got a restaurant in Glasgow and times have been really hard for restaurants. But restaurants and cafes and bars and hospitality really shape the cities that we live in.”
Being a female chef in the food industry
Julie took part in MasterChef in 2014 at the tender age of 22.
“I was just such a baby. At that point, I was teaching violin and piano. I loved doing that, but I just always thought about cooking and talked about it all the time. So I thought now is the time. And why not on a TV show that will go out to the nation? I absolutely loved it. Craig and John were fab.”
How does she think the industry has changed for women in the last ten years?
“As a whole, I think there’s always still a lot of work to be done. When I first started in the industry, my first head chef was female, she’s called Laurie McMillan. She was amazing. So I kind of came in and I was like, listen, I don’t actually know very much about cooking, about how to work a commercial kitchen, but I will try. And if I’m rubbish, kick me out, it’ll be fine.
“This woman gave me this amazing opportunity. And I didn’t realise actually at that stage that it’s quite rare to have a head chef who’s a female. And that kind of shocked me as I started to learn more and more about the industry. And I just thought, you know, we need to make more of a stance because in history, everyone has always thought about females in the kitchen at home and it’s a terrible stereotype.
As a result, she wants to help pave the way for other women in the industry.
“We need to make space for women in commercial kitchens like, how do we do maternity cover in kitchens? How do we support women in kitchens? Kitchens are classically, you know, very sharp, fiery places to be. So we need to make it safe for women and make it a career that makes sense for women to be in as well.
“I was very lucky to start off with a really strong female chef that taught me how to kind of run kitchens. And I feel like it’s my duty to now hire women in kitchens and be like, ok, this is how we do it. And go on and have fantastic careers.”
The diversity of Malaysian cooking
Malaysian cooking draws on a variety of cultural influences, creating an interesting melting pot of flavours.
“There’s quite a lot of crossover between India, Malaysia, Indonesia with the spices that we use. Malaysia is so multicultural which you can see in the cooking. You get ingredients that you would associate with British cooking. We’ve got bread, we’ve got a thing called kaya jam and that’s toast with a kind of coconut curd. Even some Portuguese in there as well.”
Julie has a handy tip for making your own Malaysian curry paste at home.
“I always say when I’m making curry paste or if I’m teaching anyone how to cook, you just really need to make it as easy as you can for yourself, something you’re going to want to do. Making a curry paste can be a laborious thing, I’m not going to beat about the bush. But actually, if you make that curry paste, get yourself a good food processor and then you can blitz up all of those shallots, the chillies, the garlic and make a big batch. Pop it into the little ice cube trays that you put in the freezer.
“Then that ice cube is a portion. So you can take that out and thank your former self for being so good in the kitchen. It freezes so well. It means that you make a base curry paste and if you want to turn that into a laksa or you want to use it for another chicken curry, you can.”
Embracing the diversity of cuisines on offer makes her optimistic about the future of food.
“We’re so open to cuisines from different cultures and learning about in a really positive way these days. For me, that’s making this journey really nice.”