Home cook Eva Pau on bringing Asian cuisine to Irish kitchens

Home cook Eva Pau is set to bring her fantastic insights and delicious recipes inspired by Asian cuisine to viewers in her brand-new cooking series, Eva Pau's Asian Kitchen.

Across six episodes, the Dublin woman explores the ingredients that make Asian cooking so unique and beloved around the world - as well as the recipes that have mingled with Irish cuisine, resulting in some extremely delicious takeaways.

Eva arrived in Ireland with her Mum and Dad when she was just one month old. With her dad hailing from Guangzhou, China, and her mum born in Hong Kong, she says she was raised in a house filled with Asian delicacies and traditions.

"When I was younger, I learned Irish dancing, I went to the Gaeltacht - I love the Irish language - and so I had that, but then at home, I was only speaking Chinese to my parents. I had the school part of English and Irish and then Chinese at home."

As well as being surrounded by food at home, Eva would spend much of her childhood roaming the aisles of the Asia Market on Drury Street, which was founded by her parents over 40 years ago.

"The store was open seven days a week," she muses, "so I was with my parents at the shop all the time. I remember we would, for lunch, make something like a noodle soup dish - it was always focused on what we could make. My uncle was a really good cook as well; he would make bao buns for the shop to sell because he was a very accomplished dim sum chef in Hong Kong. I was always surrounded by food."

Despite her love for baking and the incredible food she grew up on, Eva initially pursued a degree in computer analytics from Trinity College.

With an MA in ICT followed by an MSc in IT Management & Organisational Change from Lancaster University, she travelled to Hong Kong where she worked in banking.

"I just thought the skyline in Hong Kong was so pretty," she says. "I loved having that touchstone with Chinese culture because I speak Cantonese and I just find the people so fascinating. I really wanted to explore that after I had graduated."

Although she found the finance sector fulfilling, after eight years, the hours began to burn her out. When her parents came for a visit, she realised that the best place to learn about business was from her own home.

"I wanted to set up my own business but I was still trying to figure out what that would be so I decided to come home and learn from my parents."

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As it turned out, a childhood filled with industry talk - family dinner often consisted of conversations surrounding varieties of rice and the difference between noodles from China and noodles from Vietnam - Eva discovered she was well ahead of herself.

"I knew I had that knowledge in me but I didn't really know that I knew it until I came back home," she admits. "You inherently just listen and pick up things along the way so, when I came home, I realised I understood a lot more than I realised."

Hitting the ground running, Eva has assisted her parents in growing the family store, making key contributions to Asia Market's expansion, including the opening of a second location in Ballymount.

"I've learned that if you work in something that you're passionate about, you will do well in it," she says.

Between her wide variety of accomplishments within the food industry, plus becoming a mother to two young children, she has become a bit of an expert when it comes to dishing up delicious Asian cuisine.

In her new show, she hopes to show how simple ingredients can add a variety of flavour to weekly dishes.

"I hope [viewers] can see that authentic, Asian-style home-cooking is easy to make, it's manageable to make. I'm not a professional chef, I'm a home cook so if I can do it, they can do it."

"I want to show that there are little ingredients that are just amazing," she adds. "You don't have to add a lot of new items to your pantry to make a lot of new meals that are really tasty."

Soy, mushroom powder, and white pepper are among some of her favourite staples for elevating simple dishes such as prawn and egg fried rice.

"Vinegar is also used quite a bit in Chinese cooking and it's something that might not jump out initially as a top ingredient," she explains, adding that sweet and sour lovers should try adding a little rice vinegar to their meal.

"I love cooking at home because you can really adjust to what you want in terms of salt, sugar, or whatever suits your own tastebuds."