Nisha Katona in ‘Recipes That Made Me’ TV series for BBC Two
Restaurateur and cook Nisha Katona celebrated the BBC’s Big British Asian Summer this August with a brand new series ‘Recipes That Made Me’ on BBC Two. Nisha travelled around the UK discovering the secrets of incredible home cooked curries. Born in England to Indian parents, Nisha understands the huge difference between delicious authentic dishes and the standard curries found in Indian takeaways.
Across four episodes she met British Asian families and cooking recipes passed down through generations from the countries of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Nisha was welcomed into their homes, restaurants and places of worship in London, the Midlands, West Yorkshire and Manchester, where she discovered more about their unique cultures and family stories through food. And as they cooked and ate together, Nisha learnt their top tips for creating amazing curries.
Recipes That Made Me, Series 1, Episode 1: Punjab
In this episode, Nisha travels to the West Midlands, which has the largest population of Punjabis living in the UK, to discover all she can about Punjabi food from the north of India. Punjabi cuisine is famous for its rich dishes and she wants to understand more about the ingredients, cooking techniques and culture that has given this cuisine its unique characteristics.
Nisha starts her exploration at a Sikh temple in Birmingham, where food plays an integral role in everyday temple life. Each day in Sikh temples there is a custom known as langar where they serve vegetarian meals that anyone can come and eat. Here she meets a group of women skilled at making perfect chapatis – the main staple of Punjabi cuisine which is known as the bread basket of India.
Next, Nisha visits a Punjabi martial arts class known as Shastar Vidiya. Here she discovers the connection between the ancient warrior culture of Punjab and their high calorie food. She meets Rav there, a keen Punjabi cook who shows her how to make a deliciously rich goat curry. This is food to make you ‘tharkara,’ a Punjabi word that refers to physical might and strength. Most Punjabi immigrants came to the UK from rural Punjab in the 1940s and 50s to work in the foundries of Wolverhampton and Birmingham. Food helped the transition from rural Punjab to the industrial heartland of Britain and Nisha wants to understand more about the role it played.
She meets Sathnam Sanghera, author of a book about his childhood, growing up in a traditional Sikh family in Wolverhampton. He tells Nisha about his mum’s dedication to Punjabi food which she cooked daily for all the family and the integral role it played in his upbringing. He takes her to the home he grew up in and shows her the back garden where his mother grew many of the produce farmed in Punjab. Growing up, there were no fences and many of the Punjabi immigrant families created mini allotments at the back of their homes to ensure they could get the fresh ingredients needed to make their delicious food.
Spinach is a central part of Punjabi cuisine and spinach paneer is one of Punjab’s best-loved dishes. It is easy to make and much more exciting than the way we traditionally serve spinach in the UK. Baksho Ark is a mother and grandmother, who shares her recipe for spinach paneer with Nisha. It is a dish much loved by all her family and is really quick to prepare. To end her time in the West Midlands, Nisha visits a popular Punjabi restaurant in Wolverhampton where they are preparing for a first birthday party. First birthdays are a big celebration in Punjabi culture and food is always at the heart of them. Nisha is backstage in the kitchen helping with the preparations and seeing how they make classic tandoori chicken tikka the authentic Punjabi way. The chicken is grilled in a tandoor oven – synonymous with Punjab where villagers would traditionally take their bread and meats to cook them in communal clay tandoor ovens. Nisha finishes her time with the community on a high – joining in the first birthday party celebrations in style, tucking in to some delicious tandoori chicken tikka and marvelling at the generosity associated with Punjabi food and culture.
Goat curry recipe by Rav Singh Ubhi
https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/goat_curry_29283
Tandoori Chicken Recipe By Major Singh Jawanda
https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/chicken_tandoori_74292
Spinach Paneer By Baksho Ark
https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/spinach_paneer_41837
The dos and don’ts of Punjabi cuisine
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06gx6fm
Recipes That Made Me, Series 1, Episode 2: Sri Lanka
In this episode, Nisha is in London to discover more about food from the tropical island of Sri Lanka. The cuisine is rising in popularity, especially in the capital city. She starts her exploration in an unlikely setting: a lakeside cafe in London’s Victoria Park. Here there is a group of Sri Lankan guys cooking in the kitchen who have started introducing their authentic recipes from home. They serve incredible Sri Lankan breakfasts with a kind of noodle called a string hopper that is right at the heart of their cuisine. In the kitchen, Nisha meets Thivian, who shows her how they make these unique string hoppers, as well as rustling up one of their legendary coconut rotis (a kind of flatbread) for her to try.
Keen to explore how Sri Lankans use the wide variety of vegetables that grow on the island, Nisha heads to a Sri Lankan grocers to meet food blogger Shakya and her mum Dulcie. They talk to her about some of the unusual ingredients they like to use in their cooking, including pandan leaves, which add flavour to their curries, and gotu kola, a green leafy plant a bit like flat leaf parsley. Dulcie teaches Nisha how to make a classic Sri Lankan dish called devilled prawns – known for its fiery flavours – whilst daughter Shakya shows her how gotu kola can be used in a fresh Sri Lankan accompaniment called a sambol.
The growing interest in Sri Lankan food means that it is starting to be found in street markets in London and is proving very popular. Nisha visits the world food market in St Katharine’s Dock to try a much-loved Sri Lankan street food dish called Kothu Roti. This unique dish that seems to have everything thrown at it – veg, eggs and a meat or fish curry – all chopped up on a hot plate and served to hungry customers.
British Sri Lankan newsreader George Alagiah invites Nisha to a Sri Lankan lunch at his family home. His family continue to cook the recipes passed down by his Sri Lankan mother, many of which they have written down. Nisha joins George, his sister Mari and his wife Fran in the kitchen to learn some of their family recipes. Together they make George’s mother’s recipe for roasted curry powder, the basis of Sri Lankan meat curries, which they turn into a delicious chicken and coconut curry. George’s wife Fran, who had no family connection to Sri Lanka until she married George, tells Nisha how her mother-in-law made sure she knew how to make Sri Lankan dishes for her husband-to-be! She shares a classic coconut and cabbage side dish with Nisha, taught to her by her mother-in-law.
Nisha ends her time learning about Sri Lankan food at a Tamil harvest festival, known as Thai Pongal. Here she meets Vithya and her mum who are keeping the traditions of Sri Lanka alive right in the centre of London. There is some beautiful folk dancing, bonfires and a delicious traditional rice pudding dish cooked on an open fire at the heart of this ceremony. For Nisha, it sums up the respect Sri Lankans have for their food – they know how to make the most of the ingredients that grow in abundance on the island – and can turn them into simple sensational dishes. This is definitely a cuisine worth learning about and cooking at home!
Chicken & Coconut Curry by George & Fran Alagiah
https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/chicken_and_coconut_85358
George’s Dal Curry by George & Fran Alagiah
https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/georges_dal_75678
Cabbage mallung by George & Fran Alagiah
https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/cabbage_mallang_55625
Gotu Kola Sambol by Shakya and Dulcie Manage
https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/gotu_kola_sambol_27863
Pongal by Vithya Nandakumar
https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/pongal_56599
Recipes That Made Me, Series 1, Episode 3: Kashmir
In this episode, Nisha travels to Yorkshire to meet families with connections to Kashmir in northern Pakistan. Kashmiri food has little exposure in this country and Nisha wants to discover all she can about it. She starts her exploration at the Cafe Regal where Pakistani families head for hearty Kashmiri breakfasts at the weekends. She loads up her plate with spiced omelette, chickpeas, curries and breads, but the most surprising dishes on the buffet bar are lambs livers and trotters. She meets Yazi here, an expert in Kashmiri food. She learns that lamb is a central part of Kashmir’s cuisine – the mountainous landscape makes it the perfect environment for rearing lamb and Kashmiris use it in a variety of delicious fragrant dishes.
One of Kashmir’s most famous lamb specialities is lamb masala, similar to rogan josh. It is a hearty rich curry flavoured with the aromatic spices the region is renowned for. Shazia, a second generation British Kashmiri, has agreed to share her family recipe with Nisha, but the family spice mix is a well-guarded secret passed down through generations – Shazia’s own mother won’t even disclose the full list of ingredients to her! Nisha wants to understand how traditional food played a role in settling into this country for the first wave of immigrants from Kashmir. Many of these were men who arrived in the 1950s and 60s to work in the area’s textile mills. Eventually these men moved into other industries and set up their own businesses. One of these was Nafees Bakers and Sweets – a shop selling traditional Asian sweets set up by a Kashmiri mill worker. At one of their shops, Nisha meets Asif, the original owner’s son who takes her behind the scenes at the sweet factory to see how these sweet delicacies are made.
Back in Kashmir, they grow a wide range of produce and use a lot of fruit and veg in their cooking. To learn more about this side of Kashmiri cuisine, Nisha meets Mr Aslam who runs a chain of restaurants serving Kashmiri dishes. The inspiration for the restaurant’s menu comes from his sister-in-law Mrs Sabir, who taught Mr Aslam how to cook. Nisha becomes her new student and learns how to turn okra, an underrated vegetable in this country, into a sensational okra curry. For her final day in Yorkshire, Nisha meets up with Yazi again who is introducing the next generation of Yorkshire children to the flavours of Kashmir. Yazi runs workshops on Kashmiri food in primary schools and Nisha attends one of these at a school on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales. Today, Yazi is teaching the kids how to make a really easy recipe – lamb seekh kebabs. Nisha helps Yazi make these traditional kebabs with the kids. It’s a great way to introduce them to the wonderful flavours of Kashmir and also to teach them about the culture of their Kashmiri neighbours. From not knowing that much about Pakistani food, Nisha has found a real enthusiasm for the rich, hearty, fragrant flavours that come from this remote corner of the Indian subcontinent.
Okra curry by Mr Aslam and Mrs Sabir
https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/okra_curry_68708
Seekh kebabs with mint sauce Yazi Bagh Ali
https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/seekh_kebabs_33500
Lamb masala by Shazia Rashid
https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/lamb_masala_85568
Shazia’s top secret spice mix for Kashmiri lamb masala
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06hjccq
Recipes That Made Me, Series 1 Episode 4: Bangladesh
In this episode, Nisha travels to Greater Manchester to meet incredible home cooks from the Bangladeshi community. Eight out of ten restaurants referred to as Indian across the UK are actually owned by Bangladeshis, so Nisha starts her exploration into this cuisine in one of the many Bangladeshi-run curry houses in this area. Most of the regular favourites served in curry houses, like chicken tikka masala and baltis, are dishes that were created in this country to suit a western palate and don’t even exist across the Indian subcontinent. At the Last Monsoon, restaurant owner Shahin is trying to change things and introduce more traditional Bangladeshi dishes to his customers. However, the most authentic Bangladeshi dish made in the kitchen is a well-kept secret that isn’t even on the menu. Every night, as in many curry houses across the country, the staff sit down to a home-style meal cooked in the kitchen, quite different from many of the dishes on the menu. Nisha is invited to see how this staff curry is made and sits down with the staff to enjoy it at the end of everyone’s shift.
In search of more authentic Bangladeshi dishes, Nisha goes to meet a group of enthusiastic women who have set up a stall in Hyde to promote their own Bangladeshi recipes. She tries some of their homemade snacks, many of which she has never come across before. There she meets Liza, a passionate cook who invites her back to her house to try an authentic Bangladeshi fish curry. Fish is the most important part of the Bangladeshi diet. Before they head to Liza’s house, Nisha takes her to her local Asian supermarket where there is a huge range of frozen fish imported from Bangladesh.
Liza takes Nisha back to her house to make a traditional curry with rohu, one of Bangladesh’s most popular river fish. The curry is made with Bangladeshi spices and the most important flavouring is mustard seed. Once they have made the fish curry, Nisha sits down to enjoy it with Liza and her extended family. Nisha has heard about a chef called Afruj working at a local cooking school in Oldham who is keen to make sure the next generation of curry chefs introduce some traditional Bangladeshi dishes onto the restaurant menus. Nisha takes part in one of his classes where they’re learning how to make a Bangladeshi dish classic called beef shatkora, a slow-cooked curry made with a citrus fruit unique to Bangladesh.
As well as slow-cooked curries, there are quick dishes that use Bangladeshi spices and flavours. Sarah is a second-generation working mum who likes to cook quick modern dishes, inspired by the flavours she grew up eating but with ingredients easy to find in the local supermarket, and she makes Bangladeshi spiced fishcakes with Nisha. To end her time with the Bangladeshi community, Nisha is invited to attend a traditional wedding ceremony. Before the event itself some of the bride’s female relatives gather together to produce a stunning food centrepiece called a shagorana – a marinated roast chicken dressed up to look like a real bird using carved vegetables. Nisha joins the women at home to help bring this creation together, and on the day of the wedding, the shagorana is paraded with pride by the bride’s aunt.
Spiced cod fish cakes by Sarah Sayeed
https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/spicy_cod_fishcakes_63242
Beef curry with shatkora by Afruj Chowdhury
https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/aromatic_beef_curry_with_63198
Fish curry by Liza Ahmed Chowdhury
https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/fish_curry_09718
The special ingredient in a beef curry
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06hjc82
Recipes That Made Me w/t (4×30′) is a Sugar Films production for BBC Two. It was commissioned by Patrick Holland, Controller, BBC Two and David Brindley, Head of Commissioning, Popular Factual and Factual Entertainment. The Executive Producer for Sugar Films is Narinder Minhas and the Series Producer is Sally Wingate. The BBC Commissioning Editor is Catherine Catton.
