Winner! Best Asian Book in UK


Gourmand International Cookbook Awards

What a way to start 2020 – Delighted to hear that My Bangladesh Kitchen was awarded Best Asian Book in the UK at the prestigious Gourmand International Cookbook Awards.

To celebrate: here is one of my favourite, and quintessentially Bangladeshi, recipes. Shorsher darrosh ar aloo, otherwise known as mustard okra with potatoes.

Okra is a really popular vegetable in Bangladesh and it makes a good vegetarian main course as well as a side dish. The use of mustard is very common in Bangladeshi cuisine and adds an interesting piquancy to the dish. Traditionally you would grind whole mustard seeds with salt and water to make the paste, but nowadays I find it a lot quicker (and easier on my nasal passages) to use a ready-made whole-grain mustard instead. I like to cook this dish in a mixture of mustard oil and vegetable oil for extra mustard sharpness, but plain vegetable oil will also work.

Ingredients
175g / 6oz okra, fresh or frozen
200g / 7oz new (waxy) potatoes such as Charlotte
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tbsp mustard oil
1 small onion, sliced finely
4 cloves garlic, finely sliced
2 green chillies (chiles), cut in half lengthways
½ tsp turmeric
½ tsp chilli powder
½ tsp ground cumin
2 tbsp whole-grain mustard
1 tsp salt
250 ml / 8fl oz / 1 cup water

Method

First prepare the okra. If the okra are quite small they can be left whole. If they are larger than 5cm/2in then they can be sliced in half, lengthwise through the stalk end. The stalk can be retained if the vegetables are quite young and tender.

The potatoes should be washed but not peeled and sliced into long wedges no thicker than 2cm/1in. Keep them in a bowl of cold water whist preparing them to avoid any discolouration.

Take a sauté-pan or wok and place it on a medium-high heat. Add both the oils to the pan and when the oil is hot add in the onion, garlic and chillies (chiles). Fry them for 5-6 minutes until the onion is turning brown at the edges and the garlic is golden in colour.

Add the turmeric, cumin, chilli powder, salt and mustard paste and stir together well. Then add in the cup of water and continue to cook and stir over a medium-high heat until the mixture is bubbling well. Add the potatoes and okra and stir well to combine. Wait until the pan is back up to temperature and bubbling nicely. Then reduce the heat to a low simmer and cover the pan with a well-fitting lid.

Cook the vegetables like this for around 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the okra and potato are softened and cooked through. If the vegetables are catching on the bottom of the pan during cooking, you can add a small amount of hot water from the kettle, but only do this if you really need to as it will dilute the flavours in the pan.

Once the vegetables are cooked and the sauce has thickened the dish is ready to serve. This can be served as a side dish or on its own with either rice or with any Indian bread. Enjoy .


New for 2019

My Bangladesh Kitchen – a new cookbook from Saira Hamilton

Front Cover Image

Bangladesh is a land of contrasts, from busy cities to the verdant and fertile countryside, with fish ponds, lakes and rivers at every turn. The cuisine reflects the abundance of vegetables and fish, and has a distinctive taste defined in particular by tamarind, the ubiquitous mustard oil, and the spice blend called panch poran. In this book Saira has brought together her much-loved recipes, with 100 everyday classics, regional specialities, street snacks, and impressive celebration food too. It is packed with background detail and anecdote, vibrant photographs of every dish, and an informative introduction describing the ingredients and cooking techniques of Bangladesh.

“Bangladesh is a country everyone has heard of, but few people know. On one hand, you have the high-energy bustle of the city, enveloped by the dusty, smoggy air, diesel fumes and heady street-food smells. At the other end of the scale you have the beauty of the countryside, with its reddish heavy-clay soil, lush greenery, and the abundance of water in ponds, lakes and rivers. The Bangladeshi connection to the land is still incredibly strong. There are many years and many memories held within these recipes from across the range of Bangladeshi cuisine. These dishes will introduce you to some of the ingredients and cooking techniques which make Bangladeshi cuisine what it is, and I hope that they will become as familiar and dear to you as they are to me.”

Saira Hamilton, 2019
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Saira Hamilton is a chef, cookery demonstrator and food writer, specialising in her Bengali-inspired food. Saira reached the finals of MasterChef 2013, and during the competition won high praise for her delicious dishes and deft spicing. Saira’s family settled in the UK but always maintained a close relationship with the country, and spent many holidays in Bangladesh. Saira’s love of cooking was inspired by her mother Nadira, and the passion she kindled in her for the food and culture of their motherland.

Please contact Joanna on jlorenz@anness.com for more information, reviews and features.

£20.00 / $35.00
288 pages, 255 x 208 mm, hardback
ISBN: 9780754834502


Green Street

There’s a place I go to called Green Street.  In the heart of Forest Gate (that’s E7), just down the road from the old West Ham ground at Upton Park, and I’ve been going there ever since I was a little girl. Growing up in Harlow in the 70s and 80s, we didn’t have the luxury of big supermarkets stocking everything we needed from chillies and coriander to black lentils or cumin seeds. So there was a fortnightly trip to Green Street to stock up on all our Asian grocery essentials. And if you need dozens of types of lentil or any spice under the sun, it’s still the place to go.

           

 

 

 

 

 

These days I can get all my Indian cooking essentials at the Asian and Oriental supermarket in Harlow (it’s called M18, off Edinburgh Way, tell Shahid I sent you!) but I still love a trip down to Green Street when I need something special. These photos are from Bharat Stores, which is my first stop for any trip to Green Street.

If you’ve never been down there and you have any love of Asian food, culture or fashion, you won’t be disappointed. Another added bonus of visiting from May through July are the stacks of boxed mangoes which can be bought in the greengrocers or just being sold by some guy on the pavement. There’s something about the mango-selling guys, they really are the Del Boys of the street. Lots of banter, lots of chat about how their mangoes are better than the other guy across the road and lots of offers which always tempt me to buy 2 boxes when I really only wanted 1! 

But it’s so worth it. The flavour and melting texture of the Kesar, Chausa, Honey and – the king of all mangoes – the Alphonso, are positively ambrosial.  If you’ve only ever tasted a supermarket, South-American mango, you’ll be amazed at how different the two fruits are. They are smaller and sweeter and not at all stringy or fibrous inside. But watch out for the juice! It’s been said that the best place to eat a mango is in the sea or in the bath, but careful use of a napkin can be just as effective.

       

So a few hours browsing the jewellery, beautiful sarees and shalwar kameez (just looking!) and more importantly cookware and vegetables is always a pleasure and never a chore. Do you have any top tips for Asian groceries? Where to buy them? How to use specialist ingredients in your dishes? Can you find fresh turmeric for sale somewhere near you? If you do, I’d love to hear from you. Contact me on Facebook (Saira Hamilton Chef), Twitter (Saira Hamilton) or by leaving a comment below.

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New resolutions

Sometimes you have to stop talking and just get on with it. Silence the internal editor that tells you to wait until your website is finished and you have the perfectly crafted blog post and a photo in all its filtered glory and with no stray shadows or double chins lurking. So from now on dear reader, you are going to get a regular blog from me, hosted on my imperfect website.  I will share with you great recipes, tips and advice on cooking for the season and special occasions and news on what I’m up to and where I’ve been cooking lately.

So first, an update. I have wanted to write and publish a cookbook ever since my MasterChef experience, and I wrote and independently published 3 cookbooks called Kitchen Favourites with Saira: Chilli, Ginger and Garlic in Spring 2016 – which are all still available to buy on Amazon . And now I am delighted to say I have also secured a publisher for a brand new cookbook, different to anything else currently available, on authentic Bangladeshi home-cooking. The book will contain 100 fabulous recipes accompanied by beautiful photographs showcasing the wonderful cuisine that reflects the heritage of my Bengali family. I can’t wait to share it with you. Publication is planned for Spring 2018, so we have a little while to wait!

I had the pleasure of being asked to participate in one of Hari Ghotra’s networking events #HariHosts at the Shard where I was on a great panel of women sharing knowledge about publishing a cookbook. Hari, who runs the UK’s top Indian food website, organises several of these events and had gathered a great panel together. Alongside Suzy Pelta (author of Miracle Mug Cakes and other cheat’s bakes: Ryland, Peters & Small), Xa Shaw Stewart (senior editor at Bloomsbury) and Kirsten Gilmore (chef/patron Mountain Café, Aviemore), the panel was joined by lots of enthusiastic foodies and bloggers all thinking of writing their own cookbooks. It was a wonderful evening, full of positive energy and enthusiasm and it was a privilege to be there. My first time up the Shard, but I hope not the last.

Another exciting announcement to make is a new partnership I have embarked upon with one of my MasterChef buddies Juanita Hennessey, who was a finalist in MasterChef 2016, famous for her strawberry patch dessert. She and I bonded instantly over rum cocktails and Rick Astley at CarFest for BBC’s Children in Need (it’s a long story!) and have been working on a few projects since then. I don’t want to say too much yet but we have already appeared at a few food festivals with our #HamandHen double act and there will be more to come! Come and watch us in action soon – it’s a hoot!

Here we are pictured with Suzy Pelta (ITV1’s Lorraine‘s Cake Club winner) and Saliha Mahmood-Ahmed (winner of MasterChefUK 2017) at a recent Foodies Festival where we had an absolute ball cooking aloo paratha and orange and polenta cake for a packed out crowd in the Stoves Chef’s theatre.

So in these interesting and sometimes turbulent times we live in, I am really looking forward to sharing my cooking adventures with you. So please share and subscribe and I’ll see you soon.

Saira x