My home-cooked dishes are simple yet packed with flavour, using fresh ingredients and some key spices that blend cultures and traditions. Mine is an immigrant’s cuisine of sorts, merging old traditions with new ones, creating food that spans generations, geography and ethnicities. This is my story.

Food evokes a passion in me that I cherish, one that has grown from my early childhood days in Malawi, Africa, to my teenage years in England, and the last 20-plus years in my beautiful, adopted home country of New Zealand.

Being of Indian heritage, my love of cooking first started at an early age, and some of my favourite recipes are ones that have been passed down through my family, adapted by each generation to suit the ingredients available.

This book includes some treasured recipes my mum taught me. And it’s full of recipes I have created, trying to recapture the flavours of my childhood.

There are Indian, British and Kiwi dishes, and also some Middle Eastern and French dishes inspired by my two sisters who married French Algerians. Our family celebrations are always a mix of recipes from these cultures, and nothing brings me more joy than to share them with you.