Indian cuisine all gets lumped together... but the sub-continent is as big as Europe
WHEN Saira Hamilton talks about Bangladesh, it makes no sense that it’s not more of a travel destination, because if you’re seeking beauty, culture and good food, apparently it’s got all three.
“A lot of people go to [neighbouring] India,” says Saira, “but Bangladesh looks different, it feels different. Visually, it’s much more like Thailand, it’s very lush and green and jungly.”
Although she grew up in Britain, Saira and her family spent their summer holidays in her father’s home village, Dampara, where the landscape floods every year, leaving behind fertile land for paddy fields.
“It’s incredibly peaceful. You have these wonderful vistas of water and palm trees and very low-rise buildings, it’s very beautiful,” she says.
Her memories, mingle with Saira’s love of cooking. Hence why she has steadily been bringing Bangladeshi food to a wider audience since becoming a MasterChef finalist in 2013, when she impressed judges John Torode and Gregg Wallace with recipes and spicing from her heritage.
“I grew up around really good food – my mum was a great cook, my dad was a great eater,” says Saira, and her new cookbook, My Bangladesh Kitchen, reflects a desire to write “a comprehensive collection of what Bangladeshi food is”.
“I wanted to show people what was different about it,” she says. “Indian cuisine sometimes gets all lumped together, but the sub-continent is as big as the whole of Europe. It’s like trying to talk about Norwegian cuisine as the same as Greek.”
Although, she notes, particularly in the south and southeast of Britain, the majority of Indian restaurants are run by people from the Bangladeshi community – spotting shatkora (a cross between a lemon and grapefruit) on the menu is a good indication.
For those entirely new to Bangladeshi cuisine, seafood is a staple as well as lentils, rice and lots of vegetables. Saira calls it a “light and bright palette of flavours”, where things are cooked speedily to keep their crunchiness and colour.
Store cupboard essentials include the likes of panch phoran, or Bengali five-spice, a “fragrant and aromatic” blend of whole fennel, cumin, mustard, nigella and fenugreek seeds.
Then there’s heat : “You’re probably going to get through a lot of chillies,” says Saira with a laugh, recommending you stock up on little green hot ones.
In Bangladeshi cooking though, instead of being chopped, they tend to be chucked into curries whole. “It keeps it much fresher, it infuses the flavour as well as the heat,” she explains.
In the book, she covers the gamut of Bangladeshi eating, from food suitable for a Wednesday-night family supper (vegetable, rice, dal), to celebration dishes you’d see at a Bangladeshi wedding (biryanis, lamb rezala, Bengali ‘roast’ chicken), and snacky street-foody bits too.
Aside from writing a food column in her local paper and running food demos and catering (smallaubergine.com), Saira is also a senior strategy advisor for Defra, and still, of course, watches MasterChef.
“I love it. I particularly like the amateur one because the opportunities that it gives you are just amazing. I would never have dreamed of doing the things I did. Working in professional kitchens, having input and classes from some of the best chefs in the country, and the world in fact, was just wonderful,” she recalls.
As she did on MasterChef, and now with the cookbook, she says she feels “a great responsibility” for sharing Bangladeshi cooking: “I want people to ‘get’ it, and to love it.”
My Bangladesh Kitchen: Recipes and Food Memories From A Family Table by Saira Hamilton, photography by Ian Garlick,
Lorenz Books, £20.
S